Darling Uncle

Darling uncle is in hospital. He has one kidney now not working. I don't think he realises that he is actually quite poorly, nor do I think he has a realistic idea about the sort of things the hospital are likely to want in place before he is discharged.

I am not currently going to try and visit him. I am trying to ring him now and again, as he can sometimes get reception on the ward.

I am coping less than I would like, as it is not only the massive upset that my darling uncle, who really is a darling (stubborn, awkward, opinionated darling) is poorly but there are a lot of consequences to any change in the status quo.

His bungalow, which looks like a 'before' and is heaped with loads and loads of things, needs to be cleared and cleaned. I will not be in a position to help with that, it will all fall to my brothers. I hate that. All mixed up with rubbish and half filled seed packets and empty fruit trays are some beautiful (and dirty and dusty) antiques. So many of our family travelled, and brought back stuff, including a beautiful geisha doll under a glass dome, brought back from Japan nearly fifty years ago. It needs to be all sorted and cleared and rearranged before he will be considered safe there by any Social Services representative.

Many years ago we went into his shed. It was a large shed, full of 'stuff'. There were jars and jars of screws, rusty tools, unidentified containers probably containing oil, bike parts, lawnmower bits and just junk. The shed had been flooded several times and it was all in heaps. It took a major feat of persuasion for me to get him to throw out one rusty pruning saw. In the end the shed was picked up by a digger and squashed into an outsize skip when they put flood defences in his garden. Darling uncle will put up a stern resistance to things being thrown out. Or changed. Or anyone suggesting that he needs to do anything different. I don't know how things will pan out.