Looking ahead

 All my jobs were done by about 2 pm yesterday.  Freezer defrosted and wiped out, back in place in the kitchen and reloaded, banana & walnut cake made, rice pudding made, homemade coleslaw including home grown chives and parsley prepped for dinner, yellow courgettes picked and sliced, chicken pieces marinaded in bbq sauce - I do occasionally eat some chicken.  I spent the afternoon making a few 'to do' lists for the week, a menu plan, sent a couple of emails, helped husband with stuff to do with the car insurance renewal, and then sat reading my book.  I think husband must be getting as deaf as me - although he claims there's nothing wrong with his hearing - he sat watching some noisy old war film in the afternoon, it was so loud I could hear it clearly in my bedroom, despite my 25% loss of hearing, had to ask him to turn it down.  Maybe he doesn't hear it because he's asleep half the time!

This morning I was up early (as usual), I've prepped the veggies for our roast dinner later and made sandwiches to take to the caravan.  We're taking our little kitchen dining table to the van, swapping it for the one we have there, which is nicer, so I cleared that off (not that there was much on it, just the fruit bowl, tablecloth and coasters) and folded it up.  I reminded husband he's taking the Freesat box to test it on the van TV, and suggested he unplug it and put it in the car, ready to take, or he'll forget it again otherwise.  I'm going to empty a few pots which had Spring bulbs in at the van and bring the pots home, I need some more pots here.

We've had a discussion, instigated by me, about the caravan - I think that next year will probably be our final one at the van.  It's not set in stone, we'll review it throughout this year and next, but I'm thinking ahead to the practicalities.  For a start, it really doesn't feel the same now that our lovely van neighbours C&J have gone - we do get on well with lots of other van owners, but C&J were our special friends, we always co-ordinated our visits and spent a lot of time with them.  Betty misses them as well, she loved C to bits (he loved her too) and she's always sniffing their van and looking up at their windows hopefully.  Of course it's possible some nice people will take it over, there've been a few couples looking round it apparently, although none have put in an offer thus far.  Two couples came and viewed it last weekend when we were there, one of the blokes had a shaved head - no hair but almost his entire head tattooed 😮.  Tattoos don't mean someone's bad or scary of course - I've got 2 myself 😂 - but having them covering pretty much your entire scalp is a bit eyebrow-raising.  

To be realistic, I doubt husband will be driving for many more years, and once he has to give up driving we won't be able to get to the van.  He's already extremely forgetful and that will only get worse, his heart failure symptoms are gradually worsening too - he has more chest pains and breathlessness and gets tired/falls asleep ever more frequently.  It'll be a sad day when it comes to giving up the van, but we will have had 5 or 6 wonderful years of happy breaks there, and I'm actually not as devastated about the prospect as I'd have expected.  Things change, life changes.