Bottoms up !!!

Poor Phil hasn’t been very well these last few days.  He started complaining on Thursday but I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t take much notice of him.  Phil is always sniffing and snuffling and to be honest, his appetite hasn’t been affected but he had a bad night on Thursday and on Friday morning I could tell that he wasn’t right.  He had a sore throat and a cold and it was obvious that he wasn’t exaggerating.  Poor love, I’m sure he could have done with staying in bed but that simply wasn’t an option because Joe & Trevor were due at 8am to finish off the stairs.  

They were doing the top part of the stairs and I really didn’t fancy being stuck in the flat or climbing up a ladder to get access, so I grabbed my gym bag and headed for DW.  I had a really good workout, still felt a bit sluggish but it was a hundred times better than the day before.  I did ASDA then went to Sue’s for a cuppa.  I phoned Phil before leaving Sue’s and he said it was okay to get back into the flat.

I had nothing of substance in the fridge so we walked to The Gifford for lunch.  When we got back Joe & Trevor were just finishing off.  They had made good progress in the rain and the stairs look great, I am really pleased we decided to change them.  We’ve still got a lot of work to do to make them perfect but to do this we need a few days of good weather.  This is definitely a project for the New Year.

Phil was really suffering with his cold so stayed on the sofa for much of Saturday.  I went to the gym in the morning first thing and got stuck into the domestics once I got home.  Actually, I had a really productive day.  I cleaned the flat, cooked homemade tomato soup, made a big pot of chicken chilli men and got through a whole pile of ironing.   I felt very pleased with myself.

On Saturday night we met up with my sisters Louise & Julia, brother-in-law Mark, my nephew Jack and his girlfriend Emily.  They were in MK shopping for the day and were staying at the Holiday Inn in the city centre.  I wasn’t too sure if Phil was well enough to go out but he said he was, so we met them in the bar at the hotel at 7pm.  It was nice to see my Suffolk family, just a bit of a shame that Harriet couldn’t come along.  We had a couple of drinks and then went to Red Hot Chilli for the buffet.  It was a fun evening; I just wish Phil wasn’t suffering with his cold.

Fortunately, Phil was feeling much better yesterday and we slept in until 9am which is a rarity in this household.  I was feeling slightly jaded, which surprised me, because I didn’t think I’d had too much red wine; consequently it was a lazy morning and I didn’t make it to the gym.   Although Phil was feeling better, he still wasn’t himself so I fed him Lemsips and we stayed in the flat all day watching movies.

This is going to be my last posting on this blog.  I was going to let Phil have the last word on The Naked Bloggers 2012 but then I realised that I hadn’t mentioned that I would be closing off.  We normally close off at the end of year and upload to Blog2Print.  We pays our money on-line and a couple of weeks into the new year our hard back blog book arrives from America; it’s expensive but well worth it when we get to read our blog in print.  It may sound pretty self-indulgent, and perhaps it is, but it’s a momentum of the year, recording good times and bad and something to reflect upon when we are old and grey.

In this, my last posting of 2012, I am not going to dissect the year because Phil has already done that, but what I will say is that hasn’t been a great year for us.  We haven’t had experienced any major catastrophes or had health issues, but like any couple, we have had our problems.  Mum and dads move was stressful both for them and us; Aunt Daphne not surviving her operation was sad and the whole dreadful business with her estate is just awful and on-going.   We have had friends and family that have lost their jobs all with elderly parents with failing health but I suppose the biggest sadness for me, aside from my real dad’s diagnosis with dementia, has been Sue being diagnosed with carcinoid along with an ovarian tumour damaging her heart values.  

I don’t want to make Sue out to be a saint, because saint she aint, but it’s very hard to see someone you care about, go through so much pain.  I have never known anybody have so much shit or bad luck bestowed upon them and get through it.  But get through it she has, with laughter, red wine, of course some tears but most of all with dignity.  Of course she still has a couple of obstacles to overcome, namely open heart surgery in the New Year but she will get this through this operation and come out the other side, better and stronger and hopefully happier than she ever was.  God forbid me, this girl can party and if I can’t keep up with her now, god knows with new heart valves, how will I ever cope in 2013???

All that is left to be said my blog readers, is ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR’.  Let us just hope that it is a good one for all of us.

Cheers my friends, bottoms up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Looking Back @ 2012

We started our year without a holiday this year, which has been unusual for us.  As a contractor that only gets paid for your hours worked, we usually tend to go away over the Christmas and New Year break which you cant work anyway.  You have to pay more for your holiday but at least you don’t loose any work time.  I haven't been working full time for the last few years now so its not so relevant as it used to be.  Last year I only managed to work for 6 of the 12 months.  This was mainly due to my radio therapy treatment for prostrate cancer.  The treatment so far appears to have been successful although not without its side effects.  The other reason that we haven't managed to avoid the winter is because my mum and dad moved out of their house into a bungalow.  The house they had lived in since I was 14 had become too much for them as they have got older, with the stairs and huge garden.  The sale and purchase should have taken place last year but seemed to drag on until the end of January.  We had been living in the caravan since last October but we had to leave the site by 15th January when it closed down for 2 months.  Sue, kindly looked after us for these two months but no sooner had we moved into Sue’s that I got a phonecall to start back to work at Cerulean for a month starting in February. 

I finished my one month contract at Cerulean and booked a holiday; One of our timeshare specials to Tenerife.  Half way through March we were also allowed back into our caravan and we enjoyed it so much we bought the one next door as well.  This would be our guest caravan.  By the end of the month we managed to squeeze another holiday in, well long weekend, for Claire, Sue and myself in Malta to celebrate Sue’s birthday and thank her for our stay with her.  This was a welcome break for us all as it stretched into April.

It wasn’t long before our guest caravan got some use as mum and dad came to stay for a week and while they were there, Harriet, Georgina and Anushka came over for sunday lunch.  Georgina is finishing her first year at the London School of Economics where she is studying International Relations.  We also managed to get over to Lowestoft to visit  Aunt Daphne prior to her operation in May.  Daphne had broken her leg two years earlier and it appears that they bodged her hip replacement and she has been in pain ever since so they have agreed to replace it again.  She only had a 50 - 50 chance of survival as she was 88 years old and quite weak.  At least mum had a chance to catch up with her again because she is running low on relatives.

By May, we managed to find another cheap holiday in Tenerife, this time for 9 nights.  We got back the same day that Daphne went into hospital.  To start with she wasn’t doing very well following her operation, but then she perked up again and we started to feel hopeful.  We managed to visit Daphne twice in hospital before she died of kidney failure.  This turned out to be the turning point in our year.

The funeral was in early June and we arranged a reception with old photos locally.  In fact Daphne often took us here for lunch when we visited her.  Mum was very upset as, she had lived with Daphne and her parents after her father died prior to the war.  By Daphne’s funeral, I had already found out that she didn’t even own her house when she went into hospital.  Apparently, her Financial advisor’s wife was looking after it for her.  I wonder what would have happened if she had survived the operation?  In fact her Financial Advisor denied ever having been her FA but instead he was a close family friend.  To start with, this all affected me so much, I must have had a depression because I couldn’t bring myself to do anything about him other than hand it all ver to a solicitor.  I just wanted to burry my head in my hands and do other things rather than anything to do with Daphne’s estate.  It was only later in the year that I eventually got over my problems and started investigations myself.  I think I have now found enough evidence to got to the police early next year.  I am only holding off to give my new solicitor a chance to recover as many documents as possible first.

Luckily, I had an excuse to bury my head in the sand as one of our flats in Giffard Park came back to us in a right old state.  The tenant had been in it for 12 years so it didn't owe us anything.  In fact, I worked out that this flat had earned us twice the amount that I had paid for it just in rent alone.  However, we had our work cut out; there was an overgrown garden with a dumped car in it, an attic full of junk and inside it needed a complete refurb.  As there was so much work we had the artex ceilings plastered and I knocked the kitchen wall down to make it open plan.  We had wood chip wallpaper on the walls and Lino that was harder to get off than floor tiles but we got there in the end.  This flat took us all of June and July and we finally moved into it in early August.  We did however, have people stay in our guest caravan now and then so it wasn’t seven days a week work.  We also had the proms in the park which we enjoyed.

Although we moved into the flat in August, we divided our time between the caravans and the flat but there were still jobs to do around the flat for the rest of the year.  In fact it was finally finished in-between Christmas and New Year when the external stairs were replaced.  This took some doing, not because it was difficult but because it was so expensive.  We had several quotes and they were all around £6500 which I wasn’t prepared to pay.  The old ones were so bad that the Post Office refused to deliver to our door so we had to get a post box screwed to the bottom of the steps.  I did manage to buy some bolts and brackets and fix the loose steps up temporarily but we finally managed to get a quote for just under £3000 which I was prepared to pay.  This was a compromise, as we have had it built in soft wood and reused the metal steps.  Once they have dried out and been stained I think they will look fine.

We had a very quiet month in September and didn’t really do anything much.  Georgina moved into a flat in South London with two other girls so I took her down with all her bags.  We also met James, her new boyfriend at the caravan and he seems a very nice lad.  We also had Claire’s step dad John and Marie stop with us in the van as well as Dave and Eva that we had originally met in Tenerife.  Having such a quite month and talking to Dave and Eva about holidays prompted me into booking 2 weeks in Fueteventura for October.

We had never been to Fueteventura before and we weren't disappointed as they have the best beaches in the canary islands.  We relaxed for a week and had a car for a week but still managed to see the entire coastline.  I had planed this holiday so that we were back for Tom and Youngja’s wedding and our annual visit to Rashmi our accountant.  Jim and Shirley’s youngest son Tom has married his Korean girlfriend Youngja and they intend to live in Korea where they hope to start a business.  It also gave us a chance to meet Billy, Harriets boyfriend who is also very nice.

Our meeting with Rashmi saw the turning point in my attitude towards Daphne’s FA.  He had told me that even if all Daphne’s money was spent on solicitors at least he wouldn’t benefit from anything.  Strangely this small thing changed my attitude.  I couldn’t loose.  Loosing was for this crook to benefit and I now had a mechanism to stop this and maybe find something incriminating on the way.  I was now full time financial investigator making a note of my time.  I already have 3 huge files full of documents and its all taking shape.  In fact, her FA has sort of admitted that he was Daphne’s FA but still hasn’t released any documents to me.  Whatever happens, this cannot be a good outcome for him anymore.

November was another quiet month with me getting stuck into my new job.  The trick this month was sorting it out so I could find and understand things which I think I have now achieved.  This month also saw terrible flood water around the country for the second time this year.  We have been lucky at the caravan again because both the other two sites near us were evacuated both times.  To my knowledge, our site, Overstone lakes have never had to be evacuated.  We did however shut down the newer caravan but leave our one open for when the stairs were to be replaced just in case we needed to stay away for a couple of days.

December has seen, my mums birthday, my dad’s birthday, our stairs finally being replaced and we have met Sue’s new boyfriend.  As you get older, it gets harder and harder to call our partners boys and girls but there is no better alternative.  We have also seen Jim and Shirley’s oldest son Dan, emigrate to Australia.  His house, opposite ours, has sold, he’s managed to find himself a job and got his visa.  He will be living with Kylie, his Australian girlfriend in St Kilda in Melbourne.  I think he managed to get there for Christmas.  Tom is off to Korea this Wednesday so very good luck to you all.  I guess that Jim and Shirley will be starting to feel a little alone by the New Year as well.  Never mind, all the more time to come out with me for a drink.  Happy New Year everyone!

We had lots of parties and get togethers over December; some of you might remember Wednesday nights clumsiest member, now my brother in law.  Wow, someones been eating too many mince pies!  I could always get a job as a truck driver.  This will be the last entry for this blog and Claire is starting a new one called, “The Naked Bloggers 2013” which will still be private until our financial differences have been sorted out.  Hopefully we will see the end to all this nonsense next year sometime.  Also I have booked a weeks holiday in Lanzarote leaving from Luton on Thursday 10th January.  We will be staying in the “Los Zocos Club Resort” for an all inclusive holiday in Costa Teguise.  Unfortunately, Goa flights were just too expensive.  However, I had a travel book for Christmas about Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.  Looks like the best time to go there is between March and June.  Cant wait!

Over indulgence & attempted burglary

We’ve had a quiet Christmas which was just as we’d planned. I got up early on Christmas Eve, posted a blog, went to the gym, did a workout, picked up some last minute bits from Asda and then went to Sue’s for a quick cup of tea.  I was disappointed when I eventually got back to the flat to find Phil stretched on the sofa, un-showered and still in his pyjamas.  We agreed we’d have a walk along the canal and go to the Gifford for lunch but by the time Phil had got washed and dressed, we’d both polished off a plate of sausage rolls and weren’t hungry.  Also it was raining quite hard, so that rather scarpered any plans for a walk.  There was nothing else left to do bar watching movies and stuffing ourselves silly with chocolate.   Not an unpleasant way to spend Christmas Eve I’d think you’d agree.

In the evening I was going to ask Maurice, the neighbour below us, up to join us for festive drinks and nibbles but when I checked out of the window I saw his car had disappeared.  Maurice works all shifts and I knew he was on an early shift because he’d awoken me when he banged his door when he set off to work.  I’d seen him come home but obviously he’d gone out again.  A shame but hopefully we can catch up with him at New Year. 

We were awake quite early on Christmas Day but decided to laze in bed and read our books.  Phil & I don’t really do presents because we prefer to spend the money on a holiday so I was very surprised when Phil handed me a card and a present when I took my tea to bed.  He’d brought me a Kindle Paperwhite which is a Kindle with a built in light.  This will come in very handy because quite often I read with a torch under the quilt cover if I wake up early.  The Kindle Paperwhite has a touch screen which took me a while to get used to but already I am hooked.  Luckily I had got Phil a couple of gifts; not much, just some new headphones and a travel guide for Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos which he was pleased with. 

I must have been a good girl this year because Santa brought me lots of wonderful gifts; I got a lovely green glass vase, electronic salt and pepper mills complete with batteries and the finest salt and pepper granules, new shoes, a rather posh Bradley wash bag, a bottle of balsamic vinegar, mascara from the body shop, chocolate, socks, a cardigan and a complete set of Elemis toiletries.  Not to mention an envelope full of cash from mum and dad.  Of course it’s far more than I deserve but I am very thankful and grateful.  Phil also did very well this year but I shall let him tell you about his gifts.

Despite being up quite early on Christmas Day we were behind schedule in our festive preparations.  The reason being, the landline wouldn’t stop ringing and the same with the mobiles and there was also Facebook messages and emails to answer.  I mustn’t complain because it’s kinda nice to know that friends and family are thinking about you.  I was finally up and dressed by 11am; Phil opted to stay in his pyjamas but I mustn’t publicly scold him because he did all of our Christmas lunch single handed.

We were expecting Harriet at 12pm but she actually got to the flat just after 11am.  This was fine, I was in the midst of ironing and Phil was preparing the veggies but Harriet hadn’t been here 5 minutes when she realised she’d forgotten her presents.  She had to go back to her flat but this was fine because it gave me a chance to finish my pressing and put the ironing board away.  When Harriet returned we did presents with a glass of Cava, watched the last episode of ‘Only Fools & Horses’ and sat down to lunch at quarter past one. 

I’d brought a breast of Turkey from M&S for lunch which was okay but I wished we had opted to have chicken instead.   After lunch I cleared away whilst HH and Phil watched some crap on the telly.  I guess Harriet left around 2 o’clock.  She’d been out on the lash the night before and was feeling very hung-over.  All she wanted to do was go home and slob her in her new Onesie which was okay by us.  As I waved goodbye to Harriet the neighbour directly across came out to wish me a merry Christmas.   This was nice especially as this is meant to be the season of peace and goodwill and all that.  And actually I hadn’t actually spoken to this particular neighbour.  The neighbour who very friendly, I think she’d been at the sherry, actually she had because she told me as much.  The rest of Christmas Day was spent eating, drinking, watching TV and feigning to be merry.

On Boxing Day we drove down to see mum and dad at Melton. We got there for just after 10 as we wanted to be early so we could help prepare the lunch.  Unfortunately we were too late and mum had done all the veggies and had already starting the cooking.  We had a lovely meal, prawn cocktail to start, roast beef for the main and homemade apple and raspberry pie and custard.  Because mum had gone to so much effort Phil & I felt obliged to eat everything on our plates which resulting feeling stuffed and very uncomfortable afterwards. Phil did the washing up, I dried and mum put away.  We left Melton at half three and like the other day, there was a hold up on the M1 so once again we had to get off at Northampton and drive home the back way.

I picked up Sue @ 6pm and brought her back to the flat.  Sue had a lovely family Christmas with Matt, Nicola and the kids on Christmas Day. She spent Boxing Day with her dad and was ready for a chill out and a glass of red when she came to ours. Brian had sent some wine from his vineyard over with Sue which was very kind.  Actually he doesn’t own the vineyard but he has shares in it.  Phil said the white wine was very nice.  The plan was to have a quiet catch up without caning it, but I think we did 5 bottles between the 3 of us, so much for a quiet one!

Phil was suffering yesterday morning and Sue sent a text to say that she felt like crap but I think with Sue it was tiredness more than a hangover.  I didn’t feel too bad and after chores made it to the gym for a run.  I will to confess the body felt very sluggish but I persevered and managed an hour on the treadmill.  Not bad for an old girl. When I got back to the flat Phil did us lunch, creamy mash potato with cold meat and pickles.  It was delicious.  As I was washing up and gazing out of the window I noticed that our shed door was open.  Straight away I thought we had been burgled and sure enough, when I went down to the garden, I could see that someone had levied off the bracket. What bastards was my initial thought. I called Phil down to inspect but we don’t think anything had been taken.  Thankfully most of our expensive tools are kept either at the caravan or are being stored in Sue’s garage. 

Well Christmas is over thank goodness, we’ve just to get over the New Year and then the holidays will be over.  Our Christmas has been okay and I don’t mean to sound like a Bar Humbug but next year we are definitely going away to the sunshine.  I don’t mind if we have to pay extra because of the time of year, Christmas at home is boring and the over indulgence is obscene.  If don’t care if I never see a mince pie, or a sausage roll, and don’t even go there with chocolate.  Never will be too soon for me.

Happy Christmas Everyone

It’s been a busy few days. Joe the carpenter and his father-in-law Trevor came back on Friday to continue working on the staircase.  They wanted us out of the way so we gave them a key and buggered off at half past eight.  We decided to drive to the caravan to do a couple of jobs.  The first job was dismantling the sofa bed in readiness to it take down to Georgina in London and the other thing we had to do was to give a key to Dennis next door so he can drain down the caravan.  We won’t be back to stay until March so we figured we may as well get it shut down now rather than wait for the park to close down.  It makes sense.  The weather is mild at the moment but that can soon change.

After leaving the caravan we drove to Morrisons at Wellingborough for last bits of Christmas shopping.  This turned out to be a very bad move; half of Northamptonshire were in Morrisons and in the end we gave up.  I thought Phil was going to have a heart attack whilst getting stuck in the car park; he was getting himself worked up into frenzy so I thought it was a good idea to get the hell out of there.  We queued to get out but we did get out in the end.  On the way back we stopped off at Sainsbury’s, this store was busy but we managed to get in and out without too much of a problem.

We were anxious that we wouldn’t be able to get access to the flat when we got back without a ladder but Joe & Trevor had made really good progress and we were both pleased and surprised.  Unfortunately they couldn’t get the staircase finished in time for Christmas but they promised to be back first thing in the New Year.  They reckon they only need one more day but I think 2 days is more realistic because they’ve saved the most difficult bit until last.  Although far from finished, the steps are already looking 10 times better.

On Friday evening Sue picked us up from the flat and we went to hers for dinner.  Sue had 11 over for dinner and wanted us to meet her new networking friends.  Sue has joined several groups this year and it was a very interesting mix of folks on Friday.  A good evening but, as always, too much wine and a late one to bed which didn’t bode well for the following day.

I didn’t make it to the gym on Saturday because I didn’t get up until nearly 11am.  Phil cooked us a fry up when he got up and after packing, we finally left for Letchworth shortly after 1pm.  It was a foul, foul day, lots of local flooding on the B roads along the way and it took us just over an hour to get to the Letchwoth Hall Hotel.  I’d seen a Groupon voucher for dinner & Christmas party and we’d arranged to meet up with Sue & Brian & Steve & Jan.  The hotel was a Mecure and the rooms were nicer than anticipated.  Phil & I were the first to arrive and we were joined in the Bar by Sue & Brian not long after.  Jan & Steve arrived an hour later; they’d come separately as Jan had driven to the hotel from her mum’s house.  I felt sorry for Steve as he had a stinking cold and cough and was on a course of antibiotics.  We had a couple of drinks and then everyone disappeared to their rooms to get ready for the evening’s festivities.

After meeting up in the bar we made our way to the function room where we were seated at our table and served up a 3 course Christmas meal.  It was standard Christmas fare but for mass catering it wasn’t bad at all.  The DJ started the disco after dinner was finished and we danced the night away.  When I see we, I refer to the girls as I don’t think any of the boys got up on the dance floor.  I thought it was a good evening and hopefully all the others did too.  

Another late night and we struggled to get out of bed yesterday morning.  It would have been so nice to have a lie in and chill out in bed with tea and newspapers but that wasn’t an option for us.  It was Phil’s dad’s birthday and we’d booked a table at the Bowls Club.  

It was just before 9am when we checked out and got on the A1 and to drive to Melton.  We’d allowed ourselves 2 hours for the journey but we got to mum and dads in an hour and a quarter.  It is really difficult to choose a present for Phil’s dad and invariably he doesn’t like what we get him but yesterday for once he was thrilled with our gift.  Okay thrilled might be slightly over exaggerating but he did like the new leather seat pads that we’d ordered for his car.   Phil took them out of the packet and fitted them on the front seats and they fit a treat.   

We were the first to be seated at our table at the Bowls Club which is probably just as well because it was busy.  Lunch was the carvery; we just had the one course and were back at the bungalow before 1 o’clock.  Mum said that ‘Deal or No Deal’ was starting at 2pm so we decided.  I felt a bit guilty leaving so early but we both felt knackered and just wanted to get home. 

There was an accident causing congestion between J14 and J13 so we came off at Northampton and drove the back way home.   Once back at the flat, we didn’t do anything. We changed into our pyjamas and watched some films that we’d recorded.  I felt, when I went to bed last night, that I could sleep for England and I am sure I could have, if my neighbour hadn’t woken us by banging his door when he went to work at 5am this morning.  Never mind, I have a long list of things to do so maybe just as well I am up and dressed.

Thanks to everyone that sent us a Christmas card this year.  If you haven’t received a card from us, it’s because we haven’t sent any.  Instead we have sponsored Vanessa, when in May, she will be running a marathon and climbing Mt Toubkal in aid of Willen Hospice.  A very worthwhile cause and one that is close to our hearts.  http://www.justgiving.com/VanessaFord

This will be the last post from me for a few days, so all that remains for me to do, is to wish all of you, a VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS and a healthy New Year.   Have a good one and I hope that Santa brings you everything that your hearts deserve. 

Cheers!!