Early

 

My alarm was set for 1am. The match was delayed by adverse weather so I reset it for 2am and dozed back off.

This was the sky at 4.23am.

The match had all the drama, and I was on the edge of my seat, trying desperately not to bite my nails during the 11 minutes (actually 12 because the ref added an extra one) of added time.

It's 5am and I'm back in bed.

The gulls are squawking and wheeling.

I think I'm awake for the day.

Updated.. 

I didn't stay in bed long and didn't go back to sleep. I got up for coffee and it was so warm I opened the patio door and knitted then watched The Rest is Football at 6am and the replay of the match after that.

I've been into town this morning as we both needed coffee from the supermarket, I've done a bit of painting, and managed a 10 minute cat nap. I thought I'd slept for ages but my coffee was still piping hot when I woke up!

J's out running, I've just made a salad to go with tea and I'm watching Wimbledon.

I hope I sleep well tonight.

Back

 Friday 3rd July

The car came back this morning. They've done a brilliant job of it, even doing a few things that I wouldn't have thought necessary, like replacing the 'Hyundai' lettering and logo. I just wish it hadn't taken so long.

We took the hire car back a couple of hours later, once we'd finished looking after the little one for the day... mummy finishes at 11.30 on Fridays. 

We walked back home afterwards as I feel much better today. I tried to go for a walk with my husband yesterday lunchtime,  but only got 30 metres and had to go home. I went straight upstairs to bed, slept for a while and stayed there for the rest of the day. This morning the roof of my mouth is sore. I think both things are down to the ME/CFS but having the sore mouth on top of the odd sensations/ numbness from having the skin stripped away, twisted and used to cover the hole between my mouth and sinus cavity is a literal pain.

We passed the Salvation Army charity shop en route and they had a half price sale on. I found a Seasalt shirt and paid £1.50 for it.

Lare afternoon sunshine, and silence

All my houseplants apart from my peace lilies looked none the worse for having no attention for almost a month, part of which was a heatwave. The Christmas cacti in the kitchen and the devil's ivy that I'd left in the shower cubicle have put on a decent amount of growth

I've just hand washed the shirt and spun it in the charity shopped salad spinner I bought for that purpose because we are back at the caravan. I will eventually invest in a spin dryer to use so that I can wash larger items here rather than using the launderette or taking them home.

All the garden plants except for a pot of primulas have survived. The new ones in our new wooden planters were watered by our friend B, and the rest have done their best with searing temperatures, wind and scattered showers. I did a lot of deadheading and watering as soon as I arrived. The grass here is scorched yellow/brown.

The beach is as wild, wonderful and ever changing as always. The sand was blowing along it this morning (Saturday) so fiercely that I couldnt walk there

It's good to be back.

One down

 I had my final appointment with the oral surgery team this afternoon... all 3 of those that have had the most input into my care were in the room so I had the opportunity to thank each of them for their kindness and skill.  

That was important to me as I've never laid blame for the failed operations on them. I've just been very unlucky, and at times frustrated by that, though they would never have known.

I had a small stitch removed today that had worked its way to the surface since the rest were removed 2 weeks ago.

They checked how I am now after the problems each anaesthetic caused and I was happy to report that I'm doing okay. I'm looking forward to getting back to the caravan and walking both outside and on my walking pad. Walking when I'm there is very different to here where there is so much traffic that I'm breathing in noxious fumes everywhere I go.

I've checked with them about the adjacent tooth which has a failed root canal . I was advised about this in November 2024 at the same time as I was advised about the one that has caused all this trouble, but nothing could be done about it until this was finally sorted.

Their advice is to go to a root canal expert, and luckily there is one at the private practice where I had my implant done. They said that I need to wait another 3 months though. It will be more expensive than having it done by my NHS dentist by about 33% but will be worth it to be in the hands of a specialist.

So that's it, one hospital specialism down/ done and dusted. Just dermatology left for me with a potential biopsy, and ENT and orthopaedics for J. He has his first appointment with the latter tomorrow morning, and has a folliw up appointment with the former in about 7 weeks.

I was in and out so quickly today that I didn't even have to pay for parking as the first 30 minutes is free.

Our car is due back with us on Friday morning, and the plan is to have a couple of weeks at the caravan, with possibly a visit to Manchester too.

I'm looking forward to a little bit of normality, though I always miss our little one dreadfully when we're not here.

Productive

Monday 29th June

It needs washing and blocking

It's been a productive day. This morning I returned 2 books to the library, picked up 2 more and used the computer and printing facilities as I don't have either at home.

I'm short of 6 years' contributions in order to receive a full state pension in 2032. I've known for years that I was short, since the goalposts for contributions were moved, but didn't have money spare to buy the years... it would cost approximately £900 for each missing one.

I have been looking after our little one for 3+ years though ( 3 complete tax years +) so today I finally completed the form to receive specified childcare credits. During those years, my daughter has paid sufficient national insurance contributions to count towards a state pension 

(if there is such a thing by the time she is old), so she doesn't need the protection of her child benefit credits.

She's passing them to me, as she is entitled to do, so today I've claimed for 2023/ 2024 and 2024/2025. In November I'll be able to claim for 2025/2026, giving me 3 of the missing 6 years towards my full state pension. I'll continue to do this as I'll be needed to cover some school holidays, until I have sufficient years.

This afternoon I completed my first item towards our niece's baby gift. It's a matinee coat that I knitted for both of my girls, my grandchild, countless friends and colleagues, my former hairdresser, and a local hospital charity. It comes from the pattern book my mother in law gave to me in 1988.

An unexpected bonus

 I've bitten my nails for as long as I can remember. I know I was doing it aged 4, so that's 57 years if not more.

An unexpected bonus of having 3 operations on my mouth in a period of 6 weeks is that I haven't been able to bite my nails.

This was them on 23rd March. They were worse by the time of the first operation on 9th April.

Wearing my 60th birthday present citrine and diamond ring that was given to me after our ceremony at Gretna last year

This is them today. They still have vertical ridges, and some still grow with Beau's lines in them, 10 years after they originally appeared. My hands are wrinkled and my fingers are bent with arthritis. 

I'm never going to be a hand model, but my nails are a huge improvement on what they've been for the vast majority of my life!

I'm still learning to look after them and the only thing that looks OK on them is clear varnish. If I use anything else the ridges and lines show up too much and they look awful.

I did consider a manicure but I'm very low maintenance, and was shocked by the price.

The attic, heat, illness and admin

It's a bit warm in our attic bedroom and we've had a temperature of 30 degrees C plus when trying to get to sleep. 

Despite that, J was asleep within 2 minutes of turning off the light last night... I was still awake 3 hours later.

We had some rain around 6am which freshened the air briefly but it's been warm again and the humidity has increased.

We had a brief thunderstorm this afternoon, but the sun and heat soon returned.

My son in law has tonsillitis so is really suffering in the heat. After 5 days of a 10 day course of penicillin his symptoms were getting worse so hes's been back to the GP and has been prescribed erythromicin. Hopefully these tablets will work.

Normally when we're here we spend a lot of time in our room, but that's not comfortable at the moment and I can't sit on my daughter's living room furniture for long as it's just not comfortable for my spine. 

Consequently I watched TV last night lying on my side on the living room floor, in a version of the recovery position but with my head propped up... I can't be flat as it makes me dizzy. I had a nap there this afternoon and my daughter and the little one napped on the sofa. 

We still don't have our car back and I spent over an hour this morning on the phone to the repair centre, the hire car company and the insurance company. 

Apparently I should get a call on Monday to arrange to return the car on Tuesday. Another weekend at home as we really don't want to use the hire car to get to the caravan. I think all my plants, both inside and out, will be dead by the time we get back there. Money, and a lot of nurturing, down the drain if that's the case.

My refund for the car seat still hasn't materialised, so I had to wait for a call back about that, but it has now been actioned and should be in my account by Wednesday.

So much inconvenience and time spent on admin due to another motorist's lack of due care and attention.

Good news for now

J was seen this morning, and there's nothing immediately sinister but will be seen again in a couple of months when the consultant will do further investigations if there's no improvement.

Six months after being referred about his bone on bone arthritis in his knee, he today received an appointment for next week ( the day after my appointment about my mouth), also at the hospital that is further away. Honestly, it's like our local hospital has gone on strike!

By the time we've attended these appointments we will have visited hospital 17 times since 9th April. In addition, I've had one GP appointment, J has had 2, and we've taken my mum to 1 medical appointment.

You may remember me mentioning that earlier this year, after having teledermatoscopy, I was told by the NHS that I had clear symptoms of basal cell carcinoma and that I would be seen 'in due course.' 

I then saw a private consultant who said that I didn't have symptoms of it and that I should cancel the NHS follow up appointment when it arrived.

I decided not to cancel as it has changed a bit since then, and I saw an NHS consultant this week. She said that she thinks that it could be a solar keratosis and I was treated with cryotherapy, though when I asked her about the part of it that has appeared since I saw the private consultant she gave a non committal 'Hmmm'.

I'm to go back in 8 weeks and if it hasn't improved she will do a biopsy, which will at least give a definitive answer.

As usual, nothing is straightforward!

Could it be?

At the carboot sale in Wales last year I found a painting. 

It was propped up on the floor at the front of the stall, but that's usually where the treasure lies. I've lost count of the amazing things that I've found languishing in boxes or propped up, all at ground level.

I liked it immediately... it's a landscape and it's oil on board. I've acquired a few original oils now, the most expensive costing £8. That's a Cornish painting bought in Liskeard. This one is a similar size, cost just £3 and to my untrained eye looked like a much higher quality painting.

I hung it on the wall with my others and admired it; it brings me great pleasure. Recently, curiosity got the better of me and I used Google to search the name on the painting.

If it's right, this is by James Sant. When I first started looking I coud only find portraits ( he was portrait painter to Queen Victoria), but then I found a couple of landscapes, and a couple of portraits with trees/ flowers as background...

Pink flowers appear in a number of the paintings I found, not just these but other portraits, and pink flowers are in my painting. My painting seemed 'looser' though, a bit freer, not so 'careful' in style. Then I read the Wikipedia entry which says...

Then I found this signature for him online...

Could my painting be a later one by James Sant? Looser in style, and of a garden. Maybe painted in his bed in his old age like the one mentioned in the Wikipedia entry? 

Who knows? 

It would be thrilling if a painting I bought because I loved it was by somebody well known and who was good enough to paint royalty, but it's highly unlikely I will ever know.

Links

The colour isnt showing well but it's a lovely sage green.

We had a message today from my brother in law to tell us that our niece is expecting a baby. It's wonderful news, and it will make him a grandad for the first time. The last baby born in our family was our little one and they turned four recently.

I still have some cream, white, and lemon yarn that I inherited from my mother in law, so I'm going to knit some things for the new baby, providing a link back to their great grandma.

I've still got the blanket above on the needles. It was started long ago, so I'll finish it and then make a start on some other things, using patterns I knitted for my own children, some from a pattern book my mother in law gave me. She didn't knit for my daughters because I could do it.

Links to the past, even if she was never very nice to me or my sisters in law.

Heck, I'm not sure she even liked J very much. He went to visit her when she was hospitalised once. She was suffering from cognitive decline by then and obviously thought he was one of her other sons as she talked about J.  In her words, J had never been one of them and had never fitted in.

Poor J. My heart broke for him. He is the best of men. Kind. Loving. Steadfast. Supportive. He's like that despite her, not because of her.

He never took any trouble to her door. He met me, got engaged, got married, had children, worked hard, bought a house, moved to a good area, brought up our daughters, saw them through school, college and uni. 

Neither of us were blessed where our mothers are concerned.

But I'll knit up her yarn and gift the items to our lovely niece.

Outside

 

We were out and about in an urban setting yesterday and saw these. They reminded me of the meadows I played in as a child. I spent as much time outdoors as I possibly could, playing in fields, climbing into the WW2 lookout tower, building forts from the bales of straw, paddling in the mill stream, playing in the park or down by the canal, crossing the dual carriageway, and wandering for miles.

I still like being outside. 

We've been to the allotment twice this week,  and done two 3 mile walks. 

The joints are feeling it, but the allotment looks better!

Childhood memories

• My one and only doll being thrown by a parent in a fit of temper so that it was left with cracks in its hard plastic head... when I was 3
• Burning my thumb on a match after climbing up onto the worktop and playing with them...when I was 3
• Being hospitalised with an ear infection... when I was 3
• Being put into a day room with all the geriatric patients as I was the only child left on the ward...when I was 3
• A kind old lady in that room giving me chocolate...when I was 3
• A nurse dropping my pyjamas in the bath so that they were wet in places but still dressing me in them...when I was 3
• The terrible hospital food... lumpy mashed potatoes that I made my visiting parent take home to show my other parent and siblings. To this day, I have a problem with food textures, and potatoes in particular
• Crying and pleading as that  doll with the cracked head was thrown onto a bonfire in the garden... when I was 6
• Being hit with the dog lead... when I was 7
• Having terrible earache in the night and having a warm blanket from the airing cupboard as my only pain relief... when I was 7
• A paving slab falling on me and hurting my arm but not being checked medically... when I was 7
• Going over the handlebars of the bike my step grandad built for me and not being checked medically... when I was 8
• Playing in the fields from morning 'til night... when I was 7,8,9
• Being picked up off the living room floor by my hair by a parent... when I was 10
• Being shoved along the hallway by a parent and banging my head on the wall so hard that I saw stars... when I was 10
• Being kicked repeatedly as I scrambled up the stairs to get away from a parent... when I was 10
• Being told it was my fault I was hit because I  'answered back'... my entire childhood
• Never seeing friends in school holidays because I had to look after my younger sister, resulting in me being scared to go back to school.. as a teenager
• Being dragged up the street by my hair by a parent ... aged 15
• Locking myself in the bathroom to avoid being hit by a parent, only for the door to be kicked in, knocking me backwards into the shower cubicle... aged 15
• Being repeatedly punched in the head so hard that I had raised bumps in the shape of that parents' knuckles... aged 15
• Having food used as a punishment by it being withdrawn... quite often
• Having to line up with my sisters to be punished by being hit by a parent... most of my childhood, though usually I was punished more aggressively 
• There never being enough money for me to go on a residential trip from school like my older sisters did, but there always being enough money for cigarettes, suits, dresses and nights out ... aged 11 to 16
• Being dressed in hand me downs from 2 older sisters... my entire childhood
• Being told by a parent that me and my sisters meant nothing to them compared to the love they had for the other parent...aged 16
• A lack of support with school as I was moved around the country as an Army child... my entire childhood
• And more, so much more

The memories are vivid and I can trace the age I was when things happened from the house I was living in at the time. We moved a lot, and by the time I was 12 I'd lived in 10 houses and attended 6 schools.

And I've spent decades running round after a parent who did some of those things to me, or who watched silently as they were done to me.

Not yet...

I'm just back from my hospital appointment. The stitches are out! Most were okay but a couple made my eyes water. I thought I'd be discharged but he said the roof of my mouth still has some healing to do so wants to see me again in 2 or 3 weeks.

I have to keep the cover plate in until then. Honestly, I'm so used to it now that it feels odd without it.

In other news, our little one has tonsillitis, and my mum's diverticular disease is flaring. My daughter's first foster cat has been rehomed and she is now caring for one of his brothers who is even more traumatised. There's still no word on the car. I have a huge list of shopping to do for my mum, yet again. Who knows when that will be done as we'll be providing childcare to a poorly little one, and I refuse to drive the hire car. 

So, not yet to being discharged.

Not yet to getting our car back.

Not yet to getting back to the caravan.

And not yet to having a week off from shopping.