Mater

‘Oi! What are you doing with my things?’ Himself looks as though steam is about to escape from his ears, as the pressure soars. ‘My spare fork handles!’

[More:]

‘Dad, you collect too much rubbish. You’ll never need any of this lot - and I’m sure you have one or two more spare fork handles squirreled away where I can’t find them!’

‘But my lead! It’s worth a fortune. I’ve been collecting that…’

‘Yeah, and when would you take it to convert it into hard cash?’

‘When I’ve got enough!’

‘Well, tough. It’s going.’

‘But what about all that wood - I was going to burn that in the Rayburn.’ Pressure’s growing, but he knows he’s lost. (This is daughter number two; the one that will pin him to his chair and remove his holey socks and bin them, however much he protests! She will always get the better of him).

‘That wood is mdf off cuts, old worktops (chipboard) and varnished wood. You don’t burn that rubbish - and if you do, you undo all the good work you do by recycling household rubbish.’

‘Please can I have my bin lid back?’ (I admit to be sniggering behind his back at this point).

‘The rubbish is going tomorrow and we’ll fish it out then. Mam’s already said…’

It’s the only thing I insisted on retrieving, honest. He’d only brought it home the day before, to replace the one that disappeared one stormy night, so he was allowed that one.

Daughter number two continued the onslaught on the garden, piling the bonfire high (which has been waiting for ‘the right moment’ to be lit for the past two years), sweeping and sorting. Come 7 o’clock the matches came out - and wow! did we have a bonfire! The result is that the garden seems to have doubled in size somehow, even though it looked pretty big before.

The next step is to strim the lot (apart from the vegetable patch) and rotovate it all before turfing it. Himself works for a landscape garden firm, and he’s about to do some homework.

And why this sudden flurry of activity? We’re having the house valued on Thursday. We know how much we want and we’re pretty certain that the figure they’ll come up with won’t be far off that. But we could be wrong. If it’s not enough (thinking ahead to when himself retires in six years time), we’ll stay and finish the work that needs to be done here - but if it’s about right, we have family members (you know who you are!) interested in buying. It would be ideal - as a couple of the other girls don’t want to see it going out of the family. It’s regarded as the family home; the three youngest girls were born after we moved here 29 years ago.

As for us, we have our eyes on a little house across the road - and up a bit - from us. It’s for sale - it’s Scandinavian-looking (a bonus) and has a bedroom/study, as well as a bathroom on the ground floor - which would make life much easier for me. Fingers crossed another buyer doesn’t turn up before we’re ready to make an offer!

But things are happening all-round. Our youngest daughter and her partner have just put in a bid on a house - and daughter number four and her partner is about to. They have to sort out finances and mortgages - and I’m just glad we don’t have to this time around. But of course, it all hangs on the valuation.

Thankfully the Prednisolone has kicked in at last, and I have been able to do a bit round the house the last couple of days. In the past I would have been scrubbing floors and painting walls - but that’s beyond me now. I let others do the heavy work, but I’m really good at throwing out these days. Perhaps I’ve caught it off daughter number two!