47) When life gives you lemons - it'll probably give you even more lemons.

                                                                            Before

After

                                                        At the recycling centre

 Saturday 8th August 2026.  We decided to tackle a bit of the garage today. The strategy was that if we could get that clear then we would have somewhere to put things from the house that we may need to get out of the way during the big clear which me may want to sell or donate.  The issue being that currently if we pull something out from the hoard which needs to be kept, there is still nowhere to put it other than on top of another pile - this becomes counter-productive as we have to move the same things again and again. 

We opened the garage and it was so full, there was a mini avalanche of dust and stuff. We shut the door again. We swore. Should we just go to the pub instead? No. It was 10 O'clock on a Saturday morning. We decided to crack on.

We dragged a ton of stuff out and found an old valve type radio, a newspaper from the day after King George V funeral. A few bundles of Children's Encyclopaedia magazines, which, it turns out, makes a lovely mouse nest, a christening card from my own funeral, a vomit inducing piece of 1960's carpet and lots of bits of wood, plasterboard, metal and more mouse nests.

We stuffed the car full the poor thing was creaking. We managed to close the boot and off we went. 

I live in a mountainous area and our local recycling centre is on a very steep hill. Saturday is a very silly time to go to the council tip, because everyone goes there on a Saturday. We got in the queue and after 59 minutes, we were at the front. Just as we were being called up, my partner put his foot on the clutch to take off and BANG it  hit the floor. Clutch gone, very expensive and very embarrassing. we managed to get it to the side. 

Fair play to the workers, they coned us off and directed everything around us. We rang the RAC. After listening to various stupid and irrelevant messages we got through to an actual person (I know!). We told person that my partner was diabetic and we had broken down miles from a shop or food source and he had eaten his emergency rations and was getting hungry. Please could they be quick. Three more calls and three hours later they arrived.  The man had a look and declared it 'BROKE'. He said he couldn't tow it as it was a 4x4 so he would call the tow truck... it may be some time. He did offer my partner his own sandwiches, bless him.

The site closed at 5 and at 4.30 the RAC was sending texts saying they would be there between 3-5. At 4.30 this changed to between 8 and 11 that night.  This was for an emergency. The last time I spoke to them to explain our situation as partner was getting low on blood sugar ,despite the sandwiches, low on patience and extremely arsey. I said it could turn into an emergency as he was diabetic and we had no food and, helpfully, he said if it was a medical emergency, I should call the emergency services. Well I'd never have thought of doing that if he hadn't said. Helpful chap.

We ended up leaving the car at the site overnight and it was collected the following day - Sunday.

Sunday was the day I was going to church for the first time in many years. It was dad's church and I wanted to get all the 'sorry to hear about your dad' comments out of the way before the funeral. I was also going to meet the Vicar at the funeral home afterwards so he could give dad the prayers of committal. I was expecting to go alone, knowing my partner never liked my dad and not expecting any support from him. However my daughters offered to come with me and were a great support.

We got through it between us. Dad's been given his committal prayer so has his passport and ticket and is ready for the onwards journey now.