Life

All seems to be functioning normally in the world of my student daughter.  She is stressed and overtired, wigging out at little things, even when things are going well.  As I said all is functioning normally in her world.  Unless things change we are expecting her home for 24 hours on Saturday, when at least I can give her a good hug.


Life here is a kaleidoscope of highs and lows, stresses and sweet moments.  The work for Royal Mail which I mentioned in this previous post started well but quickly dried up to at most two shifts a week.   Last night for the first time in his life he worked a night shift as it was the only available shift this week.  The poor man is like a zombie today despite having slept.  We had agreed that he shouldn't sleep all day as to do so would compromise his ability to sleep well tonight.  Somehow I don't think that he will be having a late night.  
Tomorrow however, everything changes.  No more Royal Mail for a while, he is heading to Newcastle to start a very temporary contract for a few days - and it is only days at this stage.  He will be home in just over a week but it is better than two shifts a week and at a much better rate of pay.  The call about this contract came as a swift answer to prayer after we had spent time praying for some encouragement.  God is so gracious to us.


On Monday I had an appointment at the hospital for a surgical pre-assessment in preparation for a total knee replacement.  The length of the waiting list indicates that I should be admitted sometime in January but a lot of people cancel their admissions in the run up to Christmas so we are hoping to ensure that we get ahead of ourselves and get all the Christmas preparations well under way so that if I am asked to take a cancellation I can.

She's leaving home

 26 hours ago I squeezed my daughter into the car alongside as many of her possessions as she could shoehorn into the space available.  We then headed West to Lancaster where she was about to move into her first house, even if it is only a student let, it is still her first house.  She was the first of the three girls sharing, to move in.  As student houses go it isn't bad, it is quite spacious, maybe a little cold at first but she soon got the heating blasting out until it was too hot to bear - we then found that someone had left the thermostat on at 30 degrees.  What it was however is filthy, we soon got that sorted with a twenty four hour blitz of cleaning, I have never before had to sweep dust off the walls of a house with a broom, not only the walls but also the ceiling.  I had to scrape years of accumulated grease and grime from the tops of the kitchen wall cabinets, clean out the insides of drawers and cupboards and clean out the fridge.  Surprisingly the one area which didn't need cleaning was the oven.  By the time the other girls turned up today the place had been thoroughly fettled as the old Yorkshire expression has it.  Swept, dusted, vacuumed, kitchen and bathroom cleaned, windows cleaned, nasty, dirty curtains taken down and replaced by fresh clean ones. Some of the grime was a bit too ingrained for the normal domestic equipment we had to hand but on the whole it was a totally different house from the one we entered at 6.30 yesterday evening.
When Elizabeth moved out of her university flat last year we scrubbed it out and left it spotless - that doesn't seem to have happened for a few years in this house - what was there was not just the detritus of one year.
Not surprisingly Elizabeth and I were both pretty shattered by the end of it all but I know she will keep going on adrenaline until she drops into bed this evening - whenever that might be!  I on the other hand had a long drive home alone and am now typing this in an effort to stay awake.


She is now happily living in her new house with two friends and enjoying what I am sure will become a hectic social life in the couple of weeks before lectures begin again, we on the other hand will have to live with a quiet hole which is usually filled with a noisy, boisterous young woman who alternately delights us and drives us mad.   Still it will be Christmas before we know it!


(Hands up those who got the Beatles reference in the title!)

Grr

I am cross, I am more than cross - I am enraged and what's more I am outraged.


My husband and I got our full driving licences in the same year.  We have the same driving history and the same no claims discount.  Everything about us and driving is the same.  I am 2 years older than he is but we are at an age where that doesn't really make a difference, but when we obtained quotes today in both our names for the same car his was significantly lower than mine.  That makes me cross, what makes me really angry is that the insurance company won't tell me why that is the case.


The only real difference between us is that I am female and he is male.  The fact that they cannot/will not tell me why my premiums are higher than his leads me to the conclusion that there is sexism at work here and that takes me to the top of the anger scale.  


Anger is not of itself a bad thing, it is only when the anger takes control of a person that it is bad and I am not about to let that happen but just occasionally there is a crumb of transient comfort in letting the imagination run free.  (Be assured though that that last statement does not have anything to do with violence)

My Husband

I am so proud of my husband!


As a consequence of factors outside his control, his contract in London came to an abrupt end several weeks before it should have done.  He finished work on Friday and as he did so he made a phone call to an agency which he often uses when he is between contracts.  There was no-one there at the time and he left a message on their answering machine letting them know that he was available for work.  It is a mark of the good reputation which he has built for himself that this morning, on the first working day since Friday (because of the Bank Holiday), he got woken up by a phone call from the agency offering him work this afternoon with the Royal Mail.  Whilst it isn't good pay and won't enable us to meet all our commitments it will put food on the table and we are grateful to God for this provision.   My husband is not used to manual labour and finds the work physically very taxing and at times very painful as it caused him a repetitive strain injury the first time he did it and that injury has flared up each time he has done it since, but he keeps on going and takes every shift which is offered to him.

Week 2

My husband is currently working on a contract in London, although that is coming to an end very soon.  When he is in that area he rents a room in a family home as the cheapest form of accommodation in what is a very expensive area.  He has been in the same house for two six month stints and has got to know the family quite well.  He is staying in an East London vicarage with 5/6 bedrooms two of which are let.  When the family he lives with mentioned that they were planning to go on holiday they also suggested that we might like to go down and stay in the house with him whilst they were away.  This would give us the opportunity of a holiday which we might not have had otherwise, and we would also be house-sitting.  The house-sitting proved to be a very good idea, as whilst we were there I was reading in the Evening Standard about a lady who went away for the weekend and came back to find that squatters had moved into her house in her (short) absence, thrown most of her personal possessions in the garden in bin bags, except the clothes which were being worn by one of the squatters, her wine which they were drinking from her glasses - they did offer her a drink.  They told her that the lady who owned the house was dead and that her son had rented the house to them.  She was most surprised to hear this as she was obviously not dead and she didn't have a son.  She had to go to the High Court to get them evicted but unfortunately they had trashed her house and her belongings.


For us though it proved a much happier story as we had a very good week although David had to work we were able to be together in the evenings.  During the day we were out and about most of the time.  We went into central London most days although we did spend one day exploring the Essex countryside.  Well we tried to - we couldn't see much because of the rain.  It wasn't any old rain, it was a Marks and Spencer type rain - thick and impenetrable, lashing and bouncing, opaque curtains of water.  We had a look at Waltham Abbey church because it was at least indoors, we couldn't see any of the rest of the abbey because of the heavy rain and when we came to head home we were crawling along at about 15mph because it was unsafe to do any more.    We managed to have a quick look at Theydon Bois before the rain started, that happened just as we were going to sit on the village green to eat our lunch.  Epping forest was just a fog on the windscreen as we ate our lunch in the car in the vain hope that the rain would ease up enough for us to take a walk. 
The other days on the whole were fabulous, warm enough not to have to worry about coats or jackets (with one memorable exception)  We wondered the streets and absorbed sights, sounds and atmosphere.  We visited Covent Garden where Christopher and I had been before but Beth hadn't.  She was hoping that we might be able to get affordable seats for the opera (we knew that really wasn't very likely) but when we got to the door of the Royal Opera House she was crestfallen to see a notice announcing that it was closed until early September for refurbishment.
On another day Beth arranged to meet up with a friend for the day.  Her friend lives 30 - 40 miles from us but they couldn't organise themselves to meet up close to home and ended up spending the day together in London.  I found them in Harrods - what a surprise.  Christopher and I had spent the day in the Science Museum which would have been great if their signage had been good.  We spend far too long following signs to things which just weren't there.  
The highlight of our week was our visit to Parliament.  We had a guided tour of the Palace of Westminster and saw both the chambers, plus much else - the Robing room where the Queen dons the crown for the State Opening of Parliament, lobbies, meeting rooms, and the voting lobbies.  It is stressed time and again that one may not sit down in the legislative chambers, no reason was given for this with regard to the House of Lords, but in the House of Commons the MPs have had to stand for election to win the right to a seat in the House and therefore no-one who has not fought for the right to a seat may ever sit down in that chamber.   When we came out of Parliament we met up with David who had been visiting Millbank tower for work and we went off to find something to eat.  Finding food is always a challenge for us because of Christopher's inability to eat wheat.  We ended up in Wetherspoons in Victoria station out of pure desperation.   Beth and I then went to visit friends who live in Bloomsbury.  We had a lovely couple of hours with them with much laughter, it is usually too long between visits although this time I had been able to visit them in June as well.  
The next day being Saturday we were all able to go out together and set off in brilliant sunshine for the Cabinet War Rooms in Whitehall.  The weather forecast had suggested a light rain shower at 1 o'clock.  When we emerged from the underground at Westminster we were met by crowds sheltering from a humongous rainstorm which went on for hours - so much for a light shower - thanks Met Office.  We waited for about an hour and then just gave up and got wet.  We headed straight to the CWR in the hope that they would have a cafe where we could get something to eat.  Sadly their attitude is as bad as their cafe.  After 3pm they do not serve anything other than sandwiches and don't expect them to be polite about it.  Sandwiches are of course out of the question for Christopher unless they are made with wheat-free bread and of course not many places cater for that so we were unable to eat until after we came out of the Cabinet War Rooms well after 5.30.

There is one place I do want to mention because I was so very impressed by the staff.  We were in Carnaby Street - the home of fashion in the1960s - and still very much a focus of fashion.  Christopher went to a shop which sold Vans (a type of shoes) and was pretty much in 7th heaven.  I was using my walking stick a lot in London and when I went into the shop I saw some seats and headed towards them, one of the staff saw me and said "do please sit down - would you like a free drink?"  WOW - is that service or what?  I didn't have a drink but I can tell you I was mightily impressed.  Well done to the Vans shop on Carnaby Street.

One week

Two weeks ago my daughter was going to a Christian camp.  This was known about well in advance and planned for.  She was to be a tent leader.  My son had been offered the opportunity to go as 'crew' (helping with preparing and serving food and probably several other tasks as well) but had refused.  The phrase "there is no way I am getting up that early in the mornings" was heard on several occasions.   Daughter having been on camp last year decided that she wanted to make it a little more civilised this year and wanted to take a tent with a sleeping compartment which would be a little warmer and would also keep the bugs out (she is a complete wimp when it comes to bugs).  She was sharing this tent with her fellow tent leader and good friend. When she announced that she wanted to go a day early to get her tent set up and organise herself before the onslaught of the campers I thought this was a very sensible idea, until the realisation dawned that she was intending on sleeping in the tent on her own for the first night.  This I did not perceive to be a good idea, it is not just the bugs she is a wimp about.   I knew that she would be petrified in the tent alone at night, especially if there were bugs, more especially if there was lightening, even more especially if she heard footsteps of the night watch staff around the camp - she would have convinced herself that it was a deranged serial killer on the prowl.  It would be more likely to be a starved cereal hunter but the mind plays tricks in the dead of night - sorry poor choice of words there.
I insisted that she had to have someone in the tent with her on that first night.  When she eventually gave in she was heard to admit that she "would be a bit jittery" on her own - hah - a bit?!!!  Having tried all other avenues to find someone to share her tent that first night she finally climbed down from the high horse she had mounted over the subject and asked her brother, very nicely, if he would spend the night with her.  Being a loving brother deep down (very deep down) he agreed.  Consequently I delivered her with a bag packed for at least three weeks, a tent and a brother accompanied by an overnight bag.  I can't tell you how much I was looking forward to a peaceful, child free evening on my own.  I was not however surprised to receive a text an hour after I got home saying "can I stay?"  I then had to scramble around to find sufficient clean clothes, that is clothes which weren't draped stylistically over the carpet, chair, desk, bed and any other available surface in his room, or stuffed into corners, under the bed and in places I hadn't even thought of.  No wonder the boy complains that he never has any clothes.  My much anticipated peaceful evening was shattered but it was to be replaced by a calm, relaxed, childfree week - bliss.  Having got everything packed and delivered to the minibus which was collecting the campers I was FREE. 
For the next week I tidied and cleaned the house and it stayed that way.  I ate only when I was hungry, I cleared away my cups and glasses as I used them so that the place was neat and comfortable.  I read, I crafted, I relaxed - it was bliss and I savoured every moment.  I made lots of cards and tried out lots of different ideas and played around somewhat with card and paper.  I caught up on making several cards so that I shan't have last minute rushes for the next couple of months at least.  Did I miss my offspring?  Only until they walked through the door and started squabbling again and making mess, leaving laundry all over the floor for me to clean and iron.  At that point I could have wished them right back on camp in the wind and rain.
My son didn't go on camp as 'crew' assisting the activities leader instead, but he did end up "getting up at that time in the morning" and he loved every minute of it even though it meant sharing a ridge tent without an inner tent with other staff members.  He has learned a lot, made a lot of new friends and I suspect he will be keen to go next year.

Squabbling siblings

My son finished school on May 20 and then finished his exams on June 20 having therefore had several weeks of nothing to do for the lst few weeks but on the whole he has managed to amuse himself.


My daughter has been home for 2 and a half weeks and she claims that she is bored.  She has had a 5 day visit from her boyfriend, squabbled with her brother, been out with her friends, bickered with her brother, celebrated her birthday, squabbled with her brother, read a lot of books, bickered with her brother and today she is so bored that she is emptying her bedroom of all the detritus acquired over the last 20 years.  For that last reason I am rather delighted that she is so bored. 


I on the other hand am in danger of losing my mind - this is only the beginning of the summer break - can I take the squabbles for the next two months?

There is so much going on just now that I may have to split the blog into several parts.  
Last week  was my son's high school prom.  Oh my he looked so handsome, so grown up and sooo smart.  It warms a mother's heart to see a teenaged boy looking so smart and tidy.  Such a shame it was only for the one night.  I must add that he isn't sneering in the photographs but struggling (and failing) not to squint because of the sun in his eyes.

He and his friend went in a BMW 730d driven by a friend from church.  

 The next day when I asked him how the evening was, his response was "the car was amazing!"  He then went on to tell me all about how it felt, how smooth it was and all the other features of the car, hardly a word about the prom.  Our friend also volunteered to go and pick them up at the end of the evening so that they could leave in the same style as they had arrived in, unlike their colleagues who were standing around waiting for parents to pick them up in the family car.




My husband came home for the weekend - and a very busy weekend it was too.  I drove to Lancaster on Friday to help our daughter to get her flat cleaned and packed up at the end of her first year of university.  I had booked myself into a hotel for the night to enable me to get an early start the next day.  It was quite a treat to have a hotel room to myself - usually when we stay in a hotel there are either 3 or 4 of us in the one room, so it felt huge and I was able to use the bathroom at my leisure.  Such a shame I left my nightie behind!  My husband and son came over the next day to help with the packing and transporting.  It is a good thing they did, there is no way we could have got it all into one car - both cars were packed to the roof with her belongings - and that included the back seats - think I will hire a removals van next year!  There were four of them sharing a flat (self contained study bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms and a large shared kitchen).  Most of them were very good about cleaning up behind themselves but just one of them was a lazy little madam who thought she shouldn't have to clean anything and didn't.  Whilst it may have seemed like pandering to her idleness to do the cleaning, we didn't want to lose any deposit - she didn't care.  I spent hours cleaning a filthy oven - the girl couldn't be bothered to buy a baking tray so she just put things on the shelves. She left food to go mouldy in the fridge, staining the plastic in the process, she couldn't even be bothered to empty her frozen food out of the freezer so that I could defrost it.  She just told me to throw it out.  By 2pm having cleaned the kitchen thoroughly and washed the floor I warned her to be careful about walking on the wet floor at which point she was just beginning to pack up her clothes.  Now we are awaiting her first year results which will be posted online in a couple of weeks.


Sunday
We were planning to make this Father's Day as it was going to be the first day we were all together since before the official Fathers' Day but we had forgotten that Christopher was going to be paintballing all day for his friend's birthday.  So it was just the three of us for most of the day.  The weather was very hot and we were not really up for much more than vegetating in the cool of the sitting room.  As David was not going back until this evening we just moved the day from Sunday to Monday.  


Monday
We went out for lunch today to a Chinese restaurant which does a buffet style presentation so that we could all have a little of whatever we fancied.  It went down very well.  David was very pleased with his presents and he enjoyed the day and in fact pronounced the whole weekend a great time.  We spent the morning finishing off getting Elizabeth's possessions put away - a mammoth task in itself - and clearing up so that we could make space in the spare room for her boyfriend to come and stay tomorrow in time for her birthday on Wednesday.   David has now left for London again in preparation for going back to work tomorrow.  It is always sad when he goes away but we are grateful that he has the work.  We are praying hard that the contract will be extended again to give him some work over the autumn and winter periods.




Well I seem to have managed to condense it all into one post and have brought the blog up to date - I wonder what I have missed out?

A quick catch up

I had forgotten how long ago I started this blog - I think I thought it was sometime last autumn but having looked back I see it was in May and so many things which I blogged about back then have moved on.  My daughter was taking her A Levels, hoping to secure a place at university and she has now just about finished her first year at university.  My son headed into Year 11 and GCSEs and has now finished them and has left school.  The anniversary of my great-nephew's death has been and gone and today is the anniversary of his funeral.  The pain doesn't get any easier for his parents and siblings but life goes on and they have to do so too.  Back in August my daughter went off at short notice to help out at camp and she loved it so much that she is planning on heading there again this year.  She was sharing a tent with another girl who it turned out was already at Lancaster University which was a great blessing to her as it meant that when she arrived at university she already knew someone.  Next year they are even sharing a house! 

Work and Exams

Gosh - so long since I posted.  In my last post I mentioned that I had got a job but that it was having detrimental effects on my knees and feet.  Sadly those detrimental effects got much worse and eventually I had to heed medical advice to give it up.  My right knee was becoming so painful and swollen that it was almost impossible to stand on it at all.  I had a course of Ostenil injections which gave me one week of blessed relief - or could that have been down to the fact that I was off work for a week.  They should have given me a lot more weeks of relief but unfortunately the damage is too severe and I am now awaiting a knee replacement operation.
In addition to that the standing on my feet meant that my arches dropped and I now have flat feet, which means that my feet have spread and I now need shoes a size larger - not good news when you already take a size 8.


Nothing much has changed in our lives, work is still an issue.  I am struggling to find something I can do which isn't affected by my knee and my husband is still on temporary contracts, although the current one is for 6 months.  He is working in London (but not the job he went for in all that snow - they didn't even get back to him - so rude!)  and only gets home every other weekend and sometimes not even that. We don't want to complain though - it is work after all.   


Over the last few weeks we have been suffering examination fever - my son has been doing his GCSEs and my daughter had her last 1st year examination at university this morning.  Thank goodness they can both relax now.  My son - my baby - has now left school - where did the time go?   Now we have the long wait to August for his results.  Fortunately Beth will get her results within a couple of weeks.  In the meantime Christopher has his prom in a couple of weeks, his tux is hired and shoes bought, now all we have to do is get his hair cut - major event!  He looks so wonderful in his tux - it does a mother's heart good to see him.