Thursday - lots of words, sorry!

Morning, one and all.  What a lovely day it is again!  The sun is shining, it's fresh but not chilly and it feels happy.

Yesterday was quite a day.  I set out early but met a fair old blockage half way from four way traffic lights and what seemed to be miles of queueing traffic.  If I'd known the route, I'd have hopped off on a country road but what I do know is that a lot of them just end up back on the same road again so I didn't try.  It added an extra half hour to my journey which was a but frustrating but - it happens!  Poor of John and Gina had a nightmare journey down on Monday - the lot, from roadworks, odd diversions and a road traffic accident which looked horrendous, caused huge tailbacks but no-one seemed to be hurt, thank goodness.
So I can hardly complain!

Bless them, they had done such a lot on Tuesday, including sorting out all Mum's old Guiding paperwork (files and files of it) and had got out all the remaining china, ornaments, etc. to be sorted into Scrap Store (John and Gina run a couple of Scrapstores in Scotland), Charity shop or chuck.  
So Gina and I started on that and, with a few heart searching moments, got it all done and dusted which was a great relief.  There was some nice stuff and the charity shop was really happy when they took it over in the afternoon.  The stuff for the Scrapstore was all well wrapped and in bags to take up on Saturday when they travel back home.

John went through all Dad's paperwork.  Most of it is just chuckable and is now in the paper box (and in Ann-next-door's paperbox to be collected this morning.  There was very little that needed keeping - most of it was really old stuff and I am once more determined to go though things on a regular basis and discard older papers.

We cleared the master bedroom, the office, the storage bench on the landing, the airing cupboard, some kitchen cupboards - all of these had already been started but there was more to go.

Gail (who cleans for us pending completion) found someone from Dad's church who is in need of furniture and might have picked it all up yesterday evening, including a couple of beds.  As mentioned before, Dave and Anna are taking some other pieces.

And we discussed bigger stuff, such as kitchen electricals, etc, over lunch.  It was all a bit discouraging as if felt like there was so, so much still to do or organise.

Then our house buyers turned up (planned).  All I can say is lucky, lucky us.  They were the nicest couple ever, really friendly, their little girl is so sweet, they absolutely love the house and want to make it their forever home and were so accommodating and helpful.  I will call them D and K as it's not fair to name them.

Basically, they will take anything we leave providing all the personal stuff is removed (clothes, photos, and so on).  They're leaving most of their kitchen stuff for their buyers so we don't have to do any disconnecting, removing, and so on as they want to keep it all, old as some of it is (and we pointed out all the 'oldness', we didn't hide anything).  They want all the bedroom furniture that Dave and Anna won't be taking, even including the beds, which we were amazed about - although, to be fair, they are good beds.  They want all curtains, carpets, shelving, the two recliner chairs . . . 

And, to my delight, as we went into the living room, the little girl headed straight for the small child's chair that has family history - I sat in it as a wee one, so did John and David plus Beth, Alex and my Dave and David's children on visits from the States.  It's just a painted wooden affair, very sweet and much loved but there are no small children in the family now.  So I said something like 'Do you like that chair - would you like to keep in in this house?' and she was so happy - as were John and me as we really didn't want to just chuck it.

They even said that if Dave and Anna's date for moving didn't quite work with their date, they would be happy to hold onto it until they could pick it up.  Now that's what I call accommodating in the extreme although I don't think it will be necessary.

In fact, basically, in a couple of hours we went from feeling pretty low and discouraged with how much still needed doing to feeling that actually we're almost there apart from little bits and pieces which I can do in day visits, pretty much.  We won't need a skip, we won't need house clearance people (thank goodness) and there won't be much more heavy work to do at all.  

The drive home and the evening were pretty emotional, as you can imagine.  Bitter sweet memories and my heart hurts again.   :-)

John and Gina are making a couple of trips to the tip this morning and then they will enjoy a day and a half of visits to John's favourite places around here.
He said they would be back shortly and I hope that it will be a time when they can continue to enjoy it as a holiday rather than having to work.

I seem to have gone on rather a lot, sorry.  But how lucky are we, eh?  Things really are falling into place.  I was too busy to think about photos but will take some on my next visit, just for memory's sake.

Today I have lunch with Chris (to celebrate birthdays) and then tuition after school (changed from Monday as it was bank holiday and I was still away in the morning).  So it should be really pleasant!

Wishing us all a really good day.  xx