It was Harvest Festival today and the new (since April, I’m going to have to stop this soon, aren’t it?) Rector decided to start the event at 3 in the afternoon.  I hadn’t quite taken on board that there was going to be a treasure hunt and so on first and that the service wouldn’t start until 4, but no matter.  I saw people and was hugged, so that can’t be bad.

It went jolly well, actually.  Around 100 people there, including children, though I don’t think a head-count was done.  I helped with food and drinks afterwards, all sausages were eaten and astonishing amounts of cake.  No charge, it was a community friendship thing, though there was a bowl for donations.  I like our new Rector and his wife, I hope they will be happy here.  They have three young children, two at the village school and they are seen going for walks and being friendly – which shouldn’t be remarkable, but we’ve not always been quite so lucky in the past.

This morning, I turned out a cupboard.  It wasn’t that hard, took an hour and a half (big cupboard), nearly everything was thrown out, most of it onto the bonfire (in spite of heavy rain yesterday, it was still smouldering this morning and the papers I added soon caught alight) and I have a good shelf for my files and the bottom of the cupboard for logs, coal and sticks, so I don’t have to bring them in every day,  I’ve lit the fire again tonight – I’m not really cold, but it’s so nice to have.  I know people – well, women – who complain that a fire is too much work.  They don’t bring in the fuel, their husbands do, and clear out the ashes too.  It’s just a matter of a bit of extra dusting, I can’t think what they’re complaining about (unless they’re well into their eighties and arthritic).  A fire is worth the small extra trouble to the person who cleans.  It’s also worth the extra to the one who does the rest.  As the one who’ll do both – yes, no problem.  When I buy my own home, I shall have a fire.  There’s every chance, I suppose, that I won’t have an Aga and I’ll miss that very much, but doing without a proper fire would be another matter.

Thank you for your comments on my last post.  I’ll explain more of what I mean in a day or two, or when I feel like it (I’m so tired by the evenings, I can hardly write sometimes) but I appreciate your kind thoughts.  And there will be a blog party next year.  This year, when the Sage was so poorly, I asked him if he wanted to postpone or cancel it – “no,” he said, “I enjoy it, I’m looking forward to it.”  So am I.

Weeza wanted to show me the new house of friends, who have just moved to a lovely riverside house in Norfolk’s Broadland.  It was still up on Rightmove and it is, indeed, lovely.  And it got me thinking about where I’d like to live.

We have been here for 28 years and, as you will know if you’ve read this blog for any length of time, the house was bought by R’s parents when they were newly married, back in 1928.  We moved here, on my suggestion, after his father died – the annexe was built for his mother, after she died my mother lived there and after she died, Alex (and later with his family) did.  So it’s very much a family home – but it was always clearly Russell’s.  His mother gave it to him by a Deed of Variation on his father’s will (we had to spend almost as much in repairs as we sold our house for)  and he never would add me to the deeds.  Our last house was in our joint names, but he considered this place his and his alone.

I’ve been happy here, on the whole, but I’m now overwhelmed by the chaos that Russell has left behind.  I’ve been begging him to get started on the sorting out for years, but he hasn’t addressed the real problems – that is, he’s done a bit, but he’s been buying as much as he’s been selling, never telling me about either, never sorting out the real mess either, though I and the children would have given him every support and help.  I feel a bit miffed.  Over three Saturdays, it’s cost me over £500 already to do what we have.  I am certainly putting aside anything that’s worth any money, with the aim of defraying the cost of clearing out his mess.

Even if I stay here, it needs to be done.  I don’t want to live like this any more.  But I can’t stay here in the long term.  I like a big house in its own grounds, but it’s fair to say that my affection for this place has been severely affected by my anxieties over the last few years and since his death.  In any case, it’s not practical.  I have to get in a house-sitter if I want to go away at all and it costs all I can throw at it to maintain the grounds.  I’m so sad about this, I used to love it here, even though I never felt it to be mine in any way.

I really have always been the devoted type.  As I said, I suggested we move here, though I loved our previous house dearly and was very happy there.  I spent decades supporting Russell in his business, unpaid and, until recently (when I didn’t want to do it any longer and he realised he couldn’t manage without me) unacknowledged.  The time will come, however, when I must put myself first.  And I’m already starting to think about how.  It feels a bit bleak at present, but it’ll get better in the end.

Plugging on slowly and painfully.  I haven’t been able to write a to-do list, the thought made me too anxious, even though I knew it would help once it was done.  Weeza helped me, it’s written (will be added to, of course) and she made me do the most urgent thing that had been top of the list for some time and I’d been ignoring.  I’ve had to apologise profusely and ask for help in getting the work done – which is fine, I’ve never had a problem with acknowledging I was in the wrong, but I didn’t want to get on with the work.  The die is cast now.  The deadline is the end of this month, but there’s a lot to do first.

I’ve also been to see someone about getting a valuation of the house contents.  Since it’s all half mine anyway, I’m the sole inheritor and there’s no duty payable until I die, this is not easy to take on the chin, but there isn’t an alternative.  I’m jolly well going to spend the rest of my life giving away all I own to my family and documenting it, or else selling things and spending the money, that’s all I can say.

The alarm went off at around 4.45 this morning, for no reason that I could discern, so I’m pretty tired now.  I haven’t even looked at today’s papers, so will take them to bed.  Fortunately, I don’t mind sleeping alone.  The Sage and I haven’t slept well together for some time, so often didn’t – or, even if we started together, one or other of us would move into another bed after a while.  We were much more comfortable, could sleep better and not disturb each other when we didn’t.

I don’t want to turn this into a blog about bereavement or any such thing, which is part of the reason I didn’t mention Russell’s death here for so long.  The temptation to write about what I feel and think and am doing is strong, but it’s not a good idea.  And blimey, it’d be self-indulgent too.  I’ve been introspective much of my life and it’s a lot more fun when I’m not.  Actually, the world outside is more interesting than what goes on in my head.

Indeed, I am a landlord (or landlady, but I don’t have the bosom for it).  Roses has moved in next door.  She claims to be going through a mid-life crisis, but we all know really that she couldn’t pass up the opportunity to live with me.  Who in their right mind would?

In other news. 
That was yesterday. Here it is now –
It is being removed on Saturday and a new one brought, because we are starting to clear the big workshop.  This evening, because I had a little unhappy blip about what is still to be done, Roses reminded me that I’ve been talking about decluttering for years and begging Russell to deal with things, but he never really tried.  I suppose it was too big a job, the thought of it overwhelmed him.  We did make a start last year – or maybe it was the year before – and filled one skip, but then the attempt petered out.  I mustn’t lose momentum, I’m really anxious at the thought of this still dominating my life in years to come.  Thanks to darling Weeza, who is giving up her Saturdays to help me, we are making some headway already.