Hair cut and a quiet afternoon

 It's warmed up a bit but still feeling chilly.....perhaps it's just me.  Tomorrow it's going to be raining, apparently, well the garden needs it.  Everything in the front garden is really springing into life, lots of new plant shoots appearing in the beds, I can't even remember what some of them are (can't remember much of anything right now).  The roses are putting on tons of new growth and buds, especially the climbing rose in the corner bed.....it's supposed to be a compact climber, it has clusters of small pale pink flowers, but is putting out tons of growth, I'll have to prune some of it off as it's threatening to swamp everything else.

I'm having my hair cut this morning, think I'll have it a bit shorter than usual - it's short anyway but seems to grow quite fast in spring/summer, it's getting quite wispy and fluffy looking at the ends, even though I use conditioner.  As we're intending to spend quite a lot of time at the caravan this season, I won't be around much to have my regular cuts....my lovely hairdresser neighbour only cuts hair on Saturdays now, so having it shorter today and on subsequent visits will reduce the times I need it cut hopefully.  It needs colouring again too (I do that myself, always have), will do it tomorrow morning, I'm still not ready to embrace the grey (it's alarmingly grey now, haven't coloured it in a while).

Husband is going out to do a car boot sale this afternoon, I'm staying home with Betty to have a much needed quiet afternoon (without the ever present telly on!).  He's just dropped a drill bit in the hallway (he drops things every day....and I do mean EVERY day) and now can't find it.  I expect it's gone underneath the sideboard.  He's taking things out to load in the car and is in and out, in and out, every 5 minutes, talking all the time.  As well as having the TV on all the time (I've just switched it off seeing as he's busy outside), he also talks non stop.....the peace and quiet when he goes out is amazing.

I feel like doing some drawing, I've not done any artwork or even made any cards for months, so perhaps I might do that this afternoon.  Or the urge might have worn off by then!  And I might just read or even have a snooze....laid awake for hours again last night, I gave up on trying to sleep in the early hours of this morning, put the light on and read my book instead.  Betty jumped off the bed and went downstairs, she clearly wasn't amused by my putting the light on.

I was going to do battered cod, oven chips and peas for dinner tonight (I rarely do any 'real' cooking on Saturday evenings) but don't fancy that, too carby and stodgy.  I fancy something light, so might do salmon pan fried in butter and lemon, with new potatoes and salad.....that sounds much better.

Salmon, house martins and cows

 It's gone back to being freezing cold, my hands and feet are like blocks of ice and I've just put my lovely thick winter slipper boots and a cardigan on.

Husband was in and out in no time for his x-ray yesterday, hopefully he'll not have to wait too long for the results, or for the podiatrist appointment and the fungal infection test.

I went with him so he could drop me off at the supermarket to pick up a few things I'd forgotten in my shop the other day.....even though I write a list, I still forget things, my brain is still on vacation.  I had a quick look in the reduced cabinet and found a whole side of salmon, yellow stickered to half price, salmon is my favourite fish and it's gone up in price (like everything) quite a lot lately, it had been reduced to £8.01.  Husband has cut it into 12 good size portions, so 66p per portion, great value.

There are now loads of house martins and swallows flying around, I can see them from the lounge window, and a heron has just flown across too.  So over the next week or 2, the house martins will start renewing their nests up in our eaves, there's one in the corner of my bedroom window that is occupied every year.

We might go to the caravan for a few nights, we might not - at the moment I'm not making any firm plans, I just see what I feel like when I get up each morning and go with the flow.  If we do go, we have to be back home for the middle of next week, there are 2 or 3 appointments on the calendar.

The cows have been put back in the front field - they're kept inside barns over winter.  Some of them look very fat so I expect they'll be calving soon.  I like watching the calves, they're funnier than lambs - they act just like lambs do, running around chasing each other and jumping about, it just looks funnier being bigger animals.

Getting rid of stresses

 Husband was still moaning constantly about his big toe hurting.  I lost my rag yesterday and told him if he doesn't ring the GP and get an appointment about it ASAP, then I will ring the doctors myself and book an appointment for him, because I'd just about had enough of listening to him moaning, yet not doing anything about it.  He rang at 8 this morning, and got an appointment for 9.  The GP says there are 3 possible things going on with his toe - 1) Yes it may well be broken.  2)  Possible infection under the nail which may need lancing and draining, or even the nail removing.  3)  The nail is very ingrown.

You may remember me saying he dropped something on his toe about a month ago (it was a small chest of drawers he was moving), he's done nothing but complain about it ever since, the nail is black (although it looks to me like the discolouration is under the nail, rather than the nail itself being discoloured).  He's going for an x-ray this afternoon, managed to get a cancellation appointment for 4 pm.  He also has to take some nail clippings and take them back to the surgery so they can be tested for a fungal infection (don't know why the GP couldn't have done that himself).  The GP is referring him to the podiatrist for the ingrown toenail.  I've been telling husband for literally months that the nail is ingrown and he needs to get it seen to!

Yesterday I walked round the back (veg and fruit) garden with husband and we discussed plans for where the various veg plants should go.  Now, each year I make a planting plan for him, trying to take crop rotation into account.....each year he either forgets to look at the plan, or disregards it for his own reasons - he's very much a 'oh look there's a space there, I'll stick this plant in there' kind of guy.  In other words, he's totally disorganised.  I pointed out one of the raised beds that will be ideal for our courgette plants to go in, he agreed.  This morning when looking out of the window whilst I was washing up, I noticed he's now put some strawberry plants in there that he'd moved from somewhere else (why he moved them, I have no idea).  So I've told him I'm giving up making planting plans for him, he can carry on in his own random disorganised way and do whatever the hell he likes.  I'll just concentrate on my flowers in my front garden.

In order to cut down on my stress, I'm now just letting go of the stressful stuff, like the back garden plans.  We've been invited to a family summer wedding reception up in the Midlands, most of husband's family will be there.  But it's so stressful nowadays trying to arrange trips up there, seeing as husband finds the driving tiring and difficult, finding accommodation that will take Betty is difficult, Betty is anxious about being in a different place, and I find it all hugely stressful having to try and arrange literally everything.  So we're not going, it's just not worth the stress for one evening, which in itself will be stressful as there will be so many people there (husband has a huge family).

I've gone through my FB 'friends' list (family and friends, I don't have loads on there, only those who I actually genuinely know) and unfriended a few who post nothing but drama (including family), and unfollowed others....ones I've kept as 'friends' but have opted out of receiving any of their updates, unless I choose to look at them.  I almost never post anything on there, but keep it as it's a way of keeping up with what friends and family in distant areas are doing....well now I'll only get updates from the non-dramatic ones.  If it wasn't for these distant F&Fs, I'd ditch FB altogether, it's far too full of adverts for my liking.

Down again

 My mood has plummeted again.  No particular reason, nothing's happened to set it off, it just is what it is.  Sometimes I can have a fairly good day, or maybe just a few hours.....other times the black mood descends and I can't shake it off.  I'm finding that some people just don't understand this.  They seem to think that I can choose what sort of mood to be in and how to cope with anything/everything, maybe that I'm even snappy and/or tearful on purpose.  Why?  Why would I (or anyone) be like that purposely?  It simply doesn't make sense to choose to be miserable or snappy or distracted, or even unreasonable or irrational.  I do know I am sometimes unreasonable, irrational or moody - it's a symptom of the depression, it's not a deliberate act!

The best way I can cope with this (and this is what works for me, it won't work for everyone) is to kind of insulate myself and almost go into my own little world.  Others don't walk in my shoes (nor me in theirs), so they can't judge me or think they know best or I should be doing this or not doing that.  I'm just doing things that I can cope with, and at my own pace.  My concentration wanders sometimes, so I don't necessarily get everything done at once, but that's ok.  I am just taking life one day at a time.

So today I've done a freezer inventory, and wrote a list of possible dinners for the next month or so - no set days (i.e. no 'Spag bol Monday, Fish Pie Tuesday and so on), just a list of meals.....who knows what I'll feel like eating or even whether I feel like cooking on a particular day?  At least I now know I have the makings of and a list of possible meals for the next few weeks.

And having done that, husband is going to drive into town and collect KFC for our dinner today - his choice, and I'm not arguing, I don't have to cook!

More on the heir hunters thing

 Having now found out further information, it seems the dead relative was a male cousin of my mother's.  She never mentioned him, to my knowledge, although did mention his father, her uncle - however, at the time I was unsure who he actually was (I was a child and only met the uncle once, I think, this was about 50 years ago!).  This cousin was apparently unmarried and had no children - or certainly no surviving children anyway.  My elder bro and I have been doing a bit of research and have discovered that our maternal grandmother actually had 3 siblings, we think - the dead cousin is the only descendant of those siblings we have found any mention of, however.  The heir hunter firm say they have not managed to trace any other living relatives, other than myself, my siblings and our 6 cousins and one uncle (we're a relatively small family).  My mother had 2 sisters and one brother - all the sisters are now dead, Uncle H being the sole survivor of his family.  As such, and from what I've read, he is actually the main descendant, and therefore priority beneficiary, of the dead relative.  So it's quite likely he is the one who will inherit whatever estate the dead relative left.  

Unfortunately, Uncle H is in his mid-eighties and has advanced Parkinson's disease, however, he does have a limited memory of his dead cousin, he says they didn't have much face to face contact but mostly exchanged Christmas cards.  He reckons the cousin didn't even own his house, as far as he can remember, so unless the cousin was a miser who sat on his money and never spent anything, there won't be much of an estate to distribute anyway.

So none of us cousins are expecting to become millionaires, or even receive any money whatsoever actually, as we're not the primary beneficiaries.  It's been interesting finding out some family history we knew nothing about, though.

It was tricky enough finding out information about our relatively small family - how husband could ever manage (if he was so inclined, which he's not really) to trace all his family history I don't know, his family is huge.  E.g. I have just 6 cousins and 4 nieces/nephews, whereas husband has around 40 nieces and nephews, and countless cousins, some of whom he's never met.

Beginning to lift

 We had a really nice time at the caravan yesterday, weather was perfect.  More neighbours, 2 vans away from us, were back for the first time this year, they're another couple we get on really well with so it was nice to catch up with them.  Husband did the outstanding jobs from last time, so I think that's pretty much everything done now, other than keeping up with the gardening stuff.  I did a bit more weeding and deadheading, tied in more shoots of the clematis and climbing rose, both of which are really putting growth spurts on, then watered all the pots.  Betty wandered in and out of the van - lying in the sun for 10 minutes, then going inside to cool off and have a drink, then back out again.  As I anticipated, all of the holidaymakers and all the families with children had gone home, so there were only a handful of regular static owners left - back to lovely peace and quiet, just how I like it.

Came home in the afternoon, got a few things to do this week and the early part of next, so I doubt we'll be going back until the middle of next week.

We've sorted a few things out so my depression and stress are beginning to lift.  I was adamant I didn't want to go down the antidepressant route again, unless it was absolutely necessary.  My knee isn't so much of a problem now either - it's not back to normal by any means, but isn't continually painful and it's not collapsing nearly as much.

Jayne, you asked if I drive - no I don't.  Obviously our life will have to change when the time comes when husband can't drive anymore, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.  His heart failure is well controlled with meds, he just gets tired very quickly and can't do as much physical work as he used to.

Another lovely thing - I've seen a few swallows and house martins flying around, just a few at the moment, but obviously lots more will be on their way over the next week or two.  I've a feeling they're a bit later arriving than last year, will have to look back to see when it was, I think I probably mentioned it in a blog post last year.

Right, having had a quick look back, the swallows actually arrived in early May last year (which was a bit later than usual), the house martins a couple of weeks later.  So the few I've seen so far are actually earlier this year.  It's good to keep a record of things like this.

Got a little top up shop to do today, just a bit of dairy and fresh veg, then housework and meal planning, washing is ready to go out on the line.  Husband's got a few jobs to do in the garden.

Time out

 Things have been incredibly stressful lately, so we're going to the caravan today.  Just for the day - we'll do a couple of jobs that should have been done the last time we were there, but couldn't (mainly to do with husband).  A bit of time out at our relaxing place should help, the jobs won't take long to do and then we can relax for a couple of hours.

This is one of the reasons why I wanted a holiday place not far from our home - the main reason being husband can't drive long distances anymore without getting extremely tired and stressed, as a result of his heart failure and advancing age.  The other reason being we can just up and go at the drop of a hat, as it only takes 40 mins to get there....35 with very little traffic at the weekend.  Although the caravan is here in Somerset, it feels like a completely different environment to home.

All the holidaymakers and children will have gone home, so I imagine there'll just be a handful of other owners (childless ones!) there.

This week we'll try and pin landlord down to give us a date for the replacement windows and roof works to be done - anything to do with the landlord and work on our house is a bit of a nightmare to arrange, he prevaricates and blusters and puts things off.

My roses here in the front garden have put on masses of new growth and have lots of small buds on, so they'll soon be flowering, something to look forward to - they're all lovely strong scented ones and one, a birthday present from my best friend, has the most gorgeous double large deep pink flowers.