Packing up

I am writing this from Mum's hospital room.  Yep, again.

This is her third hospitalisation this year.  I am waiting for the medical staff to finish their meeting with the nursing, physiotherapy and social work staff who are deciding Mum's fate.

As soon as a place is available she will be moved to respite care, pending a nursing home.  It's not going down well with Mum, although she's so sore and tired at the moment the fight isn't really there.

This morning before coming to the hospital, I started looking at the house with an eye to packing it up.  Fortunately Mum is a neat freak so it's not going to be a task like on the tv show "Hoarders" as a friend on Facebook imagined.  It's just going to be emotionally difficult and physically challenging.

The kitchen and linen cupboard look like the best places to start.  Fewer items of sentimental value and I cleared out the extraneous from the linen cupboard in January.  I'm going for easy wins in the first few days. 

The craft stuff, too, has to be dealt with.  Again, I've culled this fairly well in the last six months.  Moving things on will be easy enough - I know lots of people who can use craft supplies - but there will be things I want to keep such as the length of tartan in the family pattern bought in Scotland and a gift from a dear family friend (long dead); the Brussels lace bought for me by my grandmother for my wedding dress (poor deluded but well-meaning woman); and the vintage vyellas and batistes.  I can't and won't keep it all, but some of it will come home.