Finding Enough

April began in dramatic fashion with a wildfire in the Galloway Hills that we could see out of the window! Even if you live in the UK, you probably didn’t see it on the news, as despite it burning for 5 days and extending to 45 miles in length at one point, not many people live here, so it’s not very news worthy. The first night I saw a red glow behind the ruined barn, when I went to lock the door at bedtime. I wandered out with a torch, expecting to see the rear lights of some kind of farm vehicle in the field behind, but was astonished to see the hill in the distance aglow. I assumed that unless there had been some kind of alien invasion, it must be a wildfire, but there was no mention on any of the local social media groups. Having been quite close to the California fires in January, we we kept a close eye on developments, but thankfully it spread away from us.

I had a days consultancy work lined up in Manchester on 7th April, so travelled down the night before. Just before I left, I had a call from Dad to say that Mum had been admitted to hospital after a GP appointment about a UTI turned into an ambulance trip. She was admitted on the Friday, but by that Sunday, routine treatment had not resulted in any improvement. They should know more when she has a scan on Monday. Mum seemed in reasonable spirits on Sunday, responding to Whatsapp messages and we agreed to a call the next night when I got back from my trip and after she’d had the results of the scan. Sadly we never got to have that call.

When Dad visited on the Monday, she was very confused and he struggled to have a conversation. On the Tuesday, he wasn’t sure she knew he was there at all. She certainly wasn’t able to communicate. The doctor confirmed that despite trying escalating doses, strengths and combinations of antibiotics, nothing was working and there was now very little they could do but make her comfortable.

Mr Wombat and I drove down the next day, not sure if we would get there in time. We did, but the person we visited in hospital really wasn’t my mother in any meaningful sense. She died 4 days later.

Mum had been suffering from a chronic condition that had been slowly erroding her mobility and dexterity for almost 20 years. The new annexe that we helped to move them into last month was specifically designed to be wheelchair accessible without “looking like a disabled person’s house”, and was largely to her own design. She only got to live there for a little over a week. Although her health had not been ‘good’ for years, no-one expected the scarily rapid decline she suffered at the end.

Mr Wombat stayed for a week, helping me to sort out the house which was still full of boxes. He then drove home while I stayed another week and a half, helping Dad with the formalities – and showing him how the washing machine works. Mum was much more digitally literate than Dad and did all of the admin side of things, including anything official. He’s been left rather overwhelmed and lost. Her filing system had always been a bit of a mystery to everyone else, I suspect being based more on what she could reach without asking for help, rather than any scientific method. This was compounded by being packed up for the recent move. I eventually found the latest copy of their wills in a random zipped document wallet together with expired passports and kitchen design catalogues from the early 90s. The current passports took a bit more hunting for, but they were eventually uncovered in a plastic pencil case at the bottom of a drawer filled mainly with ink cartridges and labels. If you read last month’s post, you will know that she was struggling to let go of things in order to downsize, so there was a lot to go through to find the important things.

As well as the normal administration surrounding a death, my parents’ car was provided by the motability scheme in return for part of Mums monthly disability benefit. This was actually the thing that caused Dad the most anxiety – being stuck without a car. My brother managed to find him a small cheap run-around though a contact of his, to keep him going for now while everything else settles down. I take for granted being able to compare insurance and breakdown cover quotes online relatively easily (it is still one of my least favourite jobs). I dread to think what Dad would have ended up paying if he had just called a random insurer he remembers using in the past. I was a bit concerned what the cost would be at his age with no formal no-claims discount. He was a named driver on the motability car, and not all insurers count that. The range of quotes was enormous (from £388 to £1671), but several providers that we had heard of, and that have reasonable ratings, were not vastly more than my annual premium. Just goes to show that it pays to shop around. We paid the extra £20 to enable him to operate the account over the phone.

My parents were of a generation that didn’t talk about money, so I had no idea of their financial position, and was a bit shocked at the situation, now Dad needs help managing it. Mum’s condition meant she was in receipt of disability benefits prior to retirement age, which continued once she was entitled to state pension. This was a large chunk of their monthly income. Dad has a decent state pension uplift due to SERPS contributions, but I was shocked to discover he only has one miniscule private pension, which bought a tiny annuity when he retired. He is not on the bread line, but having had a decent middle class job all his working life, I had assumed he had reasonable pension provision. Just goes to show, you can’t tell.

It is a very simple estate and will, so the solicitor suggested I apply for probate myself online. When I heard their charges for doing it, I agreed! When it comes to supporting Dad, my brother is time poor, but local. I have more time, but am far from close by. I am an executor and can do the probate administration remotely and FIRE has given me the time and flexibility to drop everything for a while, which I am very grateful for. Most people have to deal with all this as well as a full time job.

After a very tough 2 and a half weeks of dealing with registrars, funeral directors and banks etc as well as hard physical work unpacking and finding all the things Dad needed, I finally headed home on the train quite drained. Sadly, the second of three trains was 25 minutes late, when I only had 12 minutes to make my connection, so I spent a lot longer than planned at Birmingham New Street. I finally arrived at my destination about 2 hrs late. It does seem that there is some hope of compensation, but not being a regular train user, I am not yet sure how easy or likely this is.

I was very glad to get home. Spring had arrived in full force while I was away – lambs, bees, blossom and bluebells greeted me and the cuckoos and swallows have returned.

The Freedom Fund didn’t have a good April either and is down for the third month in a row.

Freedom fund value – £1,311,421 (down almost 19k on last month),

Expenditure – £1,976.50 (or a 1.81% withdrawal rate) including renovation costs, or £1,926.50 (or a 1.76% withdrawal rate) without renovation costs

Earned income – £0

Unusually, our expenses were higher before renovation costs this month; that’s not a typo. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that there wasn’t any progress on the renovation in April, so no associated costs. We had a £50 refund from the company we bought the radiators from in March due to some minor damage. It is purely cosmetic and we can mount the radiator so that it is at the back and not visible, but it’s always worth negotiating.

Overall it was a low cost month, with just travel costs and increased grocery spend in the name of convenience (and in 2 different places for a while). The consultancy work I did in April has now been invoiced, but I don’t expect it to be paid until the end of June.

Non financial goals didn’t fair too much better this month, but some progress was still made.

Reduce plastic waste by making one change every month – April saw me make the switch from regular roll on deodorant to Fussy. I had been thinking about it for a while, but setting myself this challenge made me actually get on and do it. I like the idea of a product that targets the bacteria that causes the smell, rather than a regular anti-perspirant, but there’s always the worry that it won’t actually work. They say that you should give it 2-4 weeks for your body to adapt, so I thought getting started before any risk of summer heat was a good thing (although that risk is always pretty low in Scotland). So far, so good. I’ll let you know if that changes.

Do something creative every month – It probably won’t come as a shock that I missed this entirely in April, having to cancel the art group workshop that was in my diary. I do have an informal outdoor sketching meet up planned later in May, but that’s going to be weather dependent. Can this glorious weather last that long?

Record the birds and mammals spotted around the house each month – despite not being here for a good chunk of the month, the tally for April is still quite impressive, with a lot of migrant birds returning that haven’t been seen for months.

There were a few high spots in April. I managed to get my seed potatoes planted at the very start of the month, and we joined a coastal foraging walk on the 27th that we had booked some time ago. As well as learning about seaweeds, we went hunting for razor clams at low tide. They shoot up spurts of water when they feel the vibration of your footsteps and they start to burrow down. If you are quick, and immediately pour salt on their burrow, they pop up out of the sand!

We ate a couple raw at the picnic at the end of the afternoon (delicious – a bit like scallop) and brought several home which I lightly steamed, just until they opened and served as part of a pasta dish, which made the texture a bit more like squid. Yum.