Cheshire Wife

From plaster to canvas

2012-02-08T13:00:00.002Z

I have always known that I would never be able to afford a Picasso or a Constable. Consequently I have never been a connoisseur of art. We do have pictures and paintings in the cottage but nothing of any value. Most of our pictures were bought when we saw something that took our fancy or liked the look of. That has seemed to me to be the best way to buy pictures, as going out specifically to buy one does not seem to work. In the same way that I rarely seem to be able to go out and buy a particular item of clothing. Now we have acquired some of my mother's pictures which is rather nice and we will find a home for them in the cottage once they have been reframed.

So, I have been rather surprised to find myself drawn to the David Hockney exhibition at the Royal Academy in London.

The exhibition is a sell out and is so popular that they are having to consider extending the opening hours. The fact that most of this exhibition is of paintings of my native Yorkshire probably has something to do with my interest. I realise that most of his paintings are gaudy and very simple and look as if they could have been painted by a child, but Yorkshire is in essence a simple, no frills county. Parts of it are stunning. The fishing village of Whitby is as picturesque as any of the pretty Cornish fishing villages. The Yorkshire Moors admittedly can be bleak and wind swept, but when the heather is out are a match for the likes of Exmoor. The majority of paintings on show are landscapes of the area known as The Wolds which is an area of small hills in North and East Yorkshire.

However, there are also some paintings from his time spent in America when he was better known for his paintings of Californian swimmings pools than English landscapes. Some of his paintings were originally iPad sketches which he has transferred to canvas. One of his old lecturers from his days as a student in his home town of Bradford has described his work as that of a decorator. I only wish that I could decorate half as well as him.

If you are interested there is a programme about the exhibition on Sky Arts 2 on Thursday February 9 at 6pm, but if like me you do not have that channel, amongst the 101 channels that you do have, this clip may be of interest to you.

We have at last finished decorating our kitchen. It seems to have taken us about three weeks whereas the first time that we decorated it, we seemed to get it done in about three days. When you decorate some rooms you can shut the door on them at the end of the day and forget about them, but you can not do that with a kitchen. It became a drag having to be constantly removing the clutter from the kitchen so that we could get on with the painting. So I decided that I would concentrate on the decorating and then the much needed cleaning. I have now cleaned everything that can be seen which just leaves the inside of the cupboards and the ovens - grhh!

When renovation becomes maintenance

2012-01-20T08:00:00.001Z

We have been living in the cottage for nearly eight years now and the renovation ought to be finished, but it isn't. There is still one bedroom left to do plus some odd jobs. We have put the bedroom off a few times as we could not face the upheaval involved. Eight years is the longest that we have lived anywhere during our married life and we are now having to redecorate the cottage which is something that we have not had to do to any of our previous houses. At the moment we are redecorating the kitchen which was the first room that we decorated after we moved in. Here is the ceiling with the beams taped up and ready for a fresh coat of paint.

I know that the Victorians did not have beams in their ceilings, neither did they have artexed ceilings. They are the legacy of the previous owners and would cost a small fortune to remove and change. So we have left them. Even if they are not authentic, they give the cottage character and are only in the downstairs rooms. Anyway, the Victorians did not have electric lights or central heating, but we would not think of living without such facilities today.

When we moved in the kitchen was usable but desperately dark and dated. There was a fitted freezer which did not work and a fitted oven which heated up even when it was switched off! We eventually found that the wiring to the oven was faulty. I do not think that anything had been done to the kitchen for about 25 years. We started by having the kitchen rewired and new lights fitted. Then we had to have some plastering done. The dust, upheaval and general mess is now becoming a blur and this was the second new kitchen that we had had fitted as we had had one put into our previous house after extending it. Consequently we had learnt from some of the mistakes that we made the first time. One thing that I insisted on was that we ate our main meal out. Trying to cook a meal in a microwave is a nightmare. The only problem that I have never forgotten was that at the beginning of the fitting of the kitchen in the previous house, the electrician had said to me that he had never worked on a kitchen that did not have something missing. I confidently said that maybe this would be a first, but it wasn't. We had everything but the hob! How did they manage to leave that out?

This time all that is needed is a good clean and a fresh coat of paint. We are keeping the same colour scheme albeit with the walls a slightly different shade of green.

Magical Mystery Tour

2012-01-12T18:55:00.002Z

The Monday before Christmas husband and I escaped, to a concert at the MEN arena in Manchester, for some much needed pre-Christmas cheer. I had bought the tickets on a wet afternoon in October and was really looking forward to this concert which was going to be one of the highlights of my year but recent events overshadowed it and we could easily have forgotten to go. I had previously seen the Beatles about 1964 at the Hull ABC. I had pestered my parents so much to go to see them that my father had queued up for tickets for a friend and I. Didn't I have the best father in the world and December 19, the day of the concert, would have been his birthday. I am sure that he would have approved. We arrived at the arena later than we would have liked courtesy of an accident on the motorway and roadworks once we hit Manchester itself. There were only 20 minutes to go until the concert was due to start and it seemed as if the entire audience was still outside trying to get through the doors. There was no way that the concert was going to start on time and it did not.

We had seats in the lower tier with a good view of the stage and the screens on either side of it. These were the most expensive concert tickets that we have ever bought, but they were worth it! Twenty minutes later than advertised the arena lights were dimmed then without any announcement or fanfare the man that we had all come to see and his band walked on stage. There he was, Paul McCartney looking slim and fit in a dark blue/grey suit with the familiar Nehru jacket and his equally familiar bass guitar. Within seconds the stage was lit by psychedelic lights and the Magical Mystery Tour had started. After the fourth number he removed his jacket, with a flourish, revealing the pink lining, then tossed it aside as a multimillionaire can.

He played songs that had been hits for the Beatles, for Wings and for other artists - all written by him. Some I had not realised that he had written, but now that I know, I can see the McCartney stamp. We had a sing along to Ob la di, Ob la da then Hey Jude with McCartney on a psychedelically painted piano. While for other numbers he retreated to a grand piano at the back of the stage. One of the highlights was the Bond theme Live and Let Die accompanied by fireworks.

Once we got to the two hour mark I kept thinking 'this must be the last number', then he would launch into another one. He actually played for three hours, including two encores, finishing at 11.20 pm. He seemed as if he could have gone on all night and I am sure that most of the audience would have stayed. There is no question about his versatility or his brilliance as a songwriter and performer. According to a review of this concert he played an amazing 39 songs.

Deja vu

2012-01-06T08:00:00.022Z

So the Christmas decorations are down and the festivities are over for another year. Here the festive spirit and goodwill to all men did not last very long at all. It did not even stretch into Christmas night. For us December had been hectic and we had hoped for a quiet Christmas. As it was starting to get dark on Christmas Day we heard the dulcet tones of the neighbour's barking dog. And by dulcet I mean angry, aggressive and annoyed. The neighbours had gone out and left the dog home alone. By the time that they returned we had had seven hours of intermittent barking. Hardly Silent Night!

The next few days were peaceful, but we were keeping an eye on activities at the neighbours as they often go away at Christmas and have never spent a New Year's Eve at home. We had come to the conclusion that this year they were not going away when we noticed that the house was in darkness and there was a car missing from their drive. By now it was 30 December. All was quiet. Maybe they had put the dog in kennels or taken him with them. That was wishful thinking on our part. At 8.15 pm the dog started to bark and went on until twenty past midnight. We have given up trying to go to bed early when this happens, so that was not too bad. The next day, New Year's Eve, we were not sure what to expect. We were not even sure that the neighbours were away. They could just have been out.

Here December 31 was mild and dry. Husband and I spent an enjoyable couple of hours in the garden in the afternoon, totally forgetting the events of the previous evening. At 6.15 pm the evening's entertainment, of a barking dog, started. Obviously there was nobody next door except the dog. Usually it takes the dog five hours to bark himself to sleep, but not tonight, after all it was New Year's Eve and he was going to stay up late. In fact he was going to stay up very late! At 2.15 am on New Year's Day husband had had enough of the dog barking and phoned the police who are not able to do anything about a barking dog, which is technically a noise nuisance and comes under the remit of the Environmental Health Department (EHD) at the local council. However, the officer that he spoke to referred him to the dog warden service. This is a service that we had not heard of and based on our previous experiences, of trying to get someone in authority to take this problem of the neighbour's barking dog seriously, we were pleasantly surprised by the response that we got. After taking husband's details he confirmed that he could hear the dog barking and that the level of barking constituted a noise nuisance and the incident would be passed on to the EHD of the council after the bank holiday. The dog went on to bark until 3.45 am. Husband and I were a bit the worse for wear on New Year's Day and we would not have minded if we had seen the new year in at some fabulous party. As it was we had watched the fireworks on TV at midnight and had been in bed by 1.00 am. However, there was no time for me to mope around, the in laws were coming the following day and I had cooking to do. About 5.45 pm, despite having on both the extractor fan and the radio, I noticed that the dog was once again on song and barking. We left it until after 11.00 pm to phone the dog warden as the noise nuisance legislation does not come into effect until that time. As had happened the previous evening he took husband's details, confirmed that the barking dog constituted a noise nuisance and that the incident would be passed onto the EHD the after the bank holiday. That night the dog stopped barking about 1.30 pm.

We have been complaining to the EHD, about the neighbours leaving the dog home alone to bark, for three years now and we have been lent on four occasions the equipment, photographed right, known as 'The Matron' to record the dog barking. On three of the occasions that we had the equipment the dog was not there and on the fourth when we did manage to record it barking, we were told that it was not loud enough to constitute a noise nuisance. In January of last year the EHD closed our case after admitting that they were aware of a problem with our neighbour, but they were not going to do anything about it. That prompted several irate letters to the chief executive of the council as the problem continued and at one point our MP intervened on our behalf, but nothing changed. In a situation such as this I am like a dog with a bone and will not give up until I feel that justice has been done. We have now appealed to the Local Government Ombudsman.

At lunch time on January 3 the EHD of the local council phoned to ask for more information relating to these incidents. Now we have to wait and hope that they take action against our neighbour. They have buried their head in the sand for long enough.

2012 here we come!

2011-12-31T10:30:00.001Z

So 2011 is almost over and 2012 is almost upon us. I am not one for new year's resolutions. However now that I am no longer working, this year I intend to get on top of the garden and to finish decorating the cottage. Otherwise I am just going to see how things go. I am hoping to get back into blogging, but before I do I have to entertain the in laws on January 2. The date of this visit has only been changed twice unlike the last time they came in September 2010. They have not been up here, at this time of year, for seven years. That visit in 2004 was a bit of a disaster. The traffic was awful and the journey took far longer than expected. Husband was in touch with them via mobile phone and kept telling me that they would arrive in 20 minutes. I believed him and left the joint, that was for our lunch, in the oven, thinking that another 20 minutes would do no harm. By the time they arrived it had almost disintegrated. So this time I am keeping it simple and we are having a casserole. If I am organised I'll cook it the day before as the recipe book claims that reheating improves the flavour. That will only leave me the vegetables to prepare on the day, as I shall also prepare the desserts the day before. Let's hope that it is as simple as I have made it sound.

We have had a year that we shall not forget. In the last four months both of our widowed mothers have died. They were both 92 and had had a good innings before ill health took its toll. So 2012 will start a new chapter for us and life will be different. Our mothers' deaths have made us realise that we won't be here forever and now that they are no longer with us we are free to go travelling to all those long haul and exotic destinations that we have had to put on the back burner over the last few years, in case we got off the plane and had to come straight back because one of the mothers was ill. We have not made any definite plans yet, but it will be something to think about and look forward to over the dark days of winter. As one door closes another one opens!

Happy New Year !

Going down

2011-12-17T12:00:00.003Z

A blue hydrangea is not very festive, I know, but it reflects my mood which is a bit blue at the moment. The last ten days have been bitter sweet. The photograph was taken while we were in Cornwall, in June this year, and reminds me of the house that I grew up in which had a blue hydrangea in a half barrel by the front door.

When my mother was found to have fluid on her lung, back in May, I knew then that if she had as many chest infections during this coming winter, as she had over the course of last winter, that she would not see Spring 2012. Last week she succumbed to her third chest infection of the winter. Sadly she died on Saturday December 10. I wasn't quite prepared for this turn of events and if I am honest I am a bit annoyed about the timing. Maybe I am just being selfish, but I would have liked to have quietly enjoyed my last few days at work without having one of life's inevitable dramas going on in the background. That's life. Anyway my mother has taken her final bow and I have now finished work. I suppose that anti-climax is the word that I am looking for.

Please do not be sad, as my mother's death was a blessing in disguise. Her tormented soul is now at peace and the torture that my brother and I have suffered since she had a mini stroke, in May 2006 ago, is over. In many ways my mother really died five and a half years ago. If 20 or 30 years ago my mother could have seen how she would become, she would have had a blue fit. The staff at the nursing home,where she was a resident, were brilliant with her and I would highly recommend it to anyone in this area who has a relative with dementia. They took a load off my mind and certainly made my life as stress free as it could be in the circumstances.

Husband and I returned to the nursing home on Sunday to collect Mum's belongings. We took with us a large suitcase and a bag, but I had underestimated quite how many clothes and bits and pieces she had, so husband returned home to collect another suitcase. While he was gone I had a chat to one of the young carers who had known my mother since she become a resident in the residential home, in April 2009. I was trying to explain to her how difficult it is to watch a parent go down hill in the way that my mother had done over the last few years. There was a bit of a bond between the two of them as they had the same birthday, albeit 70 years apart. Recently she had asked me what my mother had been like before the dementia took hold. Although I would be the first to comment that the person that my mother became after the mini stroke was not the mother that I had known, I found that I really had to think about my answer, as I had accepted her as she had become.

I do not think that my mother ever worked out that she was in a home but in a way she had the last laugh. She had a dislike of lifts and would always use a stair case if possible. Her room was on the second floor and I had always used to stairs to get up and down to it. As we had two large suitcases husband and I decided to come down in the lift. The home is in an old house. The lift is nearly as ancient. It was very very slow and then we realised that it had stopped and we in between floors! It was hot. We pressed all of the buttons and still the lift did not move. It became very hot. I was beginning to get a bit panicky. Then husband said we'll have to press the alarm button which we did. Luckily the nurse in charge had seen us getting into the lift so he knew who was in it. Next we heard a voice asking 'can you jump?' My first thought was 'were to?' We could not get out of the lift. Then the penny drop and I asked if he meant up and down. 'Yes' the voice said. So a couple of jumps and lift descended. That was an experience that I won't forget.

Countdown 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

2011-12-03T12:40:00.002Z

If I had not known differently I would have thought that yesterday was Friday 13th. We had a right day and a half of it at work. By yesterday lunch time my head was spinning and I do not think that I have ever been as glad to come home as I was last night. I know that the closer we get to Christmas the more manic Fridays will become. Looking back to a year ago I wrote a post saying that I would not be doing this pre-Christmas holiday work stint again. Well that was what I thought at the time. The work situation has not quite gone to plan and it seems that I just cannot say 'no'. Anyway this really is the last time.

I now have four days left to work before I stop practising. I have been trying to stop practising for about two years now and have been putting off the fateful day for one reason or another. Now that the end is in sight I feel a bit sad. However, there is, now, no going back as I have taken myself off the register from 31 December. In any case I need to be realistic, standing up for eight hours a day is a young person's game. When I was younger I used to stand up all day at work then stand up all night in the pub. Nowadays I rarely get to the pub, even when I am not working. I shall miss the staff that I have worked with but I will not miss the patients. I can live without the hysterics, tantrums and theatricals that relatives and patients sometimes subject us to. Life will be quieter and a little less colourful, but that is how I prefer it. Professional ethics prevent me from going into more detail here.

Whether or not I am working it seems that my presence is going to be felt. Last week one of the assistants claimed to see me upstairs in the stockroom when I was actually downstairs in the dispensary. Even if work does not haunt me, I am going to be haunting work!

I am not quite sure what I am going to do with myself when January comes around, but one thing that is certain is that it will be different to what I have been used to. Before I get myself involved in anything whether paid or voluntary I intend to work my way through the list of jobs in the cottage that have been ignored or left undone over the last 18 months.

If you are wondering what I have been up to since I last posted, I always struggle to find the time for my blog when I am working and husband is at home, which he is at the moment. Recently most of my spare time has been spent in the garden - weather and light permitting. Autumn is the best time to move plants, in the garden, while the soil is relatively warm after the Summer. Over the last few years we have missed this opportunity which has left us with a lot to do this year.

The other big job that we have also done was to take down a dead tree and prune a rather out of hand hawthorn hedge. This left us with a massive pile of prunings (right) to cut up and dispose of. What could not be cut up into logs or kindling for our open fires, was loaded into our garden waste bin and that of our neighbours for several collections.

The Swinging Sixties

2011-10-24T21:55:00.001+01:00

I am not big on birthdays and I never have been, but I have just had a big birthday. A landmark birthday. The biggest since I was 21. I had planned to spend the day hot footing it down to the town hall to collect my bus pass. However, back in June I had decided to investigate what would be necessary by looking at the local council's website. I suppose that I was only mildly surprised to find that the goal posts had been moved by the previous government, in April 2010, just before the election and conveniently swept under the carpet. I do not now become eligible for a bus pass until I qualify for the state pension which is 19 months away. Some councils have chosen not to implement this change and have decided to absorb the cost. I know why our local council has implemented it. The chief executive is paid more than the prime minister plus five figure bonuses for poor performance. That is where my bus pass has gone! Discovering that I would not collect my state pension when I expected to was, again, something that I found out by lucky accident when shortly before husband hit 60 I decided to investigate my state pension situation. I do remember murmurings, by the previous government, about changes to the pension age but they kept quiet about the decisions that they made. At the very least they could have written to those affected by the change. The Cameron government are being open and honest about the changes that they are making. So hopefully there should be no more nasty surprises.

I am not really in any hurry for my bus pass and state pension. I do not feel old and I do not think that I look old. Although the last time that I visited my mother in the nursing home one of the residents asked me if I was the new lady, meaning a new resident. 'No' I quickly replied 'I'm a visitor'. I thought 'do I look like I belong here?' Most of the residents look as if the got dressed in the dark, in crumpled unco-ordinating clothes. I was wearing a white blouse, blue striped cardigan and denims. (Note to self - wear a mini skirt for next visit to the nursing home).Sadly there is a lady in the nursing home who does not look much older than me.

Some perks have been left unchanged. Eye tests and prescriptions are now free. However, I am hoping not to be ill. Then there is the B&Q Diamond card that offers discount on Wednesdays and Boots health club which offers discount on their own products and I'll get myself a Senior Railcard if I am allowed. There are probably some other schemes that I am not currently aware of. I am not looking for something for nothing, but it is sheer stupidity not to claim your entitlement. I have worked hard for the last forty years. I know that I have not had forty years of paid employment. It was forty years last month since I started university. For those who think that university is a skive and a doddle, the life of an applied science undergraduate is a hard one. We had a 9.15 am lecture Monday to Friday three terms a year for three years and some evenings we did not finish our practical session until after 6.00 pm. Then the practical had to be written up. During the three day week of the winter of 1973-4 the university buildings were unheated and we regularly spent four hours sitting in an unheated lecture theatre. In those days students lived on the breadline in grotty flats which were nothing like the luxury that the students of today expect. We had no central heating, fridge, telephone, television or stereo. I had a battery operated radio and contact with home was via a weekly letter and a weekly phone call from a phone box. We were happy. We considered ourselves to be in a privileged position. I would not have missed it for the world. It is undoubtedly the one of the best things that I have ever done. After graduation I did one year's pre-registration training and for most of the last 36 years I have worked as a pharmacist, initially in hospital, then the pharmaceutical industry and now in retail.

Recently husband and I have spent some time reinvesting and deferring my pensions in the hope that they maybe worth more when I do decide to take them. Yes, pensions not pension. I know it sounds as if I am rolling in it, but nothing could be further from the truth. As a result of being badly advised and poor investments by the pension providers they are worth very little. However, it is not all doom and gloom as I shall be entitled to a full state pension when the fateful day arrives and the first nine and a half years of my working life was spent in the employment of the NHS then the Civil Service which has rewarded me with a small but bullet proof pension.

However, for the moment retirement will have to wait, as I have agreed to work eleven days of holiday cover between now and Christmas. I have been told that retirement is great and I have been looking forward to it for the last few years. When I first started work I used to think how awful it must be not be able to go to work. For the next few years I intend to enjoy myself before old age and senility set in.

The Good Life

2011-10-07T08:00:00.008+01:00

Husband and I have been making the most of the recent good weather by spending as much time as we could in our garden, which this year has been a bit neglected as a result of my work schedule and the dismal weather that we have had here in the north west of England. We did have some good weather but it invariably seemed to be on the days that I was working. So once gain I have to apologise for absenting myself from Blogland. Husband has now had his two cataract ops. and it has been ideal recuperation to be able to potter around in the garden in warm sunny weather, even if he has had to wear sun glasses.

This year for the first time we have had a taste of the good life. For those of you who do not live in the UK or who are too young to remember, The Good Life was a TV sitcom about a young couple, Tom and Barbara Good played by Richard Briars and Felicity Kendall, who dropped out of the rat race and tried to become self sufficient by growing fruit and vegetables and keeping a pig. We do not have a pig but we have grown vegetables for the first time this year.

Summer 2010 and this is what our vegetable garden looked like.

The shed was purchased on 2005 to temporarily house the contents of our largely asbestos garage while it was rebuilt. It ended up full of all sorts and it was a mammoth task to empty it so that we could sell it which we managed to do about a year ago.

Summer 2011 the vegetable garden looked like this.

The vegetable garden is husband's 'baby' and I have left it pretty much up to him to organise it and grow what he wants. He bought the raised beds in kit form. He also bought the soil to fill the raised beds and has installed an irrigation system. The plants came from a garden centre. I am not sure if we shall ever get our money back or break even on this project. Next year maybe we shall try to grow the plants from seed.

The first vegetable that we were able to harvest was the spinach and we have continued to pick it on a regular basis for several weeks now. However, the leaves are now noticeably smaller. Next were the lettuces, cauliflowers and broccoli. Unfortunately some went to seed, as we did not watch them carefully enough. This year it has all been a bit of an experiment and next year we shall know better. The mange tout exceeded our wildest expectations with a bumper crop. We had thought that our Cheshire climate would not be warm enough for them. The peas also did well and were far better than any frozen peas.

Carrots and cabbages have been a first for us. Carrots you would expect to be straight forward, but they have been anything but. Now I know why in days gone by housewives did not go out to work. It takes time and imagination to prepare something that looks edible from a carrot that resembles an octopus. The sprouts look to be about ready to harvest, but we must wait for a frost before we pick them. Amazing is the only description for our potato crop. We did not expect the rather sorry looking seed potatoes that we bought to do much at all, but we have enough potatoes to feed an army. Our courgettes crop has been our best ever. We have grown them before, always from seed I might add. Then there are the runner beans which are still producing.

Also we have had a good crop of tomatoes. I do not seem to have much luck with tomato seeds, so have always bought them as plants. This variety is Gardener's Delight. I find that the smaller tomatoes ripen better, than larger ones, in our relatively cool climate.

Lastly there is the fruit crop. The fruit cage contains raspberries and blackberries. Only the late raspberries have done well this year. Hopefully next year we shall do better with the fruit as we are both partial to raspberries. Finally there are two ancient cooking apple trees in our garden. We have already had some wind falls but will not harvest the main crop for a few weeks yet.

It has been a very worth while experiment. It has given husband more interest in the garden than he has had as he tends to leave most of it to me. Picking fresh vegetables from the garden and eating them within hours, rather than days for supermarket bought vegetables, has been an absolute pleasure.

On the road again

2011-09-24T08:00:00.022+01:00

Life, illness and death have crossed my path in the past few weeks. I am aware that I have not posted for over a month. In that time we have also been away to Brittany in northern France. Our holiday weather was not great and the hotels were disappointing but we saw sights that we had not seen before and had a holiday that we shall not forget.

Late Saturday morning on September 3 found us on the motorway again. This time we were heading for Plymouth from where the Pilgrim Fathers set out for the New World all those years ago. We were not travelling so far. Our destination was Roscoff in northern Brittany, just over the English Channel. We arrived in Plymouth late afternoon and after settling ourselves into our hotel room, went out to stretch our legs. Our hotel over looked the Hoe, but as preparations were well under way for the America's Cup World Series, which was being held in Plymouth Sound from 10 to 18 September, there was not a lot to see. I am not sure that there was even enough space for a game of bowls.

That evening we had a very good Greek meal in the harbour area. Then after a nightcap it was an early night as we had to be up bright and early the next morning, to catch the ferry.

The ferry crossing was uneventful and by about 4.30 pm we were in our hotel over looking Plage Saint Guirec on the Cote de Granit Rose (Pink Granite Coast). So called after the dramatic russet rocks along this stretch of coast. Here our hotel bedroom was more open plan than ensuite with only a glass panel separating the bedroom from the shower room. Thankfully the small room had a door to it. I know that we are married, but it is nice to have some privacy.

The following day we awoke, rather surprisingly, to a clear blue sky with the sun beaming down. We decided to make the most of the weather, which despite the sun was cool and windy, by walking along the coast to the next beach, which took one and a half hours each way. This is the best way to see and appreciate this spectacular coast line.

It is takes three hours to walk the length of the Pink Granite Coast which we could have done, but we then would have had to walk back again as we could not see how we would get back otherwise. The next day, Tuesday, was wet and we decided to explore the area by car visiting Paimpol, Lannion and Treguier. All pleasant little harbours which I did not photograph as it was raining.

On Wednesday we moved south down the coast to Concarneau, which is certainly not the prettiest place that we visited. It is more of a port than a holiday destination.

Our hotel, on the outskirts, over looked this white sandy beach which unfortunately is spoilt by the green ridge of seaweed washed up by the Atlantic.

On Thursday, again, it was damp. As we had planned, we visited first Pont-Aven,

which is a very picturesque riverside town where many of the 19th century painters, including Gauguin, lived. Despite the grey, damp weather this place looked amazingly pretty. With a blue sky and sun I am sure that it would look stunning.

Next it was on to the historic city of Quimper, famous for it's twin

spired Cathedrale St-Corentin. By now the weather was dismal, as you can see in the photo to the right.

On our last day before we started our journey back home we visited the seaside town of Carnac, where once gain we had to contend with drizzle and mist as this photograph of the beach shows.

However, it is the complex of mysterious megaliths on the outskirts of Carnac that attract thousands of visitors every year.

There are approximately 2,700 stones arranged in three main groups of alignements (rows of standing stones or menhirs) - Menec, Kermario and Kerlescan.

On Saturday morning we packed our bags and set of back to Roscoff. We were there by lunchtime which gave us the time to have a look around. The 'Onion Johnnies' are long gone, but we did see this bicycle.

On the final day of our stay in France the weather was fine. It obviously knew that we were about to go home.

Another Sunday morning and we were up bright and early once again. Only this time I was not so bright. Something that I had eaten the night before had upset me. Not badly, but I was feeling a bit fragile. I was alright until the ferry was about ten minutes out of Roscoff. There was a swell on the English Channel that day and I started to feel sea sick. So I spent five hours of the ferry crossing watching the horizon. My brain just froze and would not think about anything. I knew that there was no point trying to do any of the reading that I had planned to do while on the ferry. This experience has put me off ever wanting to go on a cruise. Five hours of feeling rotten was enough. I could not cope with two weeks of it.

As I mentioned earlier, the America's Cup World Series was being held in Plymouth when we returned on September 11. As the ferry came into port the safety boats came out to keep the competing catamarans out of the path of the ferry and we had a pretty good view of the competition as the Hoe once gain came into view.

Soon we were back on English soil and on the last leg of our way home. If the ferry had been delayed we had considered spending Sunday night somewhere between Plymouth and Chester. We arrived on time and in any case we wanted to get home. Sadly my mother-in-law died while we were away. She had been in hospital for a month but her death was unexpected.

Seven year itch

2011-08-22T22:55:00.003+01:00

This week it is eight years since we moved from Surrey up to Cheshire. In general those eight years seem to have gone remarkably quickly. There have been times, particularly when we were waiting for the building work on the cottage to start, that it felt as if the hands on the clock were going backwards. It took about four to five years for me to think of Cheshire as home and I think that was more to do with eventually feeling that the cottage belonged to us, when we broke the back of the decorating, as it was to seeing Cheshire as familiar. There are still times when I feel as if I am living in a foreign country. Only last week a shop assistant said something to me as she handed back my credit card. I did not understand a word of what she said. When we first moved here we rented a house while we looked for a house to buy. It took us five and a half months of looking to find the cottage and another two and a half months to actually buy it, which meant that it was the end of April 2004 when we moved to the cottage.

Back in April after yet another sleepless Saturday night, courtesy of the neighbour's barking dog, we were seriously considering moving house. I know that you will be thinking they must be mad. They haven't finished the cottage that they are currently living in. But the brain plays tricks on you when you are wide awake at 3am in the morning. We had seen for sale, in the village, a house which interested us. At present we live on the outskirts of the village. Even though there is nothing more than a post box and a phone box in the centre of the village I have hankered after living in the village, ever since we moved here. The post office and a little shop went a long time ago. At the time that we moved here the cottage that we bought was the only suitable property available. It is not very often that a house in the village is for sale. Most of the houses are too big for us and in all the seven years that we have lived here, this is the first house that ticked the right boxes for us. It wasn't perfect. It needed work doing to it. Neither of us really wanted a return to living in a building site but what is the price of a good night's sleep?

There followed a week of frantic activity to get the cottage tidy and presentable for estate agents to value it. I would not describe the inside of the cottage as untidy, but it was amazing the amount of clutter that there was around the place. What did not have a home and could not be thrown away ended up in the spare bedroom which is the only room that has not been decorated. Things were stuffed into drawers and cupboards and afterwards I did not know where I had put them! The dust sheets that had protected the conservatory furniture were bundled into a bin bag which I hid in the garage. Luckily I remembered that hiding place and they did not end up going out with the rubbish.

Two estate agents came to value the cottage. If we were to sell, which we aren't, neither would have the privilege of selling it for us. The first came early before I was ready, fortunately husband was able to let him in. The second was late. Neither apologised. Uncannily they both valued the cottage at the same disappointing figure. Considerably less than the larger house next door which is currently for sale. This is the very same house that I recently wrote about being two council tax bands below our cottage. It has the same number of rooms as our cottage, although it is larger. More space means higher bills. The next door house also has a bigger garden. Our garden is big enough for us. We do not want to have to spend all day cutting the lawn. Whoever buys it will be paying a high price for the extra space. Both agents said that the next door house was over priced.

For now we are staying put and finishing off the cottage. So I can only guess what it would be like to live in the village. Quieter no doubt, but probably less colourful and maybe less eventful. For the moment it is not to be and just to reinforce our decision not to move, the house that we were interested in was taken off the market before we got the chance to look at it. Our seven year itch lasted all of a week

Where's the tooth fairy?

2011-08-10T22:20:00.004+01:00

......when you need her. If only I could turn the clock back to those pre-teen childhood days of the tooth fairy. It was all so convenient when a wobbly tooth came out for it to be replaced by a shiny new tooth that emerged from the gum as if by magic, in addition to the tooth fairy paying to take away the now useless tooth.

Just before Christmas last year I went to the dentist with what I thought was a cracked crown. After poking around then x-raying the tooth he informed that I had a broken a root and that the tooth would have to be taken out. He then asked if I would like it taken out there and then. 'No thank you' I mumbled back and added that I did not think that five days before Christmas was a good time to have a tooth out. He replied that there was never a good time to have a tooth out and then went on to explain my options once the tooth had been taken out. The cheapest option is to leave the gap unplugged, which is not a good idea as the adjacent teeth can move leading to problems with your bite. Also food can slide out between the teeth and the cheek. The next option pricewise would be to have a denture on a plate - even the dentist considered that to be a non starter. The next rung up is a bridge which is effectively a triple crown as it involves crowning the teeth either side of the gap. Finally there is the most expensive and current state of the art option which is to replace the extracted tooth with an implant. My dentist does not do these himself, but would refer to another dentist in the pratice that does. He left me to ponder the options over Christmas and New Year.

Husband and I gave the matter some thought over Christmas and decided to go for an implant. Although this is the most expensive option in the short term, I can see all manner of problems with a triple crown which in the long term would make that the more expensive option. When I returned, to the dentist in January expecting to arrange to have the tooth extracted, he had already discussed my tooth with his colleague so I was simply referred on. My next appointment was in ten days time and was in fact a consultation to explain the procedure in more detail than my dentist had been able to and to assess if I and my teeth were suitable for an implant which can only be done if the patient and their teeth are healthy. In addition the patient must be prepared to keep their teeth clean and if a smoker to give up smoking. I have never smoked so that is not a problem and I have always looked after my teeth as I intend to keep them. Even my 92 year old mother still has her own teeth although not much else. During the consultation the dentist measured my mouth from every angle then finally said that an implant could be done. Before he went any further I needed to have an CT scan of my mouth, in order to determine the height of bone in the sinus area above the tooth and to check for any infection. The dentist arranged it via a diagnostic imaging technology company in London (200 miles away) who in turn arranged the scan at The Dental Academy in Daresbury (15 miles away).

By now it was mid February and off I went to The Dental Academy in Daresbury. It was like a miniature version of Downton Abbey all wood block floors, leather sofas and potted plants. The dentist's consulting room/surgery, there, was like a spaceship with brights lights and chrome everywhere. He happened to say that he had four patients with the same name as me on his books. So I wasn't surprised when a couple of weeks later I received an invoice for someone else's treatment. It went straight back and I have heard no more about the matter. After the scan the results were to be sent to the diagnostic imaging technology company in London for computer processing. It was another three weeks before I heard from my dentist. The height of the bone in the sinus area above the tooth (second back from my eye tooth) was about 2.4mm short of the required minimum, which meant that I would need a sinus graft between having the tooth extracted and having the implanted fitted. I had been advised that this would probably be the case, as most people do not have enough bone in that area to hold the implant securely. Crunch time had now arrived and I needed to make an appointment to have the tooth extracted. This is the part of the whole process that I feared the most, as I had not had a tooth out since I was 14, which was a long time ago and it had been done under gas. This time it would be a local anaesthetic. Actually it was not nearly as bad as I had feared that it would be and I would still rather go to the dentist than the hairdresser. Whatever the dentist might do you leave looking pretty much the same as when you arrived. I frequently leave the hairdresser looking as if I have had a fight with a combine harvester!

Once the tooth was removed I had to wait ten weeks for the gum to heal before the sinus graft could be done. This was done four weeks ago now. While I was googling, to find out what I could about it, I noticed that there was a clip of the procedure on youtube. A bit too grisly to watch, I thought. It took two hours for the dentist to do the sinus graft procedure which involves opening up the gum, above where the tooth was, in order to access the sinus and putting in some donor bone to build up the extra height required. While I was in the dentist's chair I had no idea how long it was all taking. The right side of my mouth was numb but I was aware that there was a lot of poking and pulling going on. By the time that the dentist had finished I had four stitches that would need to be removed and several that would dissolve. My instructions were to complete a seven day course of antibiotics, take pain killers if needed, to use a chlorhexidine mouthwash for two weeks, to use an ice pack to reduce the swelling, to sleep with an extra pillow, to eat a soft diet for two weeks and to take things easy. Then there were the don'ts - don't blow your nose or sneeze, don't sleep on your right side, don't bend over. By the following day the right side of my face was swollen and bruised. I looked like something a from the freak show at the fair. The swelling went down in about five days but the bruising took about two weeks to go and in that time it changed through most of the colours of the rainbow. Expecting that I might be feeling sorry for myself I had decided to take the following week off work. I was mighty glad that I had done so. The things we do for vanity. Patience is now the name of the game as it will be six months before I know if the graft has been a success.

All change

2011-08-01T22:30:00.005+01:00

Since I finished covering the maternity leave, about a month ago, I have struggled to get into any sort of routine, which is not surprising really, as during July every week was different. So far my plans to do a late Spring clean of the cottage and to clear the garden of weeds are barely more than plans.

The first week husband worked at home on the Monday driving to Halifax on Tuesday, instead of Monday as is usual. This was because we went to see Neil Diamond in Manchester on Monday evening. That week I worked on Wednesday, which is supposedly my regular day until the end of August. Week two I was back to working two days as I covered for a colleague's holiday and I finished the week on Friday with two hours in the dentist's chair. (More about that in the next post). The next week I had off (well just a day really) to get over the dentist and boy did I need it! The following week I had swopped my day and worked on Tuesday, as I was going out to a meeting on the Wednesday, which if I had worked allowed me just 30 minutes between arriving home and going out again. It's a rush that I could do without. So with four weeks down and five more to go I shall be working each Wednesday in August which has no meetings because of the holiday season. We do, however, have MIL, SIL and husband visiting at August Bank Holiday. I am hoping that the run up to their visit will be smoother than it was last year.

There seems to be an almighty amount of catching up to do in the cottage and garden. Over the last twelve months life seems to have been lived at high speed in the fast lane with seven days being crammed into five, as on the two days that I have worked absolutely nothing else has got done. I wonder how I managed in days gone by, when I worked full time. I know that I was younger but to be honest the job was not so frantic. It was 9-5 not 9-6 as it is now, which makes a lot of difference. It was no where near as busy and people were less demanding.

This work stint finishes on August 31, as does husband's current contract. Then we have a few days at home before we go off to Brittany for a break. When we return husband has some jobs to do before we venture into the unknown. Husband who is not a very good patient is having his cataracts done. On eye one week then the other eye the following week. Once his eyes have recovered he will need completely different glasses.

Travels

2011-07-20T22:15:00.001+01:00

When we returned from Amsterdam back in May we had five weeks at home before we were off again.

I had expected that the time would fly by and it did. By now it was the second week in June. I am not sure which gave me the bigger headache, getting the garden ready to survive a week without any attention or deciding which clothes to take away with me for our unpredictable English weather.

We set off late on Saturday morning, destination Cornwall, stopping en route at my alma mater, where one of my university flat mates still lives with her husband. Then North Devon where husband's grandmother used to have a house. So first stop Bath, where we stayed two nights. Late afternoon we managed to have a walk around which gave me the chance to take some photographs and immerse myself in the once familiar surroundings. Here is the abbey with the Roman Baths in the foreground.

By the time that we reached the Royal Crescent the sky had clouded over and looked to be threatening rain. At that point we returned to our hotel as we were without coats or an umbrella.

Later we enjoyed a meal and a good evening with my flat mate and her husband. Sunday was a very wet day. So wet that we spent the afternoon in our hotel room reading the Sunday papers, which is actually quite a luxury as it usually takes me until about Wednesday to read them. On Monday morning we headed off to the village of Parracombe in North Devon. Husband wanted to see the house that his grandmother had owned and I had never been there so it was all new to me. Having arrived at our destination we decided that we would deposit our luggage at the hostelry where we where staying before going to investigate the village. If only I had known what I was letting myself in for.

The Hunters Inn (above) where we were to spend the night was accessed from the main road by a single track road with no passing spaces. Luckily we did not meet anything coming in the other direction. Afterwards I found that there is another slightly wider road to the inn. As you may have realised it is fairly isolated which meant that we had a peaceful night, a good meal and a bit too much to drink!

Next morning we had a late breakfast, then set off for our final destination of St Austell in Cornwall where we arrived early afternoon. This was to be the best day weatherwise. After settling ourselves into our hotel where we had this view over Carlyon Bay from our bedroom window, we went for a walk along the coast path.

The following morning we awoke to blue sky and sunshine. We set off to the Lost Gardens of Heligan armed with anoraks and umbrellas and it was not long before needed them. I am sure that these gardens look better in the sun but the sleeping Mud Maid

and the Giant's Head were oblivious to the damp weather.

By the afternoon the sun was out again and we stopped off at the picturesque fishing village of Mevagissey

on our way back to St Austell. Thursday again dawned bright and sunny but the rain clouds rolled in even sooner than the previous day. Fortunately this was the day that we had decided to visit the Eden Project, much of which is under cover in the biomes which was just as well, as there were several downpours whilst we were there.

That afternoon we visited the attractive port of Fowey.

Friday, our last day in Cornwall, dawned wet and windy and that is how it stayed all day. Eventually we plucked up the courage to venture out and took ourselves off to St Mawes and Truro. At St Mawes the wind blew my umbrella inside out and we took refuge in a coffee shop. Truro was thoroughly wet and miserable. On Saturday we made the long drive back home.

We were home for five days. Just enough time to wash two suitcases full of clothes, go to work for two days and do some more washing before packing a bag to head off down to Surrey on the Friday. We were staying at The Ship in Weybridge where we had our wedding reception, twenty years ago almost to the day. We had a good journey down and stopped off at the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley garden to stretch our legs.

The next day we were off to Wimbledon. We had tickets for the Centre Court. As we had guessed our seats were up in the gods under the roof. They were actually the back row. We had to climb about five flights of stairs to get to them. I suppose that we had what you would call a birds eye view of the tennis. This is the view with Roger Federer serving.

I was very surprised when he lost the following week as he looked to be in a class of his own. From our vantage point I began to understand why the tennis commentators wax lyrical about his game. We had a very good afternoon seeing seven hours of tennis, finally leaving the All England Club about 8.30 pm. On Sunday it was back home once again.

No more trips planned now until September, when we are going to Brittany for a week. That was booked last Sunday on yet another wet and miserable summer's day. We have to keep our spirits up somehow!

Hot July Night

2011-07-08T08:00:00.007+01:00

Around here, Monday 4 July was the hottest day of the year so far. When we left home to drive to Manchester, about 6.15 pm, the outside temperature was a balmy 25 degrees centigrade. The concert did not start until 8.00 pm and we thought that we had allowed ourselves plenty of time but the traffic in Manchester was heavy, which meant that it took longer than we had expected to get to the concert arena. However, we still had 30 minutes to spare. As we approached the MEN arena husband decided to ignore the sat. nav. and park in the multi storey car park next to the arena - big mistake! We had previously parked there and had managed to find a space on one of the lower floors. This time we crawled up nine floors, to the roof, before we found a space.

Joining the queue to get into the MEN arena we had the chance to observe fellow Neil Diamond fans both male and female, who come in all shapes and sizes aged about 21 to 81. Once inside we took our seats and waited. The auditorium was warm and getting even warmer as it filled up.The start of the concert was delayed to allow members of the audience who had not taken their seats to do so and still people were coming in after the concert had started. Why buy tickets for a concert and miss some of it?

Eventually the concert was about to start. The band and backing singers had taken to the stage. Then the arena was plunged into darkness. We had been warned that this would happen. The band started to play but where was the man that we had all come to see? As the spot light picked him out in the centre of the stage the audience rose to its' feet and greeted him with rapturous applause. He began with Soolaimon - husband's favourite followed by Beautiful Noise which is my favourite. After that I was enjoying myself too much to remember exactly what was played when. At the end of the third number Neil Diamond paused for a drink of water and commented on how hot it was up on the stage with the heat from the lights and went on to say that the air conditioning must be 'malfunctioning' and he would like it on. He played another number then stopped again and complained about the heat. At this point a fan threw him a water spray which he used to spray his face and whilst doing so said something like 'right now this is as good as sex'. After the fifth number he said that the conditions on the stage had improved. The auditorium was also noticeably cooler. After that the concert passed uneventfully. Neil Diamond was on good form, relaxed, amusing and thoughtful. Despite the heat we enjoyed a wonderful evening's entertainment spending more time on our feet than we did in our seats. It is hard to believe that Neil Diamond is 70 years old. Nowadays, there is not so much hair and the voice is a bit lower and deeper and sometimes a tad ragged, but he could still melt an iceberg.

All too soon the concert was over and we were back at our car on the roof of the multi storey car park - big mistake, as I said before. By now it was 10.20 pm. Marshalls at the car park empty it from the ground floor upwards. On the car radio Johnnie Walker was interviewing Neil Diamond. It was slightly surreal to hear the voice, of person that we had just seen on stage, coming out of the radio. Never mind the spookiness, listening to the radio passed the time. It was 11.15 pm by the time the cars on the ninth floor started to move. It had been a night to remember for more than one reason.

(Hot August Night is the title of a Neil Diamond album released in 1972 which I amended accordingly).

Happy Independence Day

2011-07-04T06:00:00.055+01:00

Happy Independence Day to Americans and non-Americans everywhere. I am celebrating today because the maternity leave that I have been covering finishes tomorrow. I had expected that I would now stop practising, but I have been asked to work one day a week for the next nine weeks. That bridges the gap between working two days a week and working no days a week. It seemed like a good idea to break myself in gently to the world of being a lady of leisure. Yes, I intend to be a housewife, just like Kate.

This evening, husband and I are going to Manchester to a Neil Diamond concert. What better way could we celebrate July 4 than in the company of one of America's most successful and charismatic singer-songwriters. I am sure that we shall have a good day and hope that you do too.

2011-06-24T12:00:00.006+01:00

Cheshire Wife has been away, come back and is now away again! Soon she hopes to be back for good.

Above us only sky

2011-05-20T19:00:00.004+01:00

This post was intended to be published at the end of last week but problems with blogger prevented its' publication.

On May 2 when I switched on the radio and heard that Osama bin Laden had been killed I was pleased to hear the news, but I also had misgivings over rejoicing at he death of anyone, even if they were as evil as Osama bin Laden, who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people. I did not have much time to think about this as I had a busy day ahead of me. The following day we were flying to Amsterdam for a short break. By the evening every thing was done and we were packed and ready for an early-ish start the following day. Then the trepidation set in and I began to wonder if it was such a good idea to be flying the day after the demise of Osama bin Laden. al-Quaeda would no doubt be retaliating, unless they had been weaken to the point where they were unable to do so.

Our flying record isn't great. We had not flown since 2005. We were trying to book a holiday, abroad, in 2006 around the time that the terrorist bomb plot to blow up airlines, flying between Heathrow and the US, using liquid explosives, was discovered, which resulted in the current liquid restrictions. At the time there was so much uncertainty that we decided to holiday in the UK, avoiding the need for flying. This trip to Amsterdam was to be a practice, so that we could become familiar with the new regulations, in preparation for a trip, later in the year, to see husband's nephew, who is working in California. In the intervening years we have travelled by ferry to Ireland and France. It is a much more relaxed means of travelling.

The following day, May 3, security was tight at Liverpool's John Lennon airport. For the first time ever I set off the scanner and had to be frisked. They did not find anything. The same thing happened with the more sophisticated scanning equipment at Amsterdam's Schipol airport on our return. The culprit was the zip of my jeans.

When we went on our honeymoon our flight was delayed while the bags of passengers who had checked in, but not boarded the plane were located and taken off. That delayed us by about an hour. That is not an unusual event, but we had the misfortune to be flying on 11 September 2011. We were actually in the air when the Twin Tours in New York were attacked. We has been on holiday to Crete and by my estimation were flying over Paris around the time that the planes hit the World Trade Center. We did not know anything about the incident until we were out of Gatwick airport and in our car, on our way home. We had stopped for fuel and as husband was at the pump I heard the end of a news flash on the car radio and I remember hearing 'skyline changed forever' and 'all flights cancelled'. There had not been any problems a Gatwick. As we drove through the leafy, winding and sometimes narrow lanes of Surrey we heard another news flash, in full this time. Then husband started fiddling with the car radio trying to get more information about the disaster. I switched the radio off. He was driving. Once we were home we were able to see, on the TV, the full incident in all its' technicolour glory, several times over. Even though we had had a long day I did not sleep well on the night of 11 September. My mind was too busy thinking. Why had this disaster happened? Could it have been us? Had we had a lucky escape? Why New York? Why not London or even Paris? At that point the ins and outs and full details of the disaster were not known.

We had a very pleasant, if very chilly few days in Amsterdam. We took an open top bus tour of Amsterdam, went on a canal cruise, walked for miles, saw diamonds being polished and visited Anne Frank's house. I had read that visitors to the house commented that the hairs on the back of their neck stood up on entering the house and truly they did!

The practice went well. We made it there and back. Nothing was confiscated at the airport, so we got he packing right. However, we have decided to postpone our planned trip to the US as we consider that travelling to and in the US during the Autumn/Fall of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 is too risky, especially when the architect of it all has just come to a sticky end.

Happy Easter

2011-04-24T18:35:00.001+01:00

We have had a very pleasant day in the garden. I hope that your day has been as enjoyable.

Eating humble pie

2011-03-31T19:00:00.001+01:00

Good news for a change!

Last Saturday I received a grovelling letter (I won't bore you with all the details) from Marks and Spencer in response to my last letter to them. Included with the letter was a voucher for 80% of the purchase price of the jumper which shrunk. They have now refunded me 120% of the cost of the jumper which means that after taking into account the cost of posting the jumper to them and my bus fare into Chester to attempt to return the jumper to the store there, that I have about £4 compensation for my troubles. I am not complaining. At last, I have got my money back which was what I wanted all along, as this was the first jumper that has ever shrunk when I washed it. It has taken three months of patience and letter writing when the store should have refunded me in the first place. I have learned from this experience always to have an argument prepared in case things do not go to plan.

Thank you for your comments, suggestions and support. They helped to make me determined to see this through to its rightful conclusion.

The bird gets the hump

2011-03-11T16:00:00.001Z

I had had it in mind to write a post on this topic when I read an article in The Times newspaper a few weeks ago, that people had taken to using Twitter to air problems with poor service etc. as a more effective means of resolving their problems than writing a old fashioned letter or hanging on the phone waiting for their turn at a call centre. Well I do not do Twitter or Facebook. Right now I am struggling to find the time for my blog. Recently I had noticed that husband and I have had a spate of letter writing in an attempt to resolve a number of issues, which should have been sorted out with out the need to resort to going into print.

There have been four issues, where we are the aggrieved party, that have necessitated writing a letter. That seems, to me, to be quite a lot of issues that we are trying to resolve all at the same time. Usually there is only one thorny issue that needs to be sorted out at any given time. One has been sorted out quite quickly, but three others are becoming long standing problems which are proving difficult to resolve. So maybe if I air my grievances here, I might just get a result.

The easiest issue to sort out has been the problem with our council tax banding which we discovered was two bands higher than our neighbour's larger and more expensive house. Financially that is £12 per week. Husband wrote to the local Valuation Office about it. Their response suggested that they had not completely understood his letter but it had the desired effect and both our house and the neighbour's house are in the process of being revalued, which is what we wanted.

The problem that is the longest running and has given us the biggest headache is the problem of the other neighbour's barking dog. We seem to have written endless letters and e-mails to the Environmental Health Department of the local council together with the completion of many time sheets detailing when, how often and for how long the dog has been barking. At present the problem is still unresolved. After I posted A night on the tiles I had intended to write a post explaining some more of the background to the problem, but I did not do so, because we had a surprise intervention into the problem, on our behalf. Consequently I felt that it was wiser to keep quiet. The intervention came to nothing and I shall write the intended post shortly.

Then there is the issue of our shower insurance.We had two identical showers fitted at around the same time. One in the bathroom and another in the shower room. When the guarantees expired our details were passed to the insurance company HomeServe. According to their records we have two different showers and because their letters were so vague, non specific and generally badly written we did not realise that the information that they held was incorrect. As a result we have paid too much for the insurance of one of the showers. Since we realised the mistake, about November of last year, we have been trying to get back the over payment and they have refused to refund the money to us. Last month we received a letter from HomeServe, dated 11 February 2011, informing us that our policy was due for renewal on 3 December 2010 with a quoted premium that is different to the two that we have previously paid. I think that we have given up on this one. It has just become too complicated to explain.

Our fourth little difficulty is the shrunken jumper which I gave a mention to, in a post, back in December. The jumper had been washed by hand, exactly as every other jumper that I have ever washed and this was the first one ever to shrink. I had not expected to be refused a refund or an exchange because the jumper had definitely shrunk and I had always thought that M&S were a reputable company and their customer service was second to none. I was so amazed at their attitude that I left the store without trying to argue with the assistant. I did not have an argument prepared which was my mistake. From this I have learnt always to have a Plan B! Anyway, after Christmas, I wrote to the head office about the jumper. When I had not received a reply after four weeks, I wrote again. They claimed that they had not received my first letter. (I am not sure that I believe that). I was then asked to send the jumper in to them so that they could examine it, which I did. Their response has been to send me a voucher for 40% of the value of the jumper, which will not replace the jumper. I suppose it will probably buy me two sleeves. I asked again for a full refund or for the jumper to be returned to me. They have disposed of the jumper and refused a full refund. My M&S chargecard is now in shreds and I shall not be buying anymore knitwear from M&S. There is plenty of competition on the high street and the Internet.

Squeezing a quart into a pint pot

2011-02-10T21:50:00.002Z

Since July of last year husband has been working in Halifax which is 70 miles from Chester. Too far for a daily commute, so he has been commuting weekly, leaving home early on a Monday morning and returning on a Thursday evening. Then, generally he has done some work, at home, on Friday to make up his hours.

I normally work a on Tuesday and Wednesday. That is when the chap that I am working for is not sunning himself down under. He is off again next month, but this time I have said that I will not work extra. Consequently I have got into quite a nice routine of having time to myself on Mondays and Thursdays when husband is away. I do not mind at all being on my own. I enjoy my own company and there is always something that needs doing. Husband has worked away from home, for a considerable length of our married life. At first, I found it difficult and, I used to cry when he went away. Now I am used to it, but I do still miss him and we speak to each other every evening, when he is away.

The bank that he is working for have now decided that they need extra staff in the department that he is working in and have taken on twice as many staff as they have desks for. The IT department have said that there is no point trying to fit more desks in as they cannot have anymore computers, in the department, than they currently have. Hot desking is the solution. That is desk sharing to the uninitiated. So a timetable has been worked out whereby each member of the department works part of the week in the office and part of the week at home. Husband's office days are Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday which means that he is now working at home on Thursday in addition to Friday. This extra day at home is going to take some getting used to on my part. The new routine started this week and today was the first Thursday at home for husband. My plans for today were made some time ago. Fortunately they fitted in with husband's, but I can see that some weeks things may not be so easy.

A night on the tiles

2011-01-25T21:55:00.001Z

On Saturday night we went out for a celebration meal in the village hall. The occasion that we were celebrating was sixty years of the village hall and at the same time the newly installed kitchen was being christened. The village hall had been smartened up in an attempt to make it look more like a bistro than a sixty year old prefabricated village hall. Eleven six seating tables had been arranged around the hall with the top table on the stage. The meal was cooked by the two sons of one of the committee members and served by young ladies who live in the village. The diners all looked quite smart with some men wearing jackets and ties and many of the ladies wearing dresses or skirts rather than the usual trousers or jeans. Husband and I only knew one of the fellow diners on our table, so during the course of the evening we made three new friends.

The evening was a great success and I think that most people enjoyed themselves, but as it was the first time that a meal had been attempted there were a few hiccups and teething troubles which will need to be ironed out for the future. One major omission was the absence of pepper and salt pots from the table. The takings from the evening will be brought round here sometime this week for husband, who is the village hall treasurer, to bank or to be more accurate he will do the paperwork and I do the actual banking. The proceeds from the evening will go towards the fund to build a new village hall, which is badly needed.

It was nearly midnight by the time that we arrived home and the next door neighbour's dog was serenading our little lane with his barking. When I had been getting ready to go out I could not help but hear that the neighbour's dog was barking in a way which indicated that they were away or out and he was obviously outside. Strange that, as when the WAG from next door came round on Christmas Eve she said that the dog had become a house dog and no longer lived outside in the kennel. Well that didn't last long. Anyway we were going out for the evening and I hoped that by the time we came home that the dog would have barked himself to sleep. We went out and forgot all about the barking dog. For once his barking was not going to spoil our evening.

There was no point in trying to go to bed with the dog barking outside our bedroom window or thereabouts so we decided to have a nightcap before retiring. Perhaps we should have offered the dog a drink too. By about 1 am peace and quiet appeared to have been restored to our neighbourhood, so we took ourselves off to bed. Just as we climbed into bed what did we hear but the dog barking. We could not stay up indefinitely. We just had to hope that there would not be anymore episodes of barking. But we were wrong. It was nearly 4 am when the dog finally stopped barking and I managed to fall asleep. On Sunday I felt like something that the cat had brought in, or perhaps that should be the dog. I had a headache all day and my eyes felt as if they were out on stalks. Bedtime could not come soon enough.

We have had this problem of the neighbours going away and leaving the dog on its' own for over two years now. We have complained to the Environmental Health department of the local council but we do not appear to be getting anywhere with them. (That is a post for another day). The police and the RSPCA are not interested as it is not their responsibility. The coalition government are in the process of introducing legislation relating to dogs and antisocial behaviour. The sooner this legislation is introduced the better. The idea of living in a cottage up an idyllic looking country lane may seem like heaven, but right now we have the neighbours from hell!

Canals and crowns

2011-01-14T21:55:00.000Z

Regular readers of my blog will know that this year my life is going to revolve around my dentist. I had hoped that by now the dental extravaganza would have begun, but no. I went to see the dentist again this week in the expectation of agreeing a timetable for the proposed works. He is unable to do some of the procedures himself, that he thinks I require, and has referred me to one of his colleagues. I have an appointment or rather a consultation to see the colleague next week for him to explain what needs to be done, what my options are and most painful of all what it will cost. So for now here is the saga of last year's dental odyssey. I have tried to enlighten this post with a photograph, taken last Autumn, of the Shropshire Union Canal which runs through the south east corner of our village.

For as long as I can remember I have been to a dentist for regular check ups. My earliest memory of a visit to the dentist is as a young child fighting with my brother for who would be first to get into the dentist's chair for as ride up and down. I must have been about four years old when the dentist suggested that I stop sucking my thumb or my front teeth would stick out. Not wanting rabbit/buck teeth I stopped sucking my thumb, but it was already too late the damage had been done. When my second teeth came through they stuck out slightly. Both the dentist and I hoped that they might put themselves right, but they didn't. Shortly after my fourteenth birthday the dentist decided that it was time to tackle the problem. He started by making an impression of my teeth and from it he made a cast of my teeth. I can still clearly remember my father taking me to the dentist to see the cast and make a decision about orthodontics. No child volunteers to wear a brace, but I took one look at the cast of my teeth and decided that I could not go through life with teeth that looked as mine did and so began around two years of orthodontics which involved frequent and regular visits to the dentist to have my brace adjusted. I lost all fear of the dentist and to this day I would rather go to the dentist than the hairdresser.

In May last year when the date of my six monthly check up came round, I didn't bat an eyelid. As far as I was aware my teeth were fine. After the usual pleasantries and initial look at my teeth and mouth the dentist started poking around with a variety of different implements. He was no longer making small talk and the expression on his face was serious. Being slightly cynical I though that he was looking for work as I had not had anything more than a check up for some time. He told me that he needed to take an X-ray. Whilst that was developing he explained that he had found a gum boil which indicated that the root of one of my back molars had died. My options were a root canal filing followed by a crown or if I left the tooth until I had toothache and a full blown abscess his only option would be to extract the tooth. That would leave a gap requiring a denture, bridge or an implant. I was not totally surprised by his finding as I had noticed a small swelling in my mouth the previous week but it was not bothering me and I had been too busy to even look at it to see what it might be. The dentist commented that this must be quite a shock to me as I had no obvious symptoms and suggested that I think about it. The shock was the cost of it all. None of the options was cheap. The decision on the course of action was obvious, regardless of the cost. I had not endured two years of orthodontics as a teenager to end up with dentures!

Four weeks later I presented myself at the dentist's to have the root canal filing done. After an injection which numbed all of he right side of my face, my mouth was clamped open for the duration of the procedure by a plastic guard. The process was slow and fiddly and at one point both the dentist and his nurse tried to put both of their hands plus implements into my mouth, at the same time! Another four weeks on and I was back again. This time for the dentist to check that all was well with the filing before he proceeded to crown the tooth. A few weeks later and it was back to the torture chamber for me. Another numb face, four impressions, an array of drills and eventually my temporary crown was fitted. Another two weeks and the permanent crown had been made and was ready to be fitted. The ease with which the dentist removed the temporary crown was unnerving. One quick flick and it was off. For two weeks I had been happily chomping away on it. Hopefully the permanent crown had been fixed with stronger cement. No more dentist appointments for six months now, or so I hoped.

In between my check up appointment and actually having the root canal filing I read this article in The Times about root canal filings. They are a very skilled procedure. Some dentists no longer do them preferring to refer patients to a dentist who does. Others continue to offer the procedure but it would be better if they did not. I was lucky in that the problem was picked up at a routine check up. I had no toothache and consequently no need for painkillers or antibiotics. However, I have not been so lucky with my current problem.

Bah humbug - an austerity Christmas

2010-12-31T18:00:00.004Z

So Christmas is over for another year and the snow which had transformed most of the country into a landscape from a Victorian Christmas card has thawed and taken with it whatever Christmas spirt there was. To me and to many it has not felt like Christmas this year. Perhaps my experiences in the run up to Christmas had coloured my feelings.

I eventually manage to kick off my Christmas shopping, about two weeks before Christmas, with a trip into Chester. First I had to return a jumper, which had shrunk, to a well known high street store. Having explained the problem to a young assistant, she dawdled off to compare my shrunken jumper with one currently on sale. After about 15 minutes she returned agreeing that my jumper had indeed shrunk. She then smugly informed me that because I had hand washed rather than machine washed the jumper that she would not give me an exchange or a refund. I collected my jumper and stalked out of the store, ignoring the thousands of items on sale in the store. I had not anticipated that an exchange or a refund would be refused so did not have an argument prepared. If I had machine washed an item that required hand washing I could understand their logic. So no festive spirit there, then.

Next it was across the road to another well known high street store. Here I had hoped to buy my mother a cardigan. I spotted what I was looking for on a display high up on a wall, but could not see any to buy in the shop. Fortunately I managed to find an assistant who offered to take a cardigan off the mannequin for me. She warned me that the mannequins tend to be small which is fine as my mother is small. The mannequins may be small but they have chunky arms and the sleeves of the cardigan had been stretched. I asked if they would shrink when washed. The assistant did not know. The cashier did not know. The fitting room lady said that she did not think so and I decided not to buy it. With hindsight perhaps I should have asked them to put my shrunken jumper on the mannequin to see if it could be stretched.

Then I decided to try my luck at finding the book that husband's brother in law had asked for. It was nowhere to be seen in the well known high street book shop cum stationers that I tried first. Perhaps I would do better at the other well known high street book shop that only sells books. I don't often go into this shop. Not because I don't like books, quite the opposite, once inside it is difficult to get out. I was trying to find my bearings when a young man wearing a Santa hat asked if he could help me. I explained what I was looking for. He looked serious. I was out of luck he said. It was sold out. He took me upstairs, looked at his computer and made a phone call. Then pronounced that it would be 15 January before the book was available. I thanked him for his trouble. Still I had not bought anything.

Now I headed to that well known high street purveyor of all things pharmaceutical and toiletry in the hope of finding a gift set for my mother. They had everything but what I wanted. I did manage to find what I wanted in a smaller less well known shop. By now it was lunch time and time to go home. The idea of Internet shopping was becoming very appealing.

After a quick lunch I managed to find and order, on the Internet, the book that husband's brother in law had asked for. The automated response confirmed my order. Success at last! Flushed with success I took myself off to the local garden centre in the hope of that they could furnish me with something off my present list. In short no, but I did come home with some new Christmas decorations.

Back home it was time to check my e-mails and have a cup of tea. To my horror there was an e-mail advising me that the book that I had ordered was out of stock! All that effort and all that I had to show was a gift set and some decorations. Time was running out and Christmas was starting to look bleak. Once I got my act together the shopping did get done but there is more to Christmas than shopping.

A few days later I was annoyed to receive a letter from the nursing home where my mother is a resident, claiming that I had not paid an invoice sent out in July. I know that I have paid it and I have the proof. Not a very charitable thing to do just before Christmas and it left a nasty taste in my mouth.

The Monday before Christmas found me at the dentist's for an emergency appointment. More bad news from the dentist. Next year he is going to be my new best friend or he thinks that I am a suitable case to blackmail. There is never a good time for bad news from the dentist but at least he was nice about it.

Finally there was the icing on the cake. It was lunch time on Christmas Eve. I was in the utility room and did not hear the knock on the front door. Husband was home and he had answered it. As I walked from the utility room into the kitchen I heard voices. It was one of the neighbours and she had not come to wish us compliments of the season. It was the WAG from next door. We have complained to the Environmental Health department of the local council about their dog barking in the early hours of the morning. The council have written to them and have informed them that the are being monitored. She came round for a rant. She believes that the dog does not bark. I wish that it didn't. I decided to leave her to husband who eventually shut the door on her.

After all of that we had a quiet Christmas courtesy of a streaming cold. At least we got out of going to the in laws. That has been rescheduled for January 2. From now on things can only get better, I hope.

Happy New Year everybody!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T18:30:00.001Z

I emerged from the working frenzy a week ago and since then it has been eyes down to get ready for Christmas. At last I am done.

This is a photograph of the cottage's front door taken earlier today. Recently it has witnessed some interesting incidents. I hope that I shall have the time to write about them in 2011. But for now I wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas.

Work work work

2010-12-06T21:30:00.003Z

All work and no play makes Cheshire Wife a dull girl. At the moment the chap that I am working for is in the middle of a five week holiday in sunny Oz, which means that I am working extra days in freezing England. Consequently I am stretched to my limits. Really I could do without this extra work in the run up to Christmas, but this is absolutely the last time that I shall be covering his pre-Christmas holiday. (He goes away every year at this time.) Fortunately or otherwise, we have been lucky with the weather here and have escaped with just one inch of snow, so I can't even take time off work because of the weather. Right now I should be writing my Christmas cards, not this post. Then there are all the other Christmas preparations - making the cake and the pudding, buying the presents, putting up the Christmas tree and the food shopping. I am not sure when it is all going to get done. Christmas will come whether or not I am ready for it and in three weeks time it will all be over.

Where the grass is greener

2010-11-06T08:00:00.002Z

Back at the end of June we were lucky enough to have tickets for the tennis at Wimbledon. I have applied for tickets in the Wimbledon ballot for years and when we lived down in Surrey, where we were about 40 minutes drive from Wimbledon, we were never allocated tickets. Since moving to Cheshire, seven years ago, we have now been allocated tickets twice. I am not complaining, but to enjoy just one day of tennis it means three days away from home and two overnight stays.

When the offer of tickets arrived on a very cold day in February, the thought that the UK would be having a heatwave during Wimbledon Fortnight was the last thing on my mind. As we prepared for our trip south I began to ponder the sagacity of driving 200miles in a hot car and spending three nights in stuffy hotel rooms. Fortunately husband's car is air conditioned so the journey was not a problem. We made good time and managed to stop for a long walk around RHS Wisley finding some peace, quiet and cool where the garden backs onto the River Wey, before heading to our hotel.

I need not have worried about the bedroom being stuffy as a fan had thoughtfully been provided to cool the room, which was just as well as the windows only opened a few inches - for our safety so that we didn't fall out!

We had decided to stay in the hotel on the outskirts of the village that we used to live in. That brought back a few memories. The village is as idyllic in its' own way as where we currently live, but it is more of a suburban location than our current country location. The village has always had a slightly dated conservative affluent charm of neat leafy lanes with well maintained houses set back from the road. I was interested to see if it had changed much since we had moved north to Chester, especially as Chelsea Football Club now have their training ground in the next village of Cobham. Many of their footballers live in lavish houses in the surrounding villages.Villages such as Cobham and Esher have always been upmarket and trendy with pavement cafes and expensive shops ideal for the WAGs. This post has been in my draft folder for some time but by chance The Times recently published an article about the prosperity of the area. I had hoped that our old village with its simple shops and absence of cafes would be seen as too dull for the footballers and their WAGs. After seven years away it was inevitable that there would be some changes. However, I was very pleased to see that the changes were limited to a few new shops and some newly built houses and that much of the village remains as it always was. Time has almost stood still in this corner of Surrey. Someone once described it to me as a magical place to live. They were so right. It was. It still is and I hope that it will continue to be a magical place to live. I shall always have a soft spot for that village. So why did we move? Because we had to. Husband had been offered a job 200 miles away in Chester and we had been trying to move anyway, because of problems with our neighbours. Otherwise I would not have been prepared to move from a house and village where we had once been so happy.

To get up to Wimbledon we parked the car at the village railway station which looked cleaner and tidier than I remembered it to be, but maybe that is what seven years away does to the memory. We caught the Guildford to Waterloo train. (Yesterday's accident involving a cement mixer and a train happened just three stops down the line.) At Wimbledon we changed onto the District underground line which runs above ground between Wimbledon and Southfields, the nearest station to the All England Lawn Tennis Club. From Southfields to the tennis is about a twenty minute walk. Once through the gates our bags were searched and we felt that we had arrived. We brought a programme then had a wander around the grounds before buying ourselves a cold drink and making our way to Henman Hill to eat our lunch.

I had thought that we might be getting a bit old for going to Wimbledon but there were plenty of spectators considerably older than us. Just before 1pm, when play was scheduled to start, we took our seats on the No 1 Court. We had seats with a good view and plenty of space around. The present No 1 Court is modern and comfortable and has only been in use since 1997 when Tim Henman played the first competitive match on it. Wimbledon Fortnight is not the same since he retired. Our seats were in the front row of the second tier. Between the first and second tier is the wheel chair seating area. In front of us were two elderly couples who were enjoying a picnic as well as the tennis. Although I do wonder how much tennis they saw, as they munched their way through the afternoon. If you would like to apply for tickets to Wimbledon 2011 now is the time to do so. Details of how to apply can be found here.

The following day we treated ourselves to another visit to Christopher Lloyd's garden at Great Dixter, on the Sussex/Kent border. Our previous visit had been in May 2009 and we were both interested to see it in high summer. Sadly we were disappointed. Some areas were overgrown and untidy and there was no shortage of weeds. It is still impressive but I think that a garden, which the public pay for the privilege of seeing, should be better maintained. Maybe the grass is not always as green as we remember it to be. That night was spent in a hotel in Sussex. No fan provided but we were able to open the windows as wide as we wanted and we didn't fall out!

Tempus fugit

2010-10-15T08:00:00.118+01:00

At the moment I normally work Tuesday and Wednesday. This week I am working Thursday and Friday, which means that I have just had seven days off. I thought that I would have plenty of time to do all of the jobs that I needed to do, get on top of my blog, catch up with all of your blogs, spend some time in the garden and have some time to myself. How wrong could I have been? The seven days have flown by and yesterday morning I returned to work with tasks on my list 'to do' still waiting to be done. In fact as one job got crossed off another one gets added. Where has the time gone? I could do with a bit more. Maybe just an extra hour or two a day and possibly another day a week.

You have probably noticed that recently I have been struggling to find the time for my blog. This is in the main due to one of the big decisions that I made earlier in the year. I had decided that I would stop practising and look for something easier to do but, a couple of months before I had planned to stop, I was asked to cover maternity leave of two days a week for about a year, I think. After mulling over the offer, I agreed to do it and I now plan to stop practising at the end of the maternity leave. So since the third week in June I have been working a regular two days a week and I am finding it very difficult to get into a routine, as for about twelve years now I have worked as a locum doing a day here and a day there. It was rare for two weeks to be the same.

I used to work mainly for a well known supermarket, which meant that I did a variety of different shifts sometimes long, sometimes short, antisocial hours and unsocial hours, but it seemed to give me more flexibility and time to myself than working the 9-6 that I am currently doing. On the two days that I work I am lucky to have an hour to myself in the evening. After standing for eight hours I am always tired and often stiff, which means that I need to have a soak in the bath to prevent stiffness the following day and I visit my good friend the osteopath, regularly, for her to keep my creaking body in working order. Then there is the thorny subject of varcose veins. I had two removed from my right leg about ten years ago and have continued to make more for which I have had never ending injections. Soon there won't be any veins left in my that leg!

When I decided to accept the offer of covering the maternity leave I was not sure if I really wanted to stop practising. Sitting at home looking for something else to do, in the winter time, in the middle of a recession, did not seem like a very good idea. Now I know that I am definitely going to stop practising at the end of this maternity leave and I shall do so without a backward glance, as I am now certain that it will be the right thing to do. Covering this maternity leave has made my mind up on this issue.

It is now 35years since I qualified, although in some ways it only seems like yesterday. When I look back at how things have changed I can see where the 35 years have gone. When I qualified labels were hand written and the few drug interactions were carried around in our heads. Now labels are computer generated and it is also the computer that alerts us to an interactions, for there are far too many to any individual to memorise. Most of the drugs used today had not even been discovered 35 years ago. The world and pharmacy have changed immeasurably and in some ways not for the better. I am now looking forward to the day when I hang up my mortar and pestle, but until then I can see that free time is going to be in short supply and I am not going to be able to visit or post as often as I would like, especially as I do not seem to be able to write a short post. I hope that you will bear with me over the coming months.

A breath of French air

2010-09-30T08:00:00.010+01:00

I know that it is more than ten days since I last posted. When I made that statement about being back in ten days I had forgotten that when we returned from our break, we were going to a wedding in Northampton, which meant we would be away again. I had not really forgotten. Maybe it was selective amnesia. How could I forget? It was the wedding of SIL's daughter. Mrs Bennet from the previous post. This was her one and only daughter's wedding and it is just as well that there are not another four to marry off! I am sure that when Kate Middleton and Prince William marry it will be done with far less fuss. At least the date had been set in stone for ten months so could not be subject to constant changes.

For our trip to France this year we had decided some time ago that we would go to Brittany, but we did not have any fixed ideas about where we wanted to go and as we found, when we set about booking the holiday, Brittany is quite big. One thing that was definite was that we would go with Brittany Ferries. So I chose a few hotels from their brochure. Then we selected what we considered to be the most suitable location, which turned out to be the attractive and genteel seaside resort of Dinard, on northern Brittany's Emerald Coast. We were pleasantly surprised. It was quiet, clean and tidy. Unlike most English seaside resorts there were no kiss me quick hats, candy floss stalls or cafes selling fish and chips. In the centre of the main promenade is a statue of Alfred Hitchcock who apparently based the house, in the film Psycho, on a villa which over looks the Plage de l'Ecluse but nobody is sure which villa. Dinard could not be better situated. The wide clean sandy expanse of Plage de l'Ecluse is sheltered by cliffs to the east

and the west

and across the bay is San Malo.

Late each afternoon a quartet of men could be found playing boules at the top end of the beach. The sea is tidal and I could have watched it, going in and out, all day. Around the corner from where we were staying was the Clair de Lune promenade. Unfortunately the attractively planted flower beds were past their best. However, the view across the bay, from above the promenade looks good at any time of year. It could have been Cornwall.

We had one warm and sunny day, which we spent exploring Dinard. The remainder of our stay the weather was grey and windy - bracing as we English say. It was on such a day that we took the ferry across the bay to San Malo where we were deposited outside the walls of the old city. Inside the walls the streets are cobbled and the buildings tall and impressive, if a bit difficult to photograph. But a very windy walk around the city walls gave us the opportunity to take some photos, before we caught the ferry back to Dinard.

On our way back to Cherbourg, to catch the ferry home to Portsmouth, we stopped off in the very pretty medieval town of Dinan.

The photograph is courtesy of the Internet, as my camera refused to work. Here we visited a large open air market, where you could buy almost anything. I am sure that in the UK health and safety regulations would prevent many of the items being sold at such a market, but this was France. Something that I really noticed was how smart and chic the French women are. All neatly dressed in jackets, trousers and scarves to go to the market. Sadly our breath of French air soon came to an end and we found ourselves on the ferry back to Portsmouth.

The Visit

2010-09-11T08:00:00.002+01:00

My return to blogging has not been as quick and as smooth as I had hoped. I had intended to wait until after the Visit to return to my blog as I realised that preparing for it would be time consuming, but when two planned dates for the Visit were cancelled with no new proposed date I decided to return sooner rather than later. The Visit was my mother-in-law (MIL), sister-in-law (SIL) and her husband coming for lunch. They only come once a year and it has to be during the summer as MIL does not travel well in the dark. Originally the visit was scheduled for the first weekend in August and MIL kept telling my husband, who is her one and only son, how much she was looking forward to it. At the time my infected cyst was at its' worst and I could have happily cancelled the planned visit, but not wishing to disappoint MIL I soldiered on. The Friday before they were due I went off to the supermarket, in the morning, with my mile long shopping list. Half way round the supermarket, which had recently been extended and re-arranged, when I couldn't find an unfamiliar ingredient and wasn't feeling great, I thought to myself 'you should have cancelled this'. I did manage to find what I was looking for. That afternoon it was off to the hairdresser. Not in honour of the Visit but because I needed to go and it at least gave me a bit of time to relax while the hairdresser worked her magic. I returned home to find that while I had been out MIL had phoned to say that they would not be coming because her carer was going to be on holiday and there was no one to get her up! At this point I had done everything except cook the food. I wasn't terribly pleased but the reprieve was welcome and I managed to freeze most of the perishable food.

A new date would need to be arranged with SIL. The second weekend in August would not be an option because MIL's carer would still be away. Anyway about a week later SIL phoned my husband to say that they could come the third weekend in August, but that there was a slight snag in that one of her husband's unmarried brothers (BIL) would be staying that weekend and would have to come too. My husband tactfully explained to her that we had not invited her BIL and we would prefer him not to come. Over the course of the next few days there were several phone calls between husband, SIL and MIL. SIL kept insisting that BIL would be coming. Eventually she informed my husband that her husband would take his brother off to the local pub for the afternoon, when they arrived. How was this going to look? At this point I saw red and cancelled the second planned visit. For once in our lives MIL and I agreed as she did not want BIL spoiling her visit. Perhaps I should explain that if this were Pride and Prejudice, BIL would be Mr Collins. SIL would be Mrs Bennet and her husband would be Mr Bennet. Quite fitting as their daughter is getting married later this month. MIL would be Lady Catherine de Bourgh. My husband would be Darcy and I would be Elizabeth Bennet. I have the necessary green eyes. Oh dear! that was Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind.

I suggested that we re-arrange the Visit for the fifth weekend in August which was the bank holiday weekend, as the fourth weekend was not convenient for us. This did not suit SIL who, without checking with us, had moved her arrangements for the fourth weekend onto the fifth weekend in the expectation that they would come here the fourth weekend. After yet more toing and froing we re-arranged the visit for the first weekend in September, which was not ever so convenient for me, but it was either then or not at all. September is a busy month for us and I would have preferred to wait until October, but by then SIL will be house sitting for her newly married, honeymooning daughter. So the Visit took place last weekend and I am pleased to report that it went very well.

After all that we are going away for a much needed break. Back in about ten days.

Accident prone

2010-08-27T20:30:00.001+01:00

Now for a long overdue thank you to Carol at Not Only In
Thailand for this Beautiful Blogger award which she gave to me back in April. It is a good job that you can not see me as recently I have been anything but beautiful, more often than not cut and bruised!

Today I had my final dentist appointment and I am hoping that it has brought to an end the jinx of minor ailments that has haunted me over the last few months. Recently life seems to have a continual fly in the ointment. As healthwise, it just seems to have been one thing after another. The infected cyst was on the mend when washing my hair and trying to keep my neck dry, I either got shampoo in my eye or tilted my neck at an awkward angle resulting in a badly blood shot eye. The eye had about cleared when we had two fine and sunny days. I made the most of the good weather by spending time in the garden. My reward was about a dozen insect bites on my arms and shoulders plus two on each ankle. I looked like I had the plague! And boy did I itch! I took a leaf out of Maggie May's blog and found an ancient bottle of Aloe Vera Gel - purchased abroad several years ago when husband got sunburnt. It had no expiry or use by date but whatever its age it did the trick, for a time. Then I applied some more.

By the following weekend the bites had faded and I managed to bang my arm on the corner of a cupboard in our utility room, giving myself both a cut and a bruise in one fell swoop. Later the same day while eating our evening meal, extremely cold ice cream caught a sensitive tooth. An indescribable sensation travelled up my head like lightening and the next thing that I knew husband was picking me up off the floor. Two bumps to my head, a bruise on each shoulder and a whopping bruise on my left thigh were the result of this incident. Then on Tuesday afternoon, while at work, I noticed that one of my fingers was bleeding. I had not felt any pain. I am not sure if I have become accident prone or if this is some sort of jinx. Maybe I should simply stop getting out of bed.

I realise that by comparison with what some in Blogland have gone through or are going through healthwise, my problems are nothing more than minor irritations. Looking back this all started when I had swine flu back at the end if May and I had to stop going to the gym. So it is back to the gym and soon, hopefully, I shall be both fit and healthy.

Paradise Lost

2010-08-13T08:00:00.003+01:00

I expect that you are wondering what I have been doing with myself for the last few months. Well, I have been here in Paradise.

Earlier this year, I had noticed this sign outside a house about half a mile from where we live. It is not the name of the house, so I wasn't sure what it was all about. I had been intending to take a photo of the sign for some time. Eventually I remembered to take my camera with me so that I could take a photo of it. I made sure that I was alone on the lane, or so I thought, even though it is unusual to see company of any sort. As I pressed the shutter I heard a car behind me, turning into the drive of the house. The driver glared at me. Too late, I had my photo! The next time that I drove by the Paradise sign had disappeared. Now that I have had the chance to enlarge the photo I have noticed that it actually says Paradise Autos which was the name of a second hand car showroom on the outskirts of Chester.

Perhaps where we live is Paradise even if the sign has gone. I realise that we are lucky to live in a cottage up a country lane. When the weather is good, it is idyllic, although I realise that it may not be to the taste of everyone. However, I have been out with my camera and have taken a few photos of the area to share with you.

I have started with the view into the farmer's field from the top of the lane.

The next photo looks back down the lane.

Here are the dairy farmer's cows in the field at the end of our garden. Out of interest, it did not rain until about a week after the photo was taken. So much for the old wives saying that when the cows sit down, it is going to rain.

So far pretty idyllic, but half a mile away this is the scene.

The end of the nearby motorway. When the trees are bare we can see this from our bedroom window. So maybe it is not so idyllic after all and recently the idyll has been shattered from another point of view. There have been a spate of burglaries in the village. Our little community on the edge of the village had escaped the thieves until last Thurday when our next door neighbour was burgled in broad daylight. That evening the lane was a hive of activity. We had two visits from a uniformed police officer wanting to know if we had seen anything. Then early on Friday morning we had a visit from two female detectives in jeans and trainers. Not quite Barnaby and Troy/Jones.

Until last week life here has been fairly uneventful. However, there have been a few incidents which I shall write about in detail over the coming weeks. Happenings worth a brief mention have been written about below. As neither husband or I had to go to work the following day, we stayed up on election night to watch the results come in, going to bed at about 3.30am. Something that we had not done for several elections. I was laid low for ten days, at the end of May, with what I initially thought was a cold, but after six days decided that it might be swine flu. It certainly was no ordinary cold but six days in it was too late for Tamiflu, which I would not have wanted even if I had thought about it on day one. At the beginning of June we had few days holiday in Ireland. Two and a half weeks later found us on the road again. This time we were heading down south to Wimbledon for the tennis. And for the last six weeks I have been trying to get myself caught up with everything once and for all, while struggling with an infected cyst on my neck which has meant several visits to the GP and his nurse. Also I am in the middle of some protracted and expensive dental work. I seem to have been spending my life in doctor's and dentist's waiting rooms recently. I realise that I have been fortunate and have taken for granted good health and teeth that rarely need attention. I am too busy for all this hanging around in doctor's and dentist's waiting rooms and as Tony Haywood infamously said 'I want my life back'.

Over the next few days/weeks I shall try to visit and catch up with my friends in Blogland. I have often thought about you all and wondered how you are getting on.

Landslide

2010-04-14T21:24:00.000+01:00

I am not trying to predict the result of the general election. At the moment I am snowed under with jobs that I have been putting off and trying to avoid doing - letters to write, phone calls to make, sewing, mending and ironing so that I have some clothes to wear. Then the cottage needs Spring cleaning. Everything in the garden is now staring to grow and needs attention. Also there is the day job. I know that it is only part time, but it can not be ignored. So reluctantly, I have decided that I shall have to have a break from my blog to allow myself to catch up with things.

For now I shall leave you with this recently taken photograph of daffodils in the lane where I live, taken from the opposite direction to the one on my side bar.

Say it with chocolates, flowers and sunshine

2010-04-03T08:00:00.006+01:00

Happy Easter to bloggers and chocoholics everywhere! I snapped this blow up Lindt golden bunny a few weeks ago outside the Cheshire Oaks Designer Outlet. It does not look very happy but it is a bit cold up there at the best of times, so that probably explains the frozen smile.

For those of you who are not chocoholics or are maybe on a diet here are some daffodils. Not from our garden, unfortunately the wind and rain got to our daffodils before I was able to get out to take a photograph.

Now for what we would all like, some sunshine, which I am afraid is in the form of an award, for which I need to thank the delightfully named Strawberry Jam Anne.

I am supposed to pass the award on to twelve bloggers. I have noticed that several of you already have the award, so I am going to give the award to any blogger who commented on my previous posts, A Family at War and/or The home strait. Thank you all for your support. It is much appreciated. I hope that it will not be too long until we have some real sunshine to cheer us up!

The home strait

2010-03-24T06:00:00.002Z

Back in January, when I was visiting my mother at the residential home where she was a resident, the manager took me to one side and had a chat with me about my mother. She explained in what can best be described as carer jargon that the staff at the residential home were struggling to cope with my mother's 'needs'. At first I did not quite understand what she was saying. Then the penny dropped. The manager was telling me that my mother had deteriorated to the point where I needed to consider moving her into a nursing home. I asked if the could move Mum into the nursing home next door, which is run by the same company. Yes, they could do that, but would check all possibilities that could be behind her apparent deterioration before they decided to move her. The next time that I saw the home manager she said that Mum had improved, which led me to think that the possibility of a move to the nursing home had been cancelled or rather postponed .

On another visit I was a bit disturbed when the carers asked me to take my mother's rings off her, as they are now too big for the ring finger on her left hand. Apparently she had been playing with them and had lost her engagement ring down the back of a chair. I managed to get her eternity and engagement rings off her on the pretext that I would clean them for her. She still has her wedding ring. Now my jewellery cleaning solution looks as if a dust pan has been emptied into it from all the gunk that came out of the rings. It was a bit of a shock to realise that Mum will never wear her rings again. They have been valued and are now hidden in a safe place.

A few weeks later I suppose that I should not have been surprised, but I was, to get a phone call asking me to go and have a look at a room in the nursing home. Although not perfect the room is pleasant, on the top floor under the eaves, with a lovely view of the surrounding countryside, the Dee estuary and the Welsh hills beyond, but I very much doubt that my mother is going to notice it. I did try to take a photograph of the view but the window only opens about one inch and when I tried to open it further an alarm went off! I quickly shut it. However, the alarm continued to ring, so I think that something else must have set it off. The room was newly decorated and a bit bare, so I though what a nice touch, when I went up to Mum's room a couple of weeks ago, to see a rug on the floor. As I tidied up Mum's clothes I stood on the rug and again noticed an alarm going off. Thinking nothing of it I carried on. Then there was a knock on the door. It was carer come to switch off the alarm. The rug is more of a mat, there to detect when Mum gets out of bed in the night. Since then I have avoided walking on the rug/mat.

The move into the nursing home took place about a month ago and Mum now seems to have settled into it. I have been to visit her several times and have found that many of the residents from the residential home are now in the nursing home. It has a captive audience, but it has certainly made my life easier. As it was only a year ago that I was looking at residential homes for my mother. Choosing this particular residential home has certainly been the right decision and has saved me the hassle and aggravation of having to find a nursing home now that Mum's dementia has progressed to the point that she needs nursing care. Then there would have been the upheaval of moving my very confused and now practically immobile mother. Sadly we are now on the last lap, the final furlong, the home strait. However you look it, the end is coming into view. By anybody's standards my mother has had a good innings. She was born two months premature long before the days of incubators and last month she celebrated her 91st birthday. The nursing home staff are brilliant with her and we are not having to start all over again with the staff getting to know her likes and dislikes etc. I would hate to have to do their job, but I am so grateful that they are prepared to do it.

One crumb of comfort in this whole debacle is that my mother always knows me when I visit her once or twice a week. But she does not know my brother, the son on whom she doted for so long. He visits about once every two months and has been asked 'do I know you?' and 'are you my father/husband/brother?' So much for dementia being short term memory loss!

Thank you for all of your comments on the previous post. The DWP have taken four weeks to stop paying Mum's benefits to me. In that time I have hung onto what had been paid to me and have built up a cushion which I hope will last for as long as Mum needs it. I intend to send onto my brother the larger bills and invoices for him to pay.

A Family at War

2010-03-16T06:00:00.004Z

There must be something in the air and it is not Spring. It is just over a year since I wrote the post Happy Families about the turmoil within my family. Now I find myself penning another post along the same lines. What is it, I wonder, about this time of the year? After I brought my mother up to Cheshire from Sussex, in April last year my relationship with my brother improved and recently when he has visited my mother I have invited him back here for a cup of tea. Only a few weeks ago the two of us enjoyed a chat and a cup of tea in our snug. Little did I know that behind the scenes he was up to his old tricks. I now regret that second chance that I gave him. I should have known that a leopard does not change its' spots.

Last month one Saturday morning there was a telephone call for me, just as I was sitting down to breakfast. I know that we are not early risers at the weekend but this call was from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). I thought that they were a Monday to Friday 9-5 operation. And this is the second time in a few months that they have phoned me at this time on a Saturday. It won't happen again. The phone now stays switched off, at the weekend, until after we have had breakfast. Husband watched with puzzled concern as he listened to my half of the conversation. My brother had written to the DWP asking for my mother's benefits to be paid to him. I was furious. When I managed to get my mother into a residential home near to me in Cheshire, he agreed that I would be responsible for my mother's welfare which strictly speaking includes her benefits. At that time the only benefit that she was getting was the state pension as my brother had not bothered to apply for the attendance allowance to which she was also entitled by virtue of being over 65 and having a long term health problem. So it was me who went to the trouble of completing the lengthy application form, on my mother's behalf for attendance allowance. After weeks of deliberation the DWP awarded my mother attendance allowance and decided to pay it to me, in the full knowledge that my brother was in the process of registering Power of Attorney in my mother's name. DWP rules meant that Mum's state pension would also be paid to me. Up until then that had been paid into my mother's account, which my brother had access to.

I use the money to pay for any clothes that my mother needs, toiletries, sweets, hairdressing, chiropody and dental charges and at the end of each month I have transferred the unspent money into my mother's bank account, which meant that my brother had access to it albeit a week or two later than if it was paid to him. But that is not good enough for my brother. He wants the benefits paid to him, which means that I have to spend my money, rather than my mother's money, on my mother. Then claim back from him what I have spent. Since I brought my mother up here my part time job has become very part time, as I have had to turn down some offers of work, which means that I really do not earn enough to support the level of spending necessary some months. As it is I have to buy everything for my mother separately and keep the receipts. Claiming back what I have spent is another unnecessary hurdle in my already complicated life. How much money does he need? He already has access to my parents/mother's savings and now that my mother's bungalow has sold, he has the six figure proceeds from that to think about. I know that he pays the care home fees out of the savings, but does he really need Mum's benefits as well? It is a matter of principal and I have to ask myself how much lower can he stoop?

The DWP have advised me that benefits do not have to be paid to the holder of Power of Attorney, but because my brother has asked for them to be paid to him they have to do so.

Make do and mend

2010-03-08T19:10:00.001Z

My previous post, Christo's Legacy, was a post too far for my ageing laptop computer. The photographs were slow to load and as I was putting the finishing touches to the post, blogger swallowed half if it. My attempt to resurrect it, from the ruins that I was left with, were in vain. I had to remove all of the photographs and start again, which meant that time that I had allocated for visiting was used for post writing. A couple of days later I had more problems when I was trying to re-arrange the widgets on my sidebar. The widgets were all over the place, including places that I would never get them into, if that was where I wanted them to go. At this point husband decided that we would look at blogger's help pages. We found that other bloggers were having similar problems but there did not appear to be a solution to the problems. Then just as we were putting the laptop to bed for the night it expired on us. The following day husband decided, after fiddling with it, that the hard drive had gone. Perhaps blogger was not to blame for the problems after all.

I was slightly dismayed when husband talked about repairing my laptop. This is the third time that it has let me down in the last nine months. It is husband's hand me down and is approaching five years old. I am not sure what that equates to in human years. About pensionable age I would imagine. Last time that it let me down, we had agreed that the next time it let me down, that it would be replaced. So husband reluctantly agreed that I could have a new laptop but he was also going to repair the old one and sell it. I was expecting a trip to PC World but no, husband maintained that a higher spec. less expensive laptop could be bought via the Internet, which is what we did with a two day delivery. I saw the brown and gold UPS delivery van reversing down the lane, from the bedroom window, and husband was standing on the doorstep before the driver had got down the path. The box was opened in the kitchen and as I was about to put the packaging in the recycling bag, I thought perhaps we should keep this in case it doesn't work. Husband set about commissioning the laptop, but you have probably guessed by now that it didn't work and it was soon back in the packaging which thankfully we had not had to fish out of the rubbish. So that hard drive, that husband had ordered, came in useful after all and my ageing laptop has had yet another reprieve and is back in business. But before it has chance to let me down again I intend to replace it. However, for now I am going to catch up with all of your posts.

Christo's Legacy

2010-03-02T06:00:00.001Z

Last year when I posted about a visit to the Great Dixter garden of the late Christopher Lloyd some bloggers said that they would have liked to see more photos of the garden. Today would have been Christopher Lloyd's birthday and I have decided to post some more photos from that beautiful day in May, when we visited Great Dixter.

Christopher Lloyd, or Christo to his friends, was born in 1921 and died on 24 January 2006. After gaining a degree in horticulture, he taught, then wrote gardening columns before writing his many gardening books and maintaining the gardens at Great Dixter, where he lived all his life. He developed a flamboyant gardening style, with a bold use of colour, which was widely admired by many in the gardening world. Today the garden at Great Dixter is in the capable hands of Fergus Garrett, the head gardener appointed by Christopher Lloyd. In September last year Fergus Garrett was the guest speaker at the local horticultural society, that husband and I belong to. He spoke passionately for, one hour, about the garden at Great Dixter with only the aid of slides. He had no notes and there was not one ...um or ...er.

As it was the beginning of May at the time of our visit, I had expected that there would not be much to see in the garden at Great Dixter, but we were pleasantly surprised. The garden was a riot of colour with tulips, alliums, paeonies, honesty, lilac, bergenias, wallflowers and forget me nots all going great guns, and I was pleased to notice that there were even a few weeds!

Having paid our entrance fee, the first area of the garden that we came across was the Sunk Garden with the Barn to the side. (Please click on the photographs to enlarge).

To the side of the Sunk Garden is the Oast House

and the Walled Garden.

From the Walled Garden we went into the house, parts of which date back to around 1460. The house was extended for Christopher Lloyd's father, by the Edwardian architect Edwin Lutyens. We were only allowed into three rooms in the house and photographs were not permitted.

Outside the house and in the garden again, we found ourselves in the Topiary Garden.

From the Topiary Garden the path took us to the High Garden.

Then we walked through the Orchard Garden, which I do not appear to have photographed,and onto the famous Long Border.

After all that we made our way to the shop where we bought our first ice creams of the year, sat in the sun to eat them and resolved to return at a different time of year to see the garden when other plants would be in flower.

The Great Dixter house and gardens are now run as a charitable trust.

The award season

2010-02-22T20:48:00.000Z

Last week it was the Brits. Last night it was the BAFTAs and soon it will be the Oscars. Nothing so prestigious for me, but I have been given this Circle of Friends award by Carol at Not only in Thailand and Gilly at Winds of Change. So it is a big thank you to both of them. Now I have to post about five things that I like to do, then pass the award on to ten bloggers.

I suspect that the things that I like to do are pretty much the same as every other blogger. Anyway, here goes.

Having husband home - at the moment he works away from home Monday to Friday. So weekends are special.
Gardening - when the weather is good, reasonable or even just alright I could be out in the garden, 24 hours a day, pottering around, but there has not been much chance of that since the cold weather began in December.
Reading - another pastime that I could do all day, but at the moment there are too many other things that need doing and the only time that I have for reading is when I go to bed at night.
Cooking - I like to try out new recipes when I have the time, but cooking is not to be rushed and I don't have much spare time. So we live on tried and tested dishes.
Blogging - I wouldn't do it if I did not enjoy it and it is always a thrill to read comments. As with most things there are not enough hours in the day to do as much blogging as I would like.

Now I am supposed to nominate ten bloggers to pass the award onto but how could I choose just ten bloggers? I have decided to duck out of that decision. Any blogger who leaves a comment on this post is a friend of mine and may have the award.

Love in the cold and wet

2010-02-14T07:00:00.004Z

Eighteen years ago, on February 14, husband and I moved into our first home. I know that this is the third post in a row about moving house, but I promise that it will be the last. I am posting it today because it is topical. At the time, everybody commented about how romantic it would be, but apart from a few minutes early in the morning, it was just another day.

When we married, in June of the previous year, we each had a small house that we were trying to sell. In fact, husband's house was under offer at the time, so we set up home in my house. Then husband's buyer pulled out. We were comfortable were we were, so we stayed in my house until it sold on January 31. Then moved into husband's house for the two weeks until February 14, when his house sold. The contents of my house had gone into storage for two weeks and everything had gone pretty much to plan, apart from the removal men putting some of my clothes into storage that I had intended to take with me. By the time that I realised that I was missing a bag of clothes it was too late to retrieve them from the removal van.

February 14 was a Friday. I suppose that we got up about 7 am and exchanged Valentine's cards over breakfast and then for me, from husband, there was an orchid, which was a surprise. Since then I think that I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times that I have had flowers on Valentine's Day. That was our romantic interlude. The removal men would soon be arriving. Long before mid-day we were all packed up and ready to go. First to take the keys to the estate agent then it was off to Leatherhead to our new house, or rather new to us, as it had been built in the 1930s. The vendors had lived there for some time and the internal decoration was a 1970s time warp of a bottle green ceiling in the dining room, dark purple hessian in the living room and a chocolate brown shag pile carpet in the bathroom.

The day had started grey and cold and by now it was raining. We were too early to collect the keys from the estate agent, so we parked in Leatherhead's Swan Centre car park to have our sandwiches. For those of you not familiar with the Swan Centre car park, it is a soulless concrete monstrosity in the centre of Leatherhead. This was a far cry from the circumstances in which we met. From the car park we made several trips to the estate agents in an attempt to get the keys to our new home. This is long before the days of mobile phones. The money had gone through and it was legally ours, but the vendor's removal men were still packing. Eventually the estate agent suggested that we drive round to the house and wait outside for the vendors to vacate the house and hand over the keys. By the time we managed to step over the threshold it must have been at least 3 pm and all thoughts of husband carrying me over the threshold had been long forgotten.

The next few hours passed in a blur of unpacking and decisions about where furniture would go. By about 8 pm we were ready for something to eat and ventured out into Leatherhead with the aim of finding a take away. We didn't know Leatherhead very well and were unable to find a take away, so we eventually decided that we would have to find a restaurant. There weren't many restaurants in Leatherhead then. Since we moved away several have opened up. Any way it was Valentine's Day, so they were all full, which meant that we had to queue, in our house moving clothes of jeans and sweat shirts, among the smartly clad couples out for a romantic evening. By now the date meant nothing to us after the trauma of the move. Once fed it was back to the house for more unpacking and sorting out until exhausted we tumbled into bed at about midnight.

Upping Sticks and Moving On

2010-02-06T06:00:00.005Z

After the last post, in which I aired some of our dirty linen in public, I thought that I might be asked to pack my bags and go, but I am still here at Muddy Lane Cottage. This post is about different aspect of a long distance move.

When my husband was offered a job in Chester in April 2003, the fact that a house moved was involved was not really a problem. We had been trying to move house for three years. The problem was the 200 mile distance. My husband commuted weekly to Chester, staying in a B&B,while I stayed behind in Surrey. I had plenty to occupy myself. I worked and I had, hopefully, an impending house move to organise.

Shortly before husband started work in Chester the Iraq war began and the estate agent made mutterings about lowering the price of the house to help it sell. We resisted his mutterings. Seven years later the Iraq war and its' consequences are still rumbling on. We were lucky, within a few weeks we accepted a good offer for the house.

One weekend in June I visited Chester for the first time to see where my new home would be and to start looking for a house for us to buy. On the Saturday morning we did the rounds of all the estate agents. Over lunch we sorted out the details and in the afternoon we started to drive around some of the possible areas. It was all very new to us and we did not get very far we things. A few weeks later we looked again and decided that we would be better to rent initially, which would give us a good chance to look around the area.

The move form Surrey to Chester went fairly smoothly. Nothing got lost or broken. We had had three years to organise it, but it was at he end of the incredibly hot Summer of 2003 that we eventually moved house. I had just had to ignore the heat and get on with sorting things out in preparation for the move, otherwise we would have been far from ready when the removal men arrived. It took the removal men three days to move us. A day and a half to pack us up. Half a day to travel to Chester, then a day to unload and unpack. Finding the space for everything in the rented house was a challenge. We had estimated that we would be able to fit into it, but that it would be cosier than we were used to. Then there was the double garage that we could use for storage. When we had viewed the house, the previous tenants had had a sea of boxes in the garage. After a few days we were straight-ish.

The next challenge was to start integrating ourselves into life in Chester. Husband had taken to socialising with his work colleagues which has its limitations, especially as most of them were about half his age. I had decided that I would be a lady of leisure until we had moved into our own house. Hopefully this strategy would give me the time to find my way around the area and maybe to get to know some people. We decided to give evening classes a try. Husband went to woodwork and I went to flower arranging. We had both previously been to classes in these subject whilst living in Surrey. Woodwork was useful for getting things made but doesn't really have social side to it, whereas flower arranging has a flourishing social side and I came home, each week, with a different flower arrangement. This interest has now become a hobby, with my interest in gardening being an extension of it or maybe flower arranging is an extension of gardening. Now I regularly go to the local flower club and horticultural society in a nearby village. Slightly by accident husband has ended up on the committee of our village hall, as treasurer, for his sins. This was something that he had wanted to do along with living in a wisteria clad Victorian cottage. So he is in seventh heaven - well some of the time. Now he has a circle of committee friends plus the crowd that he plays squash with at the local health club. And one of his committee friends has now asked me to take her to flower club with me. At last we feel, as if, we are part of the community.

Now read the prequel.

A wife's place is in the wrong

2010-01-29T06:00:00.001Z

I have been a bit dilatory about visiting this week, as I have had some big decisons to make. Nothing is certain at the moment but I shall post about the changes nearer the time that they take effect, if indeed they do happen. This post has been in my draft folder, for some time, waiting for what I considered to be the right time to post it. The Hope Courage Faith award was given to me some time ago by Reasons and I have decided to post the two together. I am sure that Reasons will identify with this post and I thank her for the award.

Six and a half years ago, when we moved from Surrey to Cheshire I was not totally happy with what we were doing. I had my misgivings about the situation and my worst fears turned out to come true. At the time husband was very positive about the move but has since admitted that it was a mistake. However, it is all too late now. We are here and we aren't moving back south.

My husband's self employed status had been shaky for the best part of 15 months when a permanent post, came up in Chester, that exactly matched his skill set. In some ways it seemed to be too good an opportunity to miss. The downside was that it would mean moving 200 miles. I had some reservations. Which would be better? Chester with a job or Surrey without a job. We still had to live, eat and pay the mortgage. I also worked part time, but our financial commitments had been taken on, based on husband's salary. Husband was offered the job which he took. We sold our house in Surrey. Moved to a rented house in Chester before buying the cottage, which as it has turned out needed a lot more work doing to it than we originally thought. Houses always do, we ought to have realised that.

The job lasted two years! His employer a large American bank, expanded too quickly then had to shed staff. Husband was offered voluntary early retirement. In other words redundancy dressed up as enforced voluntary early retirement with a payment of one year's net salary, which was never going to last until he was able to draw his pension.

This American bank had no scruples, what so ever, about the fact that they had moved a couple in their fifties, 200 miles from their families, friends and the roots that they had put down, in my husband's case over his entire life. It did not matter to them that we had uprooted ourselves, moved house, rented a house then bought the cottage, with the help of a mortgage and were just being to find our feet in Chester when they swept the ground from under us. It had all cost us thousands of pounds.

I had suspected that something like this would happen. I clearly remember a conversation that I had with husband, before he accepted the job in Chester. We were in the kitchen of our previous house and I asked what would happen if once we had moved to Chester, he was made redundant. Husband assured me that it would not happen! And again I remember more conversations or rather heated discussions that the pair of us had in the kitchen of the cottage, which was the first room that we tackled when we started the renovation work on the cottage. Moving, back south, at this point was not an option. It would have been impossible to sell the cottage because we had started our programme of renovation work and the general appearance of the cottage was now worse then it had been before we started.

The timing of this early retirement could not have been worse. We had a builder booked to start work on the cottage and no salary on which to support the extension to the mortgage, needed to fund the building work. Luckily the early retirement payment came in handy to pay the builder. Fortunately for us, whilst we were wondering how we would pay the builder or manage some how to put him off, he had disappeared off the face of the earth. Eventually he resurfaced, four months later and announced that he was ready to start. His previous job had over run. After three months of twiddling his thumbs, husband went back to being self employed. Perhaps we should have stuck it out in Surrey? That is something that we shall never know.

Charity begins at home

2010-01-21T21:15:00.000Z

Last week when I was confined to barracks by the weather I got round to unpacking a cardboard box that had been languishing in our utility room since the end of August. The two other boxes that had accompanied it were unpacked some time ago. Their contents washed and given a home. After four and a half months I was no longer sure what this box contained. As it happened it contained my parents' crystal glasses which my Father had promised to me some time before he died. Now everything was unpacked and my mind went back to the end of last Summer.

Late August of last year husband and I found ourselves on the road to West Sussex, yet again. This time we were going to my Mother's bungalow, in East Grinstead, to do some sorting out and tidying up. My brother had already started the ball rolling on getting the bungalow ready to sell, by sorting through all of my Mother's papers and SIL had done some cleaning. On previous visits I had sorted out my Mother's clothes. Before we got down to the business of cleaning, we had a good look at the contents of the bungalow and decided what we would like to have. It was like being a kid in a sweet shop. All these things that I had had my eyes on for years were suddenly there for the taking. I suppose because Mum is till alive, it was a strange experience. Would she approve? What would she think about me taking things? We placed our booty on the dining table then panicked that it would not fit into the bags and boxes that we had brought with us. Miraculously we just managed to pack up all of our haul. Then it was down to the job of cleaning. It was a chore, but I dislike intensely dusty, dirty and untidy houses and I have done it twice before when Mum had been in hospital. This was to be the third and last time. Once we had removed a couple of pieces of furniture that we were going to give a home to and I had rearranged the ornaments the whole place looked cleaner and tidier. Ever since my mother moved there, fifteen years ago, it had looked cluttered, with more furniture that she needed and too many ornaments, as she refused to part with anything.

There is still quite a lot of stuff in the bungalow and I could be tempted to give a home to some more of it but my brother has already complained that I have taken more than him. I have taken the view that our parents would rather we gave a home to their possessions than allowing them to end up in a charity shop. Otherwise it will be the tip, or for a few items an auction sale room.

The bungalow is now for sale. The Greenwich Meridian Line runs through East Grinstead and the bungalow is just to the east of it. There is a stone, photographed right, between my Mother's bungalow and the neighbouring bungalow marking the exact position of the Greenwich Meridian Line. Both the garden of my Mother and here next door neighbour are overgrown, but the Greenwich Meridian Line stone can still be clearly seen. I am not sure if there is any significance attached to the fact that the Greenwich Meridian Line runs through East Grinstead and I am pretty sure that the stone was not there when my Mother bought the bungalow.

A Hard Day's Night

2010-01-16T06:00:00.000Z

At last, relief in the shape of warmer weather, for our hard working central heating boiler, which has been on day and night non stop, give or take a few hours, for a month now, because of the unusually cold weather. Let me explain. Our central heating boiler is situated in the garage and protected by a frost stat which has been a hard task master recently. However, the boiler has not always been in the garage.

When we first moved to the cottage the central heating boiler, which is oil fired, was in the utility room, under our bedroom. This meant that the second in the morning that it shuddered into life, we were wide awake. It sounded like a steam engine starting up. We thought about moving it into the garage, but were put off by the four figure estimates that we received for the work involved to move it. For a time we just had to learn to live with it. But undeterred, when the builder started on our alterations, I chanced my arm or my luck and asked him about moving the boiler into the garage. All the floor boards, that he was going to need to take up, were going to be up anyway for the installation of the new shower room and bathroom. He came back with a three figure estimate so we decided to go ahead and have it moved. Apart from the noise that the the wretched thing was making, it had a habit of going out what seemed like every time the wind blew across the farmer's field and up our garden. We hoped that by moving it into the garage it would be in a more sheltered position and be less likely to go out.

So the boiler was moved, solving the noise problem but leaving us with other problems. At our first house the boiler had been situated in the garage and had, had a frost stat wired up to it, so that it came on when the temperature dropped close to zero, to protect the boiler from freezing. Now the newly moved boiler needed a frost stat. The builder attempted to install one for us but unfortunately wiring it up was beyond his electrical skills. Twice in a period of 20 minutes he managed to fuse our electrics and he went off with his tail between his legs. We hoped that we would have more joy with our electrician but he could not come for a few weeks. When he did come there were no instructions with the frost stat, that he had bought, and he had to guess at how to connect it up, and having switched the boiler on, it would not go off. Luckily the plumber came, I think to sort out a leak through the shower room floor into the dining room, and he showed me the switch in the airing cupboard that switches the whole central heating system off. It is a last resort to use this switch as it switches off the time clock, which means that the cottage is cold when we get up, but after a week of unnecessary non stop heating we were getting desparate.

To cut a long story short, after several visits by the electrician and a change of frost stat, we now have a system which works reasonably well, although we do sometimes have to resort to switching off the whole system.

Sun, snow and salt

2010-01-10T16:14:00.004Z

Cheshire is now famous for more than just Cheshire cheese. This week it has become famous or perhaps infamous for rock salt as the UK continues in the grip of of the freeze, that has taken hold of the country. Lorries from all over the country are queueing up, at two salt mines in the Cheshire towns of Middlewich and Winsford, for supplies of rock salt to grit the country's road. Despite the fact that the Cheshire salt mines are working at maximum capacity the country is rapidly running out of salt and the government has had to order stocks from abroad. Councils have been asked to reduce gritting levels in order to conserve supplies and we have been advised not to go out unless necessary.

As staying in has become the new going out I have decided to bore you with some photographs of where I live. In the past I have turned a blind eye to requests for photos as I wanted my blog to be read for want I wrote, also when I started my blog I did not have a digital camera. In addition, where we live does not look very pretty for most of the year but snow does a wonderful job of transforming an ugly duckling into a winter wonderland.

Let's start by turning right out of our drive and walking down the lane. I have used this view of the lane before but this is the first time since we moved here that we have had snow.

At the end of the lane if we turn left we can see the crossroads.

Turn right and we get this view in the other direction.

Then if we turn ourselves right again we can go back up the lane.

There are three houses in the lane and our cottage is the second house. It was originally built as two farm workers cottages for the farm that our garden backs onto. Previous owners of the cottage(s) have knocked the two cottages into one. It has also been extended and the inside rearranged it. It is not the prettiest of cottages. If you were expecting a thatched roof and wooden windows I am sorry to disappoint you. We live within walking distance of the Welsh border, so we have a slate roof and we have made the mistake of putting in UPVC windows, which we have to live with until the next time that the windows need replacing.

Christmas past

2010-01-05T17:23:00.001Z

It's over now! The Christmas tree and decorations have been taken down and packed away for another 50 weeks and we are into a new year which for us, and myself in particular, will be different. Also, we have resolved that next Christmas will be different and it will.

This year, or rather last year, I worked at one of the local supermarkets in the run up to Christmas. When I was offered the work I decided to take it as supermarkets don't allow their staff holiday during December which means that it is unusual to be offered it and the atmosphere is usually good. There will not be the opportunity again, from their point of view, or mine. It was bitterly cold, even though we had additional heaters, because there was some problem with the supermarket heating. Years of working in these conditions have taught me to wear thermals to keep warm but I find it hard to concentrate when they insist on playing music to get shoppers in the Christmas mood. If they stuck to Christmas music it would not be so bad but at times it felt like a disco. However, I shall remember this work stint for two things. Firstly, the fact that by lunch time on Christmas Eve we had sold out of packets of Paracetamol tablets. The afternoon delivery included 200 packets! What do the British public do with them? And secondly, at 7pm on December 30 the printer stopped working and I had to hand write the labels. Something that I used to have to do when I first qualified but have rarely done since the requirement for labels to be printed was introduced. That's enough about work.

Husband and I had a pleasant and relaxing Christmas Day. Then we had my Mother for the afternoon on Boxing Day which went well apart from when it was time to take her back to the home and she wouldn't or couldn't walk. We ended up putting her on an old wooden chair and Husband carried her out to the car. If anybody had seen us we looked like a clip from You've been framed! The next day we both had pulled muscles from struggling with her. The following morning we left about 11 am for what should have been at two hour drive to Husband's family in Northampton. The southbound traffic on the M6 motorway was dreadful for no apparent reason. There had been an accident on the northbound carriage way and there was the mother and father of all traffic jams on that side of the motorway. After three hours we were no more than half way there, so we turned round and came home via the A41, stopping at a garden centre near Telford for a rather expensive sandwich and arriving home, from our circular tour, about 4.30 pm.

New Year's Eve was spent at home keeping warm and watching neighbouring fireworks. Then on January 2 we set off again for Northampton. This time we left earlier and made it to our destination in reasonable time but as we drove through a sleet storm just south of Warrington we both thought that we might have to turn back. It was black as night and visibility was only about ten feet. Husband has told his family we shall not be attempting to do that trip again next Christmas/New Year.

Now it is back to normal and I just need to wish you all

A Happy New Year!

The Christmas Wilderness

2009-12-29T18:42:00.002Z

Well December 18 has come and gone and Sir Terry Wogan has presented his last breakfast show, amid a fanfare of publicity. I have never been a TOG (Terry's Old Geezer). Somehow he has never been my cup of tea. Perhaps it is because I am not quite old enough. Or perhaps it is because my literary taste is somewhat more sophisticated than Janet and John. I have always looked forward to Terry's holidays, when the BBC Radio 2 breakfast show is presented by Johnnie Walker, whose calm and laid back style is exactly what I need to bring me to life in the morning. In his quiet and understated manner he is currently presenting the breakfast show, in the Christmas wilderness, (the time when most of us don't want or don't have to work) for the three weeks until Chris Evans takes over the breakfast slot in January, again amid the fanfare of publicity. But I have to admit that I am a recent convert to Radio 2. I have not always listened to it.

When we lived down in Surrey my radio was permanently tuned to London's Capital Radio. The move to Chester meant that I could no longer receive Capital and I had to find another station to listen to. In fact, in our area Capital's 95.8 FM frequency is used by BBC Radio Merseyside. Initially, I listened to Chester's local radio, Dee 106.3 and eventually got used to the presenters and their different styles. However, it wasn't long before changes were made. Progress I suppose. I tried but just could not get on with the new schedules and presenters. First thing in the morning I need a soothing noise to help ease me into the day. Conversation alone is not enough. What I had was two presenters with mangled grammar which really grated on me and I wasn't too keen on their choice of music.

One Wednesday, when I was at home painting the study, I decided to listen to the radio to help me keep track of time, as I find that I totally loose track of it when I am painting and I decided to try Radio 2. Throughout the morning I happily listened to Ken Bruce. I am not so keen on Jeremy Vine, but part of his show coincided with my lunch break. Then, Steve Wright provided the afternoon entertainment. After him was the Drivetime show. I was still busily painting and by now it was getting dark outside, but that did not matter to me. I was enjoying listening to Johnnie Walker presenting his Drivetime show. Not long after my conversion to Radio 2 Chris Evans took over the Drivetime show.

My radio is now permanently tuned to Radio 2, even though we are no longer painting. I always try to listen to Johnnie Walker's Sunday afternoon show or if I miss it I use the listen again option on the Internet. His warm and soothing voice has me hooked and his choice of music is often a trip down memory lane, reminding me of my days as a teenager, student and then the heady days of my first job in Oxford. If like me you are a child of the 60s and 70s, give him a try. I am sure you will enjoy him.

Apologies to my overseas readers. This post is about a UK radio station.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-24T11:14:00.000Z

to bloggers everywhere. I had hoped to visit my regulars before Christmas, but I am very sorry I have run out of time and the day job beckons.

No need to get all steamed up

2009-12-17T16:48:00.002Z

I have been busy with my Christmas preparations. The cards are now all written and posted, except for the local cards which will be hand delivered. The presents have been bought or ordered via the Internet. The tree has been put up by husband, for I think the first time ever, and I have decorated it and put up the decorations. Just to prove it I have included a photo of our Christmas tree. Tomorrow I shall make the Plum Bread that I normally make for Christmas then there is just the cake to marzipan and ice, along with the final preparations that I hope to fit in around working three short shifts, next week. Yesterday I went to the Christmas party at the home where my mother is a resident and met a lady that I used to go to evening class with a few years ago. She is several years older than me and one of her friends is a resident. It was good to see her and have a chat. The residents and their families were entertained by a choir from a local primary school singing carols. It was not easy to watch as I remembered the events or our summer. My eye was drawn to a blond boy in the choir. I was not sure why, but realised later than he bore a passing resemblance to the child who died, at that age. Afterwards I came home and made the Christmas pudding.

Last week when Jinksy posted about her Christmas preparations I commented that for some years now I have made a Christmas pudding that is cooked in the oven, rather than steamed and she has asked for the recipe. There is no need to worry about the pan boiling dry or boiling over and I did not even need to put the extractor fan on last night! Then to heat it up on Christmas Day all you need to do is to heat it up in the microwave. The recipe came from Ideal Home magazine about ten years ago. It is lighter than a conventional Christmas pudding and should be made at least one week before Christmas. There is no need for it to age or mature. So you still have time to make it. Ideal Home magazine have called it Boozy Christmas Pudding. This recipe provides six generous portions.

400g/14oz mixed fruit such as dates, apricots, cherries, figs, raisins, all roughly shopped
grated rind and juice of one small orange
8tbsp brandy
125g/4oz butter (at room temperature)
125g/4oz dark brown sugar
2 eggs beaten
25g/1oz toasted, chopped hazelnuts
50g/2oz self-raising flour
1tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
50g/2oz breadcrumbs

place the dried fruit, orange rind and juice, and brandy in a large bowl and set aside for an hour or two until all the liquid has been absorbed. Preheat the oven to 160 C, 325 F, gas 3.
in a bowl, mix together the butter and sugar until soft and well blended, then beat in the eggs, nuts and fruit mixture. Sift over the flour and spices and fold in the breadcrumbs. Spoon the mixture into a buttered 1 litre or 2 pint pudding basin.
cover the top of the pudding basin with greaseproof paper, pleated in the centre and tied down with string. Cover with foil. Put the basin in a roasting tin and pour boiling water into the tin so it comes about 6cm up the side of the basin.
cover the whole roasting tin with foil, making sure that the edges are tightly sealed.
bake for 3 1/2 to 4 hours until the pudding is just firm to touch, checking occasionally to see if the water needs topping up.
to reheat, cover the basin with microwave film and cook on medium for 6 to 8 minutes in the microwave, then rest for two minutes before serving.

And here is the proof of the pudding!

Lighting the darkness

2009-12-07T20:11:00.001Z

This was the scene in our snug late in the afternoon, last Monday.

Romantic, festive, cosy? None of these.

About four thirty last Monday afternoon, I was enjoying a cup of tea in the kitchen when there was a very authoritative knock on the front door. I did not dare to not answer the door and on opening it found that it had become dark, while I had enjoyed my cup of tea and the porch light was not on. Standing on the door step, in the darkness, was a man dressed in a boiler suit and wearing a helmet which incorporated a small light over his forehead. Not really what you expect to find on your doorstep at four thirty in the afternoon, but nothing surprises me these days. He resembled a coal miner, but even in the dark I could see that he looked too clean. He started by informing me that he was from Scottish Power. Cheshire, by the way, is not in Scotland but our electricity is supplied by Scottish Power and I do wonder what will happen if Scotland gets the independence that it is hankering after. He then went on to say that they were going to have to take our power out for about 20 minutes, in ten minutes time, because the local farmer had noticed that the power was flickering.

What immediately went through my mind was 'why now?' It was dark, the children would be just home from school and it was very cold. The first frost of the winter was forecast for that night. Why couldn't they have switched off our power during daylight hours? It would still have been cold, but it would at least have been light. Any way there was no time for dithering around. I had to find a torch, candles and matches. Then phone husband to ask what to do with the computers. He reckoned that if the power were only off for 20 minutes that the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) would look after the computers and I did not need to do anything with them. Ten minutes came and went and the power did not go off. I pottered around the cottage doing odd jobs. My list of power assisted, to do, jobs went out of the window. It was a bit like being in the dentist waiting room. Ten minutes eventually turned out to be about 30 minutes and suddenly it was pitch dark. Now I realised that I was the only mug around with candles and a torch in the darkness. One set of neighbours was out and the other set went out rather than face the reality of a power cut. When I was a student, when the power went off, we used to go to a pub in an area where the power was on, but there is something a bit sad about a middle aged woman sitting in a pub on her own at five o'clock in the afternoon. I had not drawn the curtains and looking out of our windows it looked as if there was a light, from somewhere, outside. An almost full moon shone out of a clear inky blue sky and the first stars of the night were up. Twilight, I suppose you could call it.

The 20 minute outage became 30 minutes, then 40 minutes, then eureka we had power again! Now I had the task of adjusting the clocks on the oven and microwave to the correct time, resetting the burglar alarm and altering the automatic timers. Then I had the computers to sort out. Surprisingly my laptop survived unscathed but the two computers that are connected to the desk top screen both had to be rebooted. The UPS is only good for about 15-20 minutes. All that nicely took up two hours of last Monday. I do hope that it is not going to be a long Winter.

Change

2009-11-27T06:00:00.002Z

Whether we like it or not change has to happen. Sometimes it is for the better. Sometime it is for the worse. All change takes times to adapt to and any change can be stressful. This year my family has had to cope with a number of changes. Those that have affected husband and I the most have been moving, my mother the 250 miles from her bungalow in Sussex to the care home, not far from us in Cheshire, where she is now resident, and changes to husband's work contracts.

I have now got into a routine of visiting my mother, once a week on a Monday or Tuesday afternoon. When she has not been well, I have visited her more often. Since Mum came up here I have had to buy her practically a whole new wardrobe of clothes and seem to have spent more time sewing on buttons and doing running repairs for her than I have spent on my own clothes.

For the 21 months up until April, husband had been working away from home Monday to Thursday or Friday. From April to August he worked in Manchester, commuting from home. Then until two weeks ago husband was at home 'resting'. There will be more about that in another post. Now we are back to him working away from home Monday to Friday. While husband was at home 'resting' I decided that I would take some time off work so that I could be at home with him. Usually when he is home 'resting', I am busy working and it is a missed opportunity to get some jobs done in the house and garden. Now I have as much work as I want until the end of the year and I am also trying to catch up with all those jobs that did not get done when husband was home, that were put off, postponed or left until another day. So over the last few weeks it has been all change here.

However, there are some things, in this ever changing world, that do not change. On Tuesday the electrician came to do a job for us and was unable to do it, because our cabling is not up scratch and needs to be relaid and my laptop computer ceased up yet again. Luckily husband was able to sort it out, over the phone.

Saturday Night Out

2009-11-17T17:15:00.001Z

A few weeks ago on a Saturday evening we went to a concert in our village hall. The evenings entertainment was provided by the Daniel Smith Blues Band . They were very good and even though I am not a blues fan I enjoyed the evening. The purpose of the evening was to raise funds towards the refit of the village hall kitchen.

Our village hall is mainly prefabricated and probably constructed of a considerable amount of asbestos, although a small extension to it was built on a few years ago. The village hall committee have had several attempts at applying to the Big Lottery Fund for a grant to rebuild our ancient and much used village hall. Our village of about 420 homes, mainly occupied by professional people and farmers, seems to be viewed as being to prosperous and affluent to qualify for a grant. Just about every day the village hall is used by a variety of clubs, classes and meeting groups. The following Friday I went to a flower arranging demonstration in the village hall. This time the funds raised were for the local hospice.

At the moment the bulk of the UK lottery funding is going towards the preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, which we in the north west are unlikely to benefit from, as the majority of the Olympic events are being held in London and the south of the country.

The village hall is at the heart of village life. If our village loses it, a lot of the community spirit will go with it. Perhaps in thirty years time when a clutch of the present residents die from asbestosis, a grant towards a new village hall will become a reality. Can the village hall wait until 2013? That is after the 2012 Olympics in London. I suppose that it will have to. In the mean time the village hall committee will continue to attempt to raise funds and to continue to patch up the old village hall when necessary.

White crosses as far as the eye could see

2009-11-11T06:00:00.012Z

Last month when we were in France we visited the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial at Colleville sur Mer. It is situated on a cliff overlooking the eastern end of Omaha beach and the English Channel and covers 172.5 acres.

As we drove back to the main road from Omaha beach we noticed a sign to the cemetery. We followed the sign partly out of curiosity and because we were there. Having parked our car in an emptyish car park we then walked initially in the direction of the coast before turning west to walk parallel to the beach. We must have been walking for a good ten minutes when the path turned to the left and there before us were white crosses fanning out in all directions as far as the eye could see. I was quite taken aback to see so many graves. There are 9,387 graves of American military and air force personnel who died as a result of the D Day landings and in the ensuing operations. In addition the Walls of the Missing bear the names of 1,557 service men
who do not have graves. Each grave is marked with an absolutely pristine white cross - the Latin cross for Christians and the Star of David for those of the Jewish faith. It was not possible to work out the age of the fallen servicemen as the crosses bear only their name and the date of their death. Even on a grey and windy day the cemetery looked immaculately groomed with the usual silence of a cemetery being broken only by the waves of the English Channel breaking on the beach below. This satellite photo shows the sheer size if the cemetery. We had not known quite what to expect as the only other war cemetery that we had visited was at Souda Bay on Crete, which is much smaller.

It has become an obsession

2009-11-06T15:43:00.002Z

Now, it is thank you to Helen P for this very sophisticated award, which she has passed on to me. The award stands for integrity, commitment to excellence and being stubbornly optimistic. Attached to this award is the requirement to list five obsessions. Identifying three obsessions was relatively easy, but the fourth and fifth were difficult. So, here they are, in no particular order:

Closing the curtains, when the sun shines, to stop the carpets from fading.
Keeping the house tidy. Husband's predecessor told me that my house looked too tidy to be lived in. I am a bit more relaxed about it now that I am married to the most untidy man in the world.
Our garden, I could be out in it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Weeding, dead heading, tidying up and pottering around.
Neil Diamond - Husband and I went to see him at the MEN arena in Manchester last year. It was the best concert that I have been to and I could listen to him all day, but I don't.
Keeping up to date with all the blogs that I want to read and also keeping on top of mine.

It has been more difficult, than deciding on obsessions, to choose five bloggers to pass this award on to. After much consideration I have chosen the following five bloggers:

Akelamalu
Gilly
Sandi McBride
Sniffles and Smiles
Withenay Wanders

And I am also going to pass the award on to any blogger who is prepared to list their five obsessions, which I shall look forward to reading.

To, too, tutu or two

2009-11-03T06:00:00.006Z

I was set this challenge about two months ago by Catharine Withenay, to name my seconds. Who else could have originated this meme but, you guessed, the Dotterel. I promised that I would do it after we had been on holiday, so here is my attempt.

your second girlfriend - I don't think this is applicable.
your second day at school - I don't remember, but I do remember a bit about my first day at primary school.
your second best friend - I don't attach numbers to friends. If I am lucky enough to have friends they are friends full stop.
the second LP that you bought - a Beatles LP, as was the first.
the second house that you lived in - the house that my parents moved to when I was four.
the second car that you drove - a Wolsey Hornet, basically a variation on the old Mini.
your second favourite band - The Beatles who were also my favourite band. There was only one band in those days.
the second best book you ever read - difficult, maybe The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullough.
your second favourite film - Dr Zhivago.
your second favourite blog - I am not even trying to answer that.

Now, the lucky, or unlucky, bloggers that I am passing it on to are French Fancy, Helen P, Moannie and Reasons and also anyone else who would like to have a go at this challenge.

Impressions Francaises

2009-10-27T19:18:00.000Z

I know that I have not posted for a few days and I suppose that you think that I am off on my travels again. Sorry you are wrong! I have been making the most of the mild weather, that we have been having, to get on with the Autumn jobs in the garden. By the time that I came in, late yesterday afternoon, our outside lights were on. We are making progress with our garden but we have along way to go before we reach the holy grail of a garden that we visited whilst in France earlier this month. It was a garden that I had never expected to see. It was cloudy most of the drive from Trouville to Giverny but as we approached Giverny the clouds disappeared and the sun shone out of a clear blue sky.

Monet's garden at Giverny is stunning, but at two weeks before it was due to close for the end of the season, it was past its' best. The garden has been restored to its' original planting scheme, using the notebooks of Monet's gardeners and the gardens do look like a Monet painting.

All the plants were big and tall. Far bigger than we manage to grow in the UK. In Monet's day the house garden was separated from the Water Lily Pond by a railway line and a path. Today an underground passage links the garden to the Water Lily Pond with its Japanese Bridge. Autumn is not the season for wisteria and water lilies but the pond and the bridge are just like the painting - perfect.

Giverny is a hamlet. There is more to it than I expected and I suppose that we should not be surprised that the whole area has been commercialised. We only had time to look at the garden. So the church, the museum, the art gallery, the restaurant and the hotel were all wasted on us with our whistle stop tour.

The previous day after walking around Trouville then Deauville in the morning we drove to the picturesque old harbour town of Honfleur in the afternoon. Here we bought a bottle of Calvados - a liqueur made from locally grown apples and wrote postcards while having a coffee at one of the harbour side cafes.

The following morning, on our way to the ferry, we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Bayeux tapestry. Bayeaux is a very old town with a lot of history to it, but we only had time to see the tapestry. Cameras are not allowed in the tapestry visitor centre. The tapestry which is 70metres long and 50 cm wide is stored behind glass in a darkened room with the tapestry illuminated for viewing.

It is not actually a tapestry - it is brown, green, khaki and black wool stitched on linen and is composed of 50 scenes depicting the story of the Norman invasion of England in 1066. It is thought to have been stitched by English nuns from 1070 to 1080. Entry to see the tapestry included a personal audio commentary in a variety of languages from a small hand held machine similar to a mobile phone. It was a very impressive experience.

Then in the afternoon we made our way to the ferry terminal, at Caen, making sure that we had time to stop off at the wine warehouse, so that we could stock up on our favourite French wines.

Life's a beach

2009-10-19T20:59:00.000+01:00

I know that I have now been away ten times this year. However, those of you that follow my blog will know that we have had several trips away this year that have were not really for the purpose of enjoying ourselves. Holidaywise we had a four night break in Kent and the New Forest in May, one week in Ireland last month and then three days in France last week. Our other seven trips have been to three family birthdays, two funerals, one trip down to Sussex to bring my mother up to Cheshire and another trip down to Sussex, to do some sorting out and cleaning at my Mother's bungalow, in preparation for selling it.

Our days of lying on a Mediterranean or even a Caribbean beach have gone, but we have visited several beaches over the last few weeks. The only beach that we saw whilst in County Clare, Ireland last month was Lahinch.

Last Sunday we stayed the night in the Southsea area of Portsmouth, and we managed to go for a walk along the sea front at Southsea, before going out for a meal in the evening.

On Monday morning we travelled by ferry to Cherbourg in France. That afternoon, on our way from Cherbourg to Trouville-sur-Mer, we stopped off at some of the D Day beaches. Omaha with its American memorial was the most impressive of the three that we saw.

Then we went on to see the British beaches - Gold, where the remains of the Mulberry Harbour can still be seen if you enlarge the photograph below

and Juno, which was actually the Canadian beach.

All the D Day beaches were wide, empty and golden with the waves rolling in and it was not difficult to imagine the scene on D Day, 6 June 1944. We missed the American beach, Utah and the British beach, Sword. However, the next day we walked along the promenade at Trouville

and then walked over the bridge to Deauville, where we also walked along the beach.

French leave

2009-10-09T06:00:00.006+01:00

I know that we have only just got back from Ireland but we are going away again this weekend to France. Husband has become partial to French wine and we need to restock the wine cellar or rather the wine rack that I bought for his birthday last year, which has languished unassembled in the box for the last thirteen months. With the nights drawing in and becoming chilly, last weekend I suggested that we might use it for fire wood if he was not going to assemble it and this week he has, at last, assembled it. This year's holiday arrangements have not been ideal, but we were asked not to go away while SIL was away, so that either husband or SIL would be around for MIL. However, SIL gave us the wrong dates and we were away, in September, at the same time as SIL!

When we return from this little break, which will be the tenth and final bag packing event of the year, the suitcases will be going up in the loft and the loft door will stay firmly closed until the Christmas decorations need to come down. We have got this bag packing routine down to a fine art now, but I would just like to stay at home for a few weeks and get on top of things instead of permanently trying to catch up with myself. So we shall be battening down the hatches and raising the draw bridge in preparation for winter. By the way we don't have moat - just a flooded path!

Back in about a week.

A white knuckle ride

2009-10-03T12:24:00.005+01:00

Some of you may recognise the bridge in this photograph. For those that do not it is the bridge at Dolgellau, in Wales. A few weeks ago husband, when he was having a week off work, which became a month and is now two months, took me off to the archives in Dolgellau, to help with some more research into his family tree. This time it was the paternal, Welsh branch of the family that he was pursuing. Husband had previously been to the archives in Dolgellau, on his own back in April. He thought that I might enjoy he trip into Wales and that two pairs of eyes might be better than one when viewing the microfiches of the old parish records.

Our journey to Dolgellau was slow and we only managed about an hour in the archive before they shut for lunch. We ventured into the centre of Dolgellau for a pub lunch then it was back to the archives for more research into the ancestors. Security is tight at the archives. We had to sign in and sign for the microfiches that we looked at. Only pencils can be use for writing, not pens and eating and drinking is not permitted. We were looking at the parish records for births, marriages and deaths for the village of Mallwyd and the parish of Llanymaddwy for the 1770s. The quality of the microfiches varies and depends on the hand writing of the recorder, the condition of the paper and the binding of the pages. We were fortunate in that we managed to find the recording of the births that husband was looking for, amongst the pauper burials, illegitimate births and the issue born to concubines. Although he was surprised to find that the particular ancestor that he was interested in was born out of wedlock. Having spent a total of two and a half hours in the archive husband then wanted to visit the graveyard in the church at Llanymaddwy. There amongst the graves of the Thomases, Lloyds and Williams we were unable to find the graves that he was looking for.

The sat. nav. was given the honour of guiding us home and chose to take us via the scenic route of a single track road. If husband ever tries to take me via that route again I shall be walking home. Not only was the road single track but on one side the was a sheer drop down the mountain side which happened to be on the passenger side (i.e. my side) of the car. At times I was nearly in the driving seat with husband! My heart was in my mouth and I did not dare close my eyes. It was quite frightening and I thought that we might never make it home especially when we met two cars coming the other way. Luckily there was a passing bay.

The scenery is beautiful in a peculiar grey/green sort of way. On this particular day the sky was grey. The hills looked very green and the landscape was only relieved by the occasional traditional grey stone or white pebble dash houses with slate roofs. It is incredible to think that, hundreds of years ago, husband ancestors would have looked out on a countryside not too different from what we still see today.

For those of you who are wondering where this fits into a blog about renovation and relocation. This is relocation, which has allowed us to make day trips into Wales.

Back to his green roots

2009-09-27T09:00:00.001+01:00

Click on the photographs to enlarge.

Two weeks ago, yesterday, we set off on our pilgrimage to Ireland. Husband had wanted to make this trip for some time. His maternal grandparents were Irish and he has got hooked on tracing his ancestors. This was our first time on the Holyead to Dublin ferry. When we had booked it, via the Internet, we were given the option of booking seats and we thought that we had better do so, otherwise we might have to stand. I vaguely remembered that one of the perks of booked seats was complimentary refreshments, which I expected to be a drink and a bag of nuts, similar to those offered by airlines. Well, we were amazed to find that the complimentary refreshments were a buffet fit for a king. Why had we bothered to bring our own sandwiches?

It was a fine sunny day and we had a smooth crossing to Dublin, followed by a pleasant drive to Ennis in County Clare, where we were to spend three nights. Ennis is the county town of Clare and we had chosen it because the county archive is located in the library there. It is an attractive medieval style market town of narrow winding one way streets on the River Fergus. That evening we ate at Brogans where we opted for the typical Irish dishes of Irish stew for husband and bacon and cabbage for myself. Later we had a nightcap in the hotel's bar and enjoyed the traditional Irish music played on flute, fiddle and accordion.

On Sunday morning we headed off to the village of Whitegate, where husband's grandparents hail from. Whilst taking photos he got talking to some locals sitting outside the village bar who gave him contact details of the local historian. From Whitegate we moved on to the nearby small town of Mountshannon, where we found the graves of several of husband's family buried in St. Caimin's churchyard. Then it was down to Mountshannon harbour on Lough Derg, where we came across the local historian who also runs boat trips to Holy Island in Lough Derg. Husband had a good chat to him and came away with a book that the historian had written about the area.

Our next port of call on Monday morning was the archives in the library. Amongst the documents that we looked at was a transcription of the protestant Church of Ireland vestry meetings to approve the church's annual expenses. Included in amongst the cushions, surplices, bells, lead and brushes needed for the church maintenance was 'a popes head for sweeping cobwebs from the ceiling'!

Tuesday morning saw us moving on to Doolin on the north west coast of County Clare. Now we had time for some sight seeing. Driving from Ennis to Doolin, we made a detour to the spa town of Lisdoonvarna, now best known for its' 'Matchmaking Festival' which is held during September. This was in full swing when we visited with posters all over for speed dating and dances. After lunch at Ballyvaughan we drove down the coast road to our hotel at Doolin. This area of County Clare, known as the Burren, is a limestone plateau of about 100 square miles with the appearance of a lunar landscape which varies between vast limestone pavements and areas of lush vegetation.

One of the must sees of the area are the Cliffs of Moher, to the south of Doolin which we visited on Wednesday. These 700 ft (200m) high cliffs which stretch for five miles (eight km) are particularly stunning with the waves of the Atlantic crashing against them. We climbed, along with a host of visitors of all nationalities, to the well organised viewing area to take the photo to the right.

The three Aran Isles lie off the coast of Galway Bay. There are boat trips from Doolin to see the islands. We saw one of these boat trips returning and the passengers that got off it were dressed for the Antartic. One of these trips was not an option for us as we had not brought enough warm clothing with us. Perhaps this explains the profusion of shops, in the area, selling Aran Sweaters.

By Thursday husband had found another archive to visit in Corofin. So we briefly stopped off there on the way to Galway. Unfortunately the records that he was interested in were moved to Dublin, for safe keeping, then in 1922 they were destroyed by fire. The drive from Doolin to Galway took us through some breathe taking scenery of wet lands, the greenest grass you have ever seen and grey dry stone walls. Sorry no photos. My little camera would not have done justice to the scenery.

On Friday we started our journey home, driving to Dublin where we stayed over night. The hotels in Ennis and Doolin had been surprisingly good. The hotel in Dublin was a disappointment, but we have learnt from the experience so future visits to Dublin should be better. And I know that there will be future visits, as husband is planning more research into his ancestors.

Back and on the roller coaster again

2009-09-21T12:33:00.004+01:00

On Saturday lunchtime, as we waited to board the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, I received a text message from my brother informing me that Mum had had a fall and was in A&E at Arrowe Park Hospital, which is about 15 miles from where we live, waiting for the results of an x-ray. I have lost count of the number of falls that she has had. She has been like a cat with nine lives. Until now she has got away with nothing more that minor cuts and bruises. Her luck must have run out. Then just after we had arrived in Holyhead I had a phone call from him. Mum had broken a bone at the bottom of her back and the hospital would be keeping her in. He then went on to tell me that the consultant who had seen Mum had said that when she was able to be discharged, that she would need nursing care rather than residential care. The residential home that she is in had said that they would not have her back if she needed nursing care and that the nursing home on the same site as the residential home did not have a vacancy. It seemed to me as if I was going to be spending the next few weeks looking for another home for Mum, when I was not busy driving the 30 mile round trip to visit her at the hospital. Why hadn't they taken her to the nearby Countess of Chester Hospital, which is about three miles from where we live? The signal on my mobile phone in the Holyhead area of Wales was almost non-existent, so I was concentrating on listening to what my brother said and not really analysing what he was saying. It was not until we had got back to the cottage that it registered with me that the home have to give four weeks notice if they can no longer cope with my Mother. They can not just decide that they don't want her.

On Sunday morning, after about 15 minutes on the phone I managed to find the ward that my Mother was in and was very surprised and somewhat relieved to be told that she was being discharged back to the residential home later in the day!

I'm leaving the country

2009-09-11T22:23:00.001+01:00

That's it. I've had enough. I'm going.

On Monday morning I loaded up the washing machine and pressed the buttons to set it going. The lights came on, but it refused to work. This was all I needed as we are going away on Saturday and before we go there will be a fair amount of washing to do. Washing machine repair man No 1 said that he would be round on Monday afternoon but did not turn up. Repair man No 2 arranged to come on Tuesday afternoon and kept to his word.

Late Monday afternoon I had a phone call asking me to work on Tuesday to cover sick leave. 'Sorry' I said 'my car is going into the garage.' 'I am sure that we can pay for a taxi' the little voice on the other end of the phone said. 'I am not supposed to be working tomorrow. I've got a hair appointment and I have already had to cancel it twice.' I know how important these hair appointments are. I had a quick chat with husband and agreed to work a few hours to help out. About half an hour later both husband and I realise that there was more to Tuesday than a car and washing machine repair and that we have tied ourselves in knots. Never mind, we manage to work something out.

By Tuesday evening the driver's door window of my car was opening once again for an eye watering cost of £xy1.70 and the washing machine was repaired for about a quarter of the cost of the car repair.

Now we are just about all ready to go away and we shall be off to the Emerald Isle on Saturday morning.

Whilst I am away I shall leave you a photograph of this stunning dahlia which has just come out into flower in our garden. Hope it is still flowering when we get home.

Back in ten days.

The roller coaster ride continues

2009-09-04T13:53:00.002+01:00

Life has once again got in the way of my blog. I started to write a post about two weeks ago, but at the time I was also busy getting ready for the gathering of my husband's family to celebrate his big zero birthday. Trying to clean the cottage from top to bottom in four days ready for the sergeant-major's (mother-in-law's) inspection, then prepare a cordon bleu meal for Saturday lunch. Everything was going to plan. We had just returned from the supermarket and unloaded several bags of shopping from the car, when the phone went at lunch time on the Friday, which was actually my husband's birthday. It was the residential home that mother is in phoning to say that she had collapsed and they had called for an ambulance. Could I go to A&E at the local hospital? My plans to spend the afternoon cooking and preparing for tomorrow's lunch were suddenly up in the air. We did not want to have to cancel the next day's meal as it had taken us four years to persuade my husband's family to visit us up here in Cheshire. Then there was the food. I quickly worked out that most of it could be frozen, otherwise it would have to be binned as we were due to go away for a few days on the Monday. The home kindly sent one of the carers to A&E with my mother and I phoned A&E to enquire about my mother when I estimated that they would have done a preliminary assessment of her. I was advised that she would be having X-rays and tests and to phone back in four hours time. Phew! My bacon was saved and I could spend the afternoon in the kitchen as planned. When I phoned back four hours later Mum had been admitted to the assessment unit. It was then a quick dash to the hospital to visit her. This was all new territory to us and I had heard a lot of complaints about parking at the hospital, so my husband took me with the idea that he would sus out the parking whilst I visited my mother. There are several small car parks in the hospital grounds. Once in the one of the car parks the only way out of it is by purchasing a token from a machine in the hospital. To exit the car park you drive up to the exit barrier, open the driver's door window and put the token in the machine and the barrier opens for you. Fine in my husband's car. Small problem in my car as the driver's door window stopped opening in some time ago and I have not got it fixed as I so rarely need to open it. By Sunday it looked as if Mum would be discharged back to the residential home on Monday so we went away as planned. On the Monday Mum was seen by the consultant who ordered more tests and on the Tuesday I realised that my mobile phone was no longer working. Could anything else go wrong?

Mum is now back in the residential home and I have bought myself a new mobile phone. The driver's door window on my car will be fixed next week. The family gathering for my husband's birthday went well and they were all impressed with the work that we have done on the cottage and the garden since their last visit back in 2004.

So again I am behind with my blog - posting, visiting and everything in general. Husband had planned a week at home from August 7, which is when I last posted. I decided to have some time at home with him and the week has now become a month. If there is anybody out there still reading my blog please take this Spread the Love award with my love.

It was kindly given to me by Akelamalu some time ago. I have not obeyed the rules attached to the award but I am hoping that she will understand. Please display it on your blog and pass it onto ten more bloggers.

Out of bounds

2009-08-07T06:00:00.002+01:00

Summer, or should I say the better weather, is here in the UK and the neighbour's children are out in the garden attempting to hone their football skills.

A few weeks ago I had opened the gate at the side of our house in the expectation of doing some gardening in our front garden after I had done some work in the back garden. I was working in the back of one of the side borders, hidden behind the lilac tree when for some reason I looked up and saw a figure, clad in black, striding down our garden. At first I thought that it was the wife from next door who I had earlier seen in their garden dressed in black. I wondered what she could be doing in our garden, then realised that the hair was the wrong colour. It was not her. It was Del Boy Junior, the neighbour's son, from the other side. I was dumb struck! What was he doing striding down our garden? Eventually my brain engaged my tongue and I managed to stutter out something about asking before walking into some one's garden. He said something about knocking on the door and getting no reply. With an unanswered front door and the gate wide open I would have thought that it was obvious that we were in the garden. He had kicked a ball over the hedge into our garden and wanted it back. This was just one of several incidents that we have had with Del Boy Junior and a football.

The day that Del Boy and family moved next door we had a taste of what was to come. It was November and it was dark and wet but that did not stop Del Boy Junior and friends from knocking a ball around in their new garden, as Dad had rigged up some flood lights so that they could play football when it was dark. It was early evening when we had a knock on the door and a request to look for a ball in our back garden, in the dark. Reluctantly my husband put on his anorak and went out with a torch for a rummage around. But before he managed to get out there one of the football players was already in our garden flailing amongst the plants. There are no lights in our back garden and they couldn't find the ball. At that point we did not have the side gate and I have to say that this incident put the requirement for a lockable side gate at the top of our to do list, otherwise we could see that our garden would become a free for all scavenging ground for balls when we were not there.

We had had experiences of stray footballs at our previous house. Initially the children, who lived in the house at the back of us used to politely ask for their ball back. However, they became bold and one gloomy wet evening I saw them climbing over the fence in an attempt to retrieve a ball. How did I manage to see them? Their white trainers glowed in the dark. The next thing that I remember happened when we returned from holiday. As I walked from the hall into the kitchen I thought something was different. Initially I could not work out what it was. Then I noticed that there was broken glass all over the kitchen floor and a large, round, football shaped hole in the kitchen window. This was before we had done any work on the house and it was an old single glazed window. It was obvious who the culprits were. We never had an apology and they never asked for another ball to be returned to them. By the time that we moved from that house, about six years later, we had a collection of half a dozen balls which I gave to a charity shop.

So now we have some rules relating to the return of stray balls which are that we will return one ball per day before 8 pm in the evening, in response to a polite request for the ball to be returned.

Four Birthdays and Two Funerals

2009-07-29T10:13:00.002+01:00

I am afraid that I have been absent from Blogland yet again, but on this occasion it has not been due to problems with my laptop computer. Sunday of last week found us packing bags, yet again, for a brief visit down to Sussex, which involved a family reunion. It seems as if almost every weekend husband has either been getting bags out of the loft or putting bags away in the loft. My husband tends to be a throw everything in the suitcase at the last minute sort of person whereas I like to be organised and work from lists. So I dislike intensely having to pack at the last minute as I have to when husband does not get the bags out of the loft until shortly before we are due to leave. Although in some ways I have had to get used to it, but it does not stop me sitting in the passenger seat of the car and worrying about all the things that I might have forgotten and the constant need to be rummaging in bag which sits on the back seat of the car, to check that I have not actually forgotten anything. In the past we have between us managed to forget comb, hairbrush, toothbrush, glasses, sandals and shirts. Now that my navigational skills have been replaced by a satellite navigation system I need to keep the old grey cells active somehow and there was also the desperate need to take my mind off the tragic affair that we were to attend the following day.

So far this year we have been away six times for one or two nights. There was the lightening trip down to Sussex to collect my mother and bring her up to Cheshire. Then there have been two funerals. One for my aunt in East Yorkshire and the second last week for a child. It was the saddest thing that I have ever been to. Husand and I have been to three funerals in the last nine months, so I am hoping that as things are said to happen in threes that, that is now that. The other three trips away have been to celebrate three of the four 'big zero' birthdays that are happening this year in our family. The fourth is next month when my husband will be celebrating and for a change the family will be coming to us.

On the journey home from Sussex we stopped at RHS Wisley, for a quick walk around, where I photographed these lovely blue agapanthus which will always remind of the events of July 2009.

Three strikes and you're out!

2009-07-11T06:00:00.002+01:00

Not long ago I posted about computer problems which resulted in my absence form Blogland when Vista brought my laptop computer to a stand still. Unfortunately I have had more problems which once again have lead to my absence from Blogland.

A few hours after struggling to post Eros in a Small World my laptop collapsed with a high temperature (it had over heated). I poked it, prodded it, swore at it and nearly threw it out of the window. Husband was out at the time. When he came home he cast his consultant's eye (computer not medical) over it and phoned A&E (the local computer shop), who said to bring it in straight away which he did. I had expected that it was going to be rushed to ITU to be monitored overnight (they have some sophisticated monitoring/diagnostic equipment), so was surprised to find, when husband phoned the following day, that my laptop was still waiting, on a stretcher in A&E, to be assessed. It was not until the next day that a diagnosis of it needing a heart and lung transplant (a new hard drive) was made. Surgery was scheduled for the following day and after a speedy recovery, we had the laptop back home. It then needed a few days recuperation to build up its strength (while the necessary software was installed), before I could have it back to use.

I have told my laptop that to let me down once was unfortunate, to let me down twice was a mistake and that if it lets me down again I shall be replacing it with a newer, younger model.

In the mean time I have been using the desk top computer, in our study, to try to catch up with my visiting, when I have been able to get to it. Every time that I have nearly caught up with my visiting, several bloggers publish posts and once again I slip down the greasy pole. So I have given up trying to get my visiting up to date. Rest assured that if I normally read your blog and have not done so recently, that it will be on my list of blogs to read.

And now for something different - an award!

I was given this One Lovely Blog Award sometime ago by the multi-talented Janine at Sniffles and Smiles and have not got around to doing anything about it, because of being in and out of Blogland, at the whim of my laptop and a few other problems.

I have decided to give the award to fellow bloggers who are my neighbours here in the north west of England.So you see there are a few small benefits to living in this area and the recipients are as follows:

CG - the compulsive worrier who is also a librarian and photographer and mother to two lovely daughters

Helen P - who has recently ghost written the biography of local millionaire Rob Lloyd

Scriptor Senex - who rambles from his chair

and

A Brit in Tennesse e

who is a Cheshire expat living in Tennessee.

Eros in a Small World

2009-06-27T12:01:00.001+01:00

When I admitted in a tag, last Autumn, that I had met my husband on a Greek island, I was surprised by the curiosity, interest and requests for a post that this fact generated. I have waited until now to post about how I met my husband. Today is our wedding anniversary, so it seems as good a day as any for this post.

It was the summer of 1989. I was a single working girl with a mortgage around my neck and a hole in my finances, after having to pay a string of unexpected bills. I needed and wanted a holiday and worked out that I could afford one week in the sun. I decided on a week's holiday on the Greek island of Alonnisos with the tour operator Small World. I had been with them a few times before. Their brochure advertised 'social holidays for single people' mainly in villas, in parts of the Mediterranean which were only semi-commercialised.

I set off early one Friday morning in July, driving to Gatwick airport at the crack of dawn. The flight was delayed which meant that we were late arriving in Skiathos and missed the Flying Dolphin hydro-foil to Alonnisos. I and my fellow travellers had to sit around, for an hour or two, in the Greek afternoon heat, wearing clothes that were more suited to a grey day in the UK, whilst we waited for the next hydrofoil to Alonnisos. By the time that we reached our destination it was early evening. We just had time to unpack and have a shower before dinner.

Meals, which were eaten outside in a small courtyard, were prepared by the villa girls, known as Muribirds, after the founder of Small World, Colin Murison-Small. Some of the group were half way through a two week stay. For others it was the first week of a two week holiday and for those like myself it was the start of their one and only week. After dinner which was washed down with plenty of wine, all eleven (four girls and seven lads) of us, that were staying in the villa, walked down to the harbour for a drink. Husband to be (HTB) and I hit it off straight away. I could not tell you what we talked about, that first night, but I managed to establish that he lived not far from me back in England.

The next morning those on their second week showed the new arrivals the way to the nearest beach, which meant a 45 minute walk or taking a water taxi. The other three girls opted to take the water taxi but I decided that as I was holidaying on a shoe string that I would walk to the beach with the lads and save myself the cost of the water taxi. There was not much to do on Alonnisos, so most days we walked to the beach. Then late afternoon, on our way back from the beach, after a hard day of sunbathing, we would stop at one of the harbour tavernas for a thirst quenching and well deserved beer. Over the course of the week HTB and I often walked together. We got on very well and I remember thinking what a pity it was that he had a girlfriend back home as we seemed to be made for one another. Our relationship was totally platonic. HTB was the perfect gentleman.

Too soon it was time to return home. We were up early on the Friday morning to catch the hydro-foil to Skiathos where we had breakfast at a taverna before heading to the airport. At the time HTB was a smoker and I rashly agreed to sit with him in the smoking section of the plane. They say that love is blind, it must also have lost its' sense of smell. I have never smoked and HTB stopped smoking at the end of 1989. When we got back to Gatwick airport I offered him a lift home as he only lived five miles from me. We got to his house to find his girlfriend there. Goodness knows what she thought of me. At some point we exchanged contact details. The relationship with the girlfriend did not last but it was not until about a year later that we started to see each other on a regular basis. We got married almost two years after we met.

Although we only lived five miles apart, it is unlikely that we would have met, had we not chosen to go on the same holiday, as our social lives took us in different directions.

Life's a trial

2009-06-17T17:13:00.001+01:00

I hope that the title says it all. Recent computer problems and family issues that have demanded my attention are the cause.

About January time my husband bought himself a new lap top computer. He then installed Vista on his old laptop and handed it down to me. Right from the start the thing was difficult to use - slow, stiff, awkward and cranky. I was not sure whether it was the laptop or Vista that was the cause of the problem. Slowly it got worse until the point where it took me 45 minutes to navigate my way around one blog. Then it decided to switch itself off in the middle of the day. I could not blog, send e-mails or surf the Internet. We have become so dependent on computers that it is difficult to manage without one. My husband has now updated Vista to Windows 7 and the laptop is behaving itself.

When my mother went into the care home eight weeks ago now, the contract that I signed made it quite clear that the first six weeks of her residence would be a trial period. Yes, those six weeks were a trial and in some ways the trial continues. Not only has it been a trial for my mother, of which she is blissfully unaware, but it has also been a trial for me. Making sure that she has everything that the home requires her to have and most difficult of all sorting out her clothes. When I wrote in Eleventh hour booking that it was back to normality I had forgotten about the suitcase full of my mother's clothes that needed sorting out. All of the clothes needed to be machine washed then tumbled dried so that I could be sure that they would meet the home's requirements. Some of the clothes needed to be soaked before washing, to remove a variety of stains. Then the clothes needed to be named. The home had ordered some iron-on name tapes for my mother and had used them to name some of her clothes. One day whilst tidying her wardrobe at he home, I noticed that her round neck jumpers and cardigans had a strange square indent at the neckline. At first I could not work out why. Then I realised that it was the imprint of a hot iron used to iron on the name tapes. These clothes only needed a cool iron. I know that the clothes were not expensive and that my mother sees very few people but I was annoyed that clothes had been damaged before she had even worn them. I had taken the precaution of buying some sew-in name tapes for my mother as I realised that iron-on name tapes would not be suitable for all clothes. So it was back to sewing name tapes into her clothes. I did allow the home to name some of the clothes that I considered could not be damaged by a hot iron. Anyway, the six week deadline came and went with no comment from the home but an appointment had been made for a review meeting, regarding my mother, on June 15. It was a bit like a parents' evening in reverse. The home are pleased with the way that Mum has settled, which is a relief, although I would not say that she is totally settled. I think that that will take a few more weeks. I am pleased with the way that the home have handled Mum, as they too were on trial and if at the end of the six weeks they had asked me to remove her I would have seen it as a failing on their part that they could not manage her. If my mother did not settle in this home I could not see her settling anywhere.

Whilst computer problems and care home trials are going on life itself goes on or doesn't. Unfortunately my mother's sister died about three weeks ago now. She was quite a bit younger than my mother who was sixteen when she was born. My aunt was sixteen when I was born and she has been more like a sister, than an aunt, to me and I shall miss her. She was the only one that I could turn to, apart from my husband, earlier this year when my brother was being so difficult. The help and advice that she gave me in the search for a care home for my mother were invaluable. So ten days ago my husband and I returned to my East Yorkshire roots for my aunt's funeral. Then I had the unenviable task of telling my mother that her sister had died. She appeared to take it very well but in fact it did not sunk in and I still do not think that it has.

It would be nice to be able to get my head above the parapet and keep it there, with life on an even keel. However, I think, I might just find that a bit dull.

Coming soon(er or later)

2009-06-05T18:40:00.003+01:00

The return of Cheshire Wife.

Jobs that could not be put off and problems of one sort or another have got in the way recently, meaning that I have not had the time for my blog, but I do intend to return to writing it, when I have got on top of things. In the mean time I am going to try to catch up with my visiting to find out what you have all been up to. For now I shall leave you with this photograph, that I took at Great Dixter, of a stunning paeony.

Wonderful last Thursday night

2009-05-22T11:11:00.001+01:00

Late last Thursday afternoon I caught a train from Chester to Manchester to meet my husband. On arriving at Chester railway station, late courtesy of the taxi which arrived late to collect me, thinking that I was short of time to purchase my ticket I headed straight for the new fangled automated ticket machine. In my haste to buy a ticket I purchased a return ticket instead of a single.This is the third time that I have used this machine and only once have I managed to purchase the correct ticket. This machine has no instructions and could never be described as user friendly. Realising my mistake, I debated queuing at the ticket office to change the ticket but decided that I did not have the time to join the queue. The risk of missing the train was too great. At Manchester Piccadilly station I was met by my husband. Our intention was to walk towards Manchester Victoria which according to him is a 15 minute walk. Manchester was at its' best. It was raining heavily so I suggested that we wait until it slowed down, but he did not want to do that so we set off. I did manage to get him to shelter when the rain became even heavier, then he had the bright idea of getting a taxi. By now we were already half soaked. We clambered into the taxi and were whisked away to the restaurant that we were aiming for. The evening had not yet started and already three things had gone wrong. But now, that we were in the warm and dry, perhaps things would improve.

We had a very nice Chinese meal swiftly served but no so swiftly that by the time we went out it had stopped raining. Now for the purpose of the trip to Manchester. We headed for the MEN area. We were early. We had a wander around then made our way to our seats. The warm up act came on, on time at 7.30 pm to a half empty arena. Whoever they were, they were so loud that I was vibrating with the music, if you could call it music. After half an hour they left the stage. The lights went up and still the arena was not full. Amazingly for another half an hour the audience casually sauntered in. As I had nothing better to do I quite enjoyed watching them. They came in all shapes and sizes from teenagers, through heavily pregnant to senior citizens, with walking sticks, white sticks and hearing aids - I am not kidding. By 8.30 pm the arena was as full as it was going to get. The lights went out and Eric Clapton and his band took to the stage. For a 64 year old, who lived life in the fast last during his twenties and thirties, he looked very good, with a full head of glossy brown hair, his only concession to ageing appeared to be his trade mark metal rim spectacles. Wearing a casual black, short sleeved shirt and denims he spent two hours on stage performing from his repertoire of hits. My husband is the fan, so I have to say that I did not recognise some of the numbers that he played. However, I did recognise I Shot The Sheriff and Layla which was performed as an easy listening number rather than the raw version which was a hit all those years ago. Then he went on to murder Somewhere Over The Rainbow. Judy Garland would have turned in her grave if she had heard it. And of course, he had to play Wonderful Tonight, the song that he wrote for the model, Patti Boyd who he later married. After an encore, they were gone. Clapton was good and he is still master of the guitar but his voice is not what it was.

Eleventh hour booking

2009-05-13T20:40:00.018+01:00

Last week's break had been pencilled in for some time. My husband had taken the time off work and we had planned to go to the Lake District. We had not got round to booking any accommodation and when it became apparent, earlier this year, that we needed to be 'on call' to get my mother into a home, we decided that we would have to do a last minute booking. Last year we made the same plans and were not able to go to the Lake District because my husband was not well. We stayed at home, gardened, went to Ness Botanic Gardens and visited Another Place . Hopefully next time, that we plan to go to the Lake District, will be third time lucky! We needed to go to my mother's bungalow in Sussex, to collect some more clothes and bits and pieces, which meant that the most logical destination would be in the south of England. We had decided on the New Forest and Tunbridge Wells. So we found ourselves, at 11 pm on the last Bank Holiday Monday, trying to book accommodation via the Internet. After a compromise we stuck a pin in the computer screen and booked ourselves two nights in Tunbridge Wells, in Kent and two nights in Lyndhurst, in the New Forest.

After a reasonable journey down to Tunbridge Wells on Tuesday, we checked into the hotel where we were given room number seven, which was called Victoria. It was almost a suite, with a separate sitting room, a good sized bathroom and a large bedroom with an enormous bed. Albert was the next room. After unpacking and a cup of tea we went for a walk around Tunbridge Wells eventually finding The Pantiles - photographed right. This hotel was a good find and we would go back again. The only criticism that I had, was on our first morning we were woken, half an hour before we had set our alarm clock, by an alarm call that we had not booked. After that I unplugged the bedroom phone each night.

On Wednesday morning we drove into Sussex to my mother's bungalow, where we spent a couple of hours sorting out her clothes and shoes. I didn't know that she possessed so many. We left with a suitcase full of clothes, a holdall full of shoes and several other bags of miscellaneous belongings and headed back towards Kent. We had lunch at the Swan at Lamberhurst, where my husband had a Stilton ploughman's and I had a ham sandwich, after which we both felt so full that we could never imagine wanting to eat again.

Then on a perfect sunny May afternoon we set off for Great Dixter - the home and garden of the gardening writer Christopher Lloyd. Over the past few years, as I have worked on our garden at the cottage, I have become a great fan of Christopher Lloyd. This was somewhere that I had never expected to see, as it is about 300 miles from our Cheshire home, so this was to be a real treat and it did not disappoint. From the village of Northiam we followed the signs that took us about a mile down a single track road
until we came upon the house that we have seen
so many times on television gardening programmes. Great Dixter is a 15th century timber framed hall house. We were allowed into three rooms. The construction and the beams are amazing. My husband was particularly impressed. Considering the time of year I had not expected too much of the garden, but it was an absolute riot of colour and the planting is exquisite. I took so many photographs that it has been very difficult to select just one for this post. It was the nearest thing to gardening heaven. After this anything else was going to be a let down.

On Thursday morning we set off for the New Forest. We were there by lunchtime and spent a cool damp afternoon wandering around Lyndhurst. It is an attractive little town full of estate agents, tea shops, charity shops, antique shops and gift shops not seen in the Chester area unless they are there and I simply do not see them, because I live here.

The following day the weather was no better so we opted for a drive around the New Forest to see the places of interest. The New Forest is England's newest National Park. It is busy market towns and picturesque villages of thatched cottages and old world charm with stunning scenery, but we were not seeing it at it's best. Nevertheless where ever we went we saw lilac, hawthorn, laburnum, horse chestnut, clematis, bluebells and rhododendrons in flower. Then there are the ponies and the cattle grazing freely. Pictured right is the pretty village of Burley, where we stopped for lunch.

There is history to the New Forest, too. In the churchyard in Lyndhurst is the grave of Alice Hargreaves (formerly Liddell) who was the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. The village of Sway was the setting for Captain Marryat's Children of the New Forest and in the churchyard of the tiny village of Minstead is the tomb of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

The hotel in Lyndhurst was not worth a mention. Needless to say we will not be going back there. We enjoyed our break. We had too much to eat and too much to drink and now it is good to be back to normality, whatever that is.

One becomes two

2009-05-05T09:18:00.001+01:00

When I posted The Winds of Change, a few months ago for a photo tag, several of you asked to see a photograph of the tree when it was in blossom. So here you are and as you will see it is not one tree but two!

The tree with the white blossom comes into flower about two weeks before the tree with the pink blossom and by the time the tree with the pink blossom is in flower the white blossom tree has finished flowering. I took these photographs a couple of weeks ago and I apologise for the quality of them. I cannot try to improve on them for another 50 weeks as at the moment most of the blossom is lying on our patio!

Hazy daze update

This last week has been more difficult than the previous week. When I telephoned the home in desparation, after Easter, the only room that they could offer me was in the nursing home on the same site as the residential home. So for the first week my mother was in the nursing home. Then a week ago now, they moved her into the residential home. This made her more confused then ever and very angry. She thought that she was in an hotel, when she was in the nursing home. Now she realises that she is not in an hotel, but is not sure where she is.

Later today we are going away for a few days - back in a week's time.

Hazy daze

2009-04-23T20:42:00.002+01:00

Last weekend went far better than I could have hoped that it would. Absolutely everything went to plan! And it had been planned with military precision. Fortunately we have done the trip down to Sussex enough times, now, to have got the routine of it sorted to a 't'. My husband and I had a good journey down to Sussex. We spent the night at Forest Row which is a very pretty village not far from where my mother lived. It is a typical Sussex village of tile hung elevations, black and white timbers and yellow sandstone cottages. I wished that I had taken my camera but I forgot it. We stayed at the 15th century Chequers Inn, pictured right. Inside it is all old beams and brick open fireplaces. We had a good meal there on Saturday evening, followed by a good night's sleep. Then on Sunday morning we packed up my mother and set off back to Chester.

As we got my mother out of the car at the home, the manager of the home came out to meet her, offered her her arm, which she took and walked straight into the home without any problems! The nurse who manages this home is amazing. She has told me that she has been working there for ten years and has recently had a baby, but she looks as if she has just left school. It is not just the policemen who are getting younger! She was so good with my mother. She was like putty in her hands. The possible problems that I had envisaged just did not happen. At the end of last week, when the staff at the home could see how worried I was about actually getting my mother into the home, they assured me that they would be able to handle her. I didn't doubt them but I was not totally convinced as my mother used to be very awkward at times. They made it all look so easy.

Mum is now settling into the home, but is very confused as to where she is and is hoping that my brother will collect her and take her home, this coming weekend! He won't. I have spent most of my time this week looking for clothes for my mother. The home requires that her clothes can be machine washed then tumble dried. Most of what she currently owns is hand wash or dry clean only. Then everything needs to have her name in it. The home has ordered name tapes for her but for now I am using my old school name tapes, cutting off my first name and just using the surname. This last week has disappeared in a haze. It is probably just as well that I can not remember too much about it and I know that my mother can't, as by Monday she had no recollection of the events of Sunday, for which I am grateful.

I am sorry that at the moment I am not managing to visit your blogs but hope to resume visiting as as soon as I get my mother sorted out.

Easter weekend bombshell

2009-04-16T20:20:00.003+01:00

When I wrote my previous posts about my search for a care home for my elderly mother who has dementia and then about the turmoil in our family I half expected to be dropped in it by my brother but probably not in such brutal circumstances as I now find myself in. Over the Easter bank holiday weekend I received several e-mails from my brother relating to my mother. The most difficult to stomach was the one in which he informed me that he would be away on business, on and off for the next three weeks, leaving my mother with no carers and no support. It has got to the point that she is no longer safe on her own and he has been going round on a regular basis to sort out problems and keep an eye on her. It is one of his specialities to send me a nasty e-mail as a bank holiday greeting. On this occasion it did not upset me as my senses were numbed and blunted by a head cold. We had had to cancel a visit to see an old school friend of my husband who lives in Wilmslow. Socialising is not my thing when I have a throat that feels like barbed wire, a nose that looks like Rudolph and a head like a singing kettle. Fortunately by Tuesday I was over the worst of the cold and as I do not have much work on this week I was able to ring around and look at yet more care homes. I must have looked at at least ten homes, in total, but none has been as good as the home that I already got Mum's name on the waiting list for. The manager there has been very understanding and as from next Sunday my mother should become a resident in that home. I say should, as this weekend my husband and I have the unenviable task of collecting her from Sussex and getting her installed in the care home which is near Chester. Please wish us luck as we are going to need it!

and an Award
A few weeks ago now I was kindly given this This Blog Has a Heart award by Reasons to be Cheerful 1,2,3. I had not got around to posting it because I have been occupied elsewhere initially with my husband and now with my mother, so there has been very little me time or blogging time. Many of you in blogland already have this award so have decided that anyone who leaves a comment wishing me luck for the weekend may have the award, if they wish.

When two is a crowd

2009-04-08T20:26:00.000+01:00

I have not posted for so long now that you are probably thinking that I have locked myself out of the cottage again and disappeared off the face of the earth. No. This posting hiccup is as a result of me working at maximum capacity and my husband being at home in between jobs, expecting to be waited on hand and foot. From my point of view such a combination is not conducive to managing to do anything more than essential tasks.

Last Monday I worked and my husband took himself off to Dolgellau, to research his family tree. The alternative was to stay at home and make cups of tea for the roofer who was working on our barge boards and gutters. We have a very Welsh surname. There are thousands of us in Wales. A few generations ago my husband's family did live in Wales, but have migrated away managing to get as far as Surrey. Maybe it is fate that has brought us to Chester where we now live about a mile from the Welsh border. He had a successful day.

On Monday evening, knowing that I was not working on Tuesday, my husband asked what we were doing the next day. 'Housework' I answered. It is something that he isn't keen on but it has to be done. He doesn't even know where I keep the dusters and the Dyson. To keep him out of the way I suggested that he put some of our pre-owned and no longer required items on eBay. He was happy doing that and it got him out of my way. And a week on he has managed to sell some of them!

On Wednesday he went to Manchester for an interview and I did the weekly supermarket shop. I had hoped that we could go shopping in his car, so that we could stock up on those bulky items that I struggle to fit into my small car. On Friday afternoon he heard that he had got the contract, that he had been interviewed for, so I'll forgive him.

Thursday morning it was back to work for me. So that he could play squash in the evening, my husband agreed to cook lunch. A simple affair, for which I had written the cooking instructions in words of one syllable. My lunch break is just long enough for me to get home, eat my lunch then go back to work. In the afternoon he took himself off to look at cars. His car does need replacing. Annoyingly he has just had to spend £300 on running repairs to it. He test drove the car that he had his eye on and would I think have bought it there and then, had it not been for the fact that he felt that he ought to get my approval, before committing himself. I suggested that he looked at some more cars before making a decision on which one to buy. That was to be Friday's job but he did not get beyond looking on the Internet. When I got home, on Friday evening, I was presented with the details of four cars in four different locations. I quickly cut it down to two. On Saturday we looked at the car that he had had the test drive in and decided to go for it. We may never know if we should have looked at the other car, but husband is happy!

Yesterday my husband started the new contract in Manchester. For nearly two years now he has been commuting weekly, to Leeds for work. Working in Manchester means a daily commute, which is good because we shall see more of one another, but it also means adapting to a different routine. I hope that you will bear with me as I get used to having my husband at home and also find time for my blog.

Safe as houses

2009-03-26T22:17:00.000Z

I am currently having one of my working spells and was reminded about this incident, which happened last year while I was having a working spell, when I read this post by Helen P about her recent Friday 13. I am desperately trying not to have a repeat of this incident.

At 8.30 one Friday morning I found myself standing on our front door step feeling a bit stupid and as if I was missing something. Yes, I was missing my keys and I had just locked myself out of the house. Both my car keys and my house keys are on the same ring and were in the key hole on the inside of the door. Initially, I panicked as I thought that I was going to have to spend the day sitting on the door step, waiting for my husband to come home. We have made the house so secure. The side gate is padlocked. We have a burglar alarm and locked double glazed windows. But it was not always this way.

When we first moved in the windows did not lock. They were quite new so we tried to get them repaired, but the company that supplied the windows had gone out of business. So we should have been able to make a claim against the insurance company under the warranty, but when we bought the cottage the vendors had not supplied us with all the information that we need to transfer the policy to ourselves, which all meant that we had to pay to repair the windows. It should have all been so simple but it was going to cost nearly as much to repair the windows as it would to have new windows. Repaired windows would still not be covered by any sort of warranty whereas for not much more we got new windows which locked and are covered by a ten year warranty. Why am I worried about windows locking? Because if your windows do not lock and you are burgled, regardless of how the burglars get in and out, the insurance company will not pay out for your losses. That is why a few years ago when Cilla Black was burgled her insurance company would not pay out. Her windows did not lock!

There was no chance of climbing through a half open window. One of the neighbours had had a spare set of keys until a few weeks before when my husband lost his keys and we had to get the spare set back. But they were out anyway. I was supposed to be on my way to work. I literally had everything that I needed for the day, except my keys. So I used my mobile phone to ring for a taxi to take me to work and phoned my husband to ask him to collect me from work, in the evening. Arriving at work in a taxi prompted a few questions but to my surprise I did arrive on time. And the day which I had thought I was going to spend sitting on the doorstep became a pretty normal day. Now the 'purse' key for my car is in my purse, instead of languishing in my bedside cupboard and there is a spare set of keys to the cottage, hidden in my car.

Meet the neighbours

2009-03-20T06:00:00.000Z

This is the lane down which I live. The last paragraph of this post explains why I have included the photograph. This post was planned but the events of Wednesday have spiced it up.

So you have moved house and are getting settled in. What sort of neighbours do you have? Are they your cup of tea? Your sort of people or are they the neighbours from hell? Since I first hung a mortgage round my neck I have had problems with the neighbours at four of the five properties that I have lived in. I am not sure if I/we are attracted to them or if they are attracted to me/us.

My first purchase was a conversion flat. It was the first floor of a Victorian terraced house. The ground floor flat had the same lay out which meant that my bedroom was directly above that of the ground floor flat, in which lived a couple in late middle age. He was overweight and snored loudly enough to wake the whole street. After a few too many sleepless night I decided that I had had enough and moved to a small modern semi-detached house. Initially it was fine, then the neighbour married and let the house to a girl friend who had the television on full volume until 1 am. I could hear every word through the cardboard walls.

By the time that we got married I had had enough of noisy neighbours and insisted that we bought a detached house and we had no problems with the neighbours at our first marital home. Our second house was also fine initially but after two or three years the neighbours' trees grew to the point where they put the whole of our garden in the shade. We politely asked for the trees to be pruned. They were rude and unreasonable about the whole issue. Eventually we managed to get a sympathetic tree surgeon to prune the trees at our cost! The whole fiasco left a nasty taste in my mouth and I was glad to move.

Now we move on to our cottage. The neighbours on one side are no problem but we have the neighbours from hell living on the other side. When we first moved here the people that lived next door spent most of their time away so we got used to it being quiet. Then they moved away. For nearly two years the house was empty and for sale until Del Boy and his WAG moved in with their two children and two dogs. The first thing that they did was to build a big extension which blocks our view of the surrounding fields. We objected to their application for planning application, but it still got approval. I have previously written about them going away and leaving the dog alone. But probably the incident which alone marks then out as the neighbours from hell happened in April last year when he had a fight with the local farmer. The farmer's leg was badly cut and he had to go to hospital to have it stitched up, which resulted in Del Boy being charged with assault. My husband had the misfortune to see part of the fight. He had to give a statement to the police and agree to go to court as a witness if necessary. As it happened out my husband did not need to appear as a witness when the case went to court. Del Boy now has a criminal record and a two year suspended sentence hanging over his head.

On Wednesday afternoon I managed to take the above photograph which I had been intending to take for some time to put on the side bar of my blog. Del Boy saw me taking the photo. About an hour later the neighbour who lives in the house on the left in the photo came round to see me. He was clearly very upset. Del Boy had phoned him to say that I had being taking photos of his garden and I was going to write to the council to complain about his untidy garden. I assured him that I was only taking photos of daffodils in the lane and offered to show them to him. We have had enough problems with Del Boy without him stirring up and inventing any more. Incidentally can you see the garden of the house on the left of the photo? I can't.

Changing home

2009-03-12T06:00:00.002Z

No, we are not about to move house again. Certainly not after all the blood, sweat and tears that have now gone into this cottage, not to mention the oodles of money. Although moving back south was another of my brother's crackpot ideas. Because of the difference in property prices, a move from south to north is usually a one way ticket and we have now decided that we do not want to move back south. We are going to stay here and enjoy the fruits of our labours.

I think that we have moved more times than has been good for us and I have noticed that there are several in blogland who are about to move house or who are trying to move house. So I thought that I would write a post about my/our moving experiences. My move into the one bedroom flat that was my first purchase doesn't really count as all I possessed, apart from clothes, records and books etc., was a cooker, a bed and a stool. Three years later I had outgrown the flat and moved on to a small house. My parents helped me move - well my father really, as my mother sat around fanning herself and complaining about the heat. On the advice of the removal man we tried to drive from the flat to the new house via a route that I was not familiar with and we got lost. The vendors had had the telephone disconnected in the days before mobile phones and it took several days of phone calls from phone boxes to get it reconnected and it was actually my father who eventually managed to get things sorted out. What would a girl do without her father?

I moved out of that house after I got married. The move itself was straight forward but I had the buyer from hell so we removed everything that we could. All my belongings went into storage for two weeks whilst we lived in my husband's house. We moved from my husband's house on St Valentine's Day to our first home. There were no problems with the move itself but we ended up spending a lot of time sitting around waiting for the money to go through in a cold damp multi-storey car park then waiting around outside the house in the rain for the vendors to get out of the house. By the time we were able to get into the house my husband had forgotten all about carrying me over the threshold. That evening we ventured out to find ourselves a take-away but in the dark and wet couldn't find one and ended up going to a restaurant for something to eat. By now we had forgotten that it was February 14. So there we were in our scruffy clothes amongst smartly dressed couples out for a romantic evening.

Another four and a half years later and we were on the move again. The removal company's estimator allowed for a removal van plus a small van but on the day the foreman decided that we didn't need the small van. And guess what - it didn't all fit into the removal van. The job had to be done in two trips and it was 8.30 pm before they finished unloading.

Seven years later we moved from Surrey to Chester at the end of the hot summer of 2003. The move started on a Monday with the B team. They were grumpy, disinterested and hungover. They managed to load unpacked suit cases on to the van and I had to asked for them to be unloaded. The local telephone directories also found their way on to the van and also had to be unloaded as the buyer had specifically asked for them to be left. In any case what use would Surrey phone directories be to us in Chester? About 2.30 in the afternoon they dumped a collection of travelling wardrobes in our living room and left. We were both so fed up with them that if it had not been for the fact that they had about three quarters of our belongings on the removal van, we would have happily told them not to come back. The following day the removal van was back this time with the A team who were everything that the B team had not been. Monday had been their day off after a removal trip to Europe. They managed to move us up to Chester and get us installed in the rented house without any problems.

After eight months of living in someone else's house we were desperate to move into a home of our own. By now we had mastered the art of moving. The only hitch was that one of our beds would not go round the bend at the top of the stairs in the cottage. It seems as if practise makes perfect but we are not planning on moving again any time soon.

Now read the sequel.

Happy Families

2009-03-06T06:00:00.002Z

Regrettably every word of this story is true. Charles Dickens could not have come up with a better story line.

My parents met after World War II and married two years later. Another two years on and I was born. Then two years and eight months later my brother made his entrance into the world. His arrival is my earliest memory. I can remember my father giving me breakfast then taking me over to my grandma's. I also remember sitting in the car outside the nursing home where he had been born at 3 am in the morning on 29 June. Young children were not allowed in hospitals then as they are today. After about two weeks my mother was allowed home with the new arrival. A few days later I arrived back home from grandma's. It was a fine sunny day. My old Silver Cross pram was parked in the back garden. I was lifted up by my father to have a look at what was in the pram. I remember looking at the bald sleeping head- it wasn't small, he weighed nine pounds - and thinking 'so that is what all the fuss is about'. He turned into a cherub with white blond curls and blue eyes with the sun shining out of his backside. By contrast I was an olive skinned gypsy with green eyes and brown hair. My pale and freckly mother couldn't quite identify with me. I was my father's daughter. I had inherited my dark skin and my looks from him.

Life was good. The little family was now complete. The children grew, went to school, had childhood ailments - chicken pox and measles (no MMR jab in those days), they broke arms and legs, wore braces on their teeth, passed exams, went to university, graduated then got jobs. My brother was the first to marry. A girl that my mother did not approve of and still does not after 27 years of marriage and two bright and attractive children. So determined was my mother that I was not going to marry an unsuitable husband, that I nearly did not get married. And we were not able to marry on the day of our choice because it did not suit my brother.

A few weeks after my husband and I married, in June 1991, my father was in hospital with what was to be the beginning of his final illness. Shortly after he was discharged from hospital my brother announced that he was going to the US to work. Three years earlier my brother's mother-in-law had had similar symptoms to my father and had subsequently died from lung cancer. My brother admitted to me that he recognised the symptoms but still went off to the US suspecting that our father was dying. My mother and I were not to know how ill my father was until the day after the 1992 election when he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. He died 29 days later.

My grieving mother desparately missed her blue eyed boy. The gypsy girl was a poor substitute but tried her best to comfort her mother. After all I had lost my father, who was the first love of my life. After a minor operation life became so stressful that I had to stop work. My husband was made redundant and I thought that we were destined to live on benefits. Around this time my mother moved from the house that she had shared with my father, to a bungalow near my brother, who was now back from the US but, conveniently at the time of the actual move, was abroad on business. Never mind, my husband and I were on hand to help.

In May 2006 Mum had a mini stroke which resulted in her very mild dementia becoming more severe. She came out of hospital on a cocktail of drugs and my brother was pointed in the direction of carers, which he did not do anything about. In November 2007 his son became ill. Still, despite numerous suggestions from me, he continued to do nothing about carers. February 21 was Mum's birthday and my brother spoke to me briefly on my mobile phone, when my husband and I were on our way to see her. On February 22 we drove the 200 odd miles back to Chester. Late on February 24 my brother sent an email to me, telling me that on February 20 that Mum's GP hold told him that it was time that she went into a home and demanding that I drop everything to go back down to Sussex to find a home for my mother. How I wish that my father was here to talk to.

Happy Families. Oh what a game!

Back to where it all began

2009-02-27T22:10:00.000Z

Last weekend we went down south. Recently when we gone down there, we have taken to staying in the hotel where it all began. It being married life. We have tried out a few hotels when we have gone down south to visit relatives and have found The Ship Hotel at Weybridge to suit our needs. We had our wedding reception there and I always think as we turn into the hotel car park that this is the first place that we came to as man and wife. It was not my first choice for my wedding reception but as I had only ten weeks to arrange the wedding I think that we were lucky to find anywhere to have a reception. Why did we do it at such short notice? I was making sure that he couldn't change his mind. No, we had a holiday planned that we decided to make our honeymoon.

The reason for the trip down south was primarily because it was my mother's ninetieth birthday on Saturday. But before we could get to her my brother phoned to ask where we were. Our conversation was brief. We had a good afternoon with my mother. We took her out for a run in the car then I replaced the desiccated remains of the flowers that I sent her for Christmas with the flowers that I had given her for her birthday and re-arranged the flowers that my brother had given her. We had birthday cake and tea and a chat.

Whilst down there we also had to visit my mother-in-law's flat in Surbiton (now sold) to read the gas and electric meters and we managed to squeeze in a quick walk around the Royal Horticultural Society's garden at Wisley.

We have been members of the RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) for some years, as the Wisley garden is only a few miles from where we use to live, but when we lived down there there was always something else to do and we rarely visited the garden. Now, whenever we are down there, we attempt to visit the garden. The weather for our walk around Wisley was fine and sunny. There were snowdrops everywhere, quite a few crocuses and some hellebores but surprisingly not one daffodil. However, the dogwood by the lake was spectacular (see above). Some areas of the Wisley garden were cordoned off to visitors for a variety of different reasons. The most notable being as a result of the recent heavy snow which had resulted in damage to the branches of many trees.

Home Sweet Home

2009-02-20T06:00:00.003Z

This post is probably not about what you think it is. Recently dementia has started to figure on the government's agenda and John Suchet, the former ITN newscaster, has raised the its profile, highlighting the problems that he is having coping with his wife's dementia. This current interest has resulted in letters to The Times supporting both the care home and remain in your own home options. One letter from an 80 year old grandparent did not want the life of their daughter and grandchildren blighted by having to look after them in their old age, implying that for them a care home would be the preferred option. Another letter from a Consultant Stroke Physician suggested that rather than investing in a network of dementia care homes, that elderly suffers should be cared for in their own homes by an army of carers. Do you have an elderly relative with dementia? And where do you stand in this debate?

So, you are wondering where does this fit into a blog about relocation and renovation? Well if we had not relocated 200 miles north west of where we used to live, we would not now be 250 miles from my mother, who has vascular dementia. (Do not worry she does not read my blog let alone know that I write one). I strongly believe that she should be able to remain in her bungalow for as long as possible with the help of carers and that is what she wants. Well to remain in her bungalow - I am not sure about the carers. My brother lives just ten minutes drive from my mother but cannot or will not arrange for carers to look after my mother. This has left me with no option but to look for a suitable residential home for her close to where we live as it is not practical for me to look at homes that are 250 miles away.

I started this task, which I have to say is rather daunting, by writing or emailing twelve homes in this area which I found on a care homes web site, requesting a brochure and details of fees etc. Of the twelve, only five responded with a brochure. I had a quick look at the brochures and decided that initially I would look at the nearest residential home to us which happens to be on the outskirts of the village that we live in. It also happens to be the most expensive and based on the glossy brochure provided, it looked to be the best. When I phoned to make an appointment to see the home I was asked if it was for me. I quickly informed them that it was for my mother as I thought ' do I sound old and doddery?' I was advised that I could go any time to see the home as long as I avoided meal times. The home which is set way back from the road and has a large and attractive garden, was clean and tidy and odour free. I was impressed and there was nothing that I could fault apart from the fact that it did not look as glossy as the brochure had led me to expect. The manageress took down some details then informed me that the one problem she had was that they do not take people with dementia. Right, back to the drawing board, I thought.

Back home I had another look through the brochures and tried to work out which homes took patients with dementia. I decided that I would simply have to ask before I arranged to view a home. Fortunately the next home that I approached specialises in patients with dementia but I had to make an appointment rather than turn up when it suited me. They sounded a bit disorganised but I should not pre-judge them. By now it was 12 noon and meal time I supposed, so it would not be convenient to be calling homes. I waited until about 2 pm, by which time I thought that lunch time would be over, then tried phoning another home. The phone rang and rang. I got no answer. So I came to the conclusion that the staff at this home must be having a nap with the patients. Never mind there was another home that I can try. I felt certain that I would not want to put my mother in this home but they say that you should look at as many homes as possible. This home is on a busy main road with a small garden at the rear. It was clean and tidy but somehow it was a bit dowdy. I was shown round by a large and jolly man who looked like Friar Tuck in a nurses uniform. As we climbed the stairs I asked if there was a lift. No, was the reply but there is a chair lift on the other stair case. We looked at bedrooms and bathrooms and chatted until we came to the other stair case. Looking down from the top I thought for a moment that I had been transported to the chair lift at a dry ski slope. It didn't look terribly safe to me.

So next to be viewed was the home specialising in patients with dementia, which had given me the impression of being disorganised. Well this turned out to be the best home so far and I would be happy for my mother to be in this one. It is in a village not far from here, surrounded by fields. It is modern, clean, warm, smell free. In fact everything that I was looking for and the manager was very helpful and understanding. So I think that Mum's name will be going on their waiting list, but I know that I also need to continue to look at some more homes.

St Valentine's Day Massacre

2009-02-14T06:01:00.002Z

Towards the end of 2005 the builder had finished, at last. We had a short break in Rome and then started to get on with decorating the cottage, from top to bottom. Now that we had the cottage laid out as we wanted, it was time to think about updating the burglar alarm. The concrete and asbestos garage had been replaced by a brick built garage with a slate roof, the outbuilding which had holes in the roof had been replaced with a much smaller double glazed conservatory and the large bathroom had been converted into a smaller bathroom and an en suite shower room. The old burglar alarm consisted of a large control panel in the hall containing an elastic band and a piece of string plus three sensors. Discretion did not come into it. The control panel was obvious the minute you were through the front door. So we got an estimate the for job and thought about it and in late January 2006 I went ahead and booked the installation. The company suggested Tuesday February 14. It was a convenient day for me, but I had a few reservations about it. I had my evening class that night and it was St Valentine's Day but really it is just another day and my husband was going to be away anyway.

When the engineers had not arrived by 9.15 am I phoned up to ask where they were. One of the two, assigned to our job, had had to go to the dentist. They would be along shortly. After another hour's await and another phone call his mate arrived to make a start. About 12 noon I had the full compliment of two engineers. This job was supposed to take a day and a half. How were they going to achieve that when they had already lost half a day? Important things first, they had lunch then had a walk around the cottage with specification for the job. By now it was time for me to have my lunch. As I sat at the kitchen table with my sandwich I wondered why I could hear knocking coming from the water pipes. I went to see how they were getting on and found the mate with his finger stuck in the living room wall trying to stop the flow of water from the pipe that his partner in crime had drilled. In the ensuing panic they switched off everything that they could in the air ring cupboard and anything water related. They also attempted to drain every drop of water from our water works and all of the water out of our oil fired boiler, thinking that it was a gas boiler. Eventually they realised that they were out of their depth and phoned for a plumber who had time to fix the leak but nothing else. In the short time that the plumber was in the cottage the mate managed to drill into another water pipe in the cupboard under the stairs. The plumber had obviously only been asked to repair one leak and left pronto. By now panic had set in and the engineers were phoning their colleagues for re-enforcement. Eventually they found an engineer colleague who had done a bit of plumbing and was able to come to their assistance. He managed to fix the second leak then set about getting the central heating boiler started unaware that the whole system had been drained of water. So his initial attempts to get the boiler going just filled our central heating system with air. After switching back on what they thought was everything that they had switched off, they managed to get the central heating boiler going. But the system was full of air and every radiator needed bleeding. By the time that they left it was too late to think about going to my evening class. One day's work and what had they done? Drilled into two water pipes and laid a few cables.

Two days later when my husband got home at about 6 pm they were still crawling around the house trying to finish the job. One and a half days work had taken three days! As a result of the Valentine's Day fiasco we were draining air from our radiators for weeks before we managed to get the system clear of air, the central heating boiler kept switching itself off and the first time that I tried to have a shower I found that the water supply to it was still turned off. Luckily I had chosen to use the shower over the bath so was able to use water from the bath taps to wash the shower gel off me.

The next day was Friday and we were due to go away for the weekend, but before we did my husband phoned the burglar alarm company with the intention of speaking to the Managing Director only to be informed that he was currently on a cruise down the Nile.

A refreshing toast to the respected blog

2009-02-10T17:30:00.005Z

Many of you will have already seen this article and be aware of the furor that it has caused in blogland. I know that the article is now nearly two weeks old, but I only came across it on Friday afternoon. Although we take The Times I did not read the article in the hard copy as it did not register with me that an article accompanied by the photograph a of a tarty looking girl would be about blogging. The article writes disparagingly about social networking via Blogs, Facebook and Twitter, heavily criticising the 'nothing is off limits' culture of some. Don Mills Diva was just one of the bloggers quoted without her full knowledge. She has started a campaign to 'respect the blog' which you can do by putting this logo

on your blog, linking it to her article, leaving a comment and writing a post about it yourself if you feel strongly enough.

Now onto a more pleasant aspect of blogging. I have been given this rather novel Lemonade award by A Brit in Tennessee, who is a Cheshire expat.

I had seen this award on other blogs and liked the look of it. Thank you to A Brit in Tennesse for thinking of me. Now I have to pass the award on to eight blogs which show great attitude or gratitude. Not an easy task. I am sorry that this award is not a BAFTA or a Grammy and that it is not something stronger. My nominations are as follows:

Congratulations to you all! Now it just leaves me to propose a lemonade toast to the respected blog.

Keep taking the tablets......

2009-02-05T11:14:00.003Z

Driving home through the snow on Monday evening I didn't see many other cars on the road and and I wondered how many other drivers were also on their way home from work after 9 pm? The snow looked very pretty as it clung to the trees and fell onto the slushy roads. I played safe and drove steadily. My 15 minute journey took 25 minutes. I had no desire to end up in a ditch as round here the farmers do not clear them and they are currently full of freezing and dirty water.

By Monday evening I had worked four out of the last five weekdays, working three different shifts. One early bird shift, one siesta shift and two graveyard shifts. An early bird shift is he first shift of the day and means getting up at some God forsaken hour. The siesta shift covers the middle of the day and the graveyard shift is the evening shift. Some unfortunate pharmacist has to be there to over see the sales of Calpol, Benylin and Night Nurse in the winter and Piriton and Calpol in the summer. No two shifts are the same, although the routine is always the same. Standing for hours on end. Sometimes it is hot. Sometimes it is cold.

Last Friday as I worked the siesta shift I found myself thinking 'why are you doing this? you used to like it but you don't anymore.' I had started at 11am, by now it was well after 1pm, I had never stopped. I was tired and hungry and the prescriptions would not stop coming in. When was I going to get my lunch? Not until after 2.30 pm. Pharmacy has changed unbelievably, from the sedate and gentleman like profession that I was so proud to join over 30 years ago, into a money spinning supermarket side show.

When I qualified medicine labels were hand written. Most of the medicines, which keep the world ticking today, had not been discovered and nothing came in a blister pack. Hand written became typed on a type writer and now labels are computer generated, which is just as well as the clever computer has also been programmed with all possible drug interactions. Once I only needed to remember that aspirin and warfarin interacted. Now there are too many interactions to memorise. My generation of pharmacists were taught to formulate creams and ointments, triturate powders and compound suppositories. Skills which I have never used and we are no longer allowed to make up medicines from scratch. The patient has to wait a week for a contract manufacturer to produce them.

Today, I am expected to dispense a prescription at the same time as supervising the assistants on the counter and while also juggling the supply of the morning after pill, giving smoking cessation advice, handling telephone queries, repeat dispensing, minor ailments scheme supplies, medicines use reviews (MURs) and any other requests from customers for my advice. Oh, and in my spare time I need to keep up to date by participating in Continuing Professional Development (CPD). You may think that GPs do all of this too. Yes, but they only see one patient at a time by appointment. Every week there is something new to get to grips with. One of the most recent is Clamelle, an antibiotic for chlamydia, a STI (sexually transmitted infection). The diagnostic kit plus course of antibiotics cost a mere £45. Who is going to stump up for this when they can get it for, at most, a prescription charge of £7.10 from their GP or GUM clinic (genitourinary medicine). You think that I am writing a foreign language. Yes, so do I. Then, coming soon is Alli to help with weight loss. I am not sure who is pushing through all these new ideas. I think that it is a combination of the NHS, the government and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB). Now the RPSGB is thinking that its members may be stressed! It is a possibility.

My working life started in hospital pharmacy then I moved into the pharmaceutical industry before finding my way into retail pharmacy. On a personal level hospital pharmacy is he most rewarding whereas the pharmaceutical industry is intellectually the most stimulating. I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have set the date by which I intend to hang up my mortar and pestle. In many ways it will be a sad day.

Our ideal home

2009-01-30T18:21:00.002Z

We moved to Chester in August 2003. As we were only able to spend two weekends house hunting, before we were due to move to Chester, we decided to rent, initially, rather than buy. Renting, we felt, would give us a better feel for the area. The only property that we had been tempted to look at was called Blue Pig Cottage. We both liked it but we both also had reservations about it. It did not quite tick all the boxes and rather than saddle ourselves with a property which we might later regret buying we decided that Blue Pig Cottage was not for us. We made the right decision as I have never regretted not buying Blue Pig Cottage. Having found a suitable house to rent, we settled ourselves into it, had a holiday then set about looking for a house to buy. Here is our wish list of what we wanted from our new home:

An older property with character - this we managed to achieve buying a late Victorian cottage. The previous owners have artexed some or the ceilings and put up beams. Neither of these features are Victorian but we can not afford to remove them. The beams do feel as if they have added character even if they are out of place.
Detached - this was an essential as I have had enough of noise from the neighbours. So the cottage is detached. It was originally two semi-detached farm workers cottages that have now been knocked into one cottage, by a previous owner.
A garage -yes, the cottage had a garage but it was largely made of asbestos and had to be demolished and rebuilt before we had use of it, which meant that we had no garage and had to buy a shed to house our garage items. Four years after the garage was built the shed still stands on what should be our vegetable garden.
In a village with a pub within walking distance - we are on the outskirts of a village and the nearest pub must be forty five minutes walk away along an unlit road with no pavement. I think that we failed on that one.
Property in need of decoration but not building work - the decoration was old and not to our taste so we were alright there but the minor building job which the estate agent suggested turned out to be a major project.
A reasonable size garden - this we have achieved, although when we moved here it was more a plot of land being mainly lawn and trees.
Two separate reception rooms -I would rather have to two smaller rooms than one large room. Easier to heat in the winter.
Four bedrooms -one room to use as a study. If husband's junk is not contained in one room it ends up all over the house. That leaves us with three bedrooms. Our intention was that the family could come to stay with us. How wrong could we be? If you move from south to north the family do not come to visit you. You have to visit them.
Two bathrooms - one for us and one for the visitors. What visitors?
Handy for shops and conveniences but a quiet location - there is no shop in the village. It probably isn't really a village. It is a long walk to anywhere including a bus stop. I have to admit that we are quite isolated, but most of the time it is quiet apart from the hum of farm machinery. You do need a car to live where we do. Both Chester and Ellesmere Port are only a few miles away and we are on the door step of the Wirral and Wales.

The only item on our wish list that we did not mange to achieve was the location. I would like to be able to walk to shops etc but it took six months of looking to find the cottage by which time we were both thoroughly fed up with the rented house and we realised that we were going to have to compromise on something.

The winds of change

2009-01-27T17:47:00.002Z

This photograph of the neighbour's leafless cherry tree is the fourth photograph from my fourth folder of photographs.

French Fancy has tagged me to post and write about the fourth photograph in my fourth folder. I am afraid that it is nowhere near as attractive a photo, as the one that she posted herself.

I am now, not quite sure why I took this photo, but I do remember that I took it with the intention that it would be viewed along side the photo below left, which is of the same tree taken when the leaves had started to turn but before they had started to drop. The photo of the tree in leaf was taken last Autumn, just one week earlier. In between the two photos we had a couple of very windy days which made all the difference and as usual all of the leaves were blown onto our patio. Likewise in the Spring all of the pink blossom gets blown onto our patio.

Now I need to pass the tag onto four bloggers, who are as follows:

akelamalu

fat frumpy & fifty

strawberry jam anne

the dotterel

Cheshire Life

2009-01-23T16:30:00.004Z

What do you think of when Cheshire is mentioned? A Cheshire cat, Cheshire cheese or something else? There does not appear to be anything typical or distinctive about Cheshire. Perhaps this is because in the past the county has been re-arranged with towns added and taken away. So when a move to Chester was mooted I did not know what to expect. It was one place that I had never been to. My husband started work in Chester in April 2003, commuting weekly, from Surrey, and staying in a B&B. By June he had found himself a flat and I was able to pay my first visit to Chester. It was early evening when I caught my first glimpse of Chester. The day's shoppers had gone home and the evening's pubbers and clubbers were yet to come out. It seemed very pleasant with its' sandstone cathedral, Roman ruins, ancient walls and mock Tudor buildings - built by the Victorians actually. At the time I was really a visitor and Chester is really a city for visitors. I see things differently now that it is my home.

My initial impressions of the countryside around Chester were of its' flatness by comparison with the undulating North Downs area of Surrey that we lived in. Yes, the west of Cheshire is flat whereas the east is hilly. In between is the stunning Cheshire Plain. A typical Cheshire house is built of the local, red and black Cheshire brick, with a Welsh slate roof. There are a number of old black and white 'Tudor' style houses around the county and sandstone was an equally popular choice of building material.

There is a glossy monthly magazine published here called Cheshire Life - cover photo is to the right. When we first moved here I subscribed to it but soon found that it contained more articles about the high life of Cheshire's socialites photographed in DJs and evening dresses and adverts for expensive houses than it did articles and features about the towns and villages of Cheshire.

You can not live in this area without realising that you are on the edge of WAG land. For those of you that do not live in the UK a WAG is the term used to describe the wives and girlfriends of sportsmen. It was first coined to described the wives and girlfriends of football players. Football is a way of life here. Our immediate neighbours support Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United, which are all not far away. I quietly support my own team - Hull City. Surrey is devoid of top flight professional football teams. The big teams are all up in London.

In general the shops and stores here were smaller than their cousins down south, when we first moved here, but some have been enlarged and new shopping centres opened in the time that we have been living here. I had never seen the discount shops T K Maxx, Matalan or Poundland until we moved to Chester. Such shops simply did not exist in Surrey when we lived there and I rarely shop in them. There are one or two shops from the Surrey area that I miss but I have learnt to live without them.

The accent is a softer form of Scouse. Thanks to the Beatles I can understand it, but I do sometimes have problems with some of the colloquialisms. And there were times, when we were renting, that I felt as if I had moved to a foreign country.

One of the nice things about Cheshire is its love of gardens. The climate, which benefits from Cheshire's western location, is gentle enough to allow most plants to grow outdoors in the summer although they may need protection in the winter. There are several gardens in Cheshire that are open to the public and we have our very own flower show at Tatton Park.

Righting a wrong

2009-01-19T21:49:00.003Z

We have been decorating the snug/dining room. One end of the room is a small living room, which we use mainly in the winter, hence the name the snug and the other end is the dining room. Yes, I know we only did two years ago but unfortunately we painted it the wrong colour. The room was a bit dark so we tried to make the room as light as possible by painting the walls beige, which looked alright initially but by the time we had added predominantly beige curtains and a beige sofa, I decided that the overall effect was a bit insipid. The carpet is green and the curtains have some pink and green in them. My first thoughts were to injection some colour into the room by having the sofa re-covered in a pink fabric. I soon realised that this was a rather expensive solution to the problem and decided that a less expensive option would be to paint the walls pink. That would be easy, I thought. No need to worry about the ceiling or the woodwork. But I have still had to pack away all the glasses and china that we keep in the unit in the dining room together with all of the ornaments. Remove bits and pieces (clutter) which find their way into which ever room we are using at the time and take down the curtains plus the curtain pole. All of which took several hours last week. This weekend we have concentrated on the snug end of the room.

When I say we have been decorating I am using the royal 'we' as although the painting itself is a joint effort. My husband paints the walls with a roller and I paint the tops and bottoms of the walls plus the fiddly bits, which takes me about four times as long as it takes my husband. I seem to have drawn the short straw, as usual but at 5' 4" to his 6' 1" I am vertically challenged where using a paint roller is concerned. So really, I have been decorating. And whilst I was busy with a paint brush my husband occupied himself fixing draught excluders to the front and back doors in an attempt to keep out the pesky mice. The room has now been transformed to a delicate shade of pink (similar to the pink of the butterfly below) and I have spent this afternoon cleaning it up and putting things back. It does look better. The room now seems to have more character as we have left the chimney breast beige.

I have also chosen floor tiles for the conservatory and booked the tiler, and looked at floor tiles, units and counter tops for the utility room.

Now on a different note Moments from Suburbi a has kindly given me this pretty award. Thank you Suburbia. Do visit her blog and leave a comment. This is the blurb that goes with it and needs to be posted alongside the award on your blog.

Blogs who receive this award are 'exceedingly charming' say it's authors. This award is a fine one because it focuses not on the glory and fanfare of blogging, but on the proximity to one another through this online world. 'This blog invests and believes in the proximity - nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must chose eight more and include this clever-written text into the body of their award.'

It is difficult to choose eight blogs to give the award to as I think that you all deserve it. So I am going to award it to the first eight that leave a comment. Hope that that is alright. Brain has become too tired and confused choosing tiles and counter tops!