AND HOW WAS YOUR WEEK?

It’s been a rough week this week.
Not mentally, but physically.

I woke up this morning (at 10am!!) to storm damage across the town.
Apparently we had a pretty big storm last night, not that I really knew anything about it.
I’ve been battling a flu all week and it has been sitting in my ears making me quite deaf. I feel like I have my head in a bucket of water. I can hear myself talking and eating and I really have to have the TV turned up if I’m watching it, I have tinnitus that sounds like a whooshing constantly but other than that…. nothing. I can’t even hear myself tapping on the keyboard as I write this.
I believe this is a condition called Eustachian tube dysfunction and I’ve had it before.
Annoying as it is, it will eventually go away.

It all started last Thursday as I woke up to an irritation in my throat and nose. It felt like the start of a cold and nothing major. I did a lateral flow test that confirmed it wasn’t anything to worry about and I just got on with my day.
Friday was pretty much the same. It felt like a bad cold. LFT was negative, so I just got on with my day like I had a bad cold.

However, over the weekend things took a turn for the worse. My head felt like it was going to explode. It was all behind my eyes, in my ears, on my chest. Eyes streaming, nose streaming and I hurt all over. It was definitely a flu and not just a cold. LFT was still showing negative so definitely not COVID!

I have been off work all week and confirmed today that I would be off the rest of the week.
Things haven’t got any worse since Tuesday evening but I still feel rubbish and I’ve been sleeping a lot.
Apparently through a horrendous thunder storm that has wrecked the town and I’ve just found out that it’s brought the ceilings down at work so they’ve had to be re-located!

I’m hoping that by resting completely today and tomorrow, I will be well enough to at least enjoy my weekend.
I’m going away for a couple of days with Marjorie to London. She got me tickets to see ‘Back To The Future, The Musical’ for my birthday on Sunday afternoon. We have our usual hotel in Beckton booked for Saturday and Sunday nights and we return to Bedford on my birthday on Monday. None of it can be changed or refunded, so fingers crossed!

So it’s been a bit of a miserable week.
Plenty of time to catch up on some TV though. I’m currently working my way through S3 and S4 of The Handmaid’s Tale, before S5 starts in the UK this weekend.

Murron’s been cooking dinners, which is nice.
She doesn’t clear up afterwards, which is not so nice.
You win some, you lose some.
No news on the house move yet which is really frustrating but expected.

That’s it.
I’m going back to bed and back to my TV.
Hope your week has been better.

SELF PRESERVATION MODE

I am very aware that I haven’t blogged any of my usual stuff for a while.
No film reviews or obsessions.
The fact is that there has been an awful lot going on over the last few months so my blogging has turned into more of a diary for a while. It’s quite therapeutic and it’s also a great way of keeping long distance family in on the loop of what’s been happening.

They say that some of the biggest stressors in life are the death of a spouse or loved one, moving house, finances/debt, and starting a new job.

Well in the last 8 months I have done all 4 and a bit more.
3 of them in the last 2 months alone!

I think I am currently in self preservation mode and trying to keep on top of everything and get my girls and myself sorted and settled into a new future before I have any kind of a break down, but fingers crossed I don’t.

Just over 8 months ago, I started a new job, and although a big stressor at the time, it has proved to be one of the best job moves I have ever made.
That same job is now one of the main reasons I am as ‘together’ as I am right now as it has been MORE than understanding about the last 2 months events and has meant that it has been at least one thing I have not had to worry about.

I suppose it all really started in June, when daughter number one, Murron and my grandson returned home after a relationship breakdown.
They are still sleeping on my dining room floor and I have had to write them an eviction notice to get things moving for them. That notice runs out on 16th Sept and I can see them going into emergency housing for a short while. It’s a horrible thing to have to do to your own kid but if we didn’t, she could be sleeping on my dining room floor indefinately as she is not a priority!! Makes me so mad.
At least me and Murron are in complete agreement that we couldn’t live together for good, so doing what is necessary has not been taken to heart.

July 5th to August 4th were a whirlwind with the passing of my husband Ian, and subsequent funeral.
This all had the knock on effect with finances.
The sudden loss of more than half our income.
How was I going to keep up with the rent?
How was I going to keep up with 2 loan payments that were ‘unfortunately’ in my name alone!!

Thankfully Ian had 2 over 50’s life policies that paid out very quickly and these helped deal with funeral costs and gave us a buffer for our current rental costs.
Ian also had his head screwed on when it came to his pension and work life insurance.
This has all but wiped out my financial concerns and is now helping us to a new future, and after long discussions with the 2 daughters who will be staying with me, we have decided that we would be better off financially if we owned our own property rather than rent.
We have been lucky enough to find the perfect property just around the corner from where we currently live.
Same distance from my Mum and Dad, same local amenities, so no change in anything other than the address.
Our offer has been accepted and now we face the agonizing wait for all the ‘legal’ stuff to go through and hope that nothing happens to make the sale fall through.

Luckily we do not have a chain and neither does the house we are buying.
The money from Ian has given us a sizeable deposit and I have a small mortgage in principle.
My concern now is ‘actually’ being accepted for that mortgage when they do hard search with the credit agencies as the 2 loans that I have just settled could take up to 6 weeks to clear!!
The bank are fully aware of this as they made adjustments when they did the soft search. I have provided all the necessary proof that the loans are paid and I now just await my full application video call on the 7th to find out for sure.

Once I have my mortgage, it’s then all in the hands of the solicitors.
Until I have signed a contract and paid the deposit I am trying not to get too excited.
Of course, once I have done that, there is a whole new set of things to worry about like ‘actually’ moving!! and having a big enough crossover period that I can clean and put right a few things in the house we are currently renting before I hand the keys back.

It’s never ending!!
I am kind of looking forward to a time, in hopefully the not too distant future, where I can sit down and process everything that has happened this year.
Nothing financially going wrong, the move done and dusted, Murron sorted and in her own place, back to work, time to just enjoy the new house and make it ours and sit and think of Ian occasionally.
Nothing actually going wrong for a change.

Nearly there.

LAUGH OR CRY CONTINUED!

So as you can see from the last post, things have been a bit interesting over the last two weeks.

To make it even more tricky, and something I didn’t mention in the last post is that Ian tested positive for Covid last Saturday when we had to go and grab Murron’s stuff from her ex-partner’s house.
We found this little nugget out AFTER we had arrange the van and storage hire so he spent all day Saturday sitting in the van on his own because he was the nominated driver, while me, Murron, my Brother and his mate Jason, cleared out the house and unloaded at the storage unit and followed him around in our cars.

Because the hubby is positive, I have been sleeping on the sofa, and right about now, my body is screaming.
I did cave and sleep in the bed last night because he’s not coughing as much but I feel like I’m dodging a bullet!

This put even more pressure on poor Marjorie who was trying to get to surgery on Monday and was already staying clear of her Covid positive sister!
Anyway, thankfully she stayed clear and made it to Surgery on Monday and everything went well. She has been mobile and comfortable ever since and fingers crossed, she feels there is an improvement already. She has a follow up appointment with the surgeon next week and they will do a wound check but so far, so good. Keeping my fingers crossed for her that this has done the trick and she can finally walk, pain free for the first time in around 10 years.

So, Monday night, I thought that nothing else could possibly go wrong.
Marjorie was comfortable after a long day at the hospital.
Murron and JJ were settling in nicely and we were all getting used to the new routine.
Dharma was on the mend and Ian was keeping himself to himself and staying away from everyone and feeling a bit rough.
However….. Tuesday morning saw Ian taking a turn for the worse.
He was finding breathing laborious and could barely swallow.
We have a finger saturations monitor and it showed that when he was awake and sitting upright his oxygen levels were fine, but when he laid down they dropped to 94% and when he was asleep the dropped to 88%.
So after having a look at 111 online and having a chat with the GP, they all suggested getting an ambulance.
This did not go to plan.
Because Ian was talking and not in any immediate danger, the wait for an ambulance would be around 12 hours!
There was nothing for it, I took him to the hospital in the car myself.

We arrived in A+E at 16:00 and things then happened really slowly.
Eventually he got a cannula and IV paracetamol and he got an X-ray to check his lungs.
The Dr then informed us that he had really nasty tonsillitis on top of his Covid so he was started on IV antibiotics and Diflam spray.
At 02:30 they decided to keep him in hospital over night so that is where I left him.
He didn’t make it to a ward until midday the next day!

His oxygen levels were dropping right down to 86% at this point but they were self correcting very quickly so he didn’t require any oxygen, but because they didn’t know why his levels were plummeting all the time, the Drs decided they needed a scan of his lungs to check for clots and they kept him a second night.
The scan was all clear and they let him home on Thursday with antibiotics.
Ian is now much better, still positive, but feeling better each day.

In the middle of all the drama over the last two weeks I received a phone call myself.
A few weeks ago I self referred myself to the physio therapy service.
Experience has taught me that going to the GP would then involve being referred to the Muscular skeletal service, who would then refer me to physios before I get any kind of referral to a surgeon, so I cut out the middle man and referred myself.
They called me for a chat last week and after about 15 minutes they informed me that because I had given an extensive description of the problem and after a few quick questions, they were referring me to an Orthopaedic surgeon because they think I need an arthroscopy on my knee.

So! after all that has happened over the last two weeks, things are finally turning in the right direction again.
Marjorie is going from strength to strength and is walking around and fully weight bearing and fairly comfortable.
Dharma is FINALLY testing negative.
Ian is eating solid food again and feeling much better but still positive for now.
Murron is really happy and settled in the decision she’s made to be a single Mum and JJ is more than happy with all the fuss he’s getting from his Aunts and made a little friend when he went to a toddler morning at kidsworld yesterday and met one of Murron’s mates kids.

Me?
I have been holding it all together.
Apart from the ongoing issue with my knee I’m fine. I have been Covid testing on a daily basis because I work with patients but other than that, I have just been taking it all one day at a time.
I am now counting down three weeks when I will then be having 2 weeks of annual leave.
In the meantime, I am going to get on top of all the cleaning and gardening so I can just relax and enjoy it!!

AS LONG AS NOTHING ELSE GOES WRONG!!!

LAUGH OR CRY

Generally life has been going OK.

Ian has his ongoing health issues that he is finally getting the surgeries he needs for, or the usual money worries and just scraping through on payday.
My house is usually pretty tidy, the washing stays up to date and I can’t remember the last time I had huge piles of ironing to get through. The gardens are pretty much under control, especially after we finally got the landlord to take down the HUGE laylandii in the back garden and we personally got the same guy to buzz down the hedges in the front garden.
Marji finally got the go ahead on the surgery she’s been waiting for for over two years and this will take place this coming monday.
Nothing unexpected and nothing out of the ordinary and work is actually going great!

I had a lovely week of annual leave last week.
I chilled, I attended Marjorie’s Graduation and I saw Imagine Dragons in the rain on Saturday.
That was it, or so I thought.

I was chilling and getting ready to go back to work on Sunday when the shit literally hit the fan and life threw one of it’s curve balls at us.

The family now know and Murron has given me permission to blog about it.

I received a message from my eldest daughter, Murron, who moved to Kettering with her partner a year and a half ago, informing me that the relationship was over.
To be honest, I had suspected something over the last few weeks because Murron just wasn’t quite right when I talked to her on FB video messenger.
She said that she had felt like a single mum for the last 2 or 3 months because her partner just won’t do anything and doesn’t get involved with helping to look after my grandson, JJ, or help out around the house and just doesn’t want to do anything other than sit on his computer playing games.
Murron had given him warning after warning and even told him she was leaving and started to pack things up but nothing changed, so on Monday, she packed up a few emergency bits and headed back to Bedford to stay with us and start to sort out housing.

Things were initially quite amicable and I don’t think her partner really believed Murron was actually seriously leaving, but on Weds, when she still hadn’t come home, the penny finally dropped and his attitude started to change.
To be honest, his attitude sucks and I did think better of him but after what he did on Weds I lost whatever respect I had for him and think he’s an absolute arsehole.

Murron had asked him NOT to remove her from the Universal Credit until she had housing sorted but he went ahead and did it anyway. This has just made her task ten times harder because it’s harder to get housing without benefits and harder to get benefits without an address.

Then he started to get shitty about when she was going to collect her stuff because he wanted the house key back, so we made the decision to hire a storage unit and a van and went to the house today to get everything.
Thankfully my brother and his mate Jason were on hand to help out with the first load of heavy stuff and then the second load consisted of all the smaller boxes and clothes which we are going to have to sort through tomorrow before taking it all to the storage unit.
Her partner did the sensible thing and stayed away from the property for the day, but he’s in for a shock when he gets home because most of the furniture was Murrons!
She’s ticked off too because all of the bags that she had already packed had been ripped open and looked through.
The house looked ransacked when we arrived and even more ransacked when we left.

To make the week even harder, my youngest daughter tested positive for Covid on Wednesday so has been isolating and trying to stay away from her sister who is having surgery on Monday and needs to be Covid free.
So far Marji’s required lateral flows have been negative but it’s getting worrying because Ian tested positive this morning too!!
That means I’ll be sleeping on the sofa for a few days because I can’t afford to get Covid again, especially not this week.
It’s a busy week at work and getting Covid is really going to put a spanner in the works.

So I’m sitting here this evening not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
I am so tired after today but I am not ready for sleep.
At least I get a bit of a lay in tomorrow before having to sort through the mountains of clothes Murron has brought home. She needs to get rid of a lot, but getting her to do it is going to be difficult because she likes to hang on to some real shit!

I’m hoping that’s the end of problems for a while.
I think it’s enough.
Let us get Murron sorted and life back on track before life throws anything else at us!!!

TOUGH DECISION TO MAKE

So, it’s been a week of ‘mostly’ relaxing.
I’ve started a tough little project in the back garden but I’m going to take my time over it.

It’s a hidden little area at the back end of the garden. It can’t be seen from the patio area which I’ve put most of my work into, but it can be seen from the dining room and it’s beginning to really bug me.
I plan to just tidy it up a bit and hopefully get a little rockery and some flowering plants in there and make it all a bit easier to maintain. We’ll see.

I went to Marjorie’s graduation.
A year late because of Covid restrictions but it didn’t make me any less proud of her.

I went to see Imagine Dragons for second time. Still fantastic!

Ian has healed well from his surgery and now awaits a follow up and a decision on the other arm and also an appointment with Addenbrooks about his neck. So ongoing for him, but at least it’s started to happen.

The surprise of the week was the phone call out of the blue for Marjorie, offering her a surgery on her foot on the 27th June from a surgeon she’s never even met!!
She’s seeing him on Thursday and having a pre-assessment on Friday.
It’s all very odd, as the previous 2 ‘private’ surgeons she went to see via the NHS both said they wouldn’t do any surgery.
The surgeon she grew up with, who fixed her hips and then took her on because of the Freiburgs in her foot, retired towards the end of Covid lockdown and it looks like a surgeon from the hospital has picked up his waiting list which Marjorie has been on now for over 2 years. We’re hoping he will do the two step procedure her original surgeon suggested, but that will all be discussed on Thursday.

So! Two members of the family having surgery.

The week went really well and things were going swimmingly until some news that hit a bit hard this lunch time.
Can’t go into any more detail just yet, but needless to say, the blood pressure I had been hoping to drop a little has now gone back through the roof!

Life always has a way making sure you don’t have things too easy.

The big decision is a bit of a heads up, as I’m seriously thinking about giving up my WordPress!!
When I look at it, I’m just venting and moaning on it most of the time.
Things that used to give me pleasure have been neglected. I haven’t done a Dish of the Week for over two years now.
The annual cost is coming up for needing to be paid next month and I’m seriously thinking about stopping.
Let me know what you think.

So, back to work tomorrow and about the only thing in my life that is currently not giving me any stress!

INCREASINGLY WORRIED

Sometimes I get very worried about things going on in the world.
Take the current WAR going on with Russia and Ukraine.
And WAR is exactly what it is.
The devastation it has caused to millions of innocent people who were just trying to get on with their lives and the fact that Putin said he wouldn’t invade time and time again, yet here we are….. but OH!! It’s not an invasion, it’s apparently a ‘special military operation’.
NO, it’s a WAR.
We have seen the russians showing their nuclear capabilities but say they are just ‘testing’.
Do we believe them?
I’m certainly very sceptical about ANYTHING they say they won’t do, because they just go ahead and do it anyway.

The sad part is that the people of Russia are so brainwashed by what they see on TV because they only get what’s fed to them by Putin, that they don’t have a clue what’s really happening and how the rest of the world currently percieve them. They are now suffering because of all the sanctions but they believe it is the rest of the world unfairly causing it and not the actions of Putin making it necessary.
When they finally wake up and smell the roses it’s not going to be pretty!!
Putin really scares me at the moment. The only saving grace is that the military leaders surrounding him and supporting him are slowly beginning to see the error of his ways. Hopefully they will have the balls to bite back and take control at some point.

Before Russia however, and still bubbling in the background, is America.
When I was a young girl, I used to dream of visiting and even living in America.
I still want to go for the occasional visit but I categorically wouldn’t want to live there anymore.
Why?

Where shall I start?

The whole lack of health care for a start.
If me and Ian were to live there, with all our current health conditions, we’d be bankrupt.
Ian’s medication alone would cost us thousands of Dollars a month.
Ian would never be able to work again because we wouldn’t be able to afford the multiple surgeries he needs.
He would literally just live the rest of his life in cripalling pain that gets progressively worse until he dies.
Here in the UK, he was just paying £10.40 a month and this got him ALL of his medication, regardless of how many items it consisted of, and I say WAS, because now that he has been disgnosed with Diabetes, he gets it all for FREE.
He also gets his surgeries for free. There may be waiting lists and frustration with lack of communication between services, but at the end of the day, he gets the surgery he needs to get on with his life.

Americans and their attitude to GOD.
My beliefs as an athiest are going to be enough to get me into trouble. I couldn’t hold my tongue for very long with an American spouting about living life under God direction and looking down at me because I don’t attend church.
The fact that GOD is mentioned in politics makes my blood boil, especially when it is currently being used to change the laws on womens health rights and sending them back to the dark ages.

But my main concern at the moment is that American are living life based off of a constituion written 235 years ago.
A constitution which was groundbreaking and relavent at that time but has become outdated and totally innapropriate now, and yet we see it’s affect pretty much on a daily basis in the news.
Particularly the 2nd Amendment giving Americans the ‘right to bear arms’ that certain American’s will argue about until they are blue the face. It is, after all, their ‘consitutional right!’.

But when you see the aftermath of that ‘right’ in the news as frequently as we do. Surely something seriously needs to be done about it.
When you put it into context, according to worldpopulationreview.com, between 2009 and 2018 school shootings across the globe were rank like this….

8th place = Azerbaijan, China, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kenya, Russia, and Turkey, with only 1 shooting.
7th place = Brazil, Canada, and France, with 2 shootings.
6th place = Afganistan, with 3 shootings.
5th place = Nigeria and Pakistan, with 4 shootings.
4th place = India, with 5 shootings.
3rd place = South Africa, with 6 shootings.
2nd place = Mexico, with 8 shootings.
1st place = United States, with 288 shootings.

288!! Let that sink in.

In 2022, the recent Uvalde shooting that killed 19 students and two teachers was the 27th school shooting in the USA so far THIS YEAR! That’s just over 4 per month.
Kids shouldn’t be scared to go to school.
Parents shouldn’t have to worry about their child’s safety at school.
The Government should have the balls to stand up to the National Rifle Association and do something.

Do you know who aren’t on that list?
UK and Australia

In the UK, in 1996, when 16 children ages 5 and 6 were targeted, along with their teacher, by a former Scout leader in the Scottish town of Dunblane, British lawmakers effectively banned private ownership of all handguns in mainland Britain, giving the country some of the strictest anti-gun legislation in the world. Authorities also introduced a firearm amnesty, resulting in the surrender of thousands of guns.
Members of the public are allowed to own rifles for sports and shotguns, provided they are licensed to do so. 
There have been NO reported shootings in schools since.

In Australia, just weeks after a lone gunman killed 35 people in 1996, at a cafe in the tourist town of Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australian authorities, despite fierce opposition from the gun lobby, passed strict gun control legislation, including a ban on semi-automatic rifles and semi-automatic and pump-action shotguns.
As part of the reforms, thousands of unlicensed firearms were surrendered. All licensed gun owners were required to take a safety course. Some 650,000 firearms were confiscated and destroyed. 
There were 13 mass shootings in Australia in the 18 years before the legislation was adopted, resulting in more than 100 deaths. There were NO mass shootings for 14 years after the laws were passed. There have been few incidents in Australia since the laws were enacted, and NO school shootings.

GUN CONTROL WORKS

And yet, Americans will argue that it is their ‘right’ to bear arms.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
The 2nd AMENDMENT is just that, an AMENDMENT!!
By the very definition of the word AMENDMENT, it’s already been changed, so why is no-one challenging this and changing it again to bring it up to 21st century standards?
The Constitution was written at a time when Flintlock pistols were the weapon of choice, not semi-automatic rifles and modern day handguns.

Then today, I open the news to 31 white supremacists being arrested at an Idaho gay pride event.
They are members of the Patriot Front Group which was formed in 2017 after the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. (Where a WHITE woman died, I might add)
What makes it even worse is they they were from 11 different states so had organised this, and travelled in specifically to target the event.
The groups manifesto calls for the formation of a white ethnostate in the US which makes me spitting mad because, because America is a diverse multiculture made up of immigrants and originally set up by invaders.
The only ‘TRUE’ Americans are the indiginous American Indians who were forced off of their land and almost wiped out by those invaders.

Anyway, that’s a whole nother blog all on it’s own.
So, as much as I want to see the spectacle of places like New York and the wonders of places like the Grand Canyon and only America can do Disney, and there are some amazing and colourful characters all across the country, and the fact that I KNOW that a lot of Americans are wonderful people, I could never bring myself to live in America as it is at the moment.
There’s just so much I don’t agree with and the idiots always seem to win or get urged on by more idiots and because of ‘their constitutional rights’, they think they have the right to force their views on everyone else.
I would end up getting arested for punching a said idiot and starting a riot myself!!

HAVE A THINK…

Put yourself in this scenario and tell me what you would think or do in the same situation.

You’re just 25 years old and you have your whole life already planned for you.
You are bound by your duty.
You don’t have the luxury of doing what you want, when you want, EVER again.
No going to the cinema, no going out for dinner and a drink with mates, no jam nights at the local music venues, no going on a last minute holiday, no changing jobs if you don’t like the one you’ve got. Would you accept that?
You are governed by your duty to your country and, to some, this seems like a luxury or a waste of money.
You will never be able to do all those normal things…. EVER.
Your days are timed to the minute with meetings and events. Even on days where you wish you could just give something a miss and have a day off, it’s not going to happen.
Imagine, living your ENTIRE life like this. Never being able to do exactly what you want to do……….

I’ve been getting a little upset with people poo pooing the Jubilee celebrations.
Yes, there are some things about the Monarchy that need to change and things that some of them get up to that I don’t agree with, but when all is said and done, the Monarchy, with all its pomp and circumstance, generates about 19 BILLION pounds for the British Economy every year.
The cost to the tax payer is just £4.50 a year.
So I get a little upset when I see people shitting on people celebrating the Jubilee and pointing out the fact that there are so many food banks in the country and that the starving should be fed first!!

FUCK OFF!!

Attack the government for these failures and let the country have some pride in it’s Monarchy.
When did it become taboo to have some pride in your country?
Every other fucking country in the world has pride, including the horrendously governed USA!!

Elizabeth has given this country her life.
She gave up any semblence of a normal life at the age of just 25 when anyone else at the same age is partying and living it up and discovering who they actually are.
She did this without question.
She just accepted her responsibility and performed her duty to this country for her entire life.

It’s only 4 days of celebrations.
It’s going to take a damn site more to change what’s wrong with this country and that is up to the government and NOT the Monarchy.
Talk to the Government about re-directing some of that £19 BILLION to areas that need it.