June Phil

Well, last month ended with Sue’s Dad’s funeral which was at the crematorium in Crownhill.  Since the last time I was there, they have built an additional one behind the original.  Now they can offer twice as many funerals as they used to.  Is it me or my age, or  are there more funerals these days than there used to be?  Our thoughts are with you Sue.

The very next day after the funeral, Claire’s Step Dad John and Marie came to stop at our caravan for the weekend.  Sue came over and stopped at the same time.  We took them to the Emporium and for lunch at the Manor.  John looked very fetching in Claire’s handbag.  We played Splodge in the evening while drinking copious amounts of wine following a BBQ.

 

The following morning, a dozen hatchlings went shooting off to find water.  I think they had been nesting under our caravan.  It might have been a Baker’s dozen now I have re-counted them on the photo.  I wonder how many will survive?

 

The following weekend I went over to visit Steve in Loughborough.  It seems ages since I was last there and its a bit more awkward for Steve to stop with us in the one bed flat.  I think he did come to stay in the caravan last year.  this year has had little sun so we have hardly spent any time there.  Steve’s youngest son Joe is staying with steve at the moment and it was great for me to catch up with him.  The last time I saw him he was a small boy but he has grown into a giant.  In fact he is a wrestler and organizes events as well.  Last time I remember seeing Joe he came to stop with me after I has split up with Carol but before I got together with Claire so it has to be at least 15 years ago.   I made a sub-directory on my computer for Joe which he downloaded pictures of his favorite footballers into.  I still have this sub-directory now.  I must get a new computer.

 

We had around 4 pints at Steve’s in the sun before walking down town so Joe could eat while we had another one.  We then walked up to see Melv for about 4 more but we did stop for one on the way there.  We decided to get a cab back into town to meet Steve’s oldest son Ben who had been waiting for a while.  We had one with him and then all went to a new pub that I cant remember its name.  It was brilliant, my new favorite pub.  It was free to get in, had four floors with the top one open air overlooking Loughborough.  And its open until 4am every day.  Wow, they weren't like that when i lived there.  We must have had 4 or 5 more in there before Steve and i were first to leave at about 1.30am.  No wonder we felt like crap the next morning.  What a great night, thanx lads.  In August its Steve’s 60th birthday so we should be back for that.

We had Stoney week, or whatever it was called?  We didn’t manage to get there but heard that it was a real good year.  However, we did manage to walk over to the big event at Linford Wood for a while.  It was intermittent showers which were very heavy.  We walked over there between showers, had a hot dog and walked back before the next one started.  We didn’t even stop for a drink; there’s a first. 

Georgina came back for a weekend so I took her over to Melton to see her Grandma Betty.  This month Mum bought a mobility scooter when I went over another time.  All was fine, Mum went out on it on her own when I left as it wasn’t delivered while I was there.  She put it on charge over night and went out on it the next day with Joan for a few hours.  She started to feel good about it as it was enabling her to get out of the house.  She put it on charge that night but was awakened by what she thought was an earthquake.  Upon investigation, she found that the scooter was shaking and making a terrific noise so switched it off at the mains and it gradually calmed down.  I rang the guy at the shop the following morning and he came out to look at it.  Claire also asked Sue because she used to own 3 or 4 mobility shops.  Nobody had ever heard of this problem.  There are no moving parts when its charging other than a small cooling fan.  The guy found that one of the battery terminals was loose but he suspects that it would need new batteries which he ordered.  Later that week, his engineer was to go out and replace them but Mum had lost her confidence in it and was frightened to go out on it again.

 

The man at the shop agreed to exchange it for one with air in the tyre’s so it wasn’t so bumpy and also Mum could operate it with her other hand as she has pain in her right hand that holds the accelerator on all the time.  Her new one came and we all went out to see how Mum got on.  She seemed to get on ok but this one seems to cut out now and then, especially when you go over a bump.  Mum’s beginning to wish she never bought one in the first place.

The other thing thats happened this month is that I have started to go back again to DW with Claire.  Its been months since I last went regularly but I have too so I can try to loose a little weight.  We didn't get off to a good start as we turned up and they wouldn't let us in.  Apparently there was a 40 year old guy, pucked, collapsed and died in the gym so they sent everyone outside while they sorted it.  One of their team resuscitated him before the ambulance men got there.  They took over and eventually took him to hospital where he is in an induced coma.  We wait to hear more news.  Anyway, we got in there, did a work out and went for a shower.  No shower bag in my kit bag and only my little sweaty towel I use in the gym.  Shit, and to cap it all, the 3 shower cubicles were all used up so i had to go in the communal one.  I hung my little sweaty towel over the glass dividing wall while I showered and used the soap that they provide.  It now filled up and all the communal showers were taken.  When I finished I walked to the other side of the dividing wall to let others in while I dried myself.  Just about dry and I realized that the towel I was using smelt nice and fresh and was dry.  It wasn’t any more after drying my complete body and hair.  I put it back on the dividing glass and took down my sweaty one, rushing into the changing room quickly before one of the big bald, tattooed, muscle bound Bletchley bods spotted me.

 

Next time in, the guy at the door asked me for my student ID.  In the two years that I have not been going there its the first time they have asked for it.  Trouble is my ID ran out last August and the OU don’t seem to want to renew mine any more.  It must be too long since I last did a course.  I still carry my old ID but it clearly has the date on it.  As I was already dressed in my gym kit on entry, I told them that I didn’t have it on me so they let me in and asked me to bring it next time.  This worried me and I decided to sow it to them on the way out rather than be stopped on the way in and have to sit in the car next time.  The guy looked at it very closely, took a photocopy of it them showed it to another man.  They both looked over at me and I smiled back.  he brought it back and I went out.  Not looking forward to the next time I go there.

The following weekend, we had bought tickets at the club house at our caravan site for a Michael Jackson Tribute band.  Sue and Brian was to come with us; in fact it was Sue that bought the tickets when John and Marie were here.  I forgot to take any photo’s, except for this one.  Its taken from a long way away, but you should be able to make out Michael with the white hat on the left.  If you look closely you can see Claire dancing on the right.  Its a crap picture but it was taken in low light at full zoom so its better than it should have been.  I liked this tribute band better than I used to like the real Michael Jackson.  Even though it was an English guy playing him he wasn’t as white as Michael Jackson.

 

The following morning I cooked breakfast on the BBQ and Sue and Brian left while we ate left overs the rest of the day.  We ended up staying at the van the entire weekend while I sorted out the mountain of papers from the hospital.  We only ventured out for lunch at Billing water Mill.  Thats the one that got flooded last year and its all done up nicely again now.  The papers from the hospital are Daphne’s medical record for the last 3 years.  A huge box came but they were not even in date order and it took me the whole day to sort them out.  I had a bit of a breakthrough with Daphne’s estate as the Financial Ombudsman has agreed to investigate the case.  Lets hope I am not disappointed again this time.

Following our weekend at the caravan, Claire went back to MK while I drove to Melton to take Mum to the physio.  I left quite early at about 7.15am and noticed that Claire’s rear tyre was getting low again so when I got there I told her to use our electric tyre inflator that I recently bought.  You plug it into the cigar lighter and it pumps your tyre’s up.  About 2 hours later I got a call from Claire to say that she was in trouble.  She couldn’t get the tyre pump to work so took my Freelander over to Harriets and it broke down on the way.  As we thought we had sold it we had cleared everything out of the car but the sale fell through as they offered much lower than initially agreed.  Consequently the recovery details weren't in the car so Claire didn’t have the number or couldn’t even remember who it was with.  We have been swapping and changing every year recently because the prices vary so much.  I didn’t have anything in my car either because I am driving Dad’s old one and haven't sorted it out yet.  All I had was a phone number in my phone but thought it might have been from some time ago.  Luckily when Claire tried it it was the current one.  The guy turned up and towed the car back home and he reckons that the head gasket has gone again.  I now wish I had took the lower offer from that car company; how are we going to sell it now?  I don’t want to spend £600 odd just to get it in a position to sell it, what a bummer.

Anyway, we have just sorted out one of our Oldbrook flats as someone is moving in next Tuesday and they wanted the double bed moved.  We only just put that bed in there and had to buy a new mattress to put on it; there you go.  We are just about to take it over to the caravan and try to fit it in somehow over there and we intend to stay for this weekend as well.  Claire will pick mum up Saturday morning and I will take her back Monday morning for her next physio session.  That’s why I decided to publish early as we wont be around and I don't have wi-fi there.  Just ran out of pictures, the end of the month crept up on me this time.  Must try harder next month.

Flat as a pancake

I did warn everyone that if my doom and gloom mood didn’t improve then I would be taking a blogging break.  Well that time came I’m afraid.  I have felt as flat as a pancake; everything seems grey with no sunshine on the horizon.  Even though we have had a good deal of the yellow stuff, I see everything as black and white at the moment, there is no colour in my life.  I did wonder whether it was all to do with George passing but if I am honest, which I am, although I respected him, we were not that close.  I think his death was the catalyst and my downer is due to a build-up of life’s general shit which has built over the last couple of years. Things that, at the time, didn’t deem to bother me but in retrospect I think they did.

The starting point I think was the shock diagnosis of prostate cancer 2 years ago for Phil.  Cancer happens to other people right?  Wrong.  Phil was fortunate that he was diagnosed in the early stages and his cancer hadn’t spread but the daily radiotherapy treatment wasn’t easy, especially for Phil and coping with the side affects afterwards affected the both of us.  After that came the selling of no 11.  I knew that it made financial sense because it allowed us to clear out debts but I loved that house and it was a wrench.  The caravan was a novelty at first but I’m afraid that soon wore off, I grew tired quite quickly of the 52 mile drive to and fro to MK and also I felt isolated from everyone.  I wasn’t sorry at all to move into Sue’s when the shutdown came round in January.

At the end of January we moved Phil’s mum and dad into the bungalow which was probably more stressful for us than it was for them.  It took a few months to get them sorted and things to their liking and although almost finished, the bungalow is still work in progress.  We didn’t have long to rest on our laurels when Aunt Daphne died and we not only had her funeral to deal with but all the shit with the FA and the handyman, which as you all know is still on-going some 13 months later.  All the legal stuff made me feel ill and I’m afraid I had to ask Phil to deal with it by himself as it was stressing me out.  All the legal wrangling’s took their toll on him (and continue to do so) and of course, only natural that Phil took his anger and frustrations out on me.  At least it has felt like that, he may beg to differ.

Early June saw us get possession of the GP flat after it being tenanted for 10 years.  It was a mess but it turned out to be a long and difficult project which it shouldn’t have been given that it was only a one bedroom flat.  Unfortunately most of the work was jobs that only Phil could do and he struggled with the physical side.  Anyway we got the refurb done in the end and I was pleased with the end result.  I am happy living here don’t get me wrong but living in virtually 2 rooms, well it can be claustrophobic at times.  Especially when you remember that it’s actually smaller than the caravan.  Aside from getting replacement stairs just before Christmas, we did experience a quieter couple of months until George became unwell.  The rest is recent so I won’t dwell on it too much but the aftermath of George passing is the worry about Phil’s mum.

Daily phone calls to Betty bring daily dilemmas which she seems unable to deal with.  We are averaging 2 visits per week but I am not sure how long we are going to be able to sustain this.  Phil went last Friday and took her to a mobility shop in Melton where she purchased a brand new scooter.  She was thrilled with this and was out and about on it the second it was delivered last Friday evening, but this was short-lived when it almost blew up whilst it was on charge in the garage on Saturday evening.

My urge at the moment is to hide away from the world but I haven’t as yet taken to my bed.  On Wednesday night I was out in Stony Stratford with Sue for the live music.  On Friday me and Sue met Jan at the OU for lunch and then we ended up painting fence panels at the OB flat.  Boy was it hot work.  On Saturday I went to the gym, cooked chicken salad for lunch and then we had a slob out afternoon.  Sunday was pretty laid back too; we didn’t get up until midday and only then because we had arranged to meet Billy & Harriet at The Giffard for a last lunch before they went on holiday.  The food was better quality than normal at our local but we had to wait ages for it to be served.  After lunch it was back to the flat for a movie and then the Grand Prix.

Yesterday I was up early and on the M1 to Melton by half past seven.  Traffic was bad and it took me   almost 2 hours.  I took mum to Grantham to see Auntie Phyllis for coffee and this was followed by shopping in Aldi’s and then lunch in a non-descript pub on a roundabout on the way back to Melton.  Another nightmare 2 hour journey on the way home but other than that all in all quite uneventful.  I have thought long and hard about giving up this blog, I know I have had my wobbles over the last 6 six years but none like this one.  I am aware that I have lost my mojo and so apologise in advance that if my postings are a bit sporadic.  However all is not lost and I leave you in the very capable care of Phil.  He always seems to have a million things to share with the world.