I'm late and tired !

Why is it that you can lie awake in the early morning darkness and not sleep, but as soon as the alarm goes off your body says, NOW its time for sleepy byes.......

I'm late now, and I had so much I wanted to get done this morning before work, but really didnt want to get up at 3.45 when my brain was fighting staying asleep....grrrrr

I spent the past two days down in the South East where Himself is currently doing a couple of weeks of temporary agency work - strangely enough with the same company he left before Xmas, and on the same site ! Ironic or what you may ask - we did, seems he cant escape the place, but with work here in the Midlands not being that fruitful, for a couple of weeks it seemed like a good idea at the time. (We have had many a-good-idea-at-the-time moments, which have turned out to be FAR from good ideas, but thats not for going into now.......)

Anyway, we sold Himself's car yesterday to a friend. I had driven it down on Saturday and being car less I then had to make my way back to the Midlands by alternative means.

So my journey today has involved:-

1 x taxi journey (no local bus to enable me to get to station - don't forget I started from an unfinished housing development)
1 x train to London Victoria
1 x underground train journey to Euston
1 x train Euston to Midlands station
1 x bus to my local small town
1 x bus to my village.
1 x 1 mile walk from bus stop

It has been an eventful trip. The taxi driver was nice and friendly, all three trains were on time and nice and clean. The one bus driver was lovely and I had a great scenic tour of where I live that I don't always get chance to see when I am driving and the last bus was full of chatty oaps. Plus the walk was also enjoyable (except for the two heavy bags that I was carrying)

The journey time was double the time it would take if I was in the car (if the M25 is behaving itself) but it did remind me how much we take for granted and how difficult it must be for parents, teenagers and mums to organise and execute trips if you only have public transport to rely on. And also how much more time has to be allowed to get any where.

Once again, I stop and think how lucky I am. Things have been quite difficult over the past 12 months in many ways, but I am still one of the lucky ones, I really am..

Welcome 2011

Well I say 'welcome 2011', slightly fearfully. 2010 presented us as a family with quite a few challenges, some of which were overcome, some of which are carrying forward to this new year. So with hand on heart I am really hoping that this will be a better year all round. I am alternately scared and hopeful, tinged with touches of real hope that this will be a year of change which will enable us to go forward instead of round in circles, or at times quite dramatically, backwards.

I start a new part time job on Tuesday and again, I am looking forward to it, but I'm scared stiff at the same time. I feel I have been out of the 'proper' job market for a some time, and am also conscious of my increasing age....

Himself left his job the week before Xmas - I wont go into the details right now, but if he had'nt left, I honestly think the job would have killed him. And much as we need the money, I do quite like the silly old fart alive and kicking :-)

So with some trepedation but also a periodic feeling of hope, I welcome 2011 into the Little Terraced House and hope and pray we can move forward instead of backwards, can pay our way and maybe make some dent into the debt that is strangling us and Himself can start to feel better and find a job where he is happy and content near to home, instead of always being somewhere else in the country.

I hope that 2011 will be everything that you want it to be too, where ever you are.

Babs xx

It's been a funny old year......

Hello, yes I am still here, somewhere.....

Its been a funny old year since I last posted on Little Terraced House, Family illnesses, work changes, unemployment, mountingnot decreasing debt, more illnesses and now we get to here.......the middle of October. I feel as though we have been peddalling along through sticky mud for months - each time we lift a foot to get clear, the other foot which is still stuck, pulls us back to where we have been ! Its been a muddled, confusing, heart wrenching year in many ways, but I am always mindful that we are still so much better placed than many others and that even though the illnesses (one of them at least) could have taken a life, they didn',t and we are all still here.

It was the anniversary of the death my lovely sister in law last week, and I can honestly say that I dont think there is a day that has gone past where she hasn't been in our thoughts or has been talked about ! She really was one of the loveliest, funniest people I have ever met and I miss her contantly.

I will be back soon, I do have lots to talk about and much to share.

I hope you are well and that 2010 has been a good year so far for you.

Babs xxx

Do you believe in a shove from the other side??

Well, apologies before I start at my distinct absence of late - it has been a funny old few weeks but more about that later. I need to tell you about what happened yesterday. But I also need to fill you in on Sunday too.

My next door neighbour is having an extension built, which suddenly seems to be much bigger and higher than we were lead to believe it was going to be - to the point that one of the new windows he has installed now looks over the 5 foot high fence and they will be able to see clearly into my bathroom, (downstairs) kitchen and dining room.

I was be-moaning this fact to Himself who was actually home for 24 hours (he has been working his wotsits off again of late) and he countered with 'I wish we had a house like Pam's.....away from everybody.

(Pam is a friend of ours who lives in the most beautiful cottage on a smallholding and we have both been suffering from a touch of the green eyed monster since we went to see her a couple of weeks ago.)

I raised my glass (it was lunchtime - honest !) and followed up with, 'I wish you could have seen Dad's smallholding where I grew up, you would have loved it, it would have been ideal for us. An acre and a half of land, right next to the canal, views of the the fields and the farms across the water.....peaceful, but near to town too..... best of both worlds really.....'

I had sighed inside remembering how lovely it had all been, yes I know rose tinted glass memories and all that.

Anyway we happened to mention the smallholding again later on Sunday evening, sometime before himself made the solo journey back to the Sunny South where he is currently working. Nothing much was said, just the wistful, 'if only' sort of comments that we all come out with at times.

Anyway to get on with the story, Dad sold the smallholding to a friend who years later sold the land to a developer who knocked our house down and built a pub restaurant on the site. I have been a couple of times over the years, its only about 5 miles from where I now live, but the last time Himself and I went they had changed the style to what I always call a young and trendies bar - It was bloody awful, honestly it was. We had half a drink and left. I was SO sad that day as we drove away, they had ruined it and it was awful and although I have been past a couple of times, there was no reason for me to ever go there again.

Well yesterday I had to go get some bits and pieces and having to go to one particular shop that I don't frequent very often, (about once a year) lead me to go through the village heading towards the smallholding.

I had been thinking about my Dad yesterday when I got up - it was his birthday and even though he's not physically here with me anymore, I still wish him Happy Birthday when I wake up - and as I set off through the village I was recalling the conversation with Himself from the day before about wishing the smallholding was still there and that we could live there and do all the things we want to do, and I distinctly remember saying in my head as I was driving in the beautiful sunshine 'I wish it was for sale - I'd buy it back... (yea, yea, yea and pigs might fly......right?)

As I got closer, I saw the signs - FOR SALE ! I nearly died at the wheel. The pub has closed - looks like it has been closed for a while and the whole site, my old home land is for sale (forget there is a whacking great car park where the pigs, chicken and fruit and veg beds used to be and a monstrous building with a crap interior.

I raced off to get my errands done and on the way back pulled into the car park. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up as I walked about. This was SO weird.....was it a total co-incidence after our conversation on Sunday? Was it my Dad kicking me up the bum from somewhere far way? Fate? Who knows.....

All I can say is that I drove away from there feeling very very shaky and thoroughly mixed up. I had phoned the estate agents ( I had to, wouldn't you have done?)There is no way under the sun we could ever, EVER afford the price, and no way ever that we could raise that kind of money..........but just for one moment I was 'Home' - do you know what I mean???

I still feel really strange today and can't work out exactly how I feel. Strange is the only word I can use.

Now, can anybody give me any suggestions how I can find £450,000 apart from winning the lottery? And Dad if it is you, give me a clue where you hid the family jewels ! LOL

I haven't vanished

Honest, I am still here, just about. For the past two weeks I have been acting as an unpaid labourer on my husbands building site. I hasten to add that this isnt through choice, but as there is the most ridiculous deadline for a block of flats and there are people who are desperate to be able to move in before their mortgage offers expire AND the company he works for refuse to bring in any additional staff and are actually making more and more people redundant, I offered to help because 1. I would hate to be in the position where I was worried sick that my mortgage offer would expire and there is no guarantee of another one right now, and 2. Himself had a heart attack last Xmas and I cant bear to see him as stressed as he is regarding this build.



It still looks as though he may be out of a job after this build finishes in the middle of December but we still have to wait and see. Apparently the company have said this morning that there are another 100 jobs to go in this region at Xmas, but we don't know yet what mix of admin, technical and site staff it will be.

I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Back Soon. Babs