Phew.

This morning before breakfast, before the heat blasts everything into a furnace orbit,

 I crawl around in the dust of the loft. I want to see exactly what is up there before Hospice Care come and clear it.

 As well as loads of wood off-cuts and shelving units I find 2 portable 2 ring gas burners that I used to lug around with me when I did Healthy Eating cooking demonstrations - when I lived in the world of work and making ends meet.

I find a light fitting with a wide etched glass shade that used to hang above the kitchen table in St Albans - still packed up in the box we brought it in.....never hung in this house.

I make a mental note to review my plans to take light fittings from here to my new home.

When I come back from the dump - off loading all the big appliance boxes and packaging - not sure why we kept them - there is another bundle of papers from my solicitor on the door mat. We are getting close to exchanging contracts.

I'm already wobbly and tearful and tired and go into total overwhelm when  I start reading it all and  try to  understand what I need to do. It even looks like the plan on the original title of deeds in 1960 is different from the one I think I'm buying - the shape of the plot is not the same.

So I ring my solicitor and when she asks me how I am I automatically say  "Fine."Then I say, 

"Actually I'm finding it all overwhelming and stressful and confusing."

 So she says,

"Why don't you make and appointment and come and see me on Monday  and we can go through it all."

Phew.

Fortunately I have a dear friend coming to supper who I haven't seen for a year, so to ground myself I tie on an apron  - which reminds me who I am - and I roll out buttery oat pastry and bake an asparagus and Cheddar quiche. I pod broad beans and grill courgettes and make a mustardy dressing with garlic, chopped dill and lemon. I scrub new potatoes, tear up cos lettuce leaves and slice tomatoes and cucumber for a salad.

I wash fat black cherries for afters.

She arrives  with a bottle of prosecco and we sit at the patio table under the shade of the umbrella and    catch up with our lives...remembering when we first met at Cranks restaurant nearly 40 years ago. She was a baker and I was a cook.

We both still bake and cook  - to settle ourselves -  when the world seems hard and overwhelming.

Phew.