Hi HilaryB,
I must admit that I should write a new Will but I haven't actually done it (despite knowing that I ought to, for several years) - although part of my problem is no close family, and I'm not sure who I want to leave my assets to. Plus, of course, I don't think I'm going to die in the near future ! To somewhat complicate things, I was significantly depressed a few years ago, and my motivation to do almost anything, 'often seems rather lacking' (I'm not sure how much of that is a result of the period of depression, and how much is due to age and increasing grumpiness: think 'Victor Meldrew's grumpier brother' and that is probably pretty-much me).
But as I spend much of my e-mail time arguing about various end-of-life issues with what feels like 'much of the NHS', it is definitely perverse that I have not written a new Will !
Most of us do this - I think it was Joan Bakewell, who pointed out in a newspaper piece that many elderly people know they should be thinking about moving into a care home, but 'we don't want to face that, so we avoid thinking about it' (my phrasing).
This 'not thinking or talking about things we look away from' is a serious complication for the loved-by-the-NHS concept of 'advance care planning [for end-of-life]' - there are inherent problems with ACP in the way the NHS tends to use it, but there is also the fact that if patients have not accepted they are dying, it is 100% impossible to properly do any sort of ACP.