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Saturday (written Sunday morning):

I knew yesterday was going to be challenging but it turned out ok. We went to mum's house to go through some of mum's stuff with my brother. I felt it was my duty. The difficulty was that my brother is a hoarder. He didn't want to throw out anything. I basically had to pretend I wanted all of mum's clothes for myself. I filled up the car with bags of clothes that are all going to charity the moment I pass one of those donation bins. Couldn't fit any more in the car. So I left bags of old shoes, expired medication and old makeup, paperwork like "phone bills 1992-1999" - Darren may or may not get rid of them. He said he'll go through them, but a lot of times he was resisting throwing out stuff because he thought he would find a use for it someday. Typical hoarder. I've done what I could, on one trip at least. At least he was willing for me to take things if he thought I actually wanted it myself.

The really good part was that Darren seems to be doing much better than I expected. The house was clean and didn't smell at all, so maybe he's got some control over the food hoarding part. No more rotting food all over the kitchen! He says he's been having dinner at our Popa's house regularly too. He's still enjoying his part time barista work. So that is all really good. With his issues, I was expecting much worse.

Food yesterday wasn't great. There isn't much choice on the long drive, no towns, just fast food next to petrol stations. We had KFC for a change instead of McDonalds. I only had one piece, it was so greasy and horrible. Dinner was so much nicer. We went to the restaurant in our hotel but we were so hungry we had all three courses, very unusual for us. Really nice food. And a cocktail. I shared my dessert, but my stomach was really uncomfortable by the time we got back to our room. Like it was going to burst. Not a good feeling.

Bad night sleep in a hard hotel bed with a wriggly child.