I am still alive, but partially numb. This is my first day alone since Brian left and I cried a bit, but stayed in bed a good portion of the day. The past week has been very busy and my body told me to take a break, so I did and I feel a bit more human now. I give you all a piece of advice, and it's one I learned when my mother died 26 years ago. Do not accumulate piles of crap your next of kin will have to go through. Do you really want them to have to sort through rotten old underwear you never wore but kept at the back of the drawer? The multiple copies of out of focus snapshots of your children taken all on the same day from slightly different angles? If the photos are important to you, put them in an album, or at least weed out the ones where people's heads got cut off, or there are 3 copies of. Moving across the earth really sharpened my mind as to what was important and what isn't. When you are paying by the pound to move stuff you ask yourself how valuable things are. I have one box containing all the memorabilia of my life to the point of moving to Australia, with stuff like high school yearbooks etc.

The Bear's firstborn and I cleaned out masses of stuff from his bedroom like boxes of old Scientific Americans and lots of old software manuals and bits of code from ages past. The recycle bin will overflow this week and several weeks after, since I haven't ventured into his lair. And then there's the shed. Unfortunately the last few weeks caused him to forget all his passwords so I shall have to call upon a work-mate to hack into the Big Computer to get access to some things. I am accumulating photos to make a slide show for his memorial/celebration service. His life has gone through various stages and I want to document as much as I can of that, whether it being a new dad or a high-atmosphere physicist. I have some distinct gaps that I will need to try and fill. Dear MIL returns tomorrow so I'll have assistance again. Better go eat something.