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It is pouring rain and the telephone isn’t working, so I can neither do business nor drag all the drawers outside and air out the house – I guess the universe is saying that it’s okay to just eat and sleep for a few days – I am bone tired…

Saltoun is sold, I think (subject to contract, and the surveyor’s report)… it was on the market for less than two weeks before we got an offer that seemed almost perfect – actually two, but we accepted the one from the folks that I really liked, and whom I thought would be both good for the house and good new blood for the village… plus their own house was practically sold, and as everyone kept saying “a bird in the hand…” I accepted the offer on april 30th, and by may 15th, yesterday, when I left, the house was empty. That has to be the hardest thing I have ever done in my life… Some of the contents went into the studio, which we are keeping (plus the potting shed underneath, which is a wonderful storage room), some is coming on a truck to menorca, and a large quantity was taken away by Bradleys to be auctioned off at Tennants, that most salubrious and reputable auction house in Leyburn. Rodney Tennant has become quite a friend, as has Greg Bradley, their carrier, who is personally driving out the stuff that’s coming here – I have indeed been well looked after… also, two different old friends (ex boyfriends both) came to help me through the process and both turned up trumps in their own way. I am a lucky girl – mustn’t forget, as my heart breaks over the passing of an era…

It was the books that did me in… Tennants took all the hardbacks, many, many of them, including all the Churchilliana – his memoirs inscribed by him to my father, etc. – but there were still several hundred paperbacks, and I thought I would leave them for the buyers, who said they were happy to inherit whatever… but that final morning the charity shop van driver, who has become a fixture over the past few weeks, came for his last load and said he’d love to take the books, and the next thing I know he and Wallace were stripping the shelves in Pa’s study, loading all the books into plastic carrier bags, and I just lost it… books are the soul of a house, it seems to me, and it felt like rape and pillage… I shut myself in the (empty) sitting room and bawled my eyes out for fifteen minutes – first really good cry I’ve had since this all started, I guess it was a good thing in the end… someone else came from the village jumble and took a whole load of books and trinkets – and so the cycle continues… es la vida… but I felt like such a betrayer there for a moment, letting the looters in… however, the luristan bronzes and islamic pottery will hopefully go to a museum with mum’s name on the collection, and I have boxes of both of their letters and journals and photos up in the attic of the studio… I have done my best, my very best… and now I need some rest… I need some gina time for a while… Sayonara, Saltoun…

Well, I have finally booked myself a ticket for Menorca, in a month’s time. I’ve been waiting to see my way clear here but I now realise that that day may never come, so I just have to call it quits at some point, at least for the time being. As time goes by, it just seems to get harder… to quote the Other Immortal Bard, “it doesn’t get easier, it just gets later.”

The house goes on the market this week. In spite of taking the pills religiously, I still lie awake at night wondering if I’m doing the right thing, dismantling the family legacy. I know we can’t afford to keep this place. I know the overheads are beyond us. I know Diana can’t live here and it’s too big for me alone even if I wanted to stay and make my life here, which I’m not sure I would want to do anyway – have to check back in with new york first… I know we need to sell this in order to hang on to menorca. I know it’s not my life, here, but my parents’. But still I wonder if I couldn’t find a way to preserve it… it seems so awful to dismantle such an amazing legacy… especially as at this point in time, its monetary value has dropped through the floor… Progress (in terms of the dismantling) is so heartbreakingly slow… partly outside circumstances – lawyers, agents, it all takes time, especially trying to find the right homes for all their collections – but partly also because my sister can only do about one thing a day and then her brain packs up, and if I try and move faster without her, things invariably go belly up. This would be hard enough without the emotional roller-coaster rides… but that’s where we’re at, and it’s no good wishing things were different. It’s what is. We are putting the house on the market, but for the moment hanging on to the two adjoining bits – the annexe/my studio, and the rented cottage. Partly, mostly, because a total break with the place seems impossible right now; to keep the cottage means a tiny bit of income (and we don’t want to disrupt the tenants’ lives if we can help it); and the studio means a place to put the stuff we want to hang on to for now… perhaps it would be simpler to just cut loose and let go of it all – if we could find a buyer – one of the agents advised against it, as it would make the package pretty pricey and might scare off potential house buyers… but maybe it would be easier to find someone who wanted all of it together, and just divest… who knows? my head is reeling, I’m drowning in a sea of possibilities… in a sea of stuff… so much stuff… so many attachments… so many decisions…

Hard to believe it’s only a little over 2 weeks since I was in Egypt. What an amazing trip… the diem was righteously carped: not only did I see Cairo from an insider’s point of view – 30 million people and no traffic lights, think about it (altho’ I must be the only person to go to cairo and NOT see the pyramids and the cairo museum – actually I did see them, but from the other side of town, from the top of the Citadel on that first morning when the sky was so clear, before the sandstorm blew in) – I also realised 2 dreams of a lifetime: glorious Alexandria for 2 days (the book market by night, the new library, the perfect museum, the mediterranean) – I had said I wanted to sip a beer on a terrace overlooking the sea and hey presto, lunch at the Greek Club, out by the old Fort, as the tail of the sandstorm whipped up the sea (no sand left in the wind, thankfully) so it looked like the Moray Firth on a summer’s day); and best of all, 2 days in the desert – the Black Desert, the White Desert, the Crystal Mountain – sleeping under the stars in the white desert, just me and pesha and Kookah our guide – who needs drugs when you have that hallucinagenic landscape? I covered way more miles than any sane person should in the course of a week, but we had such a good time, it was worth every one of them. I just want to go back, and go deeper in… As a final bonus, after a felucca ride on the Nile my last afternoon back in Cairo, I had an over-night in Istanbul on the way back which afforded me a few early morning hours in the grand Bazaar, where I loaded up on bling to bring back to sis as baksheesh… and then straight down to Devon for Easter weekend with good friends – how can I complain??

But none of which got me off the hook for this part… Absolutely nothing got done while I was gone, not even the mail opened. It was all waiting for me when I got back, ever more present and unaccounted for… Sam survived very well, however, living in the studio and being fed by sweet Angela next door… talking of which, I need to find him a home for 2 months while I’m in menorca. yes I bought the ticket but have not figured out how it’s going to work. But I know I need to go and deal with the aftermath out there – hopefully I will also get some real down time as well, alone time, and writing time… god knows I need it… Orfeo has been put on hold, altho’ I may go over just for a week (I’d still have to do all the work, for a fraction of the fee – hmm…) I must just trust… ’tain’t what you do, it’s the way how you do it…

Talking of which, I did my solo gig in Reeth – I was going to have special guests join me for the 2nd half, to wit, sis, but she got sick of course so it was truly solo and actually I had a great time. The hall was packed, I converted the stage to my living room (they provided a perfectly decent roland piano and a floor lamp, I supplied the rest), and Phil, musician friend from Newbiggin, was sound man, roadie and driver – the latter very important, as it meant I could drink not only during but after the gig and not have to drive that insanely tortuous road home through Arkengarthdale. The set list was a mixed bag – my songs, brecht, music hall, you name it, I don’t suppose they’d ever seen or heard anything like it, but I made the choir a pot of money – could have done with some of it myself, but hey ho, what else is new? Count your blessings, girl…

I thought looking after mum was hard, but compared to this it was a walk in the park…. 6 weeks later, the dust still hasn’t settled, but I am wading through the mounds of paperwork, and the endless phone calls, and the contents of the house, while being asked daily to make decisions that seem way beyond me…. I guess this is what it is to be in the front line… I know that some day this will all be behind me and the next chapter will be here, whatever that is… I ask only to be able to weather this with good grace, to accept the good fortune and to tread lightly through the rest… I get to sing in the St. Matthew Passion this weekend in Durham Cathedral, and the following day in the Faure Requiem in a tiny church in Swaledale, and then I go to Cairo for a week to see Pesha (if I can get my shots in time), so things will be on hold for a while. Look on the bright side…

Meanwhile, although spring showed its face briefly last week, we now have another 3 or 4 inches of snow – it’s been alternating all day between total white-out and siberian blizzards followed by brief patches of sunshine, in very rapid succession… good that yesterday I made two major dump runs, plus 15 giant bags to the local charity shop… and the friends who came to lunch today turn out to own an incinerator, so they left with two giant boxes of old paper… progress is being made. I even paid the outstanding £1000 heating bill. Plus I get to meet with lawyers and realtors later this week. Huzzah… as a friend said, “you should be so lucky, to have such problems!”

And now she’s really gone – we had the thanksgiving service last weekend, and the cremation yesterday…

The service was wonderful… a gloriously cold, crisp, sunny day, the little cotherstone church was packed to the rafters, the sun shone through the stained glass windows onto the flowers, the tributes were wonderful and everyone sang lustily – particularly the Battle Hymn of the Republic, which mum had requested to see her out (we kept only the first verse, sis writing a second one that was more appropriate to the occasion) – who knew that the wonderful village organist could give so rousing a rendition? and then the house bursting at the seams with villagers and friends from all points for tea and sandwiches and stronger libations, dwindling down to the core group and way too much whisky late into the night. It was a fitting send-off – I think she would have thoroughly enjoyed it… the cremation was much harder, but just family, so keeping it together wasn’t so important. and so it is done.

We’ve had family and friends around all week, which has been hugely helpful… next week, when they’re all gone and it’s just me and sis trying to figure out what to do with all this – and the future – then the really hard part begins…. but step by step… I’m probably going to sign off from this for now… I’ll be in touch…

Well, she’s gone.

As was to be expected of her, she made a quick and brilliant exit when the time came that she was getting zero pleasure out of life. Wednesday night she was in the sitting room in front of the fire with a whisky and soda (albeit weak and in a wheelchair), thursday morning she sat in on her customary literature class via skype from her bed (happened to be on Herrick this week, her favourite 17th century poet) and she was gone by 8pm that night – last night… it is the end of an era…

We are in deep mid-winter here in Cotherstone, with a foot and a half of snow and counting. Last night was extraordinarily beautiful – bitter cold and crystal clear, with a big bright shiny moon and lots of stars – perfect for travel to the stars… and this morning it started to snow again…. Sister is stuck up in northern Scotland, snowbound, so I am on my own – hard, but perhaps a blessing in disguise.

My mother was an amazing lady – and an elegant one, who kept her sense of humour ’til the end, in spite of it all. It was a privilege to have spent the past year and some months with her, and I have done what I came to do. I will be here for some time yet, sorting out the aftermath. What comes next I have no idea – but then, when have I ever?