Tidying up


The thing I always dreaded about when Mum eventually leaves us is that I'll have to go and sort her house out.

Now that she's happily settled  in Rotherwood Care home - "  Ooh,  it's  like a five-star hotel in here!"  I've just become engaged in the process of clearing out the house and beginning to sell it.

 I went up to Yorkshire for 3 days this week to start just that. Mum's made a list of things that she wanted from the house. Mercifully nothing large, just small mementos and little things that she would like to have around her. I started  opening drawers on Wednesday evening and each drawer proved a journey into the past. While I'd steeled myself for the prospect of having to put a lot of Mums life into bags, I had not prepared myself for just how much of my life was hidden away in those drawers.

 School reports (“shows  interest-but not always in music!" “Must resist the temptation to dominate the rest of his form, and occasionally staff!") Reviews of shows past ("Paul Clayton plays Johnny Torrio and he does very well!", programmes for school plays, articles from the Rotherham Advertiser of things that I had achieved long past and sometimes forgotten. Needless to say it took longer to work my way through each drawer than I had anticipated and my heartstrings were pulled more than I could ever have thought.

The good thing is I could be doing this after Mum has died…and I'm not. I'm doing it while she is one and a half miles down the road in her new home and thriving. I collected her from her church hall coffee morning on Friday morning and she was sat in the middle of a table holding court with her cronies.

We spent Friday afternoon having a visit to the cinema together-  a luxury, and something that over the past four months I had thought not possible. We saw "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" The reviews are right. It's undemanding, it's staid and it's hardly mentally challenging. And yet it is absolutely enchanting. Mainly made so by being able to sneak a sideways glance to catch my Mum beaming up at the screen with the entrancement of a child, wiping away a tear at the sad moments and chuckling away at Dame Maggie's one liners (Does that woman have a contract that she has to have the best lines in everything she does?)

At 54 I was probably the youngest in the cinema, and yet we had a magical afternoon. Afterwards we returned to Rotherwood where Mum could't wait to get into the dining room to her new friends for her tea.

It's all such a turn around, and although there is still lots of  work ahead - I managed to store four boxes of stuff and throw away seven bags of stuff, - it all feels like the change is for the better.

Even my dealings with three Rotherham estate agents - I only threw one out of the house - and a grasping solicitor failed to dampen my enthusiasm.

So much so that I approach my fifty fifth birthday this week with a spring in my step and the realisation that Autumn can be as golden and full of promise as the spring.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Few Little Treats

Image
When we were on holiday in the summer, I expressed a wish that I could have an acting job to keep me busy and inspired. Before starting the regular autumn season of corporate conferences, I was fortunate to have three. They've been great fun and varied, allowing me to work with some old friends and make new ones. All three productions will end up being shown within about two weeks of each other. Now it's back to the world of corporate conferences. Rehearsals have heightened, filming is taking place, videos and presentations are being prepared, and on a day-to-day basis, the emails I have to answer yes or no to fill my inbox. So it's a great treat this week to have Brayden's mum over from Canada. I arranged a little scheme with her so she could be here for his birthday at the end of the month. She's an absolute delight, and having lunch with your prospective mother-in-law is good fun, if not a little daunting. I'm fortunate that autumn brings familiar work....
Read more

Banking on You

Image
It's nice to have things you can rely on in life. A partner, friends, a working car. Just that feeling of getting up in the morning and trusting that life will be okay. Increasingly, a lot of what we rely on is digital. At the forefront of that, in my case, is my phone. I haven't upgraded my phone much to the chagrin of Apple's Accounts department since the iPhone 13. My phone has been reliable, effective, and a good friend. Last Saturday, while flying up to Glasgow, I decided to invest in the new iPhone 16 Pro Max. They've proved almost impossible to order from an Apple store, and the tech store at Heathrow Terminal 5 had one left with just the memory I required and in the colour I wanted. Titanium black. How proud was I? Of course, being the small boy who could never wait to open his Christmas presents, I tried to set up my phone on arrival in Glasgow in my hotel room. Hooking up both old and new phones to the hotel Wi-Fi. All went well. I never read instructions ...
Read more

Chritsmas comes but....earlier and earlier

Image
I've often commented that at this time of year, I desire to become a bear. I settle down in my den or cave with a hefty supply of nuts, berries, and whatever else I need and sleep until mid-February. For the first time this year, that's probably not the case. The big conference I've been working on for the last eighteen months took place in Glasgow at the start of October. It was a great success, even though I say it myself, and I came home with some empty days in my diary. And I'm not good with empty days. I've been fortunate that I have not stopped since we returned from Iceland in the summer. Three big TV pieces were filmed, followed by two conferences, which kept me busy in real terms and bulged my inbox. The last two weeks have seen too many empty days. There have been days with nothing in the diary, and I've been bad about arranging lunches and catch-ups. So that needs correcting. Now, things are lurching towards the end of the year, and retail is pus...
Read more