In the words of Victor Meldrew.....I don't believe it!

 The 'making space in the freezer' thing is going slowly, but at least I am taking things out.  Yesterday we had smoked salmon and some veg out of the freezer, for a salmon rice thing, today it'll be gnocchi with a sauce made from frozen homegrown tomatoes, so that's a bag of those gone from the freezer.  I'll roast some sliced courgette and butternut squash and husband will have bacon with his.  Today, however, I'll be putting more back in, albeit Betty's food, I'm making up another batch of chicken and squash food and freezing it in tubs.  Oh, and husband did take a loaf of his bread out, so that's a biggish gap made.

I had my diabetic eye screening in the morning, the technician said I have a very small diabetic bleed in one eye, tiny in fact (he had to enlarge the screen to see it), he said it's nothing to worry about and will probably have gone by the time I have my next screening!  In the afternoon I saw the new podiatrist for the first time, she was lovely and dealt with my ingrowing toenail with no pain at all.  She loosened the nail and then cut a piece off the side, put some antiseptic spray on and bandaged it up, she said to leave the bandage on (and not get it wet, so I have to put a plastic bag on it to shower) for 2 days.  After that I have to wash the toe with mildly salted water and put a fresh plaster on every day for a week.  She said as I'm diabetic we need to take extra care that it doesn't get infected.

In between these two appointments we had a surprise visit from a worker from our landlords, he came to measure up our bathroom for the new flooring which is supposedly being laid on Friday of next week.  I say 'supposedly' because it's now up in the air.  Apparently, according to this bloke, the whole job will take two - yes two - days - it's only a small wet room with shower with waist height screen, basin and loo!  The first day they will have to remove the loo and sink, shower screening, and the door (it's a sliding door and wide doorway, wheelchair adapted) and then lay a new concrete floor, which must not be walked on until it's completely dry, which will take all day and possibly into the evening.  The following day they'll come back, spray the floor with glue and lay the new flooring, before then fitting back the toilet, basin etc and the door.  So the chap said the bathroom will effectively be out of action for two days.  Erm, what?  And what are we supposed to do about going to the loo?  Oh, he said, can't you go over to the day centre and use theirs?  The communal day centre for our sheltered housing estate is about 100 metres or so away and isn't actually open 24/7, it's not even open every single day now.  Even if it were, as both of us have bladder issues (bowel too with husband, and urgency), it wouldn't be practical for us to have to go elsewhere to use a loo.  He then said that he supposed they could bring us a commode!  Which would have to go in my bedroom, there's nowhere else to put it (husband's room is too small and cluttered).  Oh and he said he doesn't know why the floor laying appointment was booked for a Friday, as the job takes 2 days and they don't work Saturdays!  Honestly, you couldn't make it up.  I just find it astonishing and quite unbelievable that this is a sheltered housing development for elderly and disabled people and yet they don't appear to be showing any consideration for that.  We said it'll have to be postponed until such time as we and they can come up with a suitable solution.

I think the best thing would be for us to book a night away in some local holiday accommodation, bearing in mind we'll have Betty with us too which adds a layer of difficulty.  I did have a quick look online yesterday and couldn't find anywhere locally available for one night in the next few weeks, it's the wrong time of year.  The other problem, even if I could find somewhere, is that workmen from our landlords are notorious for cancelling or rearranging jobs at the last minute, or even just not turning up with no warning.  So if that happened when I'd paid out for a night away, I wouldn't be best pleased!

If it's not one problem, it's another.  If a fairy godmother wanted to grant me a wish, I'd ask for a calm, peaceful life with NO problems or aggravations.  Not much to ask for is it?! 😂😂

Boring!

 The flu jabs at our surgery were well organised yesterday, we were both in, done and out within 5 minutes.  Slightly sore arm this morning but feel fine otherwise.  We didn't go to the boot sale in the afternoon, it rained 😒.  I think there are 3 more (weather dependent) before the end of the season, so we might get to one again.

We just had the pizza and salad yesterday, neither of us wanted chips, so only the one thing out of the freezer.  Today there'll be a few more things, we're having a roast dinner - chicken thighs for husband (plus one for Betty), homemade nut roast for me, a homemade cauli cheese and some peas out of the freezer, along with fresh cabbage, so 4 things.

This is a busy couple of weeks coming up - I have my diabetic eye screening and a visit to a new podiatrist for my ingrowing toenail, we have the lady from Alzheimers coming to offer some help and ideas for husband's short term memory.  Betty has another vet appointment on Wednesday, someone from the landlord's maintenance dept is coming to inspect our bathroom floor later in the week.  And then there's the all important dementia testing for husband.  Oh, and my cleaner is coming tomorrow.  So eating meals out of the freezer a lot this next fortnight, which should really help clear some space in it and will take the pressure off me when I haven't got a lot of time for cooking fresh meals.

I did something yesterday I don't think I've ever done before - left washing out on the line overnight.  I know some people do but I've never done it, don't really know why.  It was only fleece dog blankets which we have on the sofa and on my bed as Betty sheds so much hair.  According to the local forecast, only a couple of light showers were predicted so I thought putting the blankets out wouldn't be a problem, they dry quite quickly and there was a breeze.  Huh, it rained on and off nearly all day, not that heavy but enough to soak the blankets, they weren't dry by teatime so I left them out there.  It's sunny this morning so I'll get them in soon.

What a boring blog post 😂😂

Full to bursting

 Ohhh, it's well and truly still dark now in the mornings when I get up, and we're closing the curtains and putting the lights on around 6.30 in the evenings.  One of the reasons why I'm not keen on the winter months, not enough daylight.  Leaving aside the lack of daylight, at least the clocks going back later this month means an extra hour in bed.  I've had 2 nights now of fairly reasonable sleep, as have husband and Betty.  No further sickness periods from her, my bowels have gone back to normal and husband's are settling, although not normal yet.  I'm still trying to keep him on a low fat, low fibre diet for a few more days until his guts are back to normal, it's not easy though.  I bought him a box of plain rice krispies for breakfast the other day, that's after he picked up a box of bran flakes and said he wanted them instead.  I patiently explained that he can't have those as they're high fibre, exactly what he's not supposed to have right now.  I'd said this morning that he should have the rice krispies for breakfast.....when I came out of the shower he was eating a plateful of wholemeal granary toast....sigh.  He said he forgot.

Our freezer is currently stuffed full to bursting, I'd bought quite a lot of chicken for both Betty's bland diet and because husband likes chicken, and there are several bags of homegrown tomatoes and courgettes and a couple of boxes of chopped onions and whole shallots.  Lots of fish too - whenever I see fresh fish (not battered or breadcrumbed) on offer or yellow stickered I always buy and freeze it, as I eat lots of fish. There are also lots of odds and ends of various types of bread, so I think I need to pull those out and make a large bread pudding - which will then need to be portioned up and frozen!  A large bagful of homemade chicken bone broth too, which Betty absolutely loves drizzled over her food, I won't need to make any for a few weeks, so the bones of any chicken I cook in the next couple of weeks will have to be frozen.

The freezer is so full I can't even do an inventory, so this coming week I'm going to make sure that we have something out of the freezer every day - I'll include a meal plan using freezer stuff every day in a post, that should ensure I stick to the plan.  This evening we're having pizza with a few oven chips and salad - the pizza obviously isn't low fat or bland, but on Saturdays I generally do a frozen fakeaway type meal, both as a treat and because I don't want to cook!  So the pizza and chips out of the freezer today - won't free up much space but it's a start.

We're going to the big car boot sale this afternoon, first time in ages and probably one of, if not the last - it stops at the end of October, or before if the weather's bad.  This is going to be a busy month, what with all the medical appointments (flu jabs this morning) and various annual service/repair jobs by the landlords.  The lady from Alzheimers Society rang yesterday to arrange an appointment - you may remember she didn't turn up for the last one before we went on holiday, turned out she was ill and had forgotten to ask her colleague to ring us.  She's coming to see what help they can offer us coping with husband's terrible short term memory.