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

Baby Update, update

Just a quick post today as the past few weeks have been more than a little hectic - my son and his fiance are going ahead with having the baby. He, bless him is growing well and is kicking like mad and doing gambols inside her now ! They sat and talked for a while, but neither of them could go with any other decision other than to go to full term and let nature and the excellent consultant do what ever they decide is the best thing. So its back to fingers very firmly crossed.

I have had some lovely emails, thank you so much they have been very appreciated.

Himself was on a training course last week. The Trainer, a lovely man who Himself has met several times over the years on various courses, is also a Minister. Himself mentioned at some point during the day about the baby and his heart condition, and the Trainer, in his Ministerial role offered to organise a world wide prayer that weekend across his church, through the power of the Internet. When Himself told me what had been done, I burst into tears as did my son and his fiance. What a beautiful thing to have suggested and to have put into action. I was truly very humbled by the thought of people who we will never meet, who will never know us, taking the time to pray for a good outcome for the little one.......regardless of whether we share their own religious beliefs.....truly humbling.

Will be back later this week for an update on other things. xxx

Oh, my son wont tell me what the babies name is to be, only that his initials will be CS. So to that end I have started calling him Charlie Sydney, or Claude Snudge (anybody old enough to remember The Army Game, will know the second one !)

Baby Update

My son and his fiance went to see the consultant today. He carried out another scan and confirmed that the baby does have Polyplastic Left Heart Syndrome - long winded scary name. In simple terms it means that the left side of the heart has not developed. At the moment this isn't a problem to the baby - he is getting all the oxygenated blood that he need through the umbilical cord. Yes I did say he, the other scan was wrong on that account!


The heart condition is not curable. So, they have been given three options. A termination now, in the next few days, let the baby go to full term, then let him slip away peacefully after a few days or third a series of operations. The operations are in no way a cure, this condition can only be 'cured' by a heart transplant and the chances of that in a 2 day old baby are improbable ( and the thought of another set of parents having to go through the loss of their child to save this little one, is also unthinkable) but the series of operations can be 'help' slightly, the first at 2-3 days old, the second around three months and the third at about a year old. Although the operations can 'help' there is still great uncertainly about long term prognosis, although the consultant says that life expectancy and quality of life is increasing year on year, however a heart transplant will still be required later in life..........

The two of them are feeling a little better after talking to the consultant. He is one of three people who have conducted this operation at Birmingham Children's Hospital where the little one would be transferred to as soon as he had been born, ready for an op in his first couple of days. Other than the heart condition, he is growing exactly as he should and currently weighs 1lb 3oz - I was staggered to know that they can estimate the weight so accurately now.

So, they have a decision to make, probably the hardest one that they have to make. I'm pretty sure I know what they will decide, but I'm waiting for them to finally confirm it.

I hope I sleep better tonight, the past two nights have seemed to have gone on for ever, not helped by the fact that I am at home and Himself is still down at work, oh and he should be off tomorrow for the weekend, but his contracts manager managed to get one of the trades to come in tomorrow morning, so Himself wont be home for the weekend until at the earliest, late tomorrow afternoon. I hop he sleeps well tonight, he's been really tired and stressed this week.

Have a good weekend, I hope the weather is kind.

Today

Today should be a really happy day. Its Himself's birthday and our second wedding anniversary - we decided to get married on his birthday in the belief that he would remember to get an anniversary card - it hasn't worked, but there you go :-) (I'm still waiting for last years birthday card too........

Anyway my son and his fiance had to go for a scan today - they had had one last week, pretty sure the grandbaby-to-be is a girl, but last week when they went for a scan, they were told the little one was too scrunched up for them to do all the checks that they wanted to do, so today was re booked.

Now they have been told she has a serious heart defect, the left side of her heart isn't developing properly and to be truthful from the info we have all been reading since about 11.am, its looking a bit bleak. The hospital have booked them to see a specialist on friday at another hospital, so we should know more then.....god love them.

And to top it all, Himself is ready to walk our of his job - its getting worse by the day and he's really had enough. And bless him, in the middle of all the news about the baby, when he is ready to explode and walk out, he says he needs to stay, as my son may have to take time off work and he (Himself) knows that there will be bills that need paying.........

I feel like crying, for the little one, for my son and his fiance, and for my dearest darling husband, who's blood pressure is so high, but wants to do the 'right thing'.....

I hope we have better news on Friday....

Cheap Meat??

The BBC are running an item this morning about sheep, cattle, pig and bee stealing.

See the video report here.

BBC - Search results for sheep stealing

The pig farmer in the report is near to where we live and the details had been in our local paper the week before last. It really saddens me to see that we are getting to the point where we are going out and stealing food, or stealing animals for meat to make a quick profit somewhere.

The other issue which worries me even more though, is if these animals are being stolen to go into the UK food chain, either as fresh meat or to be incorporated into meat products, under what circumstances are they being slaughtered and stored? Are the meat carcasses being stored properly, at the right temperatures, in clean conditions?

I made what I felt was a mistake I learned from some years ago, one which I have never repeated. I bought some meat from a van at a car boot sale. It was supposed to be pork. It looked like pork, but when I cooked it later that day, it had a funny smell and was a strange colour. It went straight in the bin, we had egg and chips for dinner and I had paid hard earned money for heaven knows what.

Now I am not saying that all mobile butchers at car boots and markets are vending unfit meat - far from it, at one of my local regular car boots there is a very reputable butchers that sell there and have been doing so for at least 10 years that I know of. But it does concern me that if I was on a low income or looking to grab a bargain, I might again be tempted to go for what seems like cheap meat and in actual fact its either not cheap because its ends up being thrown away (as did my strange pork) or more worryingly might actually be unhealthy or contaminated in some way.

The last item in the video really did make me sad. It looked at bee hives which had been stolen, 18 of them. The bee population is already in decline for reasons we are not totally sure about, to steal hives and some of them were breeding hives is awful. Without bees we cant survive, no pollination equals no food.

How sad must that bee keeper be feeling? I spoke to Malcolm my bee keeping friend this morning abut it and he was really angry. He has been looking after 10 hives over the winter, 7 of them for other people. Out of 10 hives only 2 have made it through to the spring and even then the numbers of bees are dramatically down for what he would normally expect to see at this time of year.

I can only sympathise with the farmers and the bee keepers and hope that this stealing stops, for all our sakes.

Old friends - New Uses

In the short time we were at home this weekend I changed 2 old friends into items more fitting for their aged status.

My old towelling dressing gown became about a years supply of dishcloths.


My old sweatshirt became a lovely supply of polishing cloths.



The lovely thing about this is that 1. I have re-used 2 items for some other purpose rather than just throwing them in the bin or sending them to the charity shop and 2. When I have finished with them after cleaning or polishing, as they are both made of 100% cotton, they can go into the compost bin to rot down. As I use only natural products for washing and polishing, I don't have any worries about unsafe chemicals getting into the compost and affecting my fruit and vegetables later on.

I also spent the morning polishing my welsh dresser - much, much overdue. I make my own beeswax polish and it was very theraputic bringing the shine back to the pine. Plus there was the added benefit of the beeswax and lavender polish wafted through the whole house, beautiful ! I am very lucky that I have a good friend who is a beekeeper and I am able to get beewax and honey straight from him. Thank you Malcolm x

The polish is in the jar at the front of the photo of my cleaning materials.


The recipe for the Beeswax Polish that I make is:-

2 oz (55g) beeswax - grated up or sliced
1/2 pt (280ml) pure turpentine - must be pure turps, not turps substitute
about 1/4 0z (7g) of essential oil - I use lavender, but lemon works just as well

The first think to be aware of with this recipe is that turpentine is flammable, very flammable, so be aware of this fact and if you haven't made polish before I would suggest that you have a damp tea towel to hand just in case of emergencies.

I use a saucepan as a bain marie, a quarter filled with water.

Using the wide mouthed jar - the one I use originally held salsa I think - I place the grated or sliced beeswax in the jar and carefully add the turps.

Then I place the jar into the water and gently heat it. Whilst the water is heating, stir the mix to held the beeswax melt.

When the beeswax has totally melted, turn off the heat and add the essential oil and mix thoroughly.

Leave to cool down - I usually leave the jar in the saucepan until the water has cooled right down, to prevent the possibility of scalding myself when lifting the jar out.

Once the polish has completely cooled, screw on the lid.

This polish is not a very hard one, but once applied and buffed up well with a soft cloth, really brings out a shine to any furniture.

I wouldn't suggest using it on a wooden floor as it may be too slippery to safely walk on. Oh, and I also keep separate utensils for making polish or any other cleaning things not ones I would use with food.



This is the cleanest my dresser has looked in ages !

Saddened

I feel sad and somehow ashamed tonight. Himself and I managed to escape from site for about 18 hours so we came home - hurrah.

Himself who has had one hell of a shitty week, has got a swollen ankle and had understandable positioned himself in his comfy chair, remote control in hand to catch up with the TV which he hasn't seen all week and decided that he would like an Indian take away for tea.

No problem, the Indian is only about 3 minutes walk away, so, leaving him to watch the sports results I nipped up the road. I know that our Indian is always busy at this time on a Saturday, so I was quite prepared to sit up a corner with an old newspaper and catch up with whatever has been happening locally this month.

The Take-away has just been converted into a restaurant as well and they have made a lovely job of it - nice tables, high backed Mackintosh style leather look chairs and nice candle holders and flower arrangements on each table.

After I had placed my order, I settled myself up a corner and started to read the paper when in came two women, one a little younger than my self and the other apparently her mother. They gave their take away order and sat at the next table to me. The one my age immediately pulled the opposite chair around and sat with her sandaled feet on it whilst proceeding to cough every few minutes, without putting her hand to her mouth. They talked loudly about her mothers up and coming operation (nice) and still the daughter carried on coughing all over the table that she was sat at, her feet still on the chair that somebody else would be sitting at later.

Then, in strolled three teenagers, two boys and a girl, all complaining loudly that their meal should be ready by now and that the service was 'f'ing shit' The manager went through to the kitchen to hurry their order up, whilst the one young fella stood laughing, telling his mate to look out for him in the local paper next week as he had just been done for driving a car without a licence or insurance. He sounded almost proud of himself.

I'm not perfect in anyway shape or form, believe me I'm not, but I came out of the Indian saddened, ashamed and embarrassed of not just the young man who thought he was so clever and would have his mates see the results of his capers splashed across the newspapers, but of a woman almost my age, and her mother, who did not have the good manners to see that putting dusty feet on a restaurant chair, or coughing all over a table were the actions of a person who did not care at all about anybody who came into the restaurant and sat or ate at that table later.

I came back home ready to sell up and move to a desert island. Maybe its me I don't know, but I do look at life lately and think that many people are getting less friendly and more aggressive, less caring, more selfish and just plain ruder.

Maybe it is me, I don't know anymore......

Then to make matters worse, the Indian forgot to include my order and I had to go back again..........