Packed up, loads of washing, and crochet to finish

 We had a really lovely last day at the caravan yesterday, and the sun shone all day, with a few spots of rain as we were leaving.  We got everything done at a leisurely pace, car packed up throughout the day, and we didn't forget anything, for a change.  One or two minor irritations - husband twice put bags in the car before I'd finished packing stuff into them, and he turned the water off when I still had a bit of washing up to do and the sink/drainer to wash down.  He has this habit of doing things thinking he's being helpful, but without asking me first, so they're not really that helpful.  And for some inexplicable reason, he put the coolbag that we'd taken our packed lunch and 2 milk cartons in (his ordinary milk and my lactose-free one) on its side in the car.  He'd cross-threaded the lid on his milk carton, meaning of course it leaked out on the way home in the tipped up on its side coolbag.  Well, at least it was in the coolbag I suppose, and not loose in the car where it would have stunk the car out for weeks.

There were fewer people there at the park than I was expecting, apparently some had already been down last week to close up.  One couple, friends of ours, are staying until the 31st, the last day of the season - they're even planning on decorating the outside of their van for Halloween this coming weekend!  And they told us another owner, one of the vans on the upper area near to us, died last week after being ill for some weeks.  Don't know what her husband will do now, he may not want to come on his own so might sell up.  As it's mainly an older population of owners on our park, there are one or two deaths every year, sadly.

I brought all the toiletries and tinned/packet foods back from the van, now we're well stocked up at home for the next few weeks.  From next January, I'll start buying a couple of things along with the fortnightly shopping, to restock the van when we go back early March.  Got a large laundry bag full of bedding, towels, tea towels and our van dressing gowns to wash this week.

So that's another year of breaks at our lovely van over with, we didn't go as often this year due to the weather not being so good.  We'll try to go more often next year, even if only for a couple of days at a time - we have to pay the site fees regardless of whether we use the van or not, so it makes sense to go as often as we can.  The friends we were talking to today practically live at their van most of the season - unfortunately for them, they have problem neighbours where they live at home, so prefer to be in their van where it's so much more peaceful.  They're both retired, obviously.

It was one of those nights where I couldn't get comfortable in bed (my back and hip are being especially painful at the moment) and couldn't shut my mind down, so not much sleep.  I must get round to reading that Sleep book that Jayne recommended!  Not had a chance yet (or been too tired, haha).  Today and tomorrow I must get on with the crocheted baby blanket and try and get it finished....the neighbour's baby is due imminently.  The main body of the blanket is nearly done, just another couple of rows, then I've the border to do and a few crochet flowers to make and sew on, so I'm on the home straight really.

Final van day

 Thanks for the comments, I doubt the problem relative will be in touch again anytime soon, seeing as she didn't get the response she wanted.  I'm highly suspicious of her motives, too many years of history to think she might have changed.  We've just found out she had a phone conversation with another relative just prior to her ringing us, and was also very abusive to them.  As I said yesterday, a leopard doesn't change its spots.

Nice sunny day today by the looks of things, so the ideal day to go off to the caravan.  We shall be spending the day there, giving it a thorough clean and packing up stuff to bring home - we don't leave any food, toiletries or clothes there over winter, although I do leave clean bedding and towels in plastic lidded boxes.  We'll be catching up with/saying au revoir to the other owners who'll be doing the same thing.  Giving the garden a final tidy up, then draining down the water system and closing everything down for winter.  I'm taking a packed lunch - who knows, it might even be nice enough to sit in the garden one final time and eat it.  I don't feel as sad this time - the van will still be there next year, we'll be going back early March to re-stock it and get it ready for our first stay of next season.....when that will be depends on the weather at the time.  The anticipation of going back for the first time at the start of the new season is always good, I've planted lots of Spring bulbs again so that'll be a nice colourful display to look forward to.

I've got a homemade chicken and veg stew out of the freezer to have when we get home, I just make sure husband gets all the chicken when I serve it up.

We've actually got nothing much on this week, for a change.  Husband needs a new dressing gown and slippers - with proper slippers rather than the open toed leather slider things he wears indoors, there may be less chance of him catching the front of them on the stairs and falling up them, as he does so often.  Or else he'll have to practise lifting his feet up more, and watching what he does!  So we may go and do a bit of clothes shopping for him, and I might have a browse in a garden centre, not done that for a while.  So it's an easy week coming up - hopefully it'll stay that way!

Nope, not happening

 It's cold, drizzly and breezy this morning, but that's alright, we don't have to go anywhere.  And I think we've got off extremely lightly in comparison to other areas, mainly up North, where there are terrible floods and people have died.  Must be absolutely devastating to have your home flooded, or to lose a loved one to the extreme weather.

Here at home, Mr Clumsy strikes again - husband tripped up the stairs yesterday, a fairly regular occurrence.....fortunately, he generally falls UPstairs and not down.  He was wearing his open-toed leather slippers and bashed his toes and this morning one of his toes is going black - badly bruised I guess.  He said he'll go to the GP on Monday if it gets any worse.

Both husband and I have, shall we say, 'problem' relatives in our extended families - I expect lots of people have.  My problem relative has been fairly quiet recently, although that could change at any time.  Yesterday we had a phone call out of the blue from husband's problem relative, who we haven't heard from or had any contact with for 4 or 5 years, thankfully.  She rang to say she wants to come and stay with us, with her new boyfriend (she gets through numerous men) and her 2 granddaughters.  Nope, not happening - my first thought was 'Why?  Why now?  What does she want this time?'.  She's extremely abrasive, rude, foul-mouthed and sarcastic and I really struggle to get on with her.  The last contact we had with her some years ago was a text from her begging us for money, as she said she'd got serious rent arrears and was threatened with eviction.  After some discussion, we gave her some money - she then well and truly abused our trust by not using the money to pay off her arrears (that's if she actually had any) but instead buying some designer stuff which she then proceeded to flaunt pictures of on FB.  She then quickly compounded the insult by prompting her daughter and son to both come to us with sob stories of their own and ask for yet more money - as we'd coughed up, she clearly thought we were a soft touch and an ongoing open wallet.  We soon disabused them of that idea, we didn't give them any, telling them we're not cash cows.  That was the last we heard from any of them.

I just think she's after something (probably money) and wants to bring her granddaughters as a way of playing on our - well, husband's - emotions, he is a bit of a softy where children are concerned.  I know some of you may be thinking well she might have changed, give her a chance.  So I'd like to say to you all - please don't, none of you know the family dynamics, the amount of trouble she's caused over the years and just how rude she's been to both of us, lots of times.  A leopard doesn't change its spots, as far as I'm concerned.  Hopefully that will be the end of it and we won't hear from her again.  The older I get, the less I want unnecessary hassle and am no longer prepared to tolerate it.

The odds and ends of bread I found in the freezer made a huge bread pudding, I've cut it into 12 large slices and frozen most of them, that'll please husband for some time to come.  I also used up some marmalade in it - husband wanted a jar of marmalade a few weeks back so I told him to get one whilst he was out.....he bought the cheapest value range one which is more or less just sweetened jelly with a few strands of peel in it.  Surprisingly (not!) he doesn't like it on his toast!  I've told him on numerous occasions that buying the cheapest of anything is not necessarily a good idea, but he's a lifelong skinflint. Well, at least it's got used rather than being chucked, and husband said he likes the orangey flavour in the bread pud.

Freezer done and blimmin dentists

 We got both freezers defrosted yesterday and the up to date inventory done.  I found several packs of bread oddments, I'll use those to make a bread pudding for husband.  Nothing else needed to be thrown out, thankfully, although there were 2 tubs of turkey and chicken stocks that I'm fairly sure are from last year, so I'll be making soup with those next week to use them up.  The freezer de-icer spray certainly speeded up the defrosting, but it needed longer than the stated 10 minutes to work.....more like 20 mins, scrape out some of the softened ice, then another spray and waiting another 20 mins...several times.  It all got done quicker than our normal hairdryer method though.  Only one casualty - husband broke my wooden spatula - he normally breaks the plastic ones so thought using the wooden one would be better....obviously not!  He does go at things like a bull in a china shop.

I got a letter from my dental practice yesterday, saying they are no longer going to provide NHS services and wanting me to sign up to a monthly private plan, for which limited places are available, apparently (rubbish, that's just to panic people into signing up for it).  The closing date for signing up to this plan is (or rather, was) the 16th October - I received the letter on the 18th.  It wasn't dated or postmarked so I have no idea when it was sent - but we have been having ongoing problems with postal deliveries in this area for months (not enough staff) so it's possible the letter has just been sitting around in the sorting office for days.  We only really get post once or perhaps twice a week.  I don't know what I'm going to do about the dentist at the moment - I expect they'd bend the rules if I rang and told them I'd only just received the letter, but I'm not sure whether I want to be coerced into paying a monthly fee after having NHS dentistry all my life.  Having said that, I doubt whether I'd find it easy to sign up with a different NHS dentist - there are hardly any practices offering NHS treatment now, or accepting new patients on the NHS.  Oh, and the monthly fee for this new private plan has quite a lot of treatment exclusions, so I'd still have to pay extra for some things!  It's no wonder that all the dentists at my practice have very expensive cars (a top of the range, Range Rover and some bright yellow expensive looking low-slung sporty thing being 2 of them).

Odd weather yesterday - we had some really heavy showers, with periods of bright sunshine in between.  I want to get washing out on the line today, so hope that's possible, nobody likes wet washing hanging around on airers indoors do they?  I've done my little shopping list, so will be going to Aldi today.  I'm much better at sticking to the list nowadays - unless there's a really good reduction on something we always have, then it makes sense to get it.

I feel really tired this morning - a few nights of very disturbed sleep have caught up with me.  Oh, by the way Jayne - the sleep book arrived yesterday, not had chance to look at it yet.

Freezer day

 We have 2 freezers - a tall fridge-freezer (half and half) in the kitchen, and another 6ft tall upright freezer in the utility room (well of course it's an upright....I'd need a ladder to get into a 6ft tall chest freezer, duh!!).  Both freezers are around half full, and both badly in need of defrosting.  So today's the day.  This morning I've transferred about a 1/3 of the contents of the utility room freezer into the kitchen one, the rest will go in our big coolbox.  It also gives me a chance to do a full inventory, and possibly throw out anything that's really old, got freezer burn and is potentially unusable.  I've found a tub of something which husband froze some while back - instead of asking me to write the contents on it, he's just written his name and not what it is.  Of course, it's now a frozen solid block of something unidentifiable, and naturally he can't remember what it is.  So one day next week he's going to have a surprise dinner!

I've set him the task of the defrosting.  We normally use a hairdryer and plastic ice scraper, which does take a long time - this time we've bought a big freezer defrosting spray, apparently you just spray it on, leave for 10 mins and then the softened ice will come out easily.  Allegedly.  Once he's defrosted, wiped it all out and washed and dried the drawers, I'll put everything back, writing the inventory as I go.  I have a system for filling the drawers - the top drawer holds dog food, the 2nd one down is milk, 3rd is husband's meaty meals, 4th is my fish and veggie meals.  5th is home cooked ready meals, 6th is vegetables and potato products, the bottom drawer holds a couple of loaves of bread and some stocks.  It works well, I know where everything is.  If I let husband put things away, he would literally just shove them wherever there's a space, with no regard for the contents, so I would never find anything.  I do have a tendency to micro-manage things I know, but I like to be organised and in control or it causes me stress!

If we have time, we'll defrost the fridge-freezer in the kitchen this afternoon.  I might be doing it myself though, as husband likes to go up for a nap in the afternoons - that's fine, I'll be able to get on and do it in peace with just the radio on and no constant chatter.  Husband couldn't keep quiet if he tried, bless him.

I then need to write a small shopping list for Aldi, just a few things we're running out of and some veggies.  My new system for shopping is working out really well - a fortnightly shop in Sainsburys, the in-between weeks I do a small top-up shop in Aldi and go to the farmers market, if needed.  I don't need to go to the farmers market this week, we still have plenty of cheese and meats for husband.

There are now 50 people with higher priority than us on the bids list for that perfect bungalow, which doesn't surprise me, I'm sure they all think it's perfect too.  So sadly it's highly unlikely we'll even get a viewing.  But I know we'll get a nice place sooner or later.  Hopefully there'll be less people bidding for homes during the winter, they'll be preoccupied with Christmas and, besides, nobody really wants to move in winter do they?  It wouldn't be my preference either, but if we managed to get somewhere nice, we would jump at the chance whatever time of year.

Just perfect - if only!

 Storm Babet is here, but I don't think we're suffering as much as other places - it's raining, breezy, cold and very dreary, not the sort of weather you'd want to be out in, but I wouldn't call it a bad storm.  It's supposed to be better tomorrow though.  I hope so anyway, I've got washing to put on and get out, I didn't bother putting it on this morning.

Sunday looks like it'll be a good day to go to the caravan - we won't be staying overnight, just spending the day there giving it a good clean, packing up things to bring home, doing a final tidy up of the garden and draining down/switching everything off.  And saying goodbye to the other owners there, until next March.

Today's the day the new available housing list comes out, and this time there is possibly the most perfect property we've seen thus far, I've put in a bid for it but doubt we'll be successful, there are already 40 others with more entitlement in front of us on the bidding list.  Ah well.  It's a 2-bed very pretty detached bungalow, with a wet room, a car port and a nice size rear garden surrounded by 6ft brick walls, so very secure for Betty.  It's situated on a smallish housing estate on the edge of a nice town, there's a field at the front for dog walking and on the other side of the field is a Sainsburys and pet shop.  A good GP surgery is less than a mile away, it's a bit nearer to the caravan park, and also slightly nearer the vets.  So, for a change, both the property itself and the location are exactly what we'd want, if we could choose.

Husband's having a clumsy day today....one of those days when things just slip through his fingers and end up on the floor.  His memory is much the same as usual today, but at least he's not talking gibberish like he was the day after our flu jabs.  And yes I do think his very odd symptoms on Sunday were down to the flu jab.

My eye screening went off ok yesterday, the technician said there didn't appear to be any problems and she thought everything seemed the same as last year, so no worries there.

My lovely friend popped in yesterday for a coffee, so that was nice.  We don't see nearly enough of each other.

He's alright

 Thank you for all the comments - I must say though that husband isn't like that every day, he has good days and not so good ones, and that particular day (Sunday) was probably his worst one so far.  Most days he's relatively fine, except for his short term memory which is never good.  I think Sunday was bad for him because he was suffering extreme tiredness, probably as a result of the flu jab we had on Saturday.  I also felt the tiredness effects, feeling even more tired than usual.  Yesterday husband was his normal self, no issues other than the 'normal' forgetting what I'd told him/or he'd told me.

Today I've got my diabetic eye screening at lunchtime, I'll be getting all my jobs done this morning so I don't have to do anything this afternoon.  It does take a while (for me anyway) for the effects of the pupil-dilating drops to wear off, and the examination itself generally gives me a headache and/or neck ache.

Nothing on for the rest of the week (fortunately, as tomorrow's weather looks dreadful).  Both freezers need defrosting, so that'll get done.  Then I want to start using up the stocks I have frozen and make soups, plus more meals for the freezer.  We're keeping an eye on the weather forecast for next week, as we'll be going to the caravan for the last time this year, to give it a good clean and close it up for winter.  We might stay for a night or two, we might not, don't know yet.  We'd rather go when the weather is set to be at least dry, as outside jobs need to be done when closing up.  The van garden needs a final weed, prune and sort out before winter too.

My back is still giving me a lot of trouble, the pain is hanging around longer than usual.  I'm sure it will ease up soon - and yes I am taking painkillers regularly.