Clearing out the house

So we have Mum steadily improving at the Nursing Home and Dad is in a rapid decline.

Mum has resumed playing the piano and doing portraits in pastels.  She is moving around with a pick up frame and moves at a fair clip now.  Dad on other hand, has developed ulcers on his leg which are not healing.  He's had angioplasty with stents on both legs recently, but there hasn't been much improvement.  He's in a lot of pain and is pretty unhappy.

Lynda is frustrated that he isn't keeping his legs elevated.  He says he has too much to do, but as soon as he sits down at the computer to do whatever it is, he falls asleep in his chair.

I've been over to Geelong several times to help out Lynda since my last post.  Things would have fallen in a heap long ago if she wasn't on the scene. She's been the one dealing with doctors and lawyers over the last few months.  Her husband had a health scare in January with his GP excising an early stage melanoma from  his back.    He had surgery a month later and thankfully his doctor is confident that the margins are clear.

On my last trip over, we continued clearing out the house with help from her husband and my daughter, who came down specially from Queensland.  There was so much stuff to get through.  We gave some of it to the local op shop, threw out a couple of trailer loads and we'll take some of it to a weekend market and sell other bits on eBay.  We sold quite a lot to various dealers and were often surprised at what they were interested in - and conversely what they were not.   We held a garage sale on the second last day.  That was quite an experience.  The die- hards swooped like a horde of locusts and we scarcely drew breath for the next two hours.  There is still quite a bit of stuff left, even after I took a number of  items in one of the cars.  I drove it back on the Spirit of Tasmania, the car was packed to the gunwhales.

Unfortunately, due to me misreading the fine print on the ticket and managing to get lost in South Melbourne, I arrived at the dock just in time to see it leaving the jetty.  It meant that I had to re-book for the following day and return to Geelong for another night.  It also meant that I was late to work the next day.

Now back home, I have to decide what to do with the car.  It's a nice little 1991 Nissan coupe but it's surplus to requirements here.  Andrea (in Queensland) managed to write off her car shortly after moving up there and she needs a new one.  This didn't happen until after I booked the ferry trip to bring the car home, but if we can find the time to drive the Nissan up to her, it may be the best option all around.  I figure if I sold the car here and gave her the proceeds towards a new car, she still wouldn't get one as nice as this one.

Maybe I'll combine my next trip over with another ferry trip and a weekend drive to Queensland.