We've been in our house for eight days now, and today handed back the keys of our rental in York. We were happy there, and it was quiet and very central, so I had a lump in my throat, but we are both so pleased to be shot of the burden of being in someone else's house and worried if you spill something or grate your chair on the wooden floor.
We should get most of our deposit back, though it will take two or three weeks, so that's good too.
The relentless process of getting men round and unpacking and finding places to put things continues. Tomorrow, I dread a visit to the dentist to have a fractured wisdom tooth extracted. It's all a case of early to bed and getting up early - there'll be a nine o'clock visit tomorrow (also) to get our washing machine plumbed in.
But we are glad to be in. I love life in this North Yorkshire gem. And though I never visited Easingwold with my mother, I find the process continuing, ever since we moved back to Yorkshire, of having all sorts of childhood memories resurfacing again, and pangs of sadness assail me as I remember that I can't enjoy chatting to Mum about them any more.
I have five brothers and sisters, but two of them are virtually estranged, and another two 'polite but distant', so it's only my eldest sister that I can talk to now about these memories, and because she's eight years older than me, we don't always have the same ones.
I regret so much that my younger sister 'turned on me' when I was organising Mum's care. I have kept it polite with her, refused to give her the breach that she wanted at the time, and I'm glad of that. But now that I know how she feels about me, and how she has persistently misconstrued my motives & personality, things can never really be the same. We write to each other but it's very formal, so I count her as 'estranged' emotionally. The other one that I am rarely in contact with is my younger brother. His wife forced him to choose between his mother and family and her, so we only ever get 'business'-type emails from him.
So the past is lost to me, except for these fugitive memories, which I can, however, share with my husband - we have a very intense relationship.
It has taken us two years, since Mum's death, to relocate back up North. What a struggle! But it has definitely been worth it.