It is astonishing to think that a week has gone by since the funeral. I have slowly felt things getting back to normal and, just as astonishingly, this has seemed to happen very quickly.

I've been back to work, and meeting friends, only two of whom know about dad's death. I feel no need to tell others about it. In fact, I would rather not endure their awkwardness or sympathies. Instead, I have begun to sort out the loose ends that surround the death.

Derek, who is now back in the UK, has been in touch with the relevant government departments and Rolls Royce to find out what we need to do about dad's pensions. I've provided him with the pension numbers and various other bits of bureaucratic gobbledygook that they need. We still need to organised notarised copies of the powers of attorney and the death certificate.

I also began to go through the boxes of mum and dad's belongings that I brought back to my place. First the files, to make progress on the pensions, then the more personal stuff. I scrubbed one of dad's toolboxes, the plastic one, and used it to replace my old metal cantilevered one, which was rusted the day I bought it, in October 1976, at the start of my Fine Art course.

Next, I began to clean all the old record sleeves. Most of these records are from the World Record Club (NZ). They cover the more popular classics, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Bizet and Ravel, and the crooners, Sinatra, Reeves, which were probably mum's choices, and movie themes, My Fair Lady, and comic opera, which could have been dad's. There are also some later ones, Music For Pleasure, bought in the UK I believe, and including Roy Castle and more movie themes, Where Eagles Dare. Still later, records from Turkey and China. There are a few dozen children's stories too, which I've mentioned here before. And one complete surprise - Maxine Nightingale.

I remember listening to nearly al the records I am seeing again today. There were several romantic song collections, featuring fireside sleeve designs, which my mother used to play during the day. I remember thinking, as a young child, that such romantic fireside liaisons would happen to me one day, but the day hasn't arrived yet.

Considering that dad's mother was a piano teacher and mum's father was a church organist, my parents themselves were rather unmusical. The last music I can remember them getting excited about was Jesus Christ Superstar (that was one of mum's obsessions for a while, as was either Godspell or Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) and ABBA (dad, of course).

I have been writing this during a break from the cleaning work. I shall get back to it now.