Monday 4 April 2022

Day 747

Day 747...

Today has been a busy and productive Monday.

It started out with a phone call from our local register office who I'd left a message with on Friday afternoon. Very impressed that not only were they getting in touch on the next working day but it was actually before their official opening time of 9am! 

But they were lovely and were able to help me obtain a special reference number for my dads death that will enable me to register with the 'Tell Us Once' service. Because my dads death is under the coroner and is likely to go to an inquest we are unable to register his death in the normal way and instead have an 'interim death certificate', issued by the coroner. This meant trying to track down someone who was able to generate the correct reference number for us. We are now able to advise a number of government departments about my dad in just one go by using an online service.

Our next job of the day was to visit our funeral directors of choice to sort out the necessary arrangements. My brother and his wife were also there and we have decided that we will be having what is called a 'direct cremation'. This means that there will be no formal service and that simply my dad will be cremated and we will then collect the ashes and arrange for a scattering. Once we have dad's ashes we will then need to make arrangements for the ashes to be scattered within the same area that my mum's remains were laid at our local crematorium.

We then stopped by my dad's house to check for any mail as well as to carry out a little DIY. We had found that the door to the bathroom was not on its hinges so armed with screwdrivers and screws we took a few minutes to re-hang the door. 

Next we headed towards Derby in search of a home improvement store and on the way we had an Amazon return to drop off. At the said home improvement store Simon was able to pick up a new, extra fine saw ahead of the next stage of assembling our workspace in our new study/craft room (aka Molly's old bedroom!). And then it was time to stop for a coffee and a car wash; taking advantage of the jet wash next door to a Starbucks. 

While at Starbucks I received a text from a couple that my dad used to see at his pub of choice who were asking if they could attend his funeral. I explained that there would be no funeral as such but that we were hoping to arrange a get together at the aforementioned pub to celebrate my dads life and I would be in touch.

On the way home we stopped by my dad's favourite pub to see about making some arrangements. The landlady immediately knew who we were and expressed her condolences and was only too happy to be able to sort something out for us. We were also able to meet the couple dad had always spoke about as they were actually in the pub having a meal; perfect timing. It was lovely to chat with people who knew my dad and had memories to share with us. So on the 25th April we will all come together and be able to celebrate and remember my dad.

After a quick spot of late lunch Simon and I then started the next phase of assembling our craft space. We had end panels to cut to size, hence the new saw, along with tackling the two 2.4 metre lengths of worktop and figuring out how they would sit together. 

According to the instructions from Ikea the two worktops are designed to sit next to each other at a ninety degree angle. But Simon had already done a little online research into how to join the two pieces together which involved some clever cutting; as it was there was a little damage to one corner of one of the worktops which forced us to go with the fancy cutting option. We very diligently measured and remeasured and worked out how to cut 45 degree angles. Simon was able to make all the necessary cuts and the two worktops married up perfectly. He was then able to turn them over and make the necessary cuts to allow fixing bolts to be set in place; all very professional looking.

We then had the awkward job of getting both, very long and very heavy, worktops upstairs into our soon to be study/craft room. I was pleasantly surprised that I had the strength to help Simon move them and get them into place. We laid them in place and then realised that we had a slight problem! 

I think we had been so fixated on the damage to one of the corners of the worktops that we had inadvertently made the cuts to join the tops together opposite to what we'd intended. Initially we couldn't believe the error that we'd made and were resigned to 'make do' which would have meant cutting about sixty centimetres off the end of one of the worktops. Thankfully Simon had the common sense to realise that as the room is pretty much square and the layout we have planned involves an 'L-shaped' worktop we simply need to reverse our original plan and everything will still fit and we won't have to loose any of the worktop after all - phew!

And with that our day was done; a busy day with more achieved than I think either of us thought was going to be possible today.

See you tomorrow.
xx

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