Goodbye 2010. Hello 2011

Greg 1949-2010

The end of another year and what a year! 2010 will forever be etched in my memory as one of those landmark years. A year ago I wrote this. As usual, I was full of optimism at the start of a new year but realistic enough to know that something bad had to happen, as the elastic of our living nightmare could not stretch any further.

Thank you for all your kind comments to each and every post I have written. I know some people answer every comment on their blogs, but I am usually rushing from one job to another in my attempts to keep busy busy busy, so I don't usually have time to comment to individuals. It does not mean I do not appreciate your comments, though, and when I have been a bit down your comments have truly helped.

Kay and my mother managed to get here for Christmas from different points on the compass, despite the threats of heavy snow keeping them away. We survived our first Christmas without Greg. Kay and I have always loved Christmas, so I wanted to decorate the house and the tree, as usual, putting a special star-shaped tag with a message to Greg in a prominent place on the tree. When we sat down to the big Christmas lunch, we began by raising our glasses to each other including Greg in the toast. We talked a lot about him - the films he would have liked on TV, the things he used to say or do. So although he was absent in person, he was there in spirit (though thankfully not the whisky kind!) It was a relaxing Christmas - no tensions or arguments like last year - and it seems strange to say it, but we enjoyed it.

Now, just like a year ago, I am gradually winding down to the last day of the year, waiting for the chimes of midnight and a new year emerging. I am again full of optimism, that Kay and I can finally shake off the last vestiges of the nightmare we have gone through and start to rebuild our lives.

I wish you and yours a happy New Year and may all your wishes come true.

 

Why?

In the last few years of Greg's life, we did not have deep meaningful conversations any more, in fact for the most part we hardly spoke at all. We yelled at each other when alcohol made him impossible and his alcoholism made me angry in frustration, or we kept conversation purely to the functional, such as "what time is your hospital appointment?" or "I'm taking the dog for a walk". Otherwise we lived separate lives in silence. In any case, Greg's mind bordered on that of someone suffering from Alzheimer's. He was often very confused - a condition caused by the excessive alcohol. He would misread the clock and think it was a quarter past ten at night when it was really ten minutes to three in the early hours of the morning, so would ring me, if I was away from home at my mother's. Getting woken from a deep sleep by a phone call at that time of the night used to chill me to the bone, but I got used to it, as he did it so often... and not just to me. He would also confuse me with his mother and often phone her to ask her something that was clearly intended for me. He would phone up friends and talk for hours on the phone to them, and I could hear him often repeating the same sentences over and over again in the course of the call. It was like he was on a continuous loop. He even once rang a friend and in the course of the conversation asked how her partner was; the partner had died some six months previously and Greg had "forgotten" this. He once was a very intelligent man holding down a very stressful job with hourly deadlines. That all seemed to fade to nothing in the space of a few years once he had retired and turned to alcohol. So our conversations dwindled too.


I am now 9 months further on from Greg's death. The letters, emails and official practicalities arising from his death are beginning to finally wane. My last recent piece of action was to organise an entry for Greg in a book of remembrance at the local crematorium and to attend a small candle service last week which the local undertaker invited me to at their funeral parlour. With that done, Greg' death passes into history. I am facing the first Christmas without him, comparing this year with last. I still have not been able to cry. But the numbness following his death and the subsequent anger have passed into another phase. I have lots of questions to ask him and the one at the top of the list is "WHY?"

• Why did he want to drink so much after he retired?



• Why couldn't he have found some hobbies?



• Why was he hellbent on killing himself?



• Why was life so horrible that he wanted to leave it?



• Why did he want to leave me on my own with so much life ahead of us?

Was it that he was so unhappy at work that it made him retire when he did, or was it really the ill-health he claimed as the reason? Was retirement such an anticlimax after such an exciting but stressful job? Was life at home with me so boring? I wonder whether I missed vital signs when he was younger. If only I could sit down with him now and ask him those questions and hear his answers, but all I am left with rolling around in my head is "Why?" It's a question which I think of when I wake and before I go to sleep and often in the middle of the night too. The sad thing is, I am never going to get those answers and sometimes the silence in reply to those questions is agonising.

The Club

This week I joined a club. You don't have to pay membership subscriptions to become a member, in fact you are given money to join. Not everyone is eligible - you have to meet certain criteria - but most people don't really want to join in the first place. I am talking about the club of OAPs (Old Aged Pensioners). I have reached my 60th birthday (yikes, how did I get there?).

I must confess to dreading it beforehand - one foot in the grave, God's waiting room etc. "I'm too young to die", I thought. I don't feel sixty. Nearly everyone I know or meet, says I don't look sixty, more like forty. I am still energetic, have all my own teeth and marbles and am a dab hand with a mallet or a paintbrush. I don't wear furry hats which have flaps over my ears and I don't push bits of rubbish into the kerb with a walking stick. However, am I now supposed to push my decrepit way to the front of the bus queue waving my free bus-pass or hopping on a coach for a day-trip to Bournemouth? Am I destined to watching back-to-back editions of Flog it or Escape to the Country to fill up my days? The approach of my sixtieth birthday (particularly without Greg) did not fill me with enthusiasm.

My two best friends from University days came to the rescue. One couldn't be there at the beginning of my birthday, the other could not be there at the end, so between them they devised a plan. One with her husband arrived the day before, accompanied me to my favourite national heritage site here, then we spent a lovely evening together, with them staying over. She brought me breakfast in bed the next day on my birthday, then decorated the kitchen table with flowers, balloons and breakfast things. They treated me to a lovely lunch in a local Italian restaurant, then once home again, they broke open a bottle of champagne and, together with my other friend who by now had turned up, sang Happy Birthday while I cut a cake the second friend had brought. The first friend and her husband then had to leave mid-afternoon, but the second one carried on showering me with presents, her lovely company and photos of her recent holidays to Vienna and Prague. We chatted non-stop and didn't get to bed until nearly 1 am.

We woke up to the first snow this season in London. My second friend needed to get back before the snow made travelling to Brighton impossible, so I waved her off mid-morning. It went on to snow all day and we are now under a white fluffy blanket of about 6 inches. Thankfully, I am in the warm and truly thankful for wonderful friends, who not only helped me to get through my first birthday without Greg, but made my transition into OAP-dom thoroughly memorable. Is Escape to the Country on yet? No fear.... I might even start training for the next London Marathon! That is, when the snow melts.....

View from my window this morning

A Right Royal Celebration

Prince William and Kate Middleton have chosen a fine day to get married next year. The 29th April 2011 would have been Greg's 62nd birthday, if he were still alive. I wonder if he'll be watching from his cloud with a raised glass of whisky to celebrate both occasions?

To rongs don mak a rigt

When our desktop computer died around this time last year, Greg and I bought matching Advent Roma laptops. They were fairy cheap in price (but then we were buying two) and I liked the look and feel of it. However I quickly made a discovery which I should have known if I'd read the reviews of other customers beforehand. For some reason, whatever you type on the keyboard, the letters you read on screen don't bear any relation. It would appear that the keys do not engage with what is below to make an impact. So I end up with loads of typos and have to redo it over and over again. If there are double letters (such as letter or running) in a word only one gets typed. It is a real pain having to constantly correct what I have typed in a long paragraph. Even worse is when a password gets rejected because the wrong letters have been entered. Do that three times on some sites and you have to re-register! Arrgh! I keep Greg's one at my mother's house now, so I am never free from the problem. SoI do apologis to anyone who ets a coment from me on ther blog because I do not men to type int h wrong ting, honestly. It's this blimin keyboard.........

The dangers of alcohol

You may have seen a news item earlier last week saying that alcohol was more harmful than heroin. Since then I have been scrutinising online debates in which a few medical experts give their sneering opinions on this.... more harmful than heroin - don't talk rubbish, kind of thing. In my humble experience the majority of medics completely underestimate what alcohol can do and, if they can be bothered to deal with it at all, they come up with unhelpful solutions with no real idea of the enormity of the problem. Unless it has touched their own lives, they really haven't a clue.

The trouble, as I see it, is that alcohol is more readily available in society than so-called dangerous drugs. It can be obtained 24 hours round the clock at supermarkets, petrol stations, bars and pubs. It is available at ridiculously low prices and, if they are clever, even children can lay their hands on it. It is socially acceptable to have a few drinks. It is an ice-breaker, a relaxant, a prize at the end of a hard day. You don't hear the average person saying that about heroin. So, unlike heroin, alcohol is welcomed in through the front door in most homes. It weedles its way in under the pretence of being harmless and waits to pick on someone vulnerable. In safe hands, it causes no problem. The odd tipple before bedtime or after church, the birthday celebration, a fine meal - these are socially and medically acceptable. I suspect in safe hands, the same can be said of heroin. But when the use of these substances turns into an addiction and then a dependency, that is when the argument that alcohol is less dangerous comes unstuck. The alcoholic has no problems getting their fix at any hour of the day and the shopkeepers are only too happy to keep on selling it. At least the drug pushers have to go underground and are not available on every street at every time of the day.


I have learned that alcoholism is an illness, possibly even a genetic mutation, just like cancer or cystic fibrosis. Some people have absolutely no control over their alcoholism, try as they might, because the genes have preprogrammed them to be like that. If that is the case, then having alcohol available on the streets 24 hours a day is tantamount to having heroin on sale at Superdrug or Sainsburys.


I don't know what the solution is, other than to push up prices and sell it only between set hours and only in a few locations. When pubs used to shut at 11pm, people went home to their beds. Now pubs and clubs stay open till the wee small hours and stay open all day. You read about young kids clubbing till all hours and throwing up on the pavements of London, Crete and Ibiza. The young are getting so used to alcohol in large quantities on a reguar basis that I fear, as they age, it will inevitably cause untold damage for them in the future. This is going to put even more stress on an already strained medical system.

I found a sheet of paper Greg had been given in the past, outlining what damage alcohol can do:

Brain: shrinkage, causing general motor and sensory impairment; anxiety; depression; neuroses; phobias; hallucinations.


Oesophagus: oesophageal varices occur as a result of increased pressure of the portal veins, causing localised varicose veins in the throat. These may rupture, resulting in an often fatal haemorrhage.

Liver: becomes enlarged with fat deposits and may be inflamed causing alcoholic hepatitis.


Reproductive area: in men, impotence; shrinkage of the testicles, loss of male sexual characteristics and possible feminisation in the development of breast tissue.

Mouth: increase risk of cancer of the mouth, throat and oesophagus.


Lungs: Reduced resistence to lung infections, colds, pneumonia and tuberculosis.

Heart: Fat is deposited in the heart muscle, impairing its function and precipitating heart attack.


Stomach: chronic gastritis; ulcers; vomiting; diarhoea; malnutrition.


Intestines: inflammation of the intestine wall inhibits absorption of vitamins and iron causing vitamin deficiency and anaemia; varices (varicose veins) which can rupture causing fatal haemorrhage.


Hands: Tremeulous hands; tingling numbness; loss of sensation in the fingers.


Toes: Numbness and tingling in the toes.


Not a very happy list of symptoms, is it? I know for one thing, Greg had nearly every damn one of those symptoms and alcohol took his life. Still unsure whether it's less dangerous than heroin?

Time waits for no man

I was clearing out some drawers at the weekend and came across an envelope containing Greg's personal effects. It had been given to me by the hospital a few days after he died. I was vaguely aware of its contents, having briefly opened the envelope and looked in, but I had put it in a drawer to look though another time, when I felt a bit stronger. As the months went by, I would often go to the drawer for something else, see the envelope and decide against opening it, until the right moment came along. As I say, I was clearing out drawers over the weekend and came across it again. I sat down, took a deep breath and opened it.

Amongst things like his wallet and credit cards was his watch. Still working like, pardon the pun, clockwork and on wintertime too, so it was appropriate it should be found again this weekend, as the clocks had gone back one hour to wintertime again. It made a lump form in my throat and hot tears try to force their unsolicited way from my eyes. Greg has gone, but his watch lives on. How ironic.

Noah's Ark

picture from

The Glory Site and Treasured Graphics

While I was at my mother's, I took the dog for a walk at a well-known beauty spot. Everywhere I went, it was like being on Noah's Ark. People were in twos....old, young, middle-aged. They walked hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm, kissing, even arguing, enjoying a walk or admiring the view. I stood out a mile on my own (even if accompanied by my canine friend).


I know I was effectively on my own and doing things on my own for years before Greg died, but now psychologically it hits me even harder, when I see couples everywhere and I am self-consciously on my own. I suppose I always lived in the stupid hope that one day Greg would recover from his temporary madness, things would return to normal once more and we would ride out retirement into old age together. I am really not ready for another relationship yet (if at all) - Greg and I were together for nearly 40 years, so I would be totally out of touch with the whole dating thing all over again and furthermore I doubt whether I would ever want the risk of things going wrong again. I can even honestly say I am rather enjoying my own company and the calm I have so desperately needed this last few years. However, the thought of having to face couples everywhere I go until I am a wizened old lady also fills me with apprehension.


There are just some things I am not happy to do as a singleton. Going into a pub or a restaurant on my own is a no-no; a holiday or a day-trip somewhere new on my own holds no appeal. I feel as if my life has been put on hold for my remaining years. I don't mean this to sound as morbid as it comes across, because by and large I am coping with things and keeping manically busy, but, with a big milestone birthday coming up in the next few weeks, I already feel decades older than I really am and as if I am sitting on the shelf in God's waiting room.

Even more windows

Back from my mum's and pleased to say that her window experience went a lot better than mine. Some before and after pictures....

Before

General state of windows

Bay window

Upstairs right

Upstairs left

AfterFinished job!!!

Since the photo, I've painted the front door; tidied up/weeded the front and back gardens for winter; chopped down some unsightly branches on a lime tree (which filled the entire back half of my hatchback car including the back seat on the way to the rubbish tip); washed every window in the house; washed every net curtain in the house and some of the over-curtains; hung them back up again; taken my mother to three appointments; done a big shop for her; walked the dog every day; and taken my mum out in the car for little treats. All in the space of ten days. Now I'm back home to resume work on my own house!!!!

Windows

You wanted photos of the windows, so here they are - or at least some of them (I have three windows on the stairs and they all look the same as the one I've shown, so there was no point showing them all!!) I know you are going to think the study and the kitchen windows look pretty much the same before and after, but if you look closely the study window in the "before" had no handle and therefore did not shut at all and the kitchen window was looking pretty tired. In fact when the window fitters removed the old kitchen window, they said it had originally been placed on a rotting wood sill and the whole window would have collapsed in time if it had not been replaced when it was!!! You can click on each photo to get a larger picture.

I've spent yesterday undercoating and top-coating the sills inside. Today I have been ironing curtains and rehanging them, as well as putting things back in their places. I'm off to my mum's for a week to organise her window replacements, but just hope I don't have the same shenanigans with her windows as I did with mine!

Study before

Study after

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Stairway before



Stairway during

Stairway after

Eureka

The windows are finished. Not only did three men turn up today, two to do the patio window (which took them all day) and one to finish off all the other unfinished windows from last Wednesday, but the sun shone nearly the whole day despite torrential rain when I first woke up. My paintbrush comes out tomorrow to attack the areas around the windows. Meanwhile, I am celebrating a (finally) successful project in my new glassy surroundings with a glass of wine.

No-oooooooooo

Well, guess what, the double-crossing (ahem, I mean double-glazing) men didn't turn up today either, nor did they ring me, so at 10 o'clock this morning I rang them. I felt rather sorry for the man who took my call. I sunk my proverbial teeth into him and would not let go. He said they couldn't send an installation team to me today as they were all out on jobs. "Oh good", I said, "at least someone's getting their windows installed today, but it's certainly not me."

They've promised me Wednesday now and they're sending two teams to make sure it's all done.Watch this space........................

The never-ending story of the double-glazing men

When we first moved into this house two decades ago, the wooden windows were rotten and needed replacing, even though the house is not all that old. As we couldn't find anyone interested enough to replace them with wooden frames, we decided to replace them with UPVC ones. The small family firm we found had done many job in the locality and we were pleased with what they did for us.

Roll forward two decades to 2010. There are some windows on the side of the house (up the stairwell) and a few others that we did not have done at the time, but now need some attention, and, as the health and safety clowns these days insist on proper scaffolding towers in case their darling workmen have to climb the dizzy heights of more than 6 foot, painting has become ludicrously expensive. I therefore decided it would be an investment to get them double-glazed as well as a very large patio window. The family double-glazing firm still advertise in the local paper and are still very successful.

About two months ago I called them and they came round very promptly to see me. George (the son of the original owner and now the Chief Director) and Bob (who proudly told me he was Bob the Builder!) were both very nice and helpful and didn't try to push anything on me like you hear of in some gory double-glazing tales. In fact, quite the opposite. They let their reputation speak for itself. Within 24 hours,all the paperwork had been sent through to me, I had paid the deposit and a date for installation was set. The 29th September. Bear that date in mind, dear reader. I repeat the 29th September. I could have had the job done earlier, but I wanted to start the project well after Kay had gone back to uni. My mother also needed some windows replacing at the front of her house. The previous owners of her house had had the back and sides of the house double-glazed but had not done the front. Now after years of trying to nurture the wooden frames, they too were going rotten and so, yes, you've guessed it, I decided to get my trusty local double-glazing firm in to do her windows too. About a month ago, George and Bob paid a visit to her, while I was there, and again with no pressure my mum decided to press ahead with her order too. Her installation was agreed for mid-October to give me time to sort out my house after my window installation before turning my thoughts to mum's. Their surveyor turned up separately at my house and then weeks later at my mum's house to measure up precisely, noting to the exact millimetre every nook and cranny and angle.

As you are probably well aware, the 29th September was this week. Now they have had two months to prepare for this and I appreciate that they operate a "just in time" system, whereby they only make up the windows a day or so before they are needed. It means they don't have to store huge amounts of raw materials unnecessarily in their factory and it also helps cashflow just to make up something before it is needed. However a week before they were due to come I got the first sniff that something was not quite right. They rang me up and said my patio window would need to be installed on another day as they would not have the kit for it in time. Surely they could have planned two months earlier for the kit to arrive "just in time" before it was needed? Not wishing to be a party-pooper, I said of course I didn't mind the job not being done on the same day and agreed with them that the patio window could be installed separately two days later on Friday 1 October. A day or so beforehand, I scanned for weather reports and, as luck would have it, on both days, heavy rain was forecast with blustery gales on the Friday to boot.

On Wednesday 29 September, the installation team turned up - a man in his late thirties and a boy of about 17. They were there to install the five windows, remember, three of which are on the stairwell. The man was shaven-headed and had a whole poem tattooed on his upper arm. I didn't get the chance to read it, as it seemed rude to stare at his arm whenever I did get the chance to get up close. He seemed pleasant enough though and proceeded to knock out every window first, leaving gigantic big holes in the house, big enough for an elephant to step through. The rain rained and the wind blew and I put on an extra layer. The young lad tore protecive covering off the new windows, carted out old windows, even clambered onto the roof to guide out an old window over the top landing, swept up broken glass. I plied them with that good old British staple - numerous cups of tea and chocolate biscuits - and tried to keep myself (and the dog and cat) out of their way. However by lunchtime, there was a second hint that things were not boding too well. Mr Tattoo told me that two of the three stairwell windows were not the right measurements and he had just told head office that the surveyor obviously needed a new tape measure. The windows would have to be remade and he would fit them on Friday when he came back to do the patio window. Meanwhile he would temporarily fit the ones he had brought with him and "foam them up" so they would stay in place and be watertight. The surveyor would apparently bear the cost of his mistake. (It would have been so much cheaper to get a new tape measure!) Mr Tattoo said goodbye to me mid-afternoon on Wednesday, saying he had got as far as he could, although only one of the five windows were actually finished. Two were almost finished (quite why not completely, I don't know) and of course the other two would be replaced again on Friday along with the patio window.

Thursday was bright and sunny with blue skies. Unlike Friday. On Friday the autumn leaves were swirling in circular patterns, the trees were bending in half, the rain was pounding down and creating huge puddles on the patio. Oh joy. Up at the crack of dawn, I made sure the patio curtains were down, all furniture nearby removed, walls washed and scrubbed. Curtains were either put in my washing machine or taken to the launderette to put in the gigantic one there. By teatime, I would be the proud owner of new windows and clean curtains (with years of nictoine stains washed out and smelling sweetly). At 10 am I got a phone call from the firm's office. Mr Tattoo had called in sick, so there would be nobody coming that day. However, as a special one-off, they had twisted someone's arm in another team to finish off the other windows and install the patio window on Saturday intead. They apologised profusely. What could I say? It wasn't their fault someone had called in sick. It happens to the best of us. In fact, if anything, I was a teensy bit relieved that my fourth kitchen wall was not going to be bashed out and exposed to the heavens raging outside.

Before and After

And so here we are today. Saturday. Up at the crack of dawn. No weekend lie-in for me. Busy busy busy inspecting and making sure everything was ready. Cat and dog bowls removed, so no splintery glass would fall in amongst the chicken and rice kibble. And there I sat until midday, too afraid to start anything major in case they arrived. I rang the office at 11 and got an answermachine. Well, it is Saturday. I rang again at 12 and from somewhere a voice said I would take my custom elsewhere. It might have been me! I slammed the phone down. Half an hour later, a very apologetic installation manager rang back. He said he could not contact the relevant installation team as they were not answering their phone. He had no idea what had gone wrong. He said he was as disappointed as me, as he had been at the factory till after six last night checking the order through and loading the van ready for this morning.

He promises me they will come on Monday to sort everything out.

Remember, I have to repeat this experience down at my mum's. Lord help me.

Scars

I haven't been to Al-Anon for about six weeks now, what with Kay at home over the summer, or visits to my mother, or last week's trip up north. I thought I'd better put in an appearance this week. It struck me for the first time, that at the moment I am really in a better place than most of the others there. Although, naturally, I would give the world to have Greg still here with me, the nightmare of my situation has gone. I can relax at last. The hamster wheel is turning much more slowly, I can breathe easily, turn the light off at night knowing all is calm in the house and buy what frugal things I need for myself without filling up the supermarket trolley with bottles and more bottles. I am my own master. I now make the decisions what to do or not, what to spend or save, without having to pass it by another person. (Not that Greg was dictatorial about those things, but in an equal partnership, we always chose to agree on things first rather than insist on our own way.)



The majority of others at Al-Anon are still in the midst of their nightmares, with their partners or parents or children still doing the drinking or at best undergoing yet another detox, which for now will bring sobriety but only for as long as the patient is physically locked up for ten days and on medication. Once the key is turned and the patient is out on the street again, they will more than likely be looking for their next drink yet again. When depends on how long their willpower will last out - a few hours, a few days, a few weeks.


Most at the Al-anon meetings are weary, crushed, even numb. That was me a year ago. Thankfully, my nightmare is over, although at a price. The alcoholism has gone, but so has Greg. I am a victim of the alcohol, although I did not drink it and it did not kill me. Although I am in a relatively good place at the moment, Greg's absence is a glaring big hole in my life, ever reminding me of that nightmare.


Whether I shall ever totally recover worries me. There are some people I have met at Al-Anon who have been parted from their alcoholic loved ones for decades, either through divorce, separation, death (or in the case of adult childen, marriage and moves away from home). But they still need the crutch of Al-Anon as they feel they are "damaged goods" or victims. Their confidence or self-esteem has been battered by long years of being in the alcoholic's shadow, of being physically or mentally worn away until only the outer shell of them now exists. They still weep at the memories that never go away. Years of having to pretend to the outside world that everything was fine, yet coming home to violence or aggression or arguments and shouting. Whatever the severity of the drinking, it takes its toll on other family members emotionally and sometimes sadly physically.



I have tried my utmost to be strong - both before Greg died and since. Goodness knows where I get it from, because up to now I have always been timid, shy, socially-anxious and withdrawing. Maybe that comes from being an only-child. But I am damned if I am going to let this beat me. That is why I have been so determined to keep busy and get on with life, to draw up decorating projects and to oscillate between my home and my mother's home to get all the chores done. But sometimes in the wee small hours of the morning, when I lie awake in an empty house and hear nothing but the clock ticking, I am worried. I worry about the slow-developing scar this alcoholic experience is leaving and will leave on Kay and me, long after the alcoholism has passed through our lives and gone.

All's well that ends well (I think)

I'm back from the North having deposited daughter there for the start of her second year at uni. After all the problems relayed in my last post, we did manage to move in to the house (the German girls true to their word let us in) and we met up with my sister-in-law and her partner who had come up from Lincolnshire in a van with Kay's belongings which they had collected earlier in the week from us. We plodded up and down stairs taking said stuff up to Kay's room which is three floors up in an attic room. The house is in an area of town which is predominantly inhabited by students or immigrants. Streets and streets of back to back terraced houses. The housing is all right although hardly the luxury end of the market. I think once upon time the house may have been built for millworkers and their families. But by gum they must have had small feet in those days. The staircases are little more than glorified ladders! They are very very steep, very narrow and won't take a foot-tread front on. You sort of have to go up or down sideways like a crab, or risk falling down head over heels. Carrying heavy boxes and suitcases up the two steep flights was an acquired art. Afterwards, we were all in need of a stiff lunchtime drink and a sit-down in a local pub to recover.



Once my sister-in-law and her family had gone home, Kay unpacked her things and we started to make the room a little more like home, taking note of what little extras still needed to be bought. The three German girls (staying on for yet another week) were very friendly, apologised for the state of the kitchen, as they had been working hard to get their dissertation finished and had therefore had scant time to worry about washing up. I reckoned there must have been at least five days of washing-up in the sink alone, not to mention the piles of plates attracting flies on the work surfaces. True to typical German behaviour, instead of leaving towels on deckchairs, they had left jackets on backs of dining chairs and all their china/pans and food in the cupboards, so Kay could not put any of her food or china/pans away, but we managed to eat out a lot or bring sandwiches home, so that was no great problem.



Kay and I had a great last few days together, buying more household items for the room, doing a bit of sightseeing and having some nice meals out. The week was only marred by the not altogether unexpected news that the fifth girl (Danielle in my last post) had pulled out altogether. It meant that a fifth housemate needed to be found urgently or else the four other girls would need to cover the outstanding rent. Abigail, now back from Thailand, felt partially responsible for choosing Danielle in the first place and took it up herself to advertise the room in all the appropriate places. It paid off as about 8 people have responded to the ad, mainly Americans, Australians and a Spaniard, all of whom have just arrived in the UK this week as international freshers. Kay, as the only housemate to have arrived, had to show them the room and common areas of the house, while I made myself scarce. Hopefully one of them will be suitable.

With heavy heart, I hugged Kay goodbye on Friday evening and made the long train journey back to London, arriving home to an empty house (except for a very relieved Snoopy and cat). I am really happy Kay is settled with nice friends in a nice house. It'll be a long time until I see her at Christmas and a bit daunting on my own, if I am honest, but I have lots of decorating to do, new double-glazing arriving in a week and the same at my mother's house, so I am sure the time will go quickly. I might even sneak in another visit north, if I get the chance! A new chapter begins in both our lives.

The joys of student accommodation

By the time this is published, I shall be speeding my way up North with Kay on the train to settle her into her new accommodation for the next year - a shared house with 4 other girls. I plan to stay up there for four days and return on Friday. Meanwhile, a dog-sitter is staying in my house to look after Snoopy and the cat.

We are half-expecting we might have to sleep on the pavement tonight. The house-let has not been without its problems. Kay and three of her friends (let's call them Abigail, Beth,and Chloe) saw the house last December and told the agent (let's call them Disorganised Properties) they wanted to rent the house from July 2010 , the time that First Years come out of university acommodation in Halls of Residence and when the majority of private student house contracts run from. In actual fact, friend Abigail was already living in the house, sharing it with some German girls. The German girls however, wanted to keep the contract on until 31 August, so Kay, Beth and Choe were told they could not move in until 1 September. That seemed fine, as it would mean Kay did not have to pay rent over the summer, when her room would be unoccupied anyway and lectures do not in any case start until 20 September.

Disorganised Properties asked Kay for a £300 desposit (returnable when she moves out again, unless she wrecks the joint) and the first instalment of £280 to cover September's rent. In addition she had to pay £60 (in cash!!!?) for agents' fees. There are five bedrooms in the house, so the girls advertised for a fifth housemate and eventually Abigail (already in the house, remember) said she knew someone, unknown to the others (let's call her Danielle) and it seemed simpler for the others to agree to this, even though, there were other candidates in the offering. So far so good.

The summer vacation started, the girls all went their separate ways and some to far-flung places. Kay met up with Abigail for the exam a few weeks ago and Abigail let slip that the Germans wanted to stay a bit longer than 31 August and she had said that would be fine, as the other housemates would not want to move in to their rooms until 18 September. She had said this of course, without consulting the others. Had she have done so, she would have found out that one girl wanted to move her stuff in at the beginning of September and Kay wanted to move in around 12th September. However, Abigail, as I said already resident in the house, has taken it upon herself to agree to these and other things without consulting the others and without really thinking things through.

A few weeks ago, in my organised, ticking-off-list-of-what-to-do mode, I rang Disorganised Properties to enquire how and when we should pick up Kay's key when we arrive in town. The answer was not what I was expecting. It seemed only Kay and one other girl had completed and returned all their paperwork and paid their £640 up front, the other 3 girls had still not done so and until all the paperwork and money was finalised, nobody could move in at all. I needed to book train tickets for us well in advance, organise for a dog-sitter, plan for Kay's stuff to be collected and taken up by road etc and the agent would not accept my pleas that we had done our bit and paid up, therefore we should be entitled to move in on the 12th. Disorganised Properties then said Kay should chase everyone up, if she wanted to move in. Quite why Disorganised Properties had not already done this or intended to do it, escaped me. Beth was in Greece, but in any case was paid up and paperwork was done. Chloe was in Dubai and said she had not received any paperwork in the first place to return, but did return it quickly once another set had been sent to her. Abigail was in Thailand for a month and not responding to email or facebook or mobile messages; also she was the only one who could get in touch with the fifth girl Danielle, as none of the others personally knew her. To cut an even longer story short, Kay finally got through to Abigail and got Danielle's number and texted her about the problem, but Danielle was not responding to her mobile calls or texts. The agent just wiped his hands of the whole thing every time we phoned up and said we needed to get it sorted. It did cross my mind to ask why on earth were they charging £60 per girl for agent's fees if we were the ones doing all the administrative running around, but I decided to keep quiet for now and raise it some time later (mental note to contact Trading Standards). To cap it all, the agent then said they did not know the German girls were staying on beyond the 31st August and started to charge them, so they are getting rent from us AND the German girls for the same period (another mental note to Trading Standards).

Finally last week, after a long silence, Danielle got in touch and said she had been in hospital but would sort her paperwork out with the agent. Whoppeee. I made my plans, booked train reservations (although for 14th and not the date we originally wanted), arranged dog-sitter etc. Then a few days later Danielle dropped the bombshell that she cannot afford the rent and if the others would like to look for another fifth housemate she won't mind! Seven days before term starts!!!

As if that was not enough, there is another mess to sort out...when we should read gas and electricity meters, as strictly speaking it should be when the new tenancy starts (1 September ?) but the German girls will be using gas and electricity afte that date and before our arrival and are not moving out until 22 Sept. So when do they stop paying for utilities and the English girls start? Such a tangle...

So Kay and I are travelling up today, the German girls are letting us in (hopefully) and if anyone asks anything, we'll just claim squatters' rights. But I'm taking my sleeping bag and camping mattress just in case! Those pavements can be quite hard to sleep on.

copyright First Baptist Orlando from Google library

Great news

When Kay first went up to uni last year, she was told about the marking system. If you got grade E or F, you had failed by varying degrees. If you got a D you had just passed and it was OK. If you got a C, you could be very very pleased with yourself and so were the university pleased with you. If you got B, it was absolutely fantastic. Grade As were almost non-existent, as they were only awarded for truly exceptional work.

Yesterday Kay got the results of her exam that she did two weeks ago (the one she missed when Greg died in March.) She got a B. Of course I have been going around like a pigeon with a puffed up chest, proud as punch. Although she has missed out on the summer holidays because she has been revising so much, she can now rest assured that she is through to the second year of her course. (Sighs of relief). We now have just under a week to relax and pack for her return north early next week. I do so wish Greg could be here to share this good news.

Waste not, want not

Following on from my post about the staircases, it does not strike me as at all odd that I have reached the ripe old age I am, without having achieved the perfect house. I was born in a post-war London (just inside the 1950s) when rationing was still very much de rigeur. My mother recently produced my ration book from the caverns of her wardrobe, although it is hard to think that at the time as a six-month-old I demanded my ration of whale meat or parachute lining!


I do remember as a small child that there was nowhere near the choice of shops on offer today. If you needed a dress, there were only one or two shops to choose from - and that was in a very busy quarter of London; not the overload of boutiques and chain stores there are now. Not only that but everything was still in short supply. What you needed, let alone wanted, was just not available. Furniture was bought on hire purchase- a sort of forerunner of credit cards - where you paid weekly instalments at the shop where the item was purchased. There was not much choice in furniture either, apart from can I afford it or not? To this day, my mother still has her utility sideboard in her dining room. Fridges or washing machines were relatively unheard of; there was only one channel on the television (BBC1), although ITV was just coming in and I used to go to a neighbour's house,whenever I wanted to watch Noddy on ITV, as we only had BBC; and phones and cars were for the very wealthy. Housing was in short supply too - the bombing had seen to that. My grandparents had moved about 6 times in the space of 4 years during the war, as each house was blown to smithereens. I remember bombed-out houses and gaping holes here and there in the terraced streets, where I played. (That was another thing - then, I played on the streets. Shock, horror, nowadays.)


People's expectations of life were a lot less and they were more accepting of their lot . My parents had lived apart for the first two years of their post-war marriage, as they had nowhere to live together and the only hope of getting somewhere was to get on the council housing list - and for that you had to be married!!! So they married and then lived with their respective parents on opposite sides of London about an hour's bus and undergound journey apart. They never did get that Council flat, by the way, although an offer did come in about 8 years' later by which time they had already put a deposit on their first mortgaged house.


Used to these wartime shortages, I grew up in a family where everything was kept and recycled if possible. Nothing was thown away - just in case. Certainly not furniture. That has definitely rubbed off onto me. Being a student helped too, having to live frugally in the late 1960s/ early 70s. Greg came from a similar background too. He and I were both horders. I wouldn't throw so much as a piece of string away, as it might come in handy and Greg would reuse nails or screws. Over the years we have squirreled away quite lot of stuff - just in case - until every drawer, cupboard or cellar space is now groaning. Last week, I replaced our fridge/freezer which had reached the grand old age of 22 years. It was a bit battered, but it still worked and I did not see the point of throwing it out. The salad drawers were held together with duct tape where they had cracked many years ago, the handles had come off and I could not find replacements, but the fridge still kept things cold. It was only because the seal on the door had recently gone, that I felt forced (yes, forced) to replace it. And I tell you, the new fridge-freezer is bigger in size than the old one, but it doesn't store as much. How I miss that old one, already.


I recall some years ago when I was at work, that a young single twenty-something was buying a flat for herself and she wanted it freshly-decorated, furnished with all the mod cons (washing machine, dishwasher, TV, telephone, fridge, the lot) all BEFORE she moved in. My parents' generation would have saved for years even decades, for such things, had they been available. My generation had to gradually amass them too, as and when we could afford them. The young generation of today take so much for granted.


There currently is a must-have culture that buys now and worries later. I am sure that's why there are so many house repossessions , as people just do not think beyond the present and cannot contemplate that interest rates might rise. When Greg and I first bought our current house in 1988, we started on 16% interest rates!!! It is a throw-away culture too. Watches and computers are past-it when they are only three years old. As for mobile phones - they HAVE to be replaced each year - so that you can flash the lastest gimmick around in the train. My Nokia 3410 is still going some three hundred years since I first got it. I get funny looks when I use it in public, as if I have just exposed myself. But it works beautifully. Why do I need to replace it? I managed before without photographing everything in sight or ruining my hearing with i-tunes. Why do I need to upgrade it (that wonderful little word which suggests you are missing out, if you don't!) People even seem to replace their furniture every five minutes too to match the wallpaper. What happens to the old stuff? Does it go to some big warehouse in the sky, get dumped on a rubbish tip or get handed down to some lesser mortal?


Times are changing:sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. I am not sure if all this hyperconsumerism is necessarily a good thing. Yes, we have more choices, but we are in danger of becoming greedy and complacent, particularly when half of the world has very little, including a roof over their head and something to eat. As I start to tackle some of the decorating projects, I shall naturally brighten and clean the house up, but I doubt whether I'll manage to upgrade furniture or de-clutter to the extent that it has that minamalist unlived-in look. It will pain me to throw things out - just in case. Anyway the cat and the dog won't stand for that either, I know.

Reading between the lines

Kay has spent the last 5 days at the Reading Festival. Having got all her horrible exams and revision out of the way, she is at last able to let her hair down. I was more than happy to see her off with her friends at the crack of dawn on Thursday (5am) to get to Reading in time to get a good spot for the tent. I was only a tad worried - the day before, it had been raining cats and dogs, in fact, no, it had been sloshing lions and whatever the bigger version of dogs are. All day Wednesday the South of England had seen a monsoon. I could almost believe that a whole year's rainfall had come down in one day. So by Thursday morning, any normal grass was looking a bit waterlogged. Add to that 87,000 pairs of feet trekking across it with rucksacks and wellies and you had a swamp. Did anyone see those pictures of it on the national news? If not, here they are again.... Lots and lots of squelchy mud. But still, I didn't worry. After all, Kay and her friends are sensible.

I had told her not to bother ringing me frequently but to enjoy herself. Just the one call a day perhaps to let me know she was alive, which she dutifuly did on Thursday and Friday. I felt pleased she was having a good time. However, Saturday's late-night call alarmed me a lot. Earlier on, she and her friends had bagged a spot at the front centre stage at the main arena to watch some of the big groups including the Maccabes, the Cribs and the Libertines . But 87,000 teenagers and youngsters were all trying to do the same, pushin' shovin' and swayin' to the music. After some six hours in the same spot, Kay knew the crowd was growing, the pushing increasing and she was becoming trapped against the front metal barrier. There was no room to put a pin. She tried to fight the force by pushing back, but her arms had fallen below the level of the barrier and there was literally no room to lift them and place them on the barrier to push hard, such was the crush. She was stooped forward, arms down,with her ribs being crushed more and more against the metal bar. She said she could feel her last breath being squeezed out of her. It was then that she alerted a security guard to lift her over the barrier to safety. He was able to lift her free, she put her arms round his neck and was whisked into the air over the barrier, leaving the person behind her to take her place in the crush. In fact, she was not the first to be lifted over and her friends eventually followed her some 40 minutes later,when they too felt the life being squeezed out of them. Kay reasssured me she was fine, although definitely bruised. I did not sleep easy that night.

She has returned this morning safe, although definitely not sound. She still has big bruises on her ribcage to prove it and she was sick twice on the return journey. She said that the toilet facilities were pretty crude,stank to high heaven and there was nowhere to wash hands. What with all the mud sloshing about, hygiene was very difficult to maintain, even with the use of bacterial hand gel which the girls had been sensible enough to pack. Whether she has a gastric virus or has picked up food poisoning is up for debate, but from the symptoms and the probability, our money is on the virus! When kids are small, you worry they are going to fall over and hurt their knee. When they are bigger, you don't stop worrying. But apparently a great time was had by all.

A house is not a home

Greg and I moved into our present house in January 1988. That was 22 and a half years ago. Although, it is a fairly modern house, it was in quite a delapidated state when we moved in. An old lady with Alzheimers had been the previous occupant and she had thrown things at the walls, was doubly- incontinent and had a string of carers living in, who had neither the time nor the inclination to do anything to the house. Greg and I were still relatively young, when we first moved in, mortgaged up to the hilt and keen to do some DIY ourselves, so we bought the house with much enthusiasm and many ideas about what we wanted to do with it. It was a blank canvas.



Initially, we quickly slapped fresh paint over all the walls and woodwork, just to clean it up, ripped out disgusting carpets and replaced them with new ones and decided that, after that, we would tackle all the rooms slowly one by one with more attention to detail and quality. But life got in the way. For a start we were busy building our careers, as we had recently returned to the UK after living abroad. Commuting in and out of London was tiring enough without stressful work during the day (Greg was often working night shifts too) and it left us shattered when we got home. Then I (elatedly) discovered I was pregnant and Kay came along. Our lives changed forever, as any parent will tell you, and DIY projects got put on hold.


Another teensy weensy problem was that Greg and I had different tastes on things and he had quite strong views on what he didn't want, which meant we could not always agree on the colour of walls and furnishings. Definitely nothing with a hint of floral and only certain colours. The conclusion was often to leave things alone and move on to something else. Greg was also a great procrastinator and would make all manner of excuses to avoid doing things - ie the weather was too hot or too cold; the time too late or too soon; the timing not right altogether; he was too tired or too busy; too this or too that.

After a while money was also a problem, as we paid for Kay to go to a private secondary school at the age of 11, so any savings after that were gobbled up. (Private education was not something we would have originally considered, but realistically our choice of secondary school was limited to one poorly-performing inner-city state comprehensive school half a mile away where much less than a quarter of pupils attained any qualifications of any significance and some even had police records; or the alternative was biting our lips and paying through the nose for a private school with excellent achievements. Kay was very bright and it was well worth the investment in the end, considering what she has achieved today.)

The long and the short of it was that the house ended up being neglected for a number of years. We lived like perpetual students with make-do mismatches of furniture, either hand-me downs or crudely-made by Greg to tide us over, with the occasional bought bargain piece, when we could afford it or agree on it. If I am honest, we were never ones for having an ostentatious lifestyle anyway. As long as we had something to sit on, eat off, the house was warm and the car got us from A to B, we were happy and did not hanker after 4x4s, Mercs, Audis, swish bathrooms and expensive holidays, like some people do. We placed greater importance on other things. However, we had high hopes that when Greg took early retirement and Kay was finished with school, we would at long last start to tackle those jobs together, buy decent furniture and for the first time have a house we could be proud of and enjoy in old age. Again, life got in the way. Greg became an alcoholic.

Apart from the money that Greg poured in the form of amber liquid down his throat or cigarettes he smoked, he was now too ill to do anything. I effectively became his carer and dashed between home and my mother, caring for them both, struggling to keep both houses and gardens vaguely ticking along, as well as bringing up Kay, walking the dog and generally keeping some semblance of normality for all concerned, between the dashes to Acccident and Emergency each time Greg's alcoholism peaked. The house once more got relegated to the back burner. After twenty years or so, since its christening, it was begining to look in desperate need of a coat of paint and some tender loving care.

Now roll forward to the present day....Greg's death has put me in a new, unusual but rather strangely welcoming position. I am now sole decision-maker/finance-juggler/action-planner. I do not have to clear my thoughts first with someone else. With alcohol and cigarettes no longer in the equation and with use of websites such as the one advertised by that delightful little meerkat, I am able to make some small financial savings and at last go ahead with what plans I have for bringing the house up to date. Nothing too dramatic, as I still have to watch the pennies, but neverthess for the first time, having a home (I hope) I shall be proud of.

Some jobs will involve getting experts in - there is no way, for example, I can tackle plumbing or electrics, although I guess, if I had more time, I would be willing to learn for the sheer satisfaction of saying I did it myself. I have also engaged a firm to put in some new double-glazed windows for me before the winter sets in, as some wooden windows badly need replacing. But otherwise I am more than happy to have a go myself in most other things. So far, I have ordered a (matching) flat-pack bedroom suite and assembled it on my own. One unit had 8 drawers in it, so I felt that was quite an achievement. I have recently put up three new fire alarms on the ceilings on various levels of the house. I have had a major tidy-up of the garage which was a complete mess and systematically put things into categories and ordered them accordingly or disposed of them.

Two weeks ago saw my biggest coup yet. Our banisters are horizontal, but when Kay was a baby, one of her baby-club toddler friends came to visit with his mother and promptly tried to abseil through the gaps between the horizontal planks. Greg decided that quick action was needed before Kay started to crawl and did the same, so he banged some rather crude wooden uprights all the way up our 6 flights of stairs. They were a bit of an eyesore but they did the trick. Once the danger was past (and certainly once Kay was a teenager) I was all for removing the uprights and returning the banisters to their former horizontal glory, but Greg opposed this idea - maybe because it would involve too much work. He suggested we paint them instead and they might look less hideous. However, he neither removed them nor painted them and so they stayed as they were for nigh on 18 years.


Two weeks ago, I equipped myself with hammer, screwdriver and crowbar and got rid of every one of those 70 or more uprights. It was hard work - each upright was fixed in three places either with three-inch screws (which took some unscrewing) or 3-inch nails (which were even more difficult to remove, hence the crowbar). The difficulty often arose because the uprights were wedged between the flight of stairs going up and the ones going down so there was little space to manoeuvre prising the nails out. Why Greg used nails in some places instead of screws I am not sure, but they were sure harder to get out. I got a great kick out of finishing the job (using brute force at times) and filling in all the holes with filler. It was very therapeutic. You can just see from the second picture where the uprights were and where I filled in holes. Painting them will be the next phase.

Before

After

Over the winter I am going to be doing lots of painting, including the staircases, and more clearing out. Slowly but surely the house will begin to take shape and meanwhile it's keeping me busy as well as distracting me from too many painful memories.

LAND GIRL

My dear old mum is 87 today. I am off to visit her for the week while Kay heads off to do her delayed exam at uni. My mum is not in the best of health these days - one of her main problems is severe osteo-arthritis which has caused her spine to curve to one side (scoliosis - see here), and also damaged her knees and ankles. Because of this she can barely walk unaided, but even with a stick her balance is not good and she has in the past had several serious falls which landed her up in hospital with a broken nose and broken teeth! She is the sort of woman, however, who never complains about anything and even seems to apologise for her own shadow when in the presence of other people. She will put up with no end of pain without even saying anything, yet always wants to know how everyone else is doing.

She grew up in the Depression of the 1920s, living quite a poor childhood after her father was made redundant from his job at a bank. He had been at the bank before the First World War, subsequently lost an eye in the war and on his return to the bank could no longer see well enough with the one remaining eye to add up huge long columns of figures (in his head - no calculators then). There were no welfare benefits in those days and mum remembers eating nothing but mashed potato for days on end, as that is all they could afford.

When World War 2 broke out she was still a teenager, but was recruited at the age of 18 in 1941 into the Women's Land Army (WLA). It was designed for women to work the land and feed the nation, while the men were away fighting and particulalrly once merchant navy supplies could not get though enemy lines. Recent portrayal of the WLA in films either glamourises it or the girls are made to look as if they were oversexed. That really annoys mum. The reality was that the life was quite hard for most. A lot of young girls (like my mother coming from London) had never been up close to a farm animal before or had to dig trenches in fields. The physically demanding work made them too tired for much else!

In my mother's case, she was responsible for getting the cows from the fields to their stalls in the milking sheds, tying chains around their necks to hold them steady and feeling their hot breath on her face as they gazed at her through navy blue eyes with long lashes. She then milked them (by hand) and got them back out into the fields again. Returning to the sheds, she washed the walls down with lime, a job which made her hand red raw. How many 18-year-old city girls would cope with that these days?

When she wasn't doing that, she would work out on the fields in all inclement weathers, helping to pull down trees with tractors and chains and digging up the land to plant such things as potatoes and cabbages. In the autumn, they would pull up the potatoes or thresh corn. It was back-breaking work and she reckons that has contributed to the scoliosis she suffers from now. But it was not all bad. It was while she was doing this sort of work that she met my father, in her shyness tripping over his tractor chain. He was a German refugee sent to work on the land too (see here). When she actually got a weekend off, she would run down the dark London streets avoiding air raids to get home to the Anderson shelter, where her parents were waiting for her. She still finds the sound of an air-aid siren sends shivers down her spine. The only recognition or thanks she got for it all was a badge which she had to wait over 60 years for and finally got through the post last year from DEFRA. For some strange reason, the WLA are rarely if ever mentioned alongside the other Forces at Remembrance Sunday or other special days and yet their contribution to the war effort - to supply food to the nation and especially the army - were arguably what won the war, as the UK would have not been able to keep going against Hitler for as long as it did.

Here is a picture of my mum (the one in the centre) meeting the late Duchess of Gloucester who visited them on one of her official tours.

Happy Birthday Mum x

Another reason to be angry

As if Greg did not do enough damage when he was alive, he is still wreaking it after he has died. I try not to let it get to me too much, but when it concerns Kay, I adopt my mad mother cow mode and bellow.

Back in March when Greg was rushed into hospital , Kay hurried the two hundred miles or so down from university to be there. Things were looking grim and Greg did in fact die a week later. Not only did Kay miss two weeks of lectures at that time (including the week following Greg's death) but she also missed a very important exam. She did this with the university's permission and they were good enough to say that she could take the exam in August instead, when those who had meanwhile failed it did their re-sits. The exam is next week.

So instead of having a nice long summer vacation to get over what has been a strenuous academic year (let nobody say medicine is an easy course to study) as well as a very difficult year on an emotional level, Kay has had to stick her nose in a book and study hard. The fact that one-third of her fellow course students failed that March exam and are having to do re-sits does not fill her with confidence as to its simplicity: she is worried sick she will fail too. Her old school friends in London have been inviting her out for days out here or there, or suggesting all-night clubbing or trips to the cinema. Kay has gone out to some, just to keep sane, but has also had to decline a lot for fear she will not get all her revision done in time. What is also worrying is that, if she fails the exam, there will not be enough time for her to resit the exam before start of the next academic year in September and she will therefore have to repeat the whole of the first year again instead. A whole lot rests on this exam. So no pressure then.

I feel so sorry for her and wish I could wave a magic wand. She is physically and mentally exhausted, seems to be getting one cold or ear infection after the other and is very run down. If Greg had not died, when he did and the way he did, she would have taken the exam in March and would be having a whale of a rest now. And once again, my anger is slowly rising. He's done it again.

All's well that ends well

I am pleased to say Snoopy recovered and Kay and I managed to get to the party in Northumberland after all..........

The drip to replace Snoopy's lost fluids did the trick and when we collected him on Saturday morning from the vet, he was a different dog, apart from a hole in his leg where the drip had been. He could walk again and his rear end had stopped exploding! Unfortunately my bank balance is slightly wobbly now instead as the vet's bill came to £587. Now I am hoping the pet insurance will kindly pay for most of it. The claim form goes off today. Wish me luck.

Kay and I did all our packing for the big trip North late on Saturday, after we were reassured that Snoopy was better and had started to digest the prescription food we had been given by the vet. We felt confident the live-in dog-sitter we had hired for three days would be able to cope and would not be saddled with a leaking dog! (I wouldn't have been happy leaving him in that state either - in fact I had prepared myself for the fact I would have to stay behind.)

Thus on Sunday Kay and I left for Northumberland on an early train and were met at lunchtime at Newcastle station by Greg's sister Jill and her family, who had themselves travelled up from Lincolnshire the day before and were renting a cottage for the week. A lot of Greg's family originally come from that area (many are still there) and, on the way out of Newcastle, we first set off in search of Kirkheaton where one deceased aunt used to live. We found her old cottage, chatted to some inquisitive neighbours and found her gravestone in the village churchyard. Kay and her cousin Rhianna had a day of piecing together the family history and we made further trips to Belsay to discover other houses and cottages in the family folklore. Inbetween that we managed to walk Jill's dog (which made me miss Snoopy even more) along bits of Hadrian's Wall.


I finally saw the rented cottage near the village of Wark late on Sunday. It was at the end of a very long dirt-track off a fairly small road and just what the doctor ordered. It was so remote, it did not even have a mobile phone signal (so I could not ring the dog-sitter for reassurance until we were out of the cottage and amongst larger habitable areas). It was in need of modernisation but it had charm (meathooks hung in the ceiling so we guessed it had been an outhouse for a nearby farm) and we were warm and comfortable, even if the shower was not up to the 21st century.

The 90th birthday party for Greg's elderly aunt was held at Whitley Bay on Monday. The clan all gathered there at lunchtime to celebrate and it was good to catch up with so many relatives- some I had not seen since the aunt's 80th birthday ten years before. Inevitably the conversation turned to Greg and it was at times difficult thinking Greg would have so enjoyed seeing his family again and yet was missing all this. I was there to represent him, but nevertheless his absence left a big hole.

We came home yesterday after a day touring the gorgeous countryside along the A69. We lunched in Corbridge and explored the the quaint shops and buildings around, before walking along the river. Then we only had time to drive quickly through Hexham (Greg's father's home town) before catching a late afternoon train for London at Newcastle. Snoopy was fine on our very late evening return and was so pleased to see us again. The dog-sitter had been very reliable.

It was a very relaxing/entertaining/ happy few days away. It did Kay and me some good to get away and breathe country air. I leave you with the view from the cottage bathroom window. Imagine sitting on the throne and seeing this..........