Life Moves On.

The ear is improving but when all is quiet, it sounds like I have a washing machine on the spin cyle in there. The doctor says the infection has gone and I just have to wait for the tubes to clear.

The last few days have been emotional turmoil.

Daughter is worried about upsetting her future German mother in law who would like them to wait for Flo's brother to return from duty in the army in Afghanistan before gettting married. As he doesn't expect to be back until late March, then the earliest they could marry is the first Friday in April, by which time she would be nearly seven months pregnant. Catherine does not want to look like a beached whale on her wedding photos AND if they wait for Sebastian to come back then they really should wait for her own brother Simon to return from duty on his submarine, which will not be until the middle of April, or thereabouts, she doesn't feel it would be fair to wait for one and not the other. I have to agree with her point of view but I would much rather have both the boys there. I must remember it is her wedding day and she must be able to feel as good as possible. I know she would rather have them both there if she could.

Thursday, we got THE CALL. These days you only get two days notice when OFSTED are coming in to assess you. If you don't have anything to do with the teaching profession this will mean nothing to you but just think, major surgery without anaesthetic and you will be somewhere near.

I think today went alright but tomorrow is my day for taking a class, on my own, for computer studies. I'm taking a pack of Tena Lady with me, just in case. You have to live with this report for about four years. Please don't let me be the one that cocks up!

I spoke to my son last night, for the last time for nearly three months. He is to be living below the sea for all that time. When he comes home, apparently, he will look like a maggot, having been so deprived of daylight. I can't bear the thought of him being shut away for so long and missing his sister's wedding. 

My stepfather was 80 today and we had a surprise party for him yesterday. It was a lovely party, with 100 guests. If I get to that age and have that many friends, I will be very surprised, so it would be a surprise party for me.

One of the guests was a Black Country comedian, Tommy Munden. He said he had bought his wife a hamster fur coat for Christmas, trouble was, he took her to Birmingham at the weekend and they went on the big wheel......he couldn't get her off!

He recommend Viagra for Wilf and Mum to put the zest back into their sex life. Wilf said 'Can you get it over the counter?' Tommy said'Yes. If you take two!'   

One of the chickens escaped through the fence on Thursday afternoon and we couldn't find her. I thought she was dead, that something had eaten her. I spent hours out with a torch looking for her. The next morning we were out at the crack of day. I was calling 'Where's my girl', which usually brings her running and sure enough, there she was next door. I hopped over the fence and brought her home. It was so sweet, as I held her she stretched her neck over my shoulder and snuggled into my neck, as if she was saying 'It's so good to be home'. I really am daft when it comes to my animals.

Harper Dog has to go to the vet tomorrow, he has developed a worrying cough and I have just discovered a large, soft lump in his neck. He's thirteen. I haven't told Simon about Fliss yet, I don't want him to come home and find half the pets have gone. What sort of a negligent Mother would that make me, on his first trip under the sea?

 

It's Life Jim But Not As We Know It.

I've spent the last two weeks feeling as if someone took a carrot, stuck it in my ear and then rammed it home with the aid of a few hefty whacks from a baseball bat. If ever you have the chance to avoid an infected Eustachion Tube, then I recommend you do so.

I've taken to having three hour naps in the afternoon so that I can continue working in the mornings. Alcohol tastes vile (can there be a worse punishment) and after a course of run of the mill antibiotics, I am now on a course of orange and grey nuclear warheads.

I am going through the motions of life but don't seem to be here. Mike has gone out in the afternoons to do various shopping and household errands as I don't seem aware of what needs doing and I don't seem to notice he went out.

Worst of all, I took mum to meet a cousin today, she is the lady I mentioned previously who had an article published in a local paper about her visit to our mutual great uncle's grave in France. He died in WW1. On the way home from meeting her I used the F word !!!!!. In front of my Mother.

We had a lovely time looking at photos but after two hours I was getting tired and in need of my afternooon nap. As I was driving Mum home we came to a large traffic roundabout with three lanes around it. As we approached it three cars were coming from the right, only one seemed to be coming very fast and it then accelerated in clouds of black smoke and a huge roar. I expected it to be going straight on at that speed but no, it skidded round the roundabout and went three quarter's of the way round, most of it on two wheels. I have never seen anything like it outside of the movies. I fully expected  it to overturn in front of us and was so startled that a word not to be used in front of my mother popped out. I'm sure it was because I was tired and not feeling well.

Thankfully Mum was so frightened by what we saw that she didn't seems to notice, which was just as well as I was fully expecting a sharp slap across my bad ear.

Which made me think, at what age do we stop being scared of our mothers? At 52 I still have to temper any difference of opinion with Mum, for fear of a telling off.

Mike has the same problem. He's 60 and his mother is 86. For his 60th birthday she bought him a half hour flight in a light aircraft, despite knowing the he has been terrified of heights all his life. Yet he daren't tell her he doesn't want to go in case he gets a sharp backhander.

No doubt  on the day he finally plucks up courage to go on his flight, she will be there, spitting in her hankie and wiping imaginary dirt from his face.

Is it something peculiar to our generation, that we live in fear of our mothers but also our children? I'm always doing what I think my mother would like and at the same time what my children tell me to do.

When will it be my turn? When do I get to be top of the food chain? Is life like this for everyone, or is it just me that constantly rides the guilt train to nowhere? Trying to please everyone and consequently pleasing no one, certainly not yourself.

My Mother is a funny woman, she's quite clever but there is a faulty connection somewhere and often comes out with the wrong word. A sort of modern day Mrs Malaprop.

I may have aleady recounted the tale of my sister's singing lesson and being patted on the scrotum. But you are not allowed to question what she said, even when it was blatantly incorrect and has people falling about laughing. Yet things I say, which I know to be correct have to be disputed and I am made to feel a silly little girl.

Could someone please tell me at what age, in my Mother's eyes, I become an adult?

 

 

 

 

Catching Up and Finding I have Tourette's!

The New Year started off well enough but quickly took a down turn.

I woke up last Saturday to find that overnight I had started an ear and sinus infection. This now seems to have grown into a whole head infection and I have virtually lost the hearing in my left ear.

Monday morning saw me at the GP Surgery. As, in their infinite wisdom, Saturday Emergency Surgery has been stopped, Monday's Duty Surgery was a sight to behold.

You have to go at 10.30 and take a number and wait. At 10.30 the morning appointments hadn't  finished, so those people were still clogging up the waiting room and there were 60 people for the Duty GP's. I honestly thought I must now be living in a Third World Country. There wasn't enough room to accomodate everyone, so a number had to stand out in the garden.

As I had arrived at 10.15 I had managed to get a seat and a young man sat next to me. He then started to tell me about his life. He was an attractive young man, who obviously had problems. His clothes were rags and his trainers were falling to bits, with no toes.

I felt so sorry for him as his tale of physical and sexual abuse unfolded. His self harming, the bites he'd taken out of his hand were something you wanted to not look at but somehow your eyes kept being drawn there.

I was feeling dreadful before, (in fact so bad, Mike had driven me to the Surgery and when he saw the crowd he said he'd go home and do some housework and come back later with a packed lunch, that wasn't far from the truth) but two hours with this young man was more than I, in my temperature ridden, weak state should have had to endure. When I felt I could stand no more, I said I was feeling a bit dizzy and needed some fresh air. Bless him, he was so concerned he insisted on coming with me to make sure I was alright. He was such a nice lad and I gave him as much advice as I could but WHY in this day and age, in a so called civilised society, are children allowed to be dragged up in this way?

The only bright spot was his girlfriend, whom he told me was the first person in his life to show him love, turned up looking for him. She'd brought his jacket, in case he was cold and as they sat holding hands and cuddling, he looked so lit up and happy that it brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes

I would love to think they may find a happy future but I'm not hopeful.   

When I came out at 12.30 I was less than impressed and feeling even worse than when I had arrived. The rest of the day was spent in bed.

Wednesday started as usual with Fliss, my bathroom cat, in her usual place besides the bath. She was purring and warbling as always. By mid afternoon she had lost the ability to walk. Fliss was quite elderly, in fact probably about 15 and had been getting thinner over the last year or so. I guessed it was kidney failure, which the vet confirmed.

We could have tried blood tests and an injection, which we tried with another cat who died five years ago. It only prolonged his life by a couple of weeks and I wouldn't say they were quality time.

This time I made the decision, that to me was the kindest. To have Fliss put to sleep there and then. Another part of this decision was because she had taken, lately, to standing in the middle of the road and not moving when cars came round the bend. Luckily because of the way our road is, cars are normally going slowly and have so far managed to stop but I just didn't want to take the risks.

She was lying peacfully on the table and died, while I was stroking her, in just a few seconds.

Sorry this has got off to such a miserable start but I can't make things up, can I?

The two photos of Fliss were taken the night before she died. The close up was testing out the Macro setting on my new camera, she was sitting alongside me and I literally had the camera a couple of inches from her face, I'm quite pleased with the result. The other picture was taken minutes earlier, when she was making up her mind whose settee she wanted to sit onDaddy, or Mummy. She chose me, hence the close up.

The other picture was taken a few days ago, we went on one of our 'Unsuitable for Heavy Vehicles' trips. This is when we go to a chosen place but not on the main roads, not even the B roads but those little white ones that have no name or number on the map.

We went to Tenbury Wells for tea and toasted teacakes. On the way there we stopped at the 12thC church of Rochford and met some friendly sheep just outside the churchyard, who seemed to want their photo taken, so I obliged. There is a grave in this churchyard for a Fanny Adams, which made us laugh. Couldn't help wondering whether she had been sweet or not. This particular route will be wonderful in about a month as most of the lanes are full of wild snowdrops.

I must be getting better because today I had the energy to have an attack of Tourette's. I'm sure I am un undiagnosed sufferer. My language is appalling when I get really stressed, or as happened today, something really annoys me.

In fact I was so concerned about this mornings attack I looked up the syptoms on the web and I think I am a mild sufferer, which explains a lot about the way things have gone in my life.

What started this morning's attack? Well I'll tell you....Gordon Effing Brown!

I was listening, quite happily to the news, in bed with my  cup of coffee, when the newsreader told me that Gordon Brown is suggesting that we drop Remembrance Day and have a British Day instead. Well he can jolly well contend with me first because as far as I'm concerned he can stick his effing British Day up his effing @!s*. How dare he? If he wants a British Day put it on another date and make it a Bank Holiday and we can all do something special, apart from all the people who still have to work bank holidays of course. Just leave Remembrance Day alone, that day is to remember the sacrfice made by so many and not to be cheapened by some political publicity stunt.

Oh well! There we go, what a bright happy start to my Journal for this year. I can only hope life and myinfected head improve and I shall try to think positively, after all I have a wedding and grandchild to look forward. Things can only get better...can't they?

PS Later news suggests Gordon Brown meant a different day, so hopefully the first report was incorrrect.

AND

I forgot.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all and thanks for the kind wishes I have already received today. XXX