An emotional day.

I took Sophie to work this morning so that I could use her car and met Keith at Mum and Dad's house to do the final cleaning and meter reading. We still had a load of stuff to take to the tip so we did that (without any wait) and then headed back to read the meters and mop the kitchen floor.

I called the estate agent to say we had vacated the property and we left the key in the little box by the front door. When we finally locked up and walked away, I did shed a few tears. My parents had only lived there for four years, and my Mum was sometimes unhappy in the house, but it was still emotional, nonetheless. 

We went home, and I emailed the meter readings to a local woman who is a representative for the company that supplied their gas and electricity. Our own house is a complete mess at the moment - a little like one of those hoarding programmes where you have to climb over stuff to get anywhere. We're determined to sort it out as much as we can over the weekend.

I had a meeting at the care home at 1.30pm so, after trying to get through to Sky to cancel Mum and Dad's subscription, I tidied myself up, put some make-up on to look vaguely human, and drove over to Kettering. I was hoping to finish in time to go and get Mike from work, but he had warned us he might finish early so he could get ready for his trip down to London to see Abbie.

I told the care home staff that we had sold Mum and Dad's house, and said that I wanted to bring some of their stuff in for them, namely pictures and ornaments, as well as some photo albums and books. I wasn't there for very long and stopped outside Mum's window to call her, but she didn't answer the phone. I then called Keith but he had obviously gone to get Mike so I headed home where I remembered I hadn't had any lunch yet!

Mike was catching the 4pm train, which was good timing as I needed to collect Sophie at 4.30pm. We set off and became embroiled with terrible traffic in Kingsthorpe. I was worried we'd be late, but we made it with five minutes to spare! Phew!

I had to wait a while for Sophie but I was content to read my book in the car and relax. It had been a hectic day! Back home I took Keith to the pub as he was shattered and then it was back to enjoy a glass of red. The weather has been cold today with a nasty, sharp wind that had us putting the heating on this evening! Brr!