Imposter syndrome

 Have you ever heard of Imposter Syndrome?

"Impostor syndrome, also known as impostor phenomenon or impostorism, is a psychological occurrence. Those who have it may doubt their skills, talents, or accomplishments. They may have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as frauds."

(according to Wikipedia).

I frequently feel like this.  I often wake up, particularly on a sunny morning, look out into the garden and can't quite believe just how lucky we are to be living here.  It's almost like we're not worthy of it and will soon be outed as frauds.....or, as Happy Hooker commented yesterday, that I'll pinch myself and discover it's all a dream.

I do know I'm being ridiculous - when you go on the Council housing list, you can't just say you want a sheltered housing home, or even a bungalow - you have to have a defined 'need', a physical or mental health problem.  And they won't just take your word for it, you have to provide documentary evidence in the form of GP or consultant letters and reports.  Which we both had in abundance, husband twice as many as me.  We already had these, we didn't have to go to our GP or consultants with a sob story and beg them to write something suitable.  So when the Housing Association rang to offer us this bungalow, saying we were top of the list, I queried it as being a computer error or something - they said no, we met all their criteria, more so than others on the list.  But I still find it hard to believe that we're actually living here, that we legitimately live here.  I won't say deserve, I struggle a bit with that word.

Anyhow, here we are.  

Change of plan yesterday morning - we had a really nice rattan table and chair set at the caravan, the table with a glass top, we bought them brand new and love them.  The 2nd hand cafe table and director's chairs (we already had the chairs) we had here were fine, nothing wrong with them, they're more functional than aesthetically pleasing though.  So we decided to swap them over - take the cafe table/director's chairs to the caravan and bring the lovely ones back to use here - they look much nicer and we'll get more use out of them here.  That meant we couldn't take Betty with us, as we needed all the space in the back of the car, and with the back seats down.  We also wanted to bring back our spare parasol (we have a gazebo at the caravan) and husband's strimmer, as he'll need that to cut Betty's lawn.  All no problem, except it meant we couldn't spend all day at the caravan, we don't like to leave Betty on her own for more than 4 or 5 hours max.  Not that she's a problem, she isn't, not at all - she's fine on her own, doesn't bark (we've asked neighbours) or chew furniture.  As far as we can tell, she just sleeps - she certainly looks very bleary-eyed when we get home, but she is always extremely pleased to see us.  We did what we needed to do, had a nice 30 min chat with van neighbours we haven't seen since last year, then drove home, getting back by lunchtime.  So now the nice chairs and table and parasol are in place, I'm even happier with the garden.

One thing I'm not so happy about is that husband decided to touch up the white paint on the sides of the house sign, which was a bit patchy in places (he'd done the white background and sides).  Somehow or other, he managed to drip 3 lines of paint on the front, partly obliterating some of the flowers, meaning I'd have to redo them 😒.  Sometimes his 'help' (when I've not asked for it either) is less than helpful 😂🤐.  However, he was apologetic and has offered to make a new sign in his Sheds group - which is ok by me.

His short term memory continues to be a problem - yesterday morning I told him we'd have a cooked breakfast (we sometimes do on a Sunday) before we went out, then I went and got in the shower.  When I came out, he was halfway through a big bowl of cereal - he'd forgotten entirely about the cooked breakfast, within that short space of time.  I wasn't bothered though, I'm not really much of a breakfast eater anyway 😂😉