The Review of 2011

January I am finding the start of the year difficult, I am getting a little pain between my shoulder blades, I cooked a well received dinner last week for the my mum, Tom and little brother Glen, and I was planning to make it stake but they wanted Vegetarian so made a veggie shepherds pie, roast potatoes, and over cooked Veggies.

Feb its very cold snow is deep, Obi loves it, I am starting to prepare my vegetables for the garden lots and lots of little pots are scattered all over the conservatory window sills potato’s, Onions, sweet corn, broccoli (which turned into Peas!) I am starting to use GTN more and more.

March I am going to hospital for 3 new stints, the operation is so painful, I wish I had died there and then on the operation table, I so want to look after myself more, but I am getting so much stress from the DSS they offered me to lug pig bodies for a butcher, even thought I love animals I refuse such a job and have a doctors note to prove I cannot do this type of heavy work, it don’t stop them asking me to do other stupid jobs, is it worth the hassle? The pain is back and my arm is getting sore.

April, the only fool is me, I am actually letting some jobs worth at the dss push me around, the only thing I am looking forward to is going home and taking Obi for a walk over the fields, there I can get lost in my own thoughts and everything don’t feel so bad even if its only for a short time, Obi hair is getting long he needs a clean he has a bit of poo on his bum, poor mutt, I try to clean him in the field, the pain comes back and hammers me, I am over a mile from home in the middle of the Essex fields. I walk back home so slowly, I wonder if I can actually make it do I let obi make his own way home and follow him? I make it, I tell fox I am having a heart attack, she calls the ambulance and I change slowly to my bed ware, the ambulance comes and a paramedic blocks our drive way fox can’t follow the ambulance and she has to wait for Nicky to come and watch after Obi. I spend the next 10 days getting my body fixed out and I have another Angioplasty this time in my arm, its less painful, which gives me a lot of comfort, but I vow to myself if I have another heart attack, I would rather not say and just slip away, I am feeling so low, I am feeling that my world has no comfort, nothing to look forward to, and I am so tired of feeling the pain in my body day after day, and I feel I just constantly moan at fox and drag her down.

May, I am only out of hospital a week and our Plumbing has fallen apart, no heat no hot water, our baths are filled from the kettle and pots, and the dss are being nasty they refused to accept my doctors sick certificate cause I did not fill out some shit form in time, even when I explained why I did not do it on time, they did not even look at it, my thoughts are so troubled, I am relighting so much on Fox her wages are being over stretched.

June, still no hot water or heat, we are using a really old gas fire in the front room in the evening, I am still taking it easy but its made more difficult from the DWP who are sending me round in circles from one dept to the next this goes on for nearly 8 weeks till me and fox decide that enough is enough and tell them were to stick there money, its going to be hard from now on, I am going to have to get used to having no money in my pockets.

July it’s a lovely hot sunshine almost everyday walking Obi feels so joyful and I met a few new people on Facebook, one in particular helps me to start to put pen to paper once again and start back on blogging and is one of my great supporters and always comments and shares my work.

August I have done a few feet and saved the money up to give to Fox for her birthday even Obi earned some money from being a good boy and gave mummy dog £5 and a card with his own paw print, I make her a lovely dinner and do her feet wish is not a treat its something she gets when she needs it, a good stress relief and helps send her off to the land of nod. A new program has come one My ghost story it runs for 12 weeks I love this show, since it is full of people who have in some way recorded the paranormal, its my Thursday night treat to sit with orange juice and some digestives and watch. Still no hot water or heating, we might have to ask the plumber if he can just fix it up for us?

September, it passes by I had my birthday Fox got me some new boots for the fields, and my sister gave me some money which I got a few books with, Obi is having his hair cut, which seems to be every 4 months, but less these days since the person I was meant to open a business with had let me down so badly, I am reticent in letting her touch Obi but she is the only person I know that can do a proper job, I do forgive but can’t forget I always forgive family- family a love that bonds.

October OMG I felt like a pedo at the village party it was full of kids and I mean full of kids, it was for the pre school in the village, I stayed all but 20 minutes before I had to get away, I took obi for a long walk over the fields and sat in St Mary’s church yard among the dead and gravestones took some pictures which look kind of spookily good. Still no hot water and heating, we have talked to the plumber he tells us its will cost us nearly £800 to fix it up and no guarantees that it will work its been so un used for so long.

November I am well in the swing of my blog now and have picked up from where I have left off, still less blogs than I am used to but I am getting a fair amount of readers from friends on Facebook and what I put on Twitter and adding the links to Yahoo news and answers. Still no heating or hot water, but we have saved enough for it to be done but there are consequences to pay.

December the plumbers arrived and get to work it takes the whole day the heating is fixed the hot water is fixed and its all working according to plan, we pay the plumber £780 in crisp £20 notes, our Yule money gone in the space of a second, no presents no tree in fact the only person to get a present was Obi

from me and fox he loved his squeaky toys and tinkling rain deer, we had a visit from Mum Tom and Glen they got us a little present me a Celtic hat and scarf which I will treasure, I am meeting my sister soon its her birthday on the 28th/12 I plan to bake her a cake, as my statement of love for her.

I had a hospital appointment on the 23rd seems my heart is still blocked and I will once again be going to have a radio nuclide test at one of the London hospitals in the new year.

http://www.bhf.org.uk/heart-health/tests/radionuclide-tests.aspx That’s my year in miniature I hope you have had a good Yule and new year I hope that the year ahead is one of wonder and good cheer and joyful change that is both positive and lucrative for you all.

The cold caller

The cold caller It was just gone 7pm and a Sunday its very dark, and not a cloud in the sky when the door bell rang, I tend to move between the conservatory and sitting room Fox is doing some work on the laptop for an upcoming event. I look at fox she looks back and Obi stands pointing at the front door, not really knowing did I hear the door bell or not, it rings again… I put on the lobby light and gingerly open the front door, on the other side of the door stands a scruffy, dishevelled and intoxicated man, he tries to put my mind at rest but he nearly in my face, my fingers grip the door frame, as he thrusts a tatty old green care into my face even though its dark I can make no sense of what was on it. There was no picture of the scruffy fellow, but as soon as I smelled the Alcohol on his breath, my mind races how do I get rid of this unwanted intruder from my property? It don’t take long, we don’t use cash only cards in this house mate, that’s ok I can take a cheque no problem mate, sorry mate we only use card, Fox shout’s out tell him to fuck off were bloody busy, Oh the dragon speaks, I felt like flooring him but you never knows who’s waiting in the wings. He leaves and I have a look in the green room I keep the CCTV viewer there, and see him walk across the street and get into a car with at least a driver and pull of and drive up to Hatfield Heath about a mile up the road. In one word this whole episode is dodgy, and I intend to contact my community police officer this morning Tue 06/12/11. I was given this Link from the Essex Police who I find incredibly helpful when ever I have a quire or need a bit more of understanding on how to deal with crime no mater what. http://www.essex.police.uk/be_safe/bogus_callers.aspx One can never be sure of who or what is on the other side of your front door, best to have a chain or a good porch light I just forgot to use mine but I do have CCTV but I have learn a valuable lesson, keep spiders at bay, these little critter love to spin a web over the lens simply because a lot of flying insects are attracted to the Infra red light emitted, which basically you can’t see the face of the caller too well, I expect the police could do more with it, but I have reported it and had a word around the village to see if any one else has had a caller which s few houses have there was actually 3 different men all reeking of booze, and one was driving. Ummm not nice is it. So be safe be careful, and if in doubt don’t open up your door and keep 999 ON speed dial.

A month to forget!

March the 10th 2011 It all started with a dog walk, and Obi had the runs and he had poo all down his lovely long curly tail. I had another heart attack and spent 9 days in a cardiac ward in the Princess Alexandra hospital in Harlow. All the family rallied around, I have never felt so much love and care even my own sister came from Brighton and stayed for 2 weeks to see me get all right, during my time in Hospital I was missing home so much, a hospital can and is a lonely place when your alone and away from your familiar surroundings.

But after my initial scare and all the tests and investigations were done, I found that on the 10th day I was aloud to come home and to take it so easy, not to over do it well that’s what the doctor told me, little did I know what was in store for me in the coming months Spring, Summer, Autumn and the beginning of winter well December. On the first day I got back the heating was playing up it was cold, and my sister in the green room was complaining that the room was so bloody cold and being north facing it can get a bit chilly.

I said I would bleed the radiator for her and get rid of the air inside the pipe, there was no air and the little screw that holds the water at bay popped out on the 3rd attempt, we could not stop the water from pumping out of the pipe, we had to keep our finger firmly on the pipe thank god it was not too hot.

Fox made a frantic call to Nicky our sister in Harlow who knows everyone including Plumbers, and one was dispatched right away Paul was knocking on our door with in 30mins he fixed the pipe with a new screw, which was loose fitting and still dripped till my little brother Glen stepped in and fixed it proper with something he and Fox got from B&Q.

Up until then the central heating and hot water worked fine but there was something different about it now the damn thing was getting colder and colder and the hot water was slowly getting colder and colder as each day progressed then one day it did not work at all.

I was only out of Hospital 2 weeks when it died on us, a few times before I rested the timer and switches and it would start working again not really understanding that was going on in the pipes was far worse than I would have expected.

We invited Paul to come and have a look, we well I was thinking that maybe there was a massive air bubble inside the pipes and it was blocking the hot water from moving, how wrong I was. It took several attempts to get Paul to come to the house but for various reasons he had let us down, and we dismayed you see in order to have a bath we would boil up a kettle and use our good expensive pots to fill the bath, I tried to clean them every so often but because I had just got out of the hospital, I found the cleaning so difficult, and I was in pain a lot of the time till my doc put me on really powerful pain killers Tramadol. In time the Lime scale got so bad at times big flakes would come out of the pot and into the bath, I ended up using the sieve, I use for mashed potato to collect the filthy deposits from the pots and kettle. In our house we are both Nurses, well I’m an ex nurse but one thing we have always done is bath every day, its like a ritual washing away the days vibrations of what we would come into contact as the day or nights wore on.

When I worked in London my speciality was to spot the person who was so close to taking there own life, the person so close to ending it, grabbing them from that dark place we can at times find ourselves, most of the time I would be very good and spot it and deal with it, other times I would be too late.

I remember once standing in a patients toilet, who had just slit his writs, he died, sitting there mute and silent the life drawn from his eyes, my back against the door cause of the other patients wanting to see his dead body pushing against the door, the staff took a fair amount of time to empty the corridor so that the police could come and see and the ambulance crew to take the young man away for his last ride from the hospital, as I left the small cubicle I noticed I was ankle deep in blood. Hence why most nurses was daily always just before bed, the bath roasting hot, as if to sweat the emotions of the day back out, but now I was down to 3 baths a week less than half of what I feel comfortable with.

It takes nearly a month for Paul to arrive and give us the verdict and what he tells us leaves us in shock, its not air but a sludge clogging the pipes, and some of the pipes are in such a bad state that they will have to be repaired and what the pipes needs is an acid wash possibly a lot of it, and out fire in the front room should be condemned and scrapped. And really we should put a new boiler in which was going to cost us nearly £5000, we said we think about this, our savings would just about cover it and had to think our car the Suzuki wagon would need an MOT in a few weeks, we decide to battle on and just fill the bath from pots and since the summer was coming in we would not need any heat, so the day of the MOT comes and the wagon goes to Bumbles for its yearly health check, he tells us to bury it and claim the insurance! Now we have a dilemma we can afford the boiler but a car is so badly needed as well, we decide to get a new car, which takes all the Money a Mercedes A class, a fancy car for Fox and why not we always had crappy cars except for the wagon which was expensive but we got 5 years out of it.

So we start to save all over again but for some reason we just cant make any savings something comes up, our washing machine screws up and we have to get a new one, a Hoover, which is such a good washer, which cost us £600 but least it will last a very long time, there is the twat that smacked the side of the Merc, that cost even more money, our saving just keep dwindling and as time progresses when we hit the 1000 mark something comes along to swallows it up, bills mostly over priced utility bills phones etc.

The weather is starting to change summer is giving way to Autumn, although the weather is not so bad, but the mornings are getting terribly cold and the night time, we start to use hot water bottles, and my blood is so thin I get even colder and I am starting to get chest infections almost every week as well as Fox having to deal with the increasing, demands on driving me to the doctors for antibiotics, we decide early November that we will ask Paul if he can patch it up at least till we can afford a new boiler, this starts a dialog that will take almost a month till they arrive.

Mid November the weather in the mornings are so cold for me, I find it difficult to get out of bed, but I drag my arse out cause of the medication I take has to be done at a particular time, I can’t face cereal, as the cold milk is too much to take I take digestives with my meds not nice but better than nothing. Like an early Yule present the plumbing engineers arrive at the door, they take a whole day to fix the plumbing out, the sludge was as they said is thick and like black oil, the smell of rust is very evident and I watch it slowly slip down the sink, as they rotate the water in they system tackling the problem from both sides the central water system ones in one direction what they do is clean the pipes from both directions the acid dissolving the lumps in to bite size chucks.

It takes a whole day to fix the plumbing out all the crap is out and the radiators are heating up, the water from the tap is piping hot, I burn my hand and feel glad of it, just the sheer feel of warmth on my skin feels so nice, I wash all the cups I used during the day as I made the plumbers tea as the day wore on. So nice to rinse cups in warm water once again, my bath that evening was a full on bubble affair, next job get the whirlpool installed, we been dragging that big bugger around half the UK.