On the up

 Thank you for comments, I am feeling a lot better having changed my focus on things.  It helps that we've had some sunshine lately, although it was dull and grey yesterday, no rain, very little wind but it's cold - well, it is winter.  But also signs of Spring are appearing everywhere, more and more bulbs poking up through the soil, my camellia is in bud (neighbour a couple of houses away has hers in flower already, mine is a different variety).  And we've seen blossom out on a few trees when we've been out in the car.

The recliner chair for the caravan is coming today, I'm awaiting a text to let me know the time window (at the moment it could be anytime between 07.00 and 19.00).  Husband has an appointment with the nurse at our surgery, and then he's going straight to town to have the car looked at - a minor (we hope) problem.  I shall be staying home, of course, awaiting the delivery, it'll be nice to have a couple of hours to myself without having the TV on all the time.

A while back I'd started crocheting two throws for the caravan's two bedrooms, both are WIPs (works in progress).  I'd not done anything on them for ages, but have now started back on one of them as I feel in the mood for doing it again....also, it's nice to have a warm wool throw on my lap whilst it's cold.  The one I'm doing at the moment is a big granny square, in shades of blue and white.  The other is stripes, mainly pinks and purples.  It would be good to get them both done by the time we go back to the van (40 days now).

Tomorrow we're going to meet up with our lovely friends D & C from Kent, we're picking them up from their hotel and going to a nearby pub for lunch.  It'll be so good to see them for a catch up, we usually meet up with them 2 or 3 times a year as they love coming down this way for holidays.

We're doing well on our diet, having salads for lunches (cottage and feta cheeses on Monday, ham yesterday, tuna today) and loads of veggies with a small amount of meat for dinners.  We had roast duck on Sunday, Monday I did roasted Mediterranean veg and shredded duck with a very small amount of pasta stirred through, yesterday we had the remains of the duck in a stir fry with tons of veggies.  Today we're having salmon steaks, foil baked with ginger, olive oil and lemon, with green veg and a small portion of carrot & parsnip creamed mash.  My guts and joints are feeling the benefits already, and I'm peeing for England - I always do when I cut down on carbs.  I've also slept quite well the past 2 nights, so that's good.

My sister says she's really excited about us going up there next week, as am I, it'll be so good to see her again after 2 years.  We're very close, when we lived near her up in the Midlands, she and I would meet up for lunch and shopping 2 or 3 times a week.  I do miss that, one of the very few things I miss about living up there.  She's cooking us dinner and has invited her son and daughter and their partners round as well, so it'll be a bit of a family reunion.  The following day we'll probably take her out for lunch somewhere, before driving home.  Can't wait.  

Just had a text to say the chair's arriving between 11.00 and 15.00.

Less bad, more good

 There's so much stuff that I have very little control over going on in my life at the moment, and it's causing me no end of stress.  So, having had a good think and considered things over the past few days, I've decided to more or less let go of the stressful stuff and just concentrate on things that I CAN control and/or that give me pleasure.  Well....to qualify a bit, I can't totally let go of the stressful things, I have to be involved to a certain extent, but I am trying not to let the stuff invade my thoughts 24/7, and to take a step or two back.

So, the better stuff.....

Obviously, the caravan is what makes me really happy and as I said before, I intend to spend a great deal of time there this year and next.  We don't know how much longer we'll be able to keep the van beyond the next 2 or 3 years, so I want as much use out of it as I can, whilst I can.  Having lived in it for the last few weeks of the season last year, I now know what works, what doesn't and what we can improve on to make it better, more useful and more comfortable.  As well as the new lounge furniture, we need to increase insulation in some areas to make it warmer early/late season.  Without spending loads of money, I think the way to do that is to put some insulation sheets (the kind DIY shops sell for behind radiators, or something similar, eg) down on the floor underneath the rugs, and fit thicker linings behind the curtains.  We need to fit something to go over the bathroom window (it's a normal roller blind in there at the moment) as it's blimmin freezing in there when I get up in the night for a wee!

I also need to make better use of the kitchen cupboards and get husband to put up another shelf or 2 for additional storage.  I also want him to construct some sort of store for outside the van door, so the kitchen bin and our wellies/outdoor shoes can be stored outside, instead of taking up space (and dropping bits of mud off our shoes) in the kitchen.  

So those plans are what I'm focusing on and keeping me occupied now.  Another thing is our health - both of us have put on weight since before Christmas - husband says he now weighs more than he's ever done before, largely due to his inactivity.  I've not put on as much as him, but have still gained half a stone or so and it's affecting my joints.  So I'm putting us back on strict diets - not so strict that we'll rebel against it and give up after a couple of days coz we feel so deprived, it'll have to be doable for us.  The main thing for me is cutting down drastically on carbs, I know full well that too many carbs don't suit me at all.  For husband, it'll be getting him to stop snacking between meals (he's terrible for that, it's not that he's hungry, it's just a bad habit) and to have smaller portions.  And he's got to be more active, we both have - but for him it means getting up off his fat backside, turning the damn TV off and actually doing something.  He does agree that he needs to be more active, so that's a start.

So just those couple of things are enabling me to feel a bit less stressed, have a bit more control and have some good things to focus on.

Moving plans - furniture not house!

 Betty had been sick on the front door mat when we got up this morning, she does that periodically - either just bile when she hasn't eaten much the night before, or sicked up her food after she's had a particularly exciting few hours beforehand (when a friend visits, or she's had a few energetic games with another dog, eg).  It's nothing to worry about, she's fine, it's just not a nice thing to have to face first thing in the morning!

I'd mentioned to husband that we needed to rearrange the furniture in the lounge this morning.....well, he's already raring to go and has started shifting things about before I'm even properly alert (although I get up early, it takes me a long while to actually come to).  I wanted to read a few blogs, write this post and have my 2nd coffee before we started - bearing in mind I have to tell him where all the furniture is moving to (I've already told him a couple of times, but he's forgotten, of course) there's not a lot of point in him doing it until I'm ready.  So I've asked him to stop and go find something else to do whilst I get myself together.  Which means he's now sat at his computer fiddling about with games again, and muttering loudly all the time.  Honestly, I do sometimes wish I had the peace of living alone!  (Well, with Betty, of course).

The reason I want the lounge furniture rearranged, is to make space to accommodate the new recliner armchair we've bought for the caravan.  We'd decided that a small 2-seater sofa (already bought, as you know) and recliner armchair would be suitable for our needs in the caravan.  The recliner will be an extra temporary bed for when we have guests with us in the van, probably my sister - she'll have my bedroom, I'll sleep on the recliner.  It needs to be a narrow-ish one (most recliner armchairs seem to have huge wide arms, too big for the van) and be at least part assembly, like the sofa, so it will fit through the caravan door.  After a lot of searching, I found one at a good price and ordered it, it's coming next Wednesday.  Having already got parts of the new sofa in the dining room and my craft room upstairs, the only other available space would be in the lounge, once the furniture is shifted around.  I don't want a big box cluttering up the place for the next 2 months, so we'll assemble the recliner and have the use of it here until it's time to take it to the van sometime in March, disassembled of course.

I'm gradually ticking things off my list of things that need doing, which is helping me feel less stressed.

The hotel is booked for our visit to the Midlands at the end of the month....I'm not looking forward to the journey at all, in fact I'm quite worried about it, but it will be so nice to see my sister again, 2 years is a long time.

Needing a break

 Some of the things that are causing me so much stress at the moment:-

The family member, when they get a bee in their bonnet about something or other (usually trivial) will bombard us with WhatsApp messages.  I have my phone on silent overnight, which is just as well as the other morning when I woke up and looked at my phone to find out the time, there were 32 unread messages from them, all sent between around 00.30 and 02.00.  Grovelling apologies the next day, but then the same thing happens again.

Husband has a new computer (his old one died) - he's not techie minded at all, even worse than me and that's saying something.  So I set it up for him and put on some of his favourites - ebay, autotrader, his banking app, a chess game.  I also showed him how to put on other games.....which he did, half a dozen or so, but has somehow or other now lost them.  I can't find them either, who knows what's happened?! (It's like the blind leading the blind).  His anti-virus program keeps showing pop up boxes (whilst it's learning, I guess), and he's always pressing the wrong thing and getting error messages, and every time he gets a pop up box or an error message he calls me expecting me to drop everything and 'fix' it.  It's Windows 11, which I'm not familiar with as I still have Win10 on my laptop, so it's all a bit of a mystery to me.

Husband books appointments for things without first looking at the calendar, on which I write all appointments.  Consequently, things get double booked which obviously needs rectifying.  Or he forgets not only to write things on the calendar, but also doesn't even tell me, meaning I have no idea what he's doing when.  The other day I answered the phone to a physiotherapist who was ringing for a phone consultation with husband......only he was out walking the dog, hadn't told me about the appointment and hadn't even remembered it himself as he'd forgotten to put it on the calendar.  I could only offer my apologies to her.

He often orders things on the phone, then can't remember his mobile phone number or email address and so I get called over and handed the phone to provide them, it's happened twice this week already.  I've written both his number and email address down for him countless times - he loses them constantly, puts them somewhere and then can't remember where.  I've tried putting them on post-it notes and sticking them to his desk, or even his computer - they get knocked off and mixed up with the general muddle and mess on his desk, he's so untidy.

I'm up to my eyeballs in financial and caravan planning at the moment, I try to get all my home jobs done in the morning, so I can spend time upstairs in the afternoon doing the planning.  Although lately I've nodded off a couple of times, as I'm not sleeping well at night.  So when I'm busy with housework or food prep stuff in the mornings, and plans in the afternoons, it's irritating to keep being interrupted.  Roll on Spring when husband can be outside more - it's too cold and muddy for him to be doing things outside right now, the cold exacerbates his heart failure and makes him breathless.

The osteo went well, Felicity said all my muscles were really tensed up again, she's loosened them up quite well but I'm having another session in a fortnight.  Hopefully, that'll loosen me up sufficiently for me to not suffer too much on the long car journey up to the Midlands.  We're planning on going at the end of the month, I'm going to book the hotel today.  Felicity said to try and stop 2 or 3 times on the journey (we would anyway), get out of the car and walk around a bit and do a few of the stretches she's shown me.  I am worried about the journey though, both for me and for husband - he really doesn't like driving long distances nowadays, and he's not as alert as he was when younger and driving lorries.

I think when March comes and we've done the work in the caravan, I'll spend a few days there on my own and husband can stay home with Betty, give us both a break.

A friend when I need one

 I've been trying to pretend that everything's normal, but it isn't.  Nothing I'm going to talk about on here, but it's causing me no end of stress.  I am trying to change things, the way I feel, think and react to things, but it's a slow process.  I am taking more of my anxiety meds to help at the moment, but that's a short term solution, it's not something I want to be relying on long term.

One good thing that has cheered me up a bit.....my lovely friend and her lovely husband (the most laid back and kind man I know, he never has a bad word to say about anyone) who live in Kent (the other side of the country to us), are coming down here next week for a short break in a hotel.  It's a retirement present for her husband.  D and I get on so well, we're on the same wavelength, it's a pity they don't live here as we would see each other every week, I'm sure.  She's coming down at just the right time, when I'm in sore need of a friend to talk to who understands me.

I've got osteo this afternoon, thankfully - my back and particularly my hips and left knee are a real problem again, not as much pain as before, but a load of stiffness and aches.

We've both tested negative again this morning and the bug or virus or whatever it was seems to have gone now.

Thank you again for comments, I do appreciate them very much.

Sunday

 Although we're not 100% yet, this morning we both felt the need to get out of the house, go for a drive and get some fresh air, once we'd had breakfast.  It had stopped raining, the sun was breaking out and a reasonably nice day was forecast.  We (or rather I, husband has no imagination) decided to go to Porlock Weir, a very small village with a nice harbour a bit further on than Minehead, we hadn't been there for ages.  We took Betty.  Unfortunately, it started drizzling when we arrived (must have known we were coming!) and there was also a cold wind, so it wasn't that pleasant, but at least we were out and about, and it wasn't busy at all.

I've said this before and will say it again - I wish people would either keep their dogs on a lead when not in a field or park, or have better control over them and, most of all, realise that not everyone and certainly not every dog likes a strange dog running up and bothering them.  Our dog is unpredictable around other dogs - some she gets on with, some she doesn't, and we don't really know what triggers her some of the time.  Having been attacked a few times in the past, she's certainly anxious around strange dogs.  Hence why we NEVER let her off the lead when other unknown dogs are around, and she's always on the lead on pavements/roads - isn't it law that dogs have to be on a lead on a pavement or road anyway?  I could be wrong, I can't be bothered to look it up.  We were coming out of the car park and another woman came along with a big black dog not on the lead......it came running straight up to Betty.  Now, Betty wears a bright red lead and harness with CAUTION printed on them.....people seem oblivious to it though.  (And strange loose dogs can't read, funnily enough!!).  The woman made no attempt to call her dog back, until Betty growled at it to warn it off and we asked the woman to call her dog away - she did call it back then but scowled at us as if we were at fault!  For goodness sake, you may well think your dog is friendly and no trouble, but you have no way of knowing if the dog your dog is trying to get friendly with, or play with, or even get aggressive with, is friendly towards other dogs!!!  It really pisses me off, actually.

So what with that and the drizzle and cold wind, we didn't stay long.  By the time we got back we were both feeling pretty tired, husband dozed off on the sofa, I washed up the breakfast dishes, prepped the veggies for dinner then went upstairs for a sit down on my recliner armchair.  Whatever this cold or virus or bug is, it's wearing us out.  I'm not sleeping well at all, feeling feverish during the night.  And anxiety and stress is keeping me awake.

Thank you so much for all the comments, it's lovely to know that people care - more so than some friends or family.  Cherie and Rachel, I hope you're beginning to feel a bit better, or at least no worse!  Sorry to read you're still suffering, Scarlet.

Rough

 Full on anxiety, stress and worry here, several things going on, and both of us are feeling rough physically (negative LF tests, so it's normal colds/coughs - hopefully).  My guts are awful again (not poor diet now, just stress) and I've got earache with the cold.

Family member who is problematical has been a nightmare recently, bombarding us with literally dozens of messages.  As it's husband's birthday today and we both feel so rough, I'm keeping my phone and computer switched off all day, once I've finished this post and a couple of emails I need to send, we could do without the hassle.  We're just going to have a quiet day huddled up on the sofas, with blankets, TV and books, and plenty of hot drinks.  It's peeing down so not a day for going out anywhere, even if we did feel like it.

Regarding family member, the solutions to most of his problems are in his own hands, he simply refuses to do them.  Engaging with him just makes the situation worse, so we tend to keep contact minimal.  The guilt factor I suffer when doing that though is pretty bad.  Hey ho.

The sofa arrived well within the 2 hour time slot we were given in the morning.  The box (well, it was 2 boxes, one containing just the loose covers) was absolutely huge, there's no way it would have fitted in the car and we certainly couldn't have heaved it up onto the roof bars.  We've taken it all out of the box, the main part is in the dining room, the cushions upstairs in my craft room.  The component parts, out of the box, should all fit in the car - just - when the time comes to take it to the caravan.  If we have to make two trips, so be it - that's the beauty of the van not being too far away.