Yikes

[persevero]

My widowed mother, aged 80, is in the process of moving from a large farmhouse in Cheshire to a small house in Northamptonshire. She's been giving away, selling and donating stuff for months, and is now in the miserable surrounded-by-boxes state common to the last few days before a move - rendered even more miserable as it has become clear that the

Comments

[dickgloucester]

Your poor mother. Moving is no fun, and downsizing because you HAVE to for reasons of age even less so. Is the new house anywhere near me? I could swoop down with cake if it is.

I think the felling of the trees is just adding insult to injury - I hate people who cut down mature trees.

[persevero]

Yes - I'm furious that they started felling while she was still there, especially as people have been stopping and taking photos - including, she thinks, the local paper. She's been afraid that people would knock on the door and rant, but so far her only caller wanted to know if he could buy any of the wood. The new house is about an hour away from you, but thank you for the kind thought. Her idea was to be halfway between me and my sister (which I didn't actually think was very sensible) but she's ended up much closer to my sister and only 10 miles from my niece. And, as my niece points out, about 5 minutes' walk from a Waitrose, which is probably the only redeeming feature.

[dickgloucester]

If you think you need a bit of help, then email me - if it's an hour away I can get there for about 10.30.

[persevero]

Greatly appreciated. I hope we'll be okay, but it's nice to know we might have more hands to call on in a crisis!

[bambu345]

What huge changes there are in store for your family. I'm sure your mother's feeling rather bittersweet about her move. when my mom sold her too big house four years ago, the new couple came in and changed everything -- and this was just two years after my mom had remodeled the whole place. It was very hard for her.

As for your brother-in-law, I'm sure there are both personal and professional reasons for his distress.

I'll be thinking of you and your family.

[persevero]

Thank you. I don't know who'll be in a worse way, actually - b-i-l used to help out at Blenheim when he was still at school and they needed extra manpower at events, trained there after college and went back in his thirties. And my mother's been dreading moving, and rather lost, ever since my stepfather died four years ago. Not that she doesn't have her own resources, as a historian, gardener and book-collector, but Eric was such a strong character that he has left a bigger than usual hole in everyone's lives. This was brought home to us yet again last week - we've just had our first week as owners of a week's timeshare in Scotland that we've taken over from Eric via my mother, and when the administrator realised whose week we had inherited, her eyes filled up.

[bambu345]

We went through a lot of this sort of thing after my father died. The first year is quite horrid, but it's really the next several years where the real impact of their loss is felt. It's almost like an emotional land mine; you don't know where you'll find them and they're devastating when they explode.

I saw your note this morning about the bollixed moving/house closing situation and I'm sending your mum all good thoughts to get through this transition more smoothly than it seems. And I'm sending you the best for patience during the process.

[shiv5468]

It all sounds horrible for your mother. Moving is a bigger at any time of life