Monday 27 July 2015

More clearing

Mr D and I are back at my Mums house for a few days continuing with the clearing. I had the difficult task of clearing out all her clothes yesterday but we now have three suitcases worth to take to charity. In fact, with the clothes, books, ornaments and kitchen paraphernalia we could open up our own charity shop! I now need to hope that the charity shop can cope with this much or I'll have to spread it out across several!

Just the tip of the iceberg to go to the charity shop

What I need to watch out for is that I don't bring too much home with me 'just in case'. I have the same inability to waste stuff that Mum had, so I'm definitely at risk!

Sorry terrible photo, but Mr D was still snoozing so I couldn't turn the light on! There are a lot of books in the house, but I'm hoping to deal with a fair number this time round at least.

The garden is still looking good - we've had a gardener popping in every fortnight - but it definitely looked at its best on the day of the funeral.
We had some of mum's soup from the deepfreeze yesterday for lunch. It felt a little odd, but as Mr D said, she would not want it wasted! She made loads of soup - courgette and cumin, tomato, carrot and coriander. I'm really pleased that we have managed to eat pretty much everything from her two deepfreezes rather than having to throw it away.
It's a shame the weather is a bit naff! Not such a stunning view from the sun porch this morning.

I think when we go back, we will leave with a good sense of 'mission accomplished' knowing that we are another step nearer getting the house cleared. Hopefully, come the Autumn time, interest in the house will pick up. Selling a house in the summer down here isn't easy, but I'm going to pop in to the agents before we head back to reiterate that it needs to be sold BEFORE the winter!
The sun is really trying, so I'd better get myself going for another day of sorting ........

14 comments:

  1. I can empathise with you, I had the task of emptying my parents home and my mother was a magpie. Not for shiny things but she had over 150 bird ornaments, at least 5 black bags full of wool, patterns and needles and so on. My Dad had piles of books and leaflets to do with horse blood lines and all things rural. Hopefully the sale will go through promptly, keeping the garden in shape will be a great help.

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    1. The agents have put her house as a 'featured property' today which may spark a little more interest. Fortunately I hadn't had to deal with my dads belongings - he had thousands of corgi toys in their original boxes. We got a specialist in to deal with his vast collection. It had to be split into several lots to sell!

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  2. never an easy task but one that must be tackled, I hope you get a quick sale and can tie up lose ends quickly :-)

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    1. Thanks! I'm certainly breaking the back of the inside, but there is still the garage and the under house storage to go yet! I may have to leave that for another visit!

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  3. Not an easy task, but it just has to be done. Helping my Mum with Dad's huge hoard of possessions was tough going but there were light moments of humour, like us finding his shoebox full of string labelled ' pieces to short to use' :-)

    We car booted many of his things and it was actually very cathartic to see his masses of jackets, caps, belts, and his cd collection etc going to good homes, many to men who looked exactly like my Dad but the surprise for us was that nearly all his flat caps went to young, very good looking black guys, it must have been a fashion statement that year.

    Lots of things also went to charity shops but as you said there was just so much stuff we didn't want to swamp anyone.

    I hope the house sells quickly for you, it will be one less thing to have on your minds.

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    1. I had read your comment earlier today which was very good because it stopped me taking home the elastic bands from mum's desk drawer in case they might be of use!! I smiled to myself at the thought of a tin of string to be of possible use!! I also smiled at the thought of lots of trendy young men striding around in your dads flat caps!!

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  4. When my brother and I had the task of clearing our Mum's house, we made one visit to take a few personal items then got a house clearance firm in to do the rest. We found this far less stressful than trying to do it ourselves from 100+ miles away.

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    1. Yes, I suspect if it had been down to my brother it would have been chucked into a large skip! Fortunately Mr D and I are using it like a little weekend away too in between all the working and sorting!

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  5. Luckily my father had already downsized after my mother death and was living in a much smaller property. My brother was born in India and came back to the UK on my mother passport. He was told he never had a birth certificate as it was registered in the local book. This had caused my brother no end of problems over the years and he was declared an alien at one point by the Home Office. While clearing fathers desk out I found a tatty piece of paper, low and behold it was a birth certificate, an Indian birth certificate. We all saw the funny side and laughed out loud.

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    1. Oh dear! Good job you could see the funny side of it!! Mum's house could be a lot worse in terms of clutter and I have already done several 'sweeps' so there is less each time.

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  6. A timely reminder of when I cleared my parents house, my dad was a real hoarder. At the time I decided not to leave so much work to my children when I pop my clogs. I think I need to do a LOT more decluttering of my house! On the other hand, I found some really lovely things from my childhood.......

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    1. I found lots of Sindy furniture under the house which I might ebay. It was nice to have a quick trip down memory lane despite being bent double in the low ceilinged storage area!! I'm quite sure I will go home and have a renewed urge to declutter my own home!! I have certainly made sure all the paperwork is up to date and clearly organised!!

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  7. Glad to hear you're doing OK...when my Mum passed I remember eating up her homemade bread, that felt really weird but I'm sure she'd have been cross if we'd wasted it. J. x

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