Where did 4 weeks go?

I don't seem to have stopped recently. Taking a pause for breathe right now I realise I haven't been here for a while and I haven't really done that much else unless you count having to cope with feeling like death warmed up for most of the time. I think we survived the swine flu outbreak round here but we both definitely had 'something'.

We have a new grandchild due any moment and it looks like next week we may be toddler sitting for a few days. Or rather WH will be, owing to his far superior skills in that department.

In other news I think I have sold the other house. Having kicked out the tenants due to them completely ruining all the decorations in just 7 months and the whole place looking permanently like a rubbish tip, I was told that my estate agent had 'lots of people just waiting for a house like that'. Of course he lied and a painful 4 months later I have agreed a sale although the purchaser (of course because it is me they are dealing with) is now acting at a snail's pace and 6 weeks down the line we seem no nearer to exchanging contracts. My solicitors are baffled that things can proceed sooooo slowly but in these days of such financial uncertainty at least it is a sale and this purchaser does on the face of it seem unlikely to chuck at the last minute.

On the building front we now have a porch and shortly I might be able to get the front driveway done and see and end to the red sand and mud which is all pervasive and driving me nuts.

We were due to go to Denmark next week to see Ms A but sadly for all sorts of family reasons we're going to have to give it a miss. My £1 flights will go to waste. Greece in September looks doubtful too although I will move heaven and earth to get some sun before the winter sets in. We also have some properties lined up to view over there, another reason for getting over there if we can.

Anyway it's back to the kitchen for me in a minute as I dish up Mother in Law's dinners for another couple of days. I've been doing a mini meals-on-wheels service now for the best part of 4 months so cooking 2 main meals every other day at 7am no longer seems abnormal. I have 40 odd old fashioned puddings in the freezer too, making them in batches of single portions. Trouble is I want to eat them too and have hard time resisting and I probably need to buy another freezer to keep all this stuff in. Sods law, I gave my old freezer away at the beginning of the year.

'Sod's law' seems to sum up my life just now anyway. I'll let you know when it changes!

Happy Birthday Babies

Misty and Nelson are 7 today. I can't believe how old they are and the struggle we had to keep them alive when they were little. 2 of 6 kittens born to a feral cat at the top of our garden, one died within 24 hours and 4 of the rest all had cat flu and other nasties. Three months and £400 later we had managed to keep all 5 alive and were advised by the vet not to rehome these two for a while as they were so sickly. 7 years later they are still here. Jack and Lula are in London and Toby is down the village.

Tonight we celebrate with tins of tuna all round.

Happy Birthday Babies.

A special meal

On our last night in Pelion this last time (I know it was over a month ago but hey, I'm busy) we went to a highly recommended little taverna in the square of our nearest 'big' village. We had been told several times that if we wanted brilliant food to go there and our German neighbours appeared to be eating there almost every night.

We had sussed it our earlier in the week and realised it was a former 'greasy spoon' where we had eaten before and had eaten (or rather left) a terrible meal. This time however it had had a clean-up, was newly painted, had a new menu and fancy tables and vases of flowers were set up under soft lighting outside under a plane tree. It seemed to have a new sign too so we reasoned it must have changed hands although the waiter was obviously the same one we had seen before. We decided to give it a go.

When we arrived for our farewell dinner, one other couple were already eating and drinking with gusto. We realised they were a local English builder and his wife whom we had been told about and who ate there very regularly. It all looked very promising. Deciding to forego starters in favour of the delicious local deserts for once, we asked what the specials of the day were expecting to be asked to inspect them in the kitchen. The surly waiter (well you can't have everything) reeled off a list in broken English. So no kitchen inspection tonight then. I asked him to repeat it in Greek. WH then decided on grilled lamb cutlets with lemon potatoes and vegetables. I plumped for the fish soup Kakavia which is more like a stew and which I had been dying to try. The thought of fragrant mixed fish in a broth of garlic, tomatoes, herbs and onions with a few potatoes and other veggies was very tempting in the still 30 degree heat. As usual the bread came first with our cutlery and I resisted the temptation to eat it immediately and kept it to go with my soup.

WH's cutlets arrived and the warnning bells began to ring. The portion was generous, perhaps 5 or 6 slim lamb chops were heaped up over a pile of roast potatoes. The problem was that the meat was absolutely black, the edges turning to cinder, 'overcooked' didn't even begin to describe it. That sight had just begun to sink in when the fish soup was announced.

I looked down to the bowl placed in front of me and immediately had to look away. An absolutely horrendous sight met my eyes. A whole dogfish head was looking up at me, mouth agape and teeth bared menacingly, eyes protruding. It was swimming in a lake of what looked like oily water. A lone boiled potato joined the fish head along with a couple of branches of the local wild greens. WH looked hesitant then asked if I was OK. "Yes " I said stoically dipping my spoon into the tepid liquid, "It must be a different sort of soup, maybe lemony judging by the colour".

It was not to be lemon either. I tasted it and Oh My God what a taste, dish water topped with rapidly congealing fish oil. There was no taste of anything at all other than rancid, fishy water. No seasoning, no herbs and no savoury garlic or onion. Zilch. WH said later he thought I was about to throw up over the table. How I managed not to I'll never know. I must be stronger than I give myself credit for.

Somehow I ate the potato and some of the fish which was on the bone behind the head. The liquid stayed in the bowl. WH ate his veg and left most of the charcoal pile of meat. The waiter came and took our plates away and asked what we would like next.

"The bill," said WH rather forcefully. We paid up and scarpered quickly; into a bar around the corner for some strong drink to take away the taste. An hour later I still had the taste of fish oil and really I was quite hungry having eaten very little in the heat during the day so I bought a very sickly pre-packed cake from the supermarket, stupidly I didn't think whilst the bakery was still open, and ate the lot. At least the sugar hit took away the taste for a while. Then I went back on the Metaxa.

Next morning I could still taste fish and later it started to repeat on me. Ugh. Later still that day I began to suffer from an upset stomach which carried on for a couple more days after that. Even dinner the next evening in Thessaloniki's hottest shopping mall's Delicertessen,which was a feast for the eyes and all the other senses too, failed to get rid of that fishy feeling.

We've made one decision already about our next visit to the area, probably in September, we will not be dining there again whatever anyone tells us.

Only 8 sleeps

until we see those crazy Hayseed Dixie boys for the first and probably only time this year. They're mostly resting and doing festivals this year but we're able to see them during their short tour of southern England.

Can't wait. Must find some energy from somewhere to have a good bop on the front row, who cares if I'm bedridden the rest of the week.

Rock it to us Deacon Dale!

Hungry cat

Nelson

Why is it that when I feed Misty in the morning he is always hungry again 10 minutes later when Nelson arrives for his food? I fed Nelson in a different room this morning and gave Misty his second meal of the day at the same time. A few minutes later Misty's dish is empty and he is now polishing off Nelson's as well, Nelson having retreated under the table and looking longingly at his rapidly disappearing breakfast.

Seeing as this happens almost every day and at both meal times can anyone tell me why Misty is half Nelson's size?

Back on the meths - Do it yourself style

I saw a locum consultant last week, my brilliant Arthritis one having returned to the country of his birth and a research post. Damn, I knew he was good. Seven months after my last appointment I had my 'early' review, with a stand in doctor at a different hospital 40 miles from home. Such a nice man I had been told, a real gentleman. Well he did stand up when I entered the room and he shook my hand but.... what a load of old cobblers.

He announced he was a retired consultant from Scotland, helping out, before asking me why I was there. I haven't had time to read your notes much. He certainly hadn't read the 5 page later the last chap wrote and had copied to me with his 'plan of action' regarding tests and treatment.

It's not worth the bother of relating much about this poor consultation for consultation read diatribe for the doctor about why I should lose weight. He gave me a cursory examination, apparently could find no evidence of psoriasis or indeed anything much and suggested he do a raft of the same tests the previous chap had ordered in December, just to check. Carry on taking the tablets. I asked about my skin problems, "I can't see any," he said from 6 feet away, "we'd have to refer you to a skin person,"

"For Psoriasis? That's why I am here, "

"Well I don't do skin."

I glumly asked him how long before I could get any treatment, "Well we could put you on a trial but I don't think it's worth it."

Not worth it when I have been like this for 9 months and am getting worse by the week. I burst into tears and sat back. Something about his God like manner and the demeaning way in which he spoke to me made me give up in an instant. I just wanted to be out of that room and I was angry that after being told last year and even having had it confirmed in writing that in the opinion of the last consultant no-one was looking at the whole picture and from the evidence he had found in my notes I had had psoriasis ignored since 1966 no less, yet again I was going away demoralised and with no hope of relief.

Thankfully I had taken WH with me. Usually I go to ALL his appointments, he rarely attends mine. WH began to get annoyed and questioned why I needed to go through the whole lot again after the last round when a treatment had been proposed but no one had wanted to prescribe it after the previous bloke left. "I am not he, was the reply I need to do these things for myself." WH asked him if he would be here in a month's time to review the results then. Er..... NO. He was only a stand in. WH told him the effect of the PA on me (and him) said I could lose weight if I could actually move a bit after all I had lost 40 pounds on my Lyme treatment. The eyebrows raised and he visibly shifted in his seat. I know that disbelieving look. WH told him every time I did lose weight I was put back on medication whose chief side effect is weight gain. I was fighting a losing battle. Why could I not start the original proposed treatment for a trial period and see if it helped. Eventually the chap agreed, I think mainly to get rid of an increasingly irate WH and a tearful me. Then he couldn't get us out of the room fast enough albeit clutching a note to the GP to prescribe and a note for a blood test.

I duly started methotrexate again on Saturday. I was not given the treatment card I had to carry last time and there was no mention of the weekly or fortnightly blood test I was supposed to be getting to monitor my liver. I made an appointment for myself and another to see my GP, the earliest of which was 20th July. Today I realise that the instructions on the bottle of pills are different from what he had written on the GP note and had told me verbally. I will have to check with the pharmacy (whilst I also checked the dose of WH's meds which he suddenly discovered is double the usual strength, but that's a whole other story.)

I had a follow up appointment in the post on Saturday; this time another new doctor but at the same distant hospital in 3 months time. That looks like a good start anyway. Yesterday I felt a burning sensation on my scalp which was driving me nuts. I asked WH to investigate, after all you can't see the top of your own head. 2 seconds later he announced massive psoriasis spots all over. Funny that, 3 days before there was no sign whatsoever when the locum looked. He did shake my hand again when I left, what a gentleman.

Life is just a bowl of cherries

Outside my window is a large bird-cherry tree. It's actually in my neighbour's garden but right now it's full of ripening cherries and a family of four baby blackbirds with their long suffering parents. The babies fledged last week after two days of the parent birds feeding them with cat food which I had put out in a bowl on the patio. Each time the dish emptied (helped along by our own grey twins) Father bird tapped the bowl so we would go out and refill it.

The current antics start about 6am just as the day is starting to warm up and few shafts of sunlight bathe the branches. The fluffy babies fly in awkwardly crash landing on the bendy branches knocking cherries to the floor, or more correctly onto my front driveway. Then the squawking starts. The babies peck anything, branch, leaves, twigs and the occasional cherry. They haven't quite yet got the hang of retrieving a whole fruit and time and time again their intended breakfast slips to the ground. The more they lose, the more they squawk until finally an anguished parent hops in and deftly pokes a whole cherry into the gaping beak. Sometimes baby doesn't know what to do with this, should he swallow it or not? Eyes bulging they finally gulp the cherry down. Then a sibling starts up, he wants one as well and the poor parents hop from branch to branch, clucking and whistling at their offspring and stuffing them full of the ripe fruit.

These babies are almost twice the size of the parents and sit uneasily on the branches and gingerly move along the stems in search of the fruit. They lose their balance and sometimes their grip, at times sliding down until a flapping, flurry of wings renders them airborne and they find another branch to start the whole thing again.

Later, tired and full of fruit the babies doze amongst the branches and drunk looking heads with rolling eyes peep out from between the leaves. The parent birds use this time to feed themselves and leave the tree for an unhindered trip round the district or for a bit of worm digging on the lawn. Finally they've had enough too and a loudly clucking parent chivvies up the fat little babies and they are shepherded back to their nest in the eucalyptus tree opposite for a long rest until they get hungry again.

Back to reality

Our holiday seems a lifetime away, almost 3 weeks since we returned now. This last weekend we were away in Southampton and visited the Hillier Gardens at Romsey. So many trees and so little energy to walk round them all. I did get a few photos of some of the stranger ones though.

Tomorrow I see my new (yet again) consultant. The lovely chap I saw in December has apparently left and I'm seeing a locum once again. I just hope he decides to go with the other chaps plan of action or else I'll be having another boat load of tests again. I just want to start some proper treatment, after all I've been waiting 7 months over which time I have put on weight after the steroid trial, have begun to seize up and and now can't walk very well. Additionally the excruciating skin itch is back with a vengeance. What started as a minor irritation when I was bitten on holiday has developed into a large red, raised patch on my arm which itches intensely. It wakes me up it's so bad. Surely a sign of galloping psoriasis if ever I saw one. Fingers crossed that matey tomorrow agrees and finally does something about it. Nothing I have tried works at all. I can't believe that last year I was so well (and so thin - for me anyway) and now I am almost back to square one, just the Lyme symptoms are still thankfully absent.

The last few weeks I have done what I can to help with Mother in Law, saw the death of a very old friend whom I shall miss intensely and provided bacon sandwiches and tea on tap to the other friend who is helping WH to build our porch. At least at home normality rules, it still looks like a building site!

What a welcome

We're back, we're brown and quite chilled out, already missing long lazy days by the sea, frappe in hand.

I see the political climate hasn't improved during our holiday, in fact it seems to be worse, TV news seems sadly all too similar to what it was almost 4 weeks ago.

This however sums it up for me:

You never had it so good, Invictor

Aging rockers they may be and the lip sync is crap but the words are brilliant. Watch it and weep.

Interlude

It has been a frantic week mostly spent dealing with an elderly woman who is determined to starve herself to death. She neither wants to eat nor drink nor let anyone help her. It is sad. After discharge from hospital last week things got worse. Today it all came to a head and finally a patient, kind district nurse with the temperament and voice of a sergeant major finally got our lady moving again and mobilised the troops so from tomorrow the long suffering family will not have to cope alone. My sister in law is beyond words, barely able to speak after daily, in fact hourly battles of wills, unable to fathom how someone could let themself go in this manner. Serious illness has been ruled out. A perverse desire to be supremely awkward is the consistent diagnosis.

Meanwhile I have taken refuge in my genealogy, odd moments at the ends of the days where I can think about something else. I was researching some Romany family. Well what a surprise that turned out to be and no picnic either. It seems amid the depths of the message boards and history web sites, dark forces are lurking and nasty comments and messages lead to massive fallings-out, board wars and worse. Some sites have all but closed. People I thought were friendly are revealed in their full-blown nastiness. I can't believe the things that were said about squabbles several years old and obviously involving people who know each other away from the internet. I am sad, disillusioned and disheartened and began to wonder if it was all worth it. I had some of my work plagiarised in the past, in one instance several years ago a whole family tree I passed to someone for their perusal suddenly turned up all over the net. A couple of more recent things have turned up too but nothing on such a scale as then. Discussing this recently in general on a website I was astounded to be almost hounded to say who had done it. It seemed my interrogator had a guilty conscience but I desisted from getting involved. This then followed me to another website where I had seen none of the embattled for days and was gaily chatting about something completely different. Those who did get involved were followed all over the net by individuals who feel that they have an axe to grind and a point to make but their logic and grammar is so hard to follow, no-one can really tell what it's all about. I don't care, it was the principal that was at stake and in future I won't be sharing anything.

So genealogy hasn't given me any respite at all. One thing that will however begins tomorrow, we finally return to Greece and our lovely Kalamos. The weather there is 30 degrees and sun is forecast for weeks. I'll think of you on the beach on Wednesday. See you in June.

What I saw in hospital

Mother in law is in hospital, admitted over a week ago for a blood pressure reading so much off the scale that the first doctor thought his machine had broken, we had really taken her in to have a suspcted fracture investigated. 4 days later a fracture in a bone in the wrist was reported along with the statement that they 'wouldn't be doing anything with it as it appears not to hurt her'. Meanwhile we waited 6 days for a 24hr heart monitor which we were told on admission would be required. On Saturday came the news that the heart test was fine but they couldn't do any other tests now because of the Bank Holiday, the doctor would probably order some more on his return on Tuesday. If pat experience tels us anything then it will be Friday before these tests are carried out. By then MIL will have been 'in' 2 whole weeks. No wonder they are short of beds. The whole NHS process grinds slowly on with no sense of urgency or even regard for the patient's well being. We have ben concerned about her lack of eating and drinking. No-one encourages her to do either outside of the family who have devised a rota to ensure there is someone present at the evening meal time. the main meal of that day is at lunchtime and visiting is not allowed. Daily she reports she 'ate nothing/ didn't like it/couldn't be bothered' or even on a couple of occassions 'didn't get any pudding/they forgot me/I didn't have a fork'. Add this catalogue to the day I discovered a jug of water out of arm's reach and no glass no wonder this lady is losing weight and de-hydrated.

A request to the ward sister to monitor her eating and drinking as we felt this to be a problem resulted in a lovely record sheet being pinned to the bottom of the bed first thing in the morning. There were columns for description of food/drink, amount given, amount eaten and overall comments. Trouble is at 5pm the whole sheet was blank, no one had bothered to use it.

If the NHS were school project the marks would be as follows:

Knowledge: 5/10

Interest in subject: 1/10

Effort: 0/10

Some interesting ideas were put forward at the outset but the project failed to follow through and almost no written work was submitted for evaluation. Must try much harder.

OK, I joke but this is an elderly lady's life at stake here and from where I sit no one is very interested at all.

Summer is on it's way

The last couple of weeks we could almost be excused for thinking it was summer already. Long days of sunshine and the clearest of blue skies have sent the temperature here on the patio cum building site soaring. It's been too lovely to resist doing a bit of plant pottering, re-arranging my many tubs and pots and potting up a few summer bulbs. All this despite the fact I still have no actual garden to plant anything into.

The icing on the cake has been the arrival of the swallows and martins which wheel over the village all day and long into the evening. The resident blackbirds have been busy to making a nest just over the fence in a shrub in our neighbours garden. the male singing in the eucalyptus tree morning and night, a lovely sound I never had in the previous garden. How nice to have 'our own' blackbird. The goldfinches too have finally found the niger feeders and look like miniature parrots as they swing round 4 to a feeder busily pecking away.

Today though it's raining heavily, much needed water for the gardens. I wish there was more in mine than weeds to reap the benefits but without some decent topsoil I just have to wait.

Waking up

A whole two weeks since I wrote anything here and most of that time I have been asleep. I am really not doing so well on the osteoporosis meds and actually stopped taking them 3 days ago. The brain fog is lifting, the sleepiness is going and I feel like a different person. No doubt my GP will have something to say but I really can't go on like that. It's almost summer and I have too much to do. I am STILL waiting another consult with the Rheumatology guy and am not taking anything at all for the arthritis which is having it's own problems like 24 hour pain. Until that is sorted the garden will have to wait.

WH has just left for the cupboard supplier and will be fitting out the utility room this afternoon. Another box we can tick. Yesterday a knock at the door revealed an EHO from the council investigating a blocked drain further down the road. I checked his credentials (yes really !) and let him in to dye test our drains. Walking into the kitchen he stopped dead. "Wow, it's a bit different from next door" and he went on to ask me about the flooring which he wanted for his own kitchen. As he left he said "You've got a great room there, I love the light". Coming soon after an estate agent (for the other house) had said it was like walking into another country it was so bright and sunny, that pleased me no end. So far only WH's sister has made a bad comment along the lines of how small the kitchen was, at 5m square just who is she kidding, it's 3 times the size of hers (meow, meow). So maybe the wait has been worth it and WH has really created his wow effect which was what he was aiming at all along.

I promise I really will post pictures soon.

And now there's so much

OK, I've now got so much to say I'll have to list it:

1. My tenants were a pain, they have caused all sorts of problems in the house and it needs a total redecoration. It was decorated throughout last August. The tenants will shortly be histiry for afresaid reasons. The house is now For Sale.

2. This hosue is a hive activity, as I write the utility is being plastered, we have a new cloakroom, the porch is being built and the last 3 'extra' kitchen cupboards are in place.

3. Because of note 2 I am daily running out of milk, sugar and tea.

4. Also because of note 2 I have retreated to various county records offices and to meeting with geanealogy friends in coffee shops in order to avoid the noise and dust.

5. I now provide a daily meals on wheels service for Mother in Law. I am rapidly running out of ideas for old fashioned home cooked stodge. Already WH is craving curries and stir fries, if I give in then I have to cook 2 separate meals a day.

6. Our grandkids suddenly want to sleep over, come for meals and spend even more time here. It's no big deal but it requires even more cooking, supervising school projects and keeping tabs on the numerous friends who come to call.

7. I can hardly believe I am writing this but the weather has been gorgeous. Sitting out on the south facing patio has become a must. It's sheltered, sunny and you could almost believe you were by the Med if you didn't have to open your eyes and survey the building site which STILL occupies the back garden. The fig tree is growing leaves though.

8. The majority of my plants are still in pots and tubs so daily watering is imperative in the month long dry spell we ahve had. I have to fight the builders for use of the hosepipe though and I don't always win.

9. An elderly friend is in hospital in the midlands. We have been visiting and it looks like he is in for the long haul. The car is getting used to the weekly treck up the M5 once again.

10. It's only 5 weeks until we go back to Kalamos. The work here should be finished then, just the garden left for our return. It will be wonderful, almost 3 weeks of utter peace. Can't wait.

Nothing to say

Sorry I've not been around but I really have not much to say. I've had a hellish few weeks with some new meds and I've been asleep for great parts of them.

I've also been stuck into the family tree seeing as I couldn't do much else and by the time you've ploughed through 50 plus census sheets and re-examined them with the magnifying glass, the last thing you want to do is peer at at a pc screen.

Mother-in-law is not too well now, she's very frail so I'm doing meals-on-wheels for her on a daily basis. 7 days a week. She has 3 daughters but funnily enough they're not very forthcoming with extra help. Thank goodness for No 1 daughter who picks up the dinner on a school day and delivers it to the recipient in the next village on her way past.

And I lost my cleaner, the wonderful Ms T, she had so much on her plate she's had to give up work. I'm going to miss her dreadfully especially at the moment when I'm doing my own cleaning (and ironing which is the real killer).

So just a few snippetts of random information but nothing very exciting, I have only been out twice in 3 weeks after all.

Roots, Chat and Romanies

Courtesy of Helen Musselwhite

I've been taking the time to investigate some of WH's ancestors whilst the weather has been cold and I'm not up to doing much for other reasons. At the end of last year my pc crashed rather spectacularly and all my family tree files were lost, the majority of them hadn't been backed up elsewhere, unlike all the stuff littering my desk top. I've now bought a brilliant external hard drive which saves everything automatically so I never have to worry about missing files.

But back to the family Tree, I did still have a paper record of it all amongst a foot high pile of paper which had been languishing behind the desk since the move here last July. So January's project anyway was to sift through it all and sort it out. It's really been quite useful having to input all the data into my Family Tree programme for a second time as I can weed out the rubbish and get a refresher course on some of the stuff I had forgotten.

WH's family or that section of it are descended from Romanies and searching back through the old censuses has been almost impossible in some cases. Because they travelled around and did not have permanent homes, they often escaped the enumerator's pen and where they are recorded they are usually at the end of a particular section (the enumerators were instructed to record them there) and in a lot of cases their names and such like were ignored. Quite often I come across a record like '7 travelling gypsies living in tents', names, places of birth, age etc etc all recorded NK, or not known. Where they were recorded there are errors, names and places are spelled incorrectly, ages are wrong; after all most of these people were illiterate (as were many others in regular houses) and enumerators wrote only what they heard, often phonetically. Couple that with people with strange accents and even stranger names and a very odd mix appears on the sheets and that's when you can read the writing. Names like Tryphena, Hezekiah, Power, Vashti and Defiance were commonplace amongst those communities. One girl I came across was labelled Finance!

I like a challenge however, and over the last 7 years I've amassed a wealth of information about gypsy families travelling around the South West and even further afield. If I couldn't find 'my' lot then I followed some of the other families and eventually like the proverbial bad penny one of 'mine' would pop up, living with cousins or some such and tagged on the end of family record, misspelled and wrong aged but enough of a link to know who they really were.

Only recently has it all begun to come together however. I chanced on a website where researchers help each other out and chew over such thorny problems as some of mine. Roots Chat is amazing and people are only too willing to help, regularly doing 'look-ups' for strangers and even in one case I read using their own 'paid for' credits on other websites to search for information. I also found some Romany Genealogy sites, these have been a mine of information and it's been fascinating reading about the lives of the travellers about which I had hitherto known very little.

Yesterday I was contacted by a Romany lady who lives quite near here and who is descended from the same families. We have lots of the same information and it will be fun comparing notes. She also suggested we could meet up in person and invited us to her Romany home which was very kind of her and totally unexpected. I'm not sure we can meet up at the moment, I'm really not well enough to go off meeting strangers and there is so much to do here, WH won't thank me for dragging him away for a day on a Family Tree jaunt. But one day we will meet I'm sure and learn more about the past and the families who have passed on their legacy of the travel bug to WH and several more in his family. Now I'm even beginning to better understand this complex being I live with.

And yet another one

I've been awol a week with weirdy viral-y symptoms which sort of went enough for me to have a couple of wonderful meals out with friends at the weekend (apropos of nothing special, just good times) then returned on Monday to strike with a vengeance.

It's not my year so far is it?? I've got Viral Labyrinthitis now, big name for what is really vertigo with a viral cause. At least it's not a reaction to the new osteoporosis drugs I'm on which is what I thought, corresponding as it did with the end of the first week of those and the first dose of the stuff that stops the calcium from leaching out of my bones.

Driving to my spinal X-ray appointment on Monday afternoon at least I had the presence of mind to call up WH and get him to rescue me as I was falling asleep at the wheel. X-rays over, he took me home and I slept for 17 hours. I can barely remember the X-rays themselves other than the lovely trainee Russian radiographer who apologised for having to do 7 plates. 7 ??? When?? I remembered a couple maybe. I slept most of yesterday too and then awoke this morning relatively chipper until I tried to move. A swift consult at the 'acute' GP clinic this morning (at least the Noctor referred me to a proper doctor) found the cause of the problem and thankfully it wasn't the drugs at all. Now I just have to wait for the bugs to bugger off.

The most annoying thing is that it feels like I have the Hang-over from Hell but I didn't drink a thing. Honest!

Yet another diagnosis

I thought being diagnosed with Psoriatic arthritis in December and being told I'd had it since at least 1993, if not before, was bad enough. Yesterday I get a call from my GP who tells me all the scans etc I had over New Year have shown I have Osteoporosis in my spine - severe. In the interest of public decency I can't really put here what I said to her in reply.

So now I am left thinking why on earth did they not find this before. It's not as if I haven't been to the doctors recently; I have averaged 2 visits a week to my local surgery for one thing or another over the last 4 years. A lot of those things are bone/back/foot/ hand related. They have found out that I have 'multiple fractures of both feet on different occasions'. So is this why my feet hurt then. I did tell them often enough. It's not this recent GP, I haven't really said much to her about it, rather the previous couple, they ignored it so much I just gave up. Thought it was old age creeping on.

Now I'm down for more tests, xrays of my spine, bloods etc etc ad nauseum. I decided that I've got to get fit and I really need to do some load bearing exercise to strengthen my bones. Quite how I can, when at the moment every bone in my body is screaming in agony, my back won't seem to hold me upright a lot of the time, never mind the pain in my feet which has been steadily gaining in strength since Christmas I'm not really sure at this juncture.

I've also discovered that I am now 6 times more likely to break bones from minor injuries, this is obviously why I keep breaking ribs, (Neelu your words were prophetic) so I have to be a bit circumspect in what I do. No more offering to help with moving bricks and stuff with WH, I'm so clumsy I usually end up doing some damage anyway. I have a gung-ho approach to things like that anyway, if I can physically manage something at the time I'll do it, never mind the usual payback after the event. It helps me feel normal i.e. not sick - don't you know.

Yesterday I started the chewable calcium tablets 'especially suitable for the elderly' and have yet to take the once weekly thing where I need to keep upright for 2 hours afterwards and during which time I can't eat anything or take any other meds. OK, I know thousands if not millions of other people do all this and have the same diagnosis but surely not at my age, not really, honestly. Of all the crap health-wise I have had to put up with over the years, this seems to have affected me the most mentally. Trying to be rational I tell myself that it's not life threatening, millions are worse off than me and facing life limiting illness and far worse handicaps every day. I accept all that really I do. I just have one overwhelming feeling that I have never, ever had before. Suddenly, I feel old.

Snowed in.

One of the roads out of the village

Yup, that's us. 12 inches of snow over one night has cut off our village.

No post for 3 days, no newspapers and no bread in the village shop. What we do have is a wonderful, almost carnival, atmosphere as everyone abandons their normal existence for a few days and goes walking, sledging and even skiing. The streets are busy with folk out doing stuff. WE had a pub lunch yesterday and then spent the afternoon with friends. On the walk back lots of people said Hi as we all slipped and slithered in the freezing snow.

The Alps in England: look at all the skiers out on the slopes!

The waiting game

It's been a hectic week one way and another. WH arrived back from his annual skiing trip along wth the obligatory machine full of laundry; my cleaner, the lovely Ms T had a bad back so I had to clean my own house; we had youngest grandson (19 months) to stay for a night and a day and then had to take him back home over 80 miles away and what with blood tests, hospital appointments and all the usual business-y stuff I'm quite whacked out. WH has been working some odd hours too, meaning he doesn't eat his dinner until after 9pm so I'm still waiting to clear up and wash dishes at 10, my pet hate.

This week though it should be a little calmer. A slack week business wise gives WH the opportunity, finally, to tile the kitchen. With a short visit from the depressed painter looming, to do some touching up, I can almost see the end of the kitchen in sight. The one thing which conspires to thwart all this is the non arrival, STILL, of the sideboard which I ordered at the end of November. Actually it did arrive, despite all the suppliers promises (lies?) on New Year's Eve (should have been before 15th December) but when we opened the packages, the top was badly damaged as were 2 of the drawers. Hasty photo and email exchanging confirmed that it was a manufacturing fault and that we would be supplied with replacements within 5 working days. They didn't arrive. I took this up with Trading Standards or as they are now known Consumer Direct and it should all have been sorted by last Friday. It hasn't. So now I'm still walking round 3 large boxes, we can't finish the last unpacking and sorting out in the kitchen and the whole thing is now, not to put too fine a point on it, getting on my flipping nerves.

This whole experience of internet purchasing for the kitchen has actually soured my view of the process. An order for cooker hoods and stuff was cancelled because the firm failed to deliver in the set time and then could not even tell me when the goods were likely to arrive. Eventually I got a refund by resorting to my Credit Card company. The supplier had now gone bust so I'm glad I dealt with that straight away or I would now be seriously out of pocket and still awaiting the refund. The sideboard cost more, a lot more, and because I technically have all parts claiming a refund is not so easy. The firm used Paypal and they don't want to know, neither does the credit card company because a third party (Paypal) was involved. In future I will confine my internet purchasing to household names, little unknown firms will be a no no. They truly don't deliver.

So for now I wait and wait. I've turned my attentions to the old bathroom. It doesn't look like WH will be re-fitting that in the near future so the painter will be painting it as it is, the blind will be going up instead of my dreadful temporary curtains and a shiny new mirrored cupboard is waiting in the wings to go on the wall. Meanwhile WH will be finally fitting out the downstairs cloakroom and the utility room, all I need for that is a couple of cupboards, everything else is in the garage, just like me, waiting.