I went and met the funeral director on Tuesday morning. Their office is in Canadian, so no distance from here. We arranged the most basic funeral possible. Cheap coffin, no frills, bells or whistles. I wasn't very happy with paying an extra $550 for an out of hours pick up. They had collected Jim on Sunday evening and I couldn't see why it couldn't have waited until 09:00 on Monday morning. Oh well. What's done is done and has to be paid for!
I was slightly surprised by the amount it costs to get death certificates. And I was completely stunned by the amount death notices cost in the papers. I hadn't realised that anyone still put death notices in the papers but apparently they do. And to put a very basic, very short notice in the Herald Sun in Melbourne has a starting price of $880. That simply has to be a profit for the paper of around $850. I put a notice on Facebook and Instagram, which reached lots of people right around the world for the grand total of $0.
I would not wish you to think I am mercenary or penny pinching but paying oodles of noodles for unnecessary funeral fripperies seems terribly wasteful to me. Even so, this non-funeral cost a shade under $5500 which does include the crematorium but doesn't include probate. I am not thinking about probate right now. I can't do anything until I get the death certificate and that might take a few weeks, apparently.
I have, however, spoken to Jim's various British pension people. It was much less troublesome than I expected it to be, although I am slightly worried that I haven't had emails from two of the companies even though they said they would send them. If you send important things by the post from the UK they usually take weeks to get here and then the snails eat them unless I get to the letter box very quickly. True snail mail!
None of the pension companies wanted a death certificate or even confirmation in writing. This was also a bit disconcerting. I could have been anyone, although I could answer all their identity questions.
Now I am (slowly) sorting through Jim's clothes and things. There aren't actually all that many things. He didn't have much in his room and anything that was still here found its place over a year ago. Clothes are relatively easy. Again, there wasn't a huge lot, and either I will take possession of things that are still wearable or they can go to the op shop.
Lindsey and I went out yesterday to get a new power cord for my Apple TV. There is one somewhere but I can't find it. Obviously I don't use the Apple TV all that often (and not at all latterly) but it is an effective way of putting photo slideshows on the TV. I have been collecting photos of Jim in a folder on the laptop, ready for his party on September 10th.
We might have had lunch while we were out. And I bought a new dish rack. The dishwasher has apparently decided that it is now a floor washer instead. This is not very useful when you actually want to wash dishes so I have been washing them by hand. Alas, the existing dish rack was too small even for a light load of dishes. I have put a new dishwasher on my list of things to do/buy but for now it is quite a long way down the bottom
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