Exploding Soup, Black Slime and the Tesco Carrier Bag.

Early start today after the girls and I made some major headway yesterday in the kitchen, I was up today at seven and went right over to the mountain. My brother had been busy already emptying cupboards and cleaning twenty years worth of kitchen yellow sticky stuff. He pointed to 27 tins of spaghetti, soup and baked beans in the garden and to one in particular which felt 'a bit light'.
On further investigation it was still intact but empty, covered in a rusty sludge. Eeeuughh. I picked up a similar tin which appeared to be hissing. It was hissing too. Upset by being moved after being shut in the cupboard four twenty years or so. The whole lot went in the bin. Two tins of Heinz spaghetti next to it did not even have a bar code so heaven only knows how old they were.

In order to get a space outside to temporarily put items while we cleaned, I moved a tin of paint.  The tin came up but the bottom of the tin had rusted and when I picked it up it had disintegrated and its contents (a bagful of little fish tank type stones wrapped in a Tesco carrier bag) all fell out all over the floor.  The bag was still intact - possibly a little worrying that a Tesco bag would survive where a metal tin did not.  Mind you carrier bags (bearing in mind they no longer give these away in Wales with your shopping - for 'green' reasons I believe as they take about 20 years to disintegrate and break down). Wrong.  In the kitchen there were about six bin bags of carrier bags - a guesstimate about 200-300 bags stuffed in together in case of need.  When I tried to put them all in one bag, those at the bottom came out in snow-like flurries.  Totally broken down into virtually dust.

That house is an Eco experiment come to life.

So today we uncovered 18 bottles of wine, 3 beers dated 2005, about 40 tins of soup, spaghetti and baked beans, a whole pile of shop receipts and visa card receipts (from the age when you used to have to sign for visa transactions), about 97 used stamps, about 6000 corks from wine bottles, a book from Readers Digest posted November 2000 still in its unopened postage box, 3 more wellies and 5 leather sandals from Benidorm, one plastic frog, a brand new frying pan, half a Henry hoover, a box of 36 halogen lightbulbs, 2 toasters, a toasted sandwich maker, a yoghurt maker, 8 table mats,  A new wrapped set of newborn gloves and a hat (my 3 kids aged 8.8 and 10 now) were all born in early summer. There were bags and bags of unmatched socks, 7 more pairs of gardening gloves all new, 2 large jars of Nescafe 2006, three £20 notes all wrapped up inside a receipt, a further book of 24 2nd class stamps brand new in a book and just lots and lots of papers, brochures and old letters, a Christmas balloon, 30 or so Christmas cards to the family - unopened one from someone who died in 1997.  A jar of old batteries, sixteen chipped mugs and one bathroom tap.

At 3pm we started to clear up as we needed to go visit the old stick in the hospital.  We got to the hospital at 3.30 and the old stick was sleeping.  I poked him gently.
'Oh' says he 'I thought nobody was coming so I decided to take a nap'.
'Well here we are' I said - trying to act cheerful.
'Yes I can see that'.
'I've picked up your glasses for you dad.  Here they are.' The glasses had taken me 2 trips to the optician and a few telephone calls to get them sorted.
'How much were they?' he says '£8?'.
'Yes'
'£7?'
'£8 dad'
'yes, I said £8'.
Noting the lack of the words 'thank you' I have become accustomed to this though.
Next he says 'Oh yes I meant to say - about the car - the MOT is due soon...'
'Dad do you mean the tax.  That's due November - I can get it cashed in for you if you like before the end of this month.'
'NO' he says 'The MOT is due in November but if you take it to the, um to the, um...'
'The DVLA Tax office dad, you need a form from the Post office'
'NO, - Listen' he shouts at me like I am a rude interruption - 'you have to get it done before September of you lose another month on the MOT.'
'Its TAX dad. You mean the tax - the 1st is not until next Sunday so we have eight days'..
but he is shouting over me 'Chris will have to go to Llanishen to see if he can have a word with the Post Office as it has to be done soon - you have to ask them what form you need - what date is it?'
By this time I have given up.  I am obviously, yet again displaying my inadequacies, by not listening to the Maestro who is clearly the ONLY one on the planet who has ever heard of the concept of cashing in a tax disc.  I am SUCH an idiot.  Silly me for thinking I knew how to do it and for thinking you could get a form from the Post Office or even download one.  Of course I realise now how could I possibly know this having not yet reached adulthood. I say resigned to his having to see his speech through, 'Its the 25th dad'.
'Right then - so we have until..' counting days in his head... 'Friday, so Chris will have to go to see what he needs to do and let me know or get a form and bring it in to me... - Chris are you in town on  Tuesday?'
'Dad'. I almost scream at him 'I will download it, bring it in tomorrow for you to sign and drop it up the DVLA T O M O R R O W - job done'.
'Oh I WISH you'd listen to me' he says - 'Chris needs to see what needs to be done and then I will have to sort it out, Chris can go on the bus on Thursday, Oh but then we have a bank holiday and you see if you miss the month end which will be um ...... Friday because you see it is closed on Saturday.... then you will lose a month so it will have to be done this week.'

At this point I have to leave the room before my inner axe murderess surfaces.

he says as I am walking out 'I really don't know WHAT is the matter with your sister these days.'
The fact I have spent 14 hours over the past two days neck deep in his c**p so he can come home, then gone in to visit him both days and THEN gone to work from 3.30 til 9.30 as well does not appear to register with him.

I remember the words of one of the neighbours who visited him last week in hospital.  'I was a bit concerned at your father's unfaltering belief in your ability to be in four places simultaneously.

I say to him as calmly and as slowly and clearly as I can muster.  The way one may speak to a small child,  'D a d    l i s t e n   t o  m e... I   c a n  g e t   a    f o r m    p r i n t e d    o  f  f     m y   c o m p u t e r    a n d    I  w i l l    b r i n g   i t    t o    y o u'.
He looks at me and said 'I was only trying to make things easier'.

I do wonder if those windows on the wards on the 6th floor will open quite enough for me to squeeze through.