Hello Everyone

Hello everyone I hope you all had a good Christmas and  a Happy New Year.

I am in the land of the living and thank you for your emails enquiring if I was okay.  I am,  although in the run up to Christmas things were a bit fraught around here for several reasons. My partner suffers from Bipolar (more commonly known as manic depression).  He was dreadful and extremely difficult in the run up to Christmas and Bah Humbug was the phrase most associated with him at this point in time.  Wouldn't do anything didn't want to celebrate was not interested in anything (not helped by the fact that at that point he thought he had taken his medication and it turned out he hadn't. When he has these spells he is very difficult to live with and it is not much fun.  I had manged to get him in a better frame of mind by Christmas Eve and then matters went downhill a bit slightly after that.  Please see below for further details.

The downward slide all started where I had two wardrobe rails collapse on me and I ordered a replacement (I have a lot of clothes) which I ordered from Ebay and which item was to be delivered in my last full week of holiday so that I could get said clothes hung up out of the way.  In the interim they had been hung up around the house in doorways which was driving me scranny whilst I was waiting for delivery of said item.  Talk about incompetence the delivery company tried to deliver whilst I was not here and that evening having found a card through the door I went on their website using their redelivery programme and reorganising delivery for the following Monday.  Waited in all day on the Monday no delivery. (It turned out that they had tried to redeliver on the Friday but I only found this out from their computer system the following Tuesday.  they only make two attempts at delivery. Lots of tooing and froing and waiting in five days on the trot even after making a complaint and being assured by the customer advisor that it would be redelivered - and it was not.  In desperation I then contacted the provider making a complaint through Ebay and the upshot was I did not get it for Christmas but received it yesterday.  Something small but not a good start and I had planned to play so much in that last week before the holiday itself which did not materialise at all.

I then fried my phone lost every single number - the software had been corrupted on the phone and the numbers had not stored to the sim so I ended up getting a new phone.  Even my brother's number and family numbers all gone and I have slowly been restoring the same ever since but this time I am writing them down as well as a safety precaution.  At the time this did not seem too much of a problem but later on it did become so especially when trying to get in touch with my mum who was at my brother's Christmas day.

Christmas Eve we were doing the last of the shopping other half took me to Sainsburys in the car and then was taking me back into town and the car died on us - major gear box trouble which will cost over £1,200 to repair - the car is not worth that so we are currently car less.  Fortunately OH has recovery service as part of his insurance so the car was brought home.  However early evening on Christmas Eve we normally do a present run which did not happen either.

Boxing day my mum was supposed to be coming for dinner.  Arrangements were made via mum to my brother who kindly agreed to help out and deliver my mum so that she could have her Christmas with us. 

Christmas Day night I developed an upset stomach migraine and chucking up and because of my mum's medical condition if any of us are unwell we keep clear so as not to make her ill. Could not find a number for my brother or my my mum's mobile number and eventually contacted my newphews by email apologising for cancelling and mum rang us when she got home and we arranged  follow up day for her to have her Christmas with us.  By this I was extremely upset as I so felt that I was letting her down and spoiling her Christmas and with everything else that had gone on as well I was more than a little frustrated.

But hey ho these things happen we have to put matters in the right context and in the greater scheme of things, we had a Christmas of sorts (not as planned) but we had a nice hot dinner and were in a warm house.  Because of the horrific weather conditions others were not so lucky, so despite everything I do feel very blessed and very lucky despite the hiccups.

We are carless at the moment I am having to walk everywhere.  OH is being transported to work by his son and daughter in law.  There may be a chance that the car might be able to be kept going but we will not know about that until the end of the month when we can afford to have the engineer have another look at it but we are not hopeful so will be carless until we can afford to buy another for which we will have to save hard.  

We seem to have hit a spate in the household where everything is wearing out, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, freezers, fridges. I need a new three piece suite and lounge carpet etc. etc. A list has been made and we are going to do what we can working through item by item. I also need new bed linen and towels but we can only do what we can a little at a time and in priority order.

So I am hoping that things get better from hereon in. Fingers crossed toes plaited.

Catch you all soon.

Pattypan

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