Friday

Another day at Lesley’s dad’s house today. With the errands that we had to run before getting there I’d been driving for two hours when we pulled up on his drive. I no longer understand how I coped when that was a normal day for me. Getting up for a two, or more, hour drive to a customer site for a 9am start, doing a full eight hour day under pressure and then driving home only to do the same the next day and the day after that. The truth, of course, was that I wasn’t coping. My head must have been fried just as much as it felt today.

As usual, the first item on the agenda when getting to his house is to go straight back out to give The Dog her walk. As neither Lesley or I were capable of making a decision as to which way we should go we ended up just following The Dog. The aim should have been to avoid doing anything that would aggravate the split claw and we only just managed to tempt her away from her favourite chalk stream which she would have launched herself into given the chance.

On our way out on the route through the farmland that we hoped would be an adequate substitute for a frantic game in the chalk stream we met a lady that knew Lesley and her dad. As the lady had a dog with her I kept my distance while Lesley chatted.

“How is she?” I asked when Lesley caught up with us.

“She wasn’t able to get to the funeral so she wanted to know everything about it.”

“Ah.”

“She said it must be difficult for us going through the house and disposing of memories and items that were important to him.”

Memories? I wasn’t so sure about that. He had so much stuff that he’d lost track of what he’d got. And it wasn’t a recent thing that had been happening since his dementia became obvious either. This accumulation of Stuff had been going on for decades.

He was a very keen watercolourist and enjoyed using good quality brushes. When he saw a set he liked the look of he would buy them and stash them away. And then, some time later, he would see another set and buy them too seemingly unaware that they were exactly the same as the last set. He loved a specialty brush too. And high-end brands of paint, unusual paper and gadgets to help with composition. None of them ever got used. When he painted he would stick to the same small set of brushes, the same paint and the same paper that he always used because he was used to them and they gave him results he was satisfied with.

When we got back to his house I busied myself in the small bedroom where he kept all his painting treasures while Lesley sorted his mail. I’ve got to the stage where I can actually walk into the small bedroom without climbing over a pile of paper and knocking something over. For the first time we felt we were making progress.

With time and space in the car limited I decided to just fill a box and take it home to sort and to save my back and my knees I decided to pack the box on a bed in a bigger bedroom. That was when I spotted another toolbox under a table. I knew instantly what was in it. More painting paraphernalia. Brushes. Dozens of them. All top quality and all, bar two, completely unused.  Most still had the price label on and the plastic tube protecting the bristles. I did a quick count and made some assumptions on the price of the unlabelled ones and shuddered. This was quite a small collection compared to the ones I’ve already gathered.

Bloody hell.

Author’s Note

My Mum was in a nursing home in the Thames Valley for a year and a half until she passed away in December 2024. My Father-in-law went into the same home the following January. But Lesley’s sister didn’t approve and made the situation so awkward that he had to be moved. He passed away in March 2025. Names and locations have been changed or hidden to protect the identities of those involved.

Image Credit

Original Image by Nick Gilmore. April 2025.