The Assessor has been! The mountain just got bigger.

3rd September 2013 Tuesday

My mountain just got bigger.  I need bigger boots.

I dropped the kids off at school today.  Today was their first day back after the holidays.  I feel so bad - my mind and thoughts are at the mountain and not with the kids which is so unfair on them.  I dropped them off at school, came home, grabbed a bite to eat and headed to base camp at the mountain.  I arrived by 9.30am

My brother was at work so it was just me and Tyson the dog.  Mask on and in I went.  Today I planned to start on the playroom (downstairs front room) and downstairs hallway.  I need to get the hallway clear for it to be safe to clear the rest of the house and to be able to do this safely without injuring my friends who have offered to help.  The problem is everything is so precariously balanced and if you move the wrong thing it is like Jenga - the whole lot is likely to come down.  The health assessor is coming today - apparently she would have come round anyway as she needed to assess the height of the toilet, stair rails, bed height and so on.  I feel slightly better as I was starting to feel guilty for mentioning it to the nurses at all. My intention was to try to clear at least the pathway through the house so that at least the carpet was visible.

From the hallway I picked up three jars of substances un-labelled - possibly paint in a previous life, possibly not.  The jars' contents were separated and the jars covered in a layer of dust.  Bear in mind this was the hallway - both inhabitants of the house would have walked past these on a daily basis for the past 30 years or so.  These jars were not buried at the back.  The dust was everywhere.  I picked up a box and carried it outside to sort.  I sorted and went back in, new box, sorted and went back in, another box, sorted, went back in... you get the drift here.  The paperwork is best sorted as it comes out.  If it was from the top of a pile I need to be careful as having been in a position on top means it is relatively recent and therefore he may miss it if I bin it.  Bits at the back or at the bottom are likely to be over fifteen years old and I can be a bit more flippant with these.  There seem to be so many boxes full of bits of wire, spanners, screwdrivers, sockets, screws, nails, old bits of 'stuff' with wires coming out.  The paperwork could be anything - all mixed in the same pile from letters from 2008 to a Lidl magazine from 2005 and some unopened 'Which' magazines.  Lots of shareholder reports from long ago.  Alarmingly, today alone I found five 'Order of Service' leaflets for the funerals of many people who have ascended the ladder of life for the last time (and not come down it again as quickly at the old stick did three weeks ago).  Also, I cannot for the life of me imagine why, but there were envelopes full of soup and spaghetti tin labels.  Why?

The phone rang while I was at base camp, it was the old stick himself. 'Oh' he says 'good - I hoped I would catch you. Are we expecting a visitor this afternoon?'

I confirmed that the assessor was due at 2.30.  He then started rambling on about the downstairs toilet as the flush does not work - 'simple to fix' he tells me.  He suggests Ian may be able to fix it.  This in itself winds me up.  I am the one who does the plumbing in my house - I have successfully plumbed in a new Ikea basin in the bathroom, taken out a toilet in the flat, removed a sink and a bath, fitted isolation valves and fixed/changed taps.  I have told him this many times as I was chuffed with myself.  It just goes to prove a point I feel that he did not listen to me when I told him.  he assumes, incorrectly, that it is the bloke who does the fixing and he obviously takes little, if any, interest in anything I ever tell him.  He then witters on about the carpet on the stairs being dangerous.  Not only the carpet which was bought in a roll in about 1979 to go in the bedroom and has remained in a roll up the stairs ever since but also the carpet fitted on the stairs.  As the stairs have been loaded with junk either side for so long, the middle has had extra wear and tear and has therefore gone extremely threadbare in the middle - right through to the wood in some places.  He says we can get this sorted between us and - get this - he knows I can fit carpets and so 'between us we can get it sorted'.  I reminded him I had to have a mask to  even go into the house, there would be no way I could sit there bashing about with his dusty carpet.  He chose to suffer his selective deafness at this point.  I screamed down the phone I was unable to go into his house without a mask.  He said 'You are unable to go in without a man!?' 

TWELVE times I had to say 'MASK dad - I can't go in without a mask'  I finally screamed it down the phone with such frustration I almost choked on my own fury.

Finally he got what I was saying and he replied 'That's OK - we can get you one of those' as if he is doing me a favour. Sometimes I can see why a double vodka would be a good thing before lunch.

I honestly do not think me and my dad are living on the same planet.  He is worried about the bloody loo and the stair carpet when clearly it is like worrying about your eyeliner running in a tsunami.  Surely we cannot be related.  Please let me find I was adopted - let there be a God.

At 2pm I realised I had not had lunch and where the hell had the bloke got to - he was supposed to be helping me after nipping into town this morning.  I rang him.

'Hello' he says sleepily. 'How is it going?'

'It is a f###ing mare'. I said 'Where the hell are you?'

'I fell asleep' he said.

Sometimes I have to agree with the laws in the UK which disallow peasants to own guns...

I asked him to get his lardy arse to the mountain post haste and to bring me a bite to eat too.

Half an hour later he arrived with a sarnie, crisps and a bottle of cold lager. perfect!

We filled up his car and he departed for the recycling centre - just as the Health Assessor arrived.

I had spoken to the assessor yesterday.  I had warned her.  She had said she had seen it all before. I told her I doubted it.  She had said she was coming to see the height of the loo and the bed and assess whether a stair rail was needed.  In the event, she came in and she did not give much away.  She said 'Ah' a lot and 'My goodness' and 'you really have a huge job here'.

Yes - thanks!

She said she would assess the stairs - if she could see them.  Likewise she would assess the bed - if he was able to get within ten feet of it safely.  She reckons the mess has become so much a part of the house and his life within it that he simply does not even see it any more.

I agree.

As she left, my friend from work, Andrea, arrived to help.  She had bought three IKEA bags around. She got stuck in straight away, she filled the bags and she brought the stuff out.  I sorted the stuff. Three piles - Skip/Recycle, Keep and Bin.  The bin pile was looking rather healthy as was the skip pile.  Sadly the keep pile was also bigger than I would like but I am always aware that the old stick will be coming home at some point and all this still belongs to him.  It is not as easy as saying 'just throw it out'.  he has not told me to throw it out and I have to decide what is important from somebody else's lifetime of hoarding.  He has no say in the matter.  I know he has an uncanny memory and is bound to remember the one thing I have thrown out.

At 6.30 I had had enough.  I loaded Oggy and went home via the skip/recycling centre.  The poor little car was stuffed full with not even enough room for an old spark plug (another used spark plug - why?). The little skip man must have been on tea break.  Bit of a relief really - I think he will start charging me soon.

Came home, quick bite and then took two of the kids to the hospital to visit himself.  Himself asked what the assessor had said.  I told him he was not allowed home until the house was clear.  He seems to think he can come home in the day but has to sleep out.  I am not going to tell him.  He started having a go at me then as if it was my fault he was not allowed home.

I took him in a bank balance slip.  I had been to his house to get his card and had nipped to the bank on the way in for the balance slip he asked for.  the bank machine was out of order so I went to another machine which gave a balance slip.
I said 'here's your slip dad - I couldn't get the statement as the machine was out of order'.
He took it from me. 'What's this?'
'Its the slip dad - your bank balance you asked me for - the bank machine was not working so I went to the other machine'.
'is this a receipt?'
'No - IT'S YOUR BANK BALANCE'
'Well that's no good is it - it does not have the transactions'

Thank God I don't have an easily wound up personality!