Still here

Leo and Monty are watching the birds and the last of the autumn leaves fluttering in the garden.
They have settled down into their own routine now and found their favourite places in the house to watch for wildlife, chase each other, sit and sleep.

Leo is here helping me make cupcakes for a friends wedding.

They are both really friendly and will have a long purr but still don't want to sit on our laps, sometimes if we're good they'll sit next to us on the sofa!

I am so out of touch with what's going on here with my friends in blog land, I'm so sorry that I have missed so much of your news. The weeks and months have rushed by in a bit of a haze, today is the first day I've felt a glimmer of light at the end of the never-ending tunnel that is clearing my mum's house.
We worked really hard on the garden and have turned it from worse than this (this was after clearing the derelict summerhouse and rubbish out of the way)

To this - taken in the summer, which I'm really pleased with.

There are still many months to go and it's all really emotionally draining and hard work, I only got to the end of the rubbish inside about a month ago and now have got to sort 2000+ books, china, furniture etc. I've got a book man coming to see me next week, someone a friend of my mum's knows and I'm so excited to think we may be able to make some more progress - the books seem to be multiplying infront of my eyes and it will be such a relief to get rid of some.

But for the first time it feels like it might be possible to do it, in the last few months I've just sunk under the weight of the task and it felt overwhelming, I've just ended up withdrawing from everything to try and get through it all.

Felting has sadly had to stop and I've only done one craft fair this year and have hardly been able to make anything, although I did manage some cobweb felt for me which I'll try and post about separately. I'm hoping the new year will bring a few chances to be creative again.
Leo and Monty thankfully don't steal felt like lovely Archie did, they steal hair elastics and shiny gift ribbon instead, but Leo has proved he is very good at helping laying out fibres evenly and pressing them into place.

Thank You

Thank you to all of you for your lovely and supportive comments on my last post - I'm so sorry I haven't been able to get to say thank you individually to any of you, but I'm truly grateful.

Life is all a bit overwhelming still at the moment with so much to sort out, but I know one day I'll get there. We had a skip come yesterday at my mum's house and with the help of some very good friends we began to clear some rubbish outside, so many pairs of hands made so much progress and even though I'm an only child I am incredibly thankful for my mum's cousin, who goes to her house every day, and for all my friends who are there for me, when people are traipsing around ankle deep in mud getting soaked to help you you know they really care.

I'm trying to clear the inside of the house. It's very hard, most of the rooms look like this:

You can see some of the beams of the house - when I've cleared out I'll try and show you the rooms properly. Everything's all mixed up in each box, in each one could be a couple of old books, perhaps the odd piece of costume jewellery, or even the odd bit of silver, some family letters giving information about relatives, some pages of my mum's own notes about her life, usually a couple of financial documents, some pens, elastic bands, some junk mail, some mouse droppings, almost always an odd sock or two and a pair of old tights and lots of dust.

I am not joking. Especially, sadly, about the mouse droppings. A couple of dead pigeons had fallen down my old chimney a few years ago too and were lying there extremely dead, but I'll spare you any photos. It's not all that bad - some boxes are just junk mail and it's really satisfying to just recycle the whole lot! I felt quite ill at the end of yesterday though and must make myself wear a dust and mould mask I think, however hard they are to breathe in.

I've chosen to go through each one because I just don't want to take the risk of throwing away something precious - I'm particularly interested in finding out more about one of my great-grandmothers, I've found four postcards she wrote in 1906 at the bottom of a draw but don't want to miss anything else. I also found yesterday the letter from the BBC in 1957 offering my mum the job of reading the news, as well as my silver Blue Peter badge! So it's a bit painstaking, but I'm very efficient and can clear quite a few boxes each day.

I'm finding all my dad's clothes as well as all mine and my mum's - some of hers are from the 40s, 50s and 60s but sadly most seem wrecked, but I'll salvage anything I can, there are a few lovely dresses. So it's emotionally and physically draining, but I'm sure we're making slow progress and it's always really nice to find a family letter - I was never really that interested in family before but now with everyone gone it seems very important. Thankfully my grandmother was very good at writing people's names on the back of old photos so I've got good clues.

I may have to give up being thorough and just chuck stuff away quickly if it all gets too much, but there's such a lot of history in that house it seems a shame, documents and letters from the first world war time too which I'm sure someone will find very interesting even if I can't keep them all. One day I'll try and show you some of the nice discoveries, there are a few - I'm now wearing my grandmother's engagement ring - not valuable but really nice to have. So I'll take photos of prettier things next time now I've showed you the dust and mess!