Tuesday and I wake up and finish Stardust before getting up for breakfast. Its my usual muesli and morning meds meal. At 10:30 I set off with my youngest daughter to pick up her new car. There is much paper work and generally speaking it goes smoothly. There was a bit of a hiccup digging out anything that could pass as a service history. In the end a service in 2018 and 20220 had to suffice. My daughter drove me home in her new car. We sat outside the house in it having a preliminary play with the toys. She was able to pair her phone with it in the blink of an eye. We also discovered that most of the radio stations list were Christian ones which we decided explained the low mileage. Why a car with a Christian owner would do less miles I am not sure but that is where we got to. We ate celebratory bacon sandwiches before my youngest daughter and I both drove to the garage to fill with petrol and to check the tyres. I waved my youngest daughter off home and I returned to feed the hedgehog and fill the bird feeders before driving my partner and I to London.

We did the journey with only one stop at Feltham services where we decided to have coffee and I chose to have a toasted ham and cheese sandwich. It was foul. Whatever it was they called cheese was a milky, gooey blob, which dribbled out and onto my trousers and shoes. We left and head to my sisters house. The coroner called me while on the move and told me that the GP was content for the cause of death to be heart failure and I was asked if I was all right with that. I was of course but wondered what would happen if I wasn’t. He told us about getting a death certificate and that he would email the email address that I needed to contact. So far today he hasn’t. On arrival we collected the keys from the neighbour, who handed us a condolence card and the keys. I had not realised that the keys had been used to gain entry. In my head the police had broken in, but apparently the neighbour was present with the keys. He never told me that when he texted me at the time. I open the front door and I am confronted with a scene of utter chaos. It is as if the house has been squatted in. I am appalled by what I see and I am furious that my sister could let herself live in this state, especially when she had told me more or less to fuck off when I tried to gently suggest that she might get some support or help. I am out faced by the state of the place. My partner and I start to look for paper work. The solicitor has given me a list of things they need. There is a sea of paper everywhere adn we try and recycle a lot of the advertising adn inconsequential stuff. My partner empties the fridge while I look for the required documents. I am aware that there are specific things that my sister bequeathed to specific people but we can find no sign of the items. we end up with boxes of paper work, address books, family history documents. By 6:30 we are both knackered. We load the car, lock up and drive to the hotel.

We check in at the hotel and get to our room, unpack and freshen up. We then go of fin search of something simple and tasty to eat. We walk all the way to Chiswick before we find an Italian. Lots of other nationalities of food bit not to our fancy. The Italian is packed, probably because of its rarity but we are found a place. For the next couple of hours we eat delicious food and try to ignore the over raucous diners at a large table and the general loud hubbub of the restaurant. Intriguingly the male of the couple sitting the other side of the lemon tree that grew in the centre of our table, (it poncey London what else would you expect) spent the entire time finding new ways to grope his girlfriends chest with varying degrees of success. I assume that this is a new dining ritual for courting couples. We paid our bill and walked back to the hotel were we both collapsed on the bed and I drafted the blog. My intention was to eat and then sort out some of the paper work we found for the solicitor but I am too tired to even think about it.

I find myself a toxic mixture of fury and sadness. The fury has many levels and will need time to be resolved, the sadness is that anyone’s life should come down to where this chaos lives. I know that it is unlikely that the things I need to do will fall neatly into line but I am anticipating much frustration and a hell of a lot of admin in the coming weeks.