The War Medals and Vintage Sweetcorn,

 A blog about myself, daughter of an extreme hoarder parent who fell over on Christmas Day 2025 and broke 3 ribs. He’s currently in hospital thinking he can come home soon... He has terminal oesophageal cancer, kidney function issues, a bladder and a chest infection, asthma, diabetes, skin cancer and he’s 95. Meanwhile I’m running around like a blue-arsed fly trying to possibly make things safe at his house in case he gets sent home, yet being acutely aware he will have an uncanny ability to know if anything’s missing and he won’t be pleased. I have a job and family of my own. Slowly but surely, I’m losing the plot.

 

Before 

After

I'm both horrified and disbelieving of the two pictures above. For those of  you who love a good Spot the Difference test, the difference is three people, four hours and a LOT of graft and it looks virtually the same. Things are cleaner though and there is less of it.

I bought a 5ft tarpaulin on my way over and spread it on the ground. The plan was to take everything out and sort it outside. Chuck out everything which was a duplicate or was rubbish or broken, reduce the boxes and put the rest back. We didn't touch the kitchen table at all, However while my daughter and I started sorting into piles, Ant was meant to bring the boxes out, He brought out one box then disappeared. After we had finished 2 boxes, still no Ant so I went in to find him. He was curiously moving things around the counter and had moved things all over the rest of the kitchen. It's clear he's TERRIFIED of throwing dad's stuff out and so was moving everything onto the table, the cooker, everywhere. 

I said it was best to take it all out but again he did the same. My daughter and I did the clearing and Ant did churning - moving everything around the kitchen - not throwing anything out and stuck in a circle of fear. It's common in hoarders. We threw out a whole black bin full and 3 recycling bins full of papers, glass and plastics.

Finally we finished after 4 hours and had to take up and fold the tarpaulin again. As soon as we left the house, it began to rain. Immaculate timing - I am now trusting my late mother with the weather - it seems whenever I need it to be dry so we can sort, it is - and with a bit of a breeze to blow away the dust for good measure. When I need a day off, I know, because it'll be raining. I can't sort inside - there's no space and I can't breathe so if it's dry I will attempt a few hours. If it's raining then I have a day off. This is going to take YEARS to clear. I refuse to kill myself doing it.

I was on box 13 of about 17 of the day and having sorted out pen lids, bits of old stamps, paperclips, sticky elastic bands, crumbs, old discoloured coins and general shite, I was about to empty the final dregs into the bin when I spotted an old kind of ribbon thing. On closer inspection I found the following...

They are tiny medals.  I know my late Grandfather was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1918 aged 19 and this medal is dated 1918 and appears to be the Air Force Cross. I'm livid it wasn't given more respect than being left to rot in a box in the kitchen but am grateful I found them. Having googled little medals, it appears they are 'dresswear medals' so when someone was awarded a medal, they had the option to also have a mini version for wearing day to day on a pin on their jacket.  So although this isn't the original medal it's a damn good find. I have to find out how to restore it properly without damaging it and maybe have it mounted.  According to Google there were only 660 of these awarded between 1919 and 1932. I'm not sure where the original is.

Another vintage find - a tin of sweetcorn dated September 1996

Freddie car trips to the tip 0

What is making me mad? The amount of work put in with so little by way of a result

What is making me happy? Finding the medals

What is making me cry - anything and everything :(

What have I done to relax?  I watched skiing videos from my group in Cervinia Italy

Interesting finds The mini medals, some cufflinks given by my mum to my dad with a sweet note.