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I’ve been doing a bit of thinking lately. I’ve been really struggling to cope with Mr H’s job situation. But why is it affecting me so much? I was in tears this morning over it.

• Is it that I’m such a control freak that I just need to know what’s going on?
• Is it that the uncertainty is just making me insecure?
• Is it that Mr H’s work really is behaving appallingly making us all hang on so much?

Or is it a combination of all of these? Or maybe something else altogether?

While there’s still a chance of staying on at work Mr H is finding it hard to get the motivation to hunt properly for something else. But he’s also struggling to motivate himself properly for what little work he has to do. We seem to be in a bit of a lose lose situation. And in the meantime neither of us is sleeping well (if one of us has a good night, the other hasn’t so neither of us are properly rested). I know we’re not the only ones in this situation, and I know other bloggers are having a hard time workwise too, but it’s just been going on since the end of October. I feel like we need another holiday, but the benefits of that won’t last long at the current rate (in addition to the fact that due to the car we have very little spare money).

Talking of the car, the garage said it would cost well over £1000 to repair so we’ve had to get the insurance company to pay (all but the excess of £400) and cope with the lack of no claims that will follow. At least they provide us with a courtesy car in the meantime (even if it is a very crappy bottom of the range VW Polo that’s falling apart after 6000 miles!). Before they took it away Mr H took a couple of photos, I’ll try and get them up on my Flickr page later. I’ll also put up some of the Wales photos as well (we finally got around to looking at those last night - only a month after we returned!).

We did have a nice time at my parent’s. L and I got on very well - most of the time. The only difficult moment came shortly before we left when I happened to suggest that she might be worng about something…oopps! I was yelled at for going to check whether I was right (even though I wasn’t and hadn’t even considered it). Looking back, most the the times that L and I have had a disagreement in the last few years has been when I’ve happened to question something she’s said. I think I just need to learn to keep my mouth shut, even when I know she’s wrong (though that’s hard when she’s determined to post a letter to an address she’s spelt incorrectly and can’t find the postcode for, and in the process of trying to find the postcode for her -at her request - I discover the spelling mistake). We’re definitely a lot better than we were though.

Dad has definitely had another mini stroke. This one seems to have affected his temperature control (from school biology lessons that would be his hypothalamus I believe). Despite spending most of his time in the sunny south facing living room he’s always complaining of the cold, turning the gas fire on and insisting on all doors being closed all the time. He’s also holding he left arm close to him most of the time, and while he does seem able to use it with out any problems he’s even more righthanded than usual.

Mum is coping - just about. She’s admitted she’s lonely and finding Dad’s memory problems more and more frustrating. She currently saves most of ‘her’ money for treats when L and I go up. I have suggested to her that I’d rather go up more often if that helps her than have lunches/teas out every time. Mum knows I’m on the end of the phone, but she doesn’t like to burden us any more than she has to.

I’m still not being very good at visiting other blogs. I’m slowly catching up on reading but comments are even fewer and further between than ever. I’ll get back on top of them all eventually. I am deleting a few blogs from my bloglines as I go, over 100 is too many! I’ll be back properly sometime soon, I hope.

Still no photos, no post for over a week and no comments on other blogs (actually scrub that…I’ve not even made it to other blogs!).

The stress of Mr H’s work (and the indecision regarding his team’s future) is making life a little difficult here at the moment. We were plodding along, coping, until last Sunday (29th) when Mr H pulled out of a parking bay and dragged the side of the car on a metal pole. A combination of the pole being hidden by the wing mirror and upright between the drivers door and windscreen and us being in a rush due to being late for church (again) leaving meant he just forgot the pole was there and swung across it (there was no car in the space next to us). The car is being collected by the insurer’s prefered bodyshop on Thursday (the earliest they could take it). We are fairly sure that both driver’s side doors will need to be replaced, though the main frame of the car is also damaged which may mean the whole car could be written off!

The accident was a bit fo a wake up call for Mr H. We’ve always avoided parking the car by these poles as Mr H has seen how many scratches are on them and hasn’t wanted to risk damaging the car by forgetting them or not seeing them, however we had no choice this time, there were no other spaces. It has made Mr H acknowledge (sorry, can’t seem to spell that today) how much the stress at work is starting to affect him. He’s been getting increasingly tired and easily frustrated but hasn’t admitted it before now.

Thankfully he’s been able to work from home most days since the accident as he’s not happy to drive the car (though it’s driveable and appears safe). When he has needed to go to work he’s ridden his bike. Part of his frustration is coming from the fact the team has very little work to do, until the decision is made there is going to be very little around for them. Mr H and his colleagues believe that the decision may wait until the rest of the company restructuring is done, however we don’t know how long that is going to be. They strongly feel that there is work for them if the big bosses think about it.

In the meantime, Mr H is keeing his eyes open for something new. If he resigns before November (or before the decision is made, if earlier) he will recieve a redundancy payout (due to the redundancy possibilities at the end of last year). That money would help cover moving costs if we needed to move, though with the housing market as it is we really don’t want to (prices here are starting to slide). However, a couple of other members of his team have already done that and if anyone else goes the team may be too small to be viable at all.

The munchkin and I return to Yorkshire tomorrow (until Tuesday) for my school reunion type thing. I’m not 100% happy at leaving Mr H alone for so long, he’s relying on me a lot at the moment, though he says he’ll be fine. I suspect we’ll talk on the phone a lot more than we do when I’m usually away. It will be good to be back at my school however, the concert we’re singing in on Thursday night should be great. We’re also going to fit in a girls night out while I’m up. It’ll be lovely to see the girls again, especially my best friend R, who’s back from the US briefly before flying off to start her new teaching job in Moscow! It may be a little difficult at times though as my sister L will also be up until Saturday (she’s at Mum and Dad’s already), I’ve written before about our relationship, I do hope that we can stay civil to each other, we usually start to struggle after 48 hours together. We’re just too different, as Mum says if we weren’t sisters we wouldn’t be friends. I’m going to try as hard as I can to make it nice for Mum to have us both (and the grandchildren) there together, it doesn’t happen very often.

I’ll hopefully be back at some point next week, but I may just have a bit of a break and come back in a couple of weeks, who knows! Bye!

I’ve not been tagged by anyone, but this looked good.

Here’s how you play:

-type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr search.
-using only the first page, choose an image.
-copy and paste each of the URL’s into the mosaic maker over at FD’s image maker.

The questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you attend?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your Flickr name.
     

None of these are my photos, and the last one is very much an abbreviation of my Flickr name as nothing came up. The desert pictured is very similar to my favourite, but mine is from this pub. It’s near my gran’s and despite looking like a very simple pub in the bar does absolutely wonderful food. I believe it’s called a chocolate, espresso terrine (or something like that), it’s very rich and delicious!

Partly for ease and partly for my own (crappy) memory I’m going to do my holiday round up as a mini diary as I know that it won’t be long before I have no idea what we actually did while we were there! I’m afraid there are no photos yet, Mr H doesn’t like it if I upload the pictures when he’s not around as he tends to forget to check them himself. This week’s been stressful for him at work (still waiting for the redundancy news) so he’s not really wanted to sit in front of the computer all evening. I do promise photos at some point though. Anyway, back to the holiday.

Sunday 15th - Having packed everything on Saturday it didn’t take us too long to pack the car and leave, well not as long as I anticipated (an hour), but longer than Mr H thought (30 minutes). I was nearer right though, 50 minutes to pack the car and then last trips to the bathroom. We left early enough to miss most of the traffic and were at Hereford by lunchtime (where we stopped at a conveniently situated Asda for a cheap lunch and some last minute supplies - crisps and chocolate!). We arrived at our site between Hay on Wye and Builth Wells at about 3, which gave us lots of time to put the tent up, discover the valve on our airbad had broken, go to Hay on Wye (where I knew there was an outdoorrs shop) to buy a new one and get slightly settled in before dinner (pasta and tomato sauce). The site was even more basic than I had anticipated, with a 200m walk through the farm’s vegetable garden to get from the tents to the toilet block. The toilet block was very, very basic. It’s converted from part of an outbuilding. Three little cubicles, all with a toilet and sink, only one with hot water and a shower (and a light!). In the whole time we were there they were never swept out (despite cutting the grass in the field with the tents and the wet weather which meant there was a lot of grass in there) and I only once noticed the sinks/toilets being cleaner than the day before. Not impressive. It took a little while for the munchkin to settle to sleep (it was a very bright, sunny evening), but she did eventually. Mr H and I had a quiet evening, tidying up after dinner and then relaxing with our books (we both read a lot on holiday).

Monday - The munchkin woke at 5 and didn’t really settle back down afterwords so we were up by 6:30. We breakfasted, showered and headed out to Brecon to try and track down some mountain biking maps for Mr H. After 15 minutes of wandering we found the tourist information centre where we bought Mr H his set of maps as well as a fantastic little book. We had some lunch and then headed up to the mountain centre in the Brecon Beacons so Mr H could try out one of his rides. The munchkin and I went to the cafe for a cake, bought some postcards, then went for a short walk before returning for some icecream. Mr H had a great time though he did managed to fall off his bike and get a rather impressive bruise on his arm. We headed back to the site for dinner (hot dogs and fruit) and an early night.

Tuesday - The munchkin again woke at 5 (it was very light then and the dawn chorus were vocal to say the least). She did go back to sleep and woke at 6:45. While getting breakfast ready I noticed that a pack of bourbons had been opened and half eaten. I asked Mr H if he’d eaten them, but he hadn’t. I had a quick check of the rest of the food boxes (where everything was well wrapped) and found that something had also eaten some of my banana cake (through foil and a plastic bag). We couldn’t work out what had happened but carefully stored all the food inside the bedrooms (well zipped up) from then on. We went out for lunch (can’t remember where) then for one of the walks in the book we’d bought the day before. It was a lovely woodland walk with waterfalls and lots of little streams for the munchkin to splash in (we took her wellies). The walk was only 1 1/2 miles so the munchkin could walk it all herself (except when we carried to to scramble over rocks to get a better look at the waterfalls). We called in at Morrisons in Brecon on the way home to get some fresh prawns and mangetout before cooking a stirfry for dinner (the joys of straight too wok noodles and sweet and sour sauce - it was gorgeous!).

Wednesday - The munchkin slept until 6:30 (finally!) but Mr H and I had a very disturbed night. Knowing that something had been in the tent the night before meant that we (well mainly me) woke at every little noise. Mr H did get his torch a couple of times but didn’t see anything. Our sleep wasn’t helped by the rain which started in the early hours. The rain (and later wind) didn’t let up all day so we took the munchkin out to a fantastic local soft play centre - I’ve tried to link, but my blog won’t let me today. We followed that up by going in to Brecon for lunch (again). I can’t for the life of me remember what we did in the afternoon however. Dinner was pasta and tomato sauce again.

Thursday - Over night we were once again disturbed, this time we saw a little brown thing in the tent but thanks to a lack of glasses (again!) I couldn’t work out what it was. In the morning we found that the bottle of squash had been the target this time, the lid was very chewed in the morning. The weather was still grey though the rain and wind had died off over night. We drove over the Mertyr Tydfil (where the rain started again) and had lunch in a wetherspoons before trying out another walk from the book. Sadly due to the wind and my major lack of sleep we didn’t do it all, though we did get to the top of the peak we were aiming for. The views were great, so definitely worth the effort. I’ve no idea what we had for dinner that night.

Friday - We finally had a view of our uninvited guest overnight - a brown rat! Not what we wanted to see, but what we expected.  As far we we knew at this point there was nothing in the tent to encourage the rat in, but he/she came anyway. Grrr! The munchkin slept until after 7 so we did get some rest. J&S were joining us at lunchtime so we only popped out to Hay on Wye in the morning to buy some lunch for us all, then relaxed in the sunshine at the campsite. When J&S arrived the boys put the tent up then we all sat down for lunch. In the afternoon Mr H, J and S went off for a bike ride (J had managed to track down a local route on the internet) while the munchkin and I tried to get some rest. The munchkin did play nicely in ‘her bedroom’ which meant I could read my book in peace for a bit. S came back first having trapped her hand in a gate (she was ok, just a bit sore) we settled with a cup of tea while the munchkin wandered around the field looking at the sheep  and highand cattle. The boys returned at about 5 having got slightly lost. We gave the munchkin her dinner then lit the BBQ that J&S had brought with them. We put the munchkin to bed as the meat was cooking and enjoyed a couple of bottles of wine as we ate. It proved to be the nicest evening of the week weatherwise, and several glasses of wine, a BBQ and lovely company was a great was to enjoy it.

Saturday - Amazingly we weren’t disturbed in the night by the rat so got a bit of a better night’s sleep. We woke to grey skies and rain however. We had planned to go for another walk but decided to start off just going for a wander around Abergavenny before finding some lunch and making a final decision then. The weather closed in again so we stopped off in Crickhowell rather than go for a long walk. We had a little wander and happened upon the castle (not that there’s much of it left!) before driving back to the site. J&S had been due to stay until Sunday but due to the rain and worsening weather forecast they headed off on Saturday night (after J cooked a fantastic curry for us all). We were due to stay until Monday, but with the worsening weather we also started to consider going home early. the munchkin was in bed so we left the final decision until Sunday morning, though we did start packing up some of the things we may not need again. It was fantastic to spend time with J&S. We don’t see them very often and it’s great to catch up. Hopefully we’ll see them a bit more often

Sunday - The rat made a reappearance in the night, along with rain and strong winds so we got little rest. When we woke we decided that we too would leave. We were just too tired to enjoy our day and to try to entertain the munchkin in the rain. We kept the munchkin in the tent playing with her toys and started to pack up. Thankfully the rain stopped by about 7am so we were just dealing with the wind (which conveniently dried the tent very nicely!). By 10am everything was packed up, except the tent. We had to sit the munchkin in her car seat as we did this as we couldn’t watch her carefully while fighting with the tent. The wind was so strong that as I was carefully removing the pegs it actually whipped one end of the tent out of the ground! From then on I had to keep at least one hand on the tent while Mr H took out the other pegs. One the pegs and poles were gone the tent acted as a giant kite, it was hard work to control, Mr H and I almost ended up in the hedge at the bottom of the field. It was almost 11 before we were ready to leave the site and set off home in sunshine! Later in the day though there was a lot of wind and rain in that part of Wales. We made it home a little after 4.

Mr H had booked the Monday off work already so we took advantage of that by having a lie in (the munchkin didn’t come through until 8:30), a quiet morning and a walk in Epping Forest in the afternoon. Despite living here for 2 1/2 years we’d never been to the forest. It’s lovely and was a good way to finish the holiday.

Since then we’ve been playing catch up. We’re all tired, the munchkin even napped yesterday. She’s not napped in the day at home for about a month, though she slept in the car everyday in Wales. Most of the camping tings are back where they belong, though our sleeping bags are awaiting a wash. We could really do with a quiet time this weekend, but it’s the church garden party tomorrow and Mr H is helping with the PA for the bands and auction. He’ll be at church soon after 9, hopefully home for lunch before taking the munchkin and I up for a little while in the afternoon. Sunday will also be busy as I’m singing at church in the evening and we’ll almost certainly go in the morning too. Who knows….maybe we’ll manage an early night at some point and get some rest that way!

Well that was our holiday, photos soon…I promise!

Hello! We’re all home safely. I’ll post a proper holiday update once I’ve got the photos uploaded from the camera. We had a good week, if not rather varied. Just as a taster for what’s in store for my next post….. sun, wind, rain and a rat….!

…my to-do list that is!

We head off for a camping holiday on the English/Welsh border on Sunday and my list of things to do is slowly, but surely, growing.

It was added to today by the washing machine shreading one of my favourite bras. So now the munchkin and I have to add in a shopping trip to M&S (the only place that seems to sell bras that fit me well). At least it didn’t happen tomorrow as we have a free afternoon today and no spare time at all tomorrow. I have a fair few bras, but due to the diet not many fit me well/comfortably. I definitely want nice comfy bras when I’m outdoors for most of the week.

The munchkin and I are taking part in the Big Toddle for Barnados tomorrow morning. It’s a  half mile walk for toddler/pre-schoolers and their parents and carers. It should be really good fun, we’re doing it at one of the local Sure Start centres. By the time we’ve walked there and back (or at least I’ve walked and the munchkin’s sat in the pushchair - it’s a mile away) and done the toddle the whole morning will have gone. In the afternoon is the usual toddler group at the nearer Sure Start centre. The plan for Friday evening if to finalise all the lists for packing/food shopping before getting up promptly on Saturday to hit the supermarkets. We’ll then spend Saturday afternoon packing everything before we have an early night. We’re hoping to set off early on Sunday to get our holday started. We’re staying until Monday 23rd. J&S (Mr H’s brother and his wife) only live 2 hours away and have managed to get a pitch on the same campsite for the second weekend we’re there so we’ll be able to have a catch up with them as well.

I’m not sure I’ll have another chance to post as I want to catch up on my bloglines posts as well before we go. I hope you all have a good week, bye!

I seem to end up playing catch up with my blog fairly frequently…

Friday night with D&G went well. The house (downstairs at least) looked better than it has done for months. As is becoming normal when we get together with them large amounts of alcohol were consumed (particularly by me…no one else was on white wine and there was only half a glass left in the bottle at the end of the night). The only frustrating thing was the way they expected us to provide all the bedding for them, despite having invited themselves for just the one night and having a duvet and pillows in the car ready for camping. Am I alone in thinking that’s a little on the cheeky side?

D&G left promptly on Saturday morning to get to their ferry, leaving us to do the food shopping before taking the munchkin out to a birthday party. Once we were home from there we didn’t really do anything (except eat lunch and dinner), we just relaxed all together in front of a DVD.  Sunday passed in a similar manner, we went to church in the morning and had a quiet afternoon at home.

Yesterday started as a normal Monday before a phone call from my neighbour, S, soon after 12. She’d been persuaded to enter a competition on the local radio station by her daughter and won. Or at least won the chance to go live on air (or so I thought, though I later discovered it was being prerecorded and played today) and answer some questions with a friend to try and win some prizes. She wanted me to be that friend. Anyone who follows me on Twitter will have heard a little about this. I thought I might as well. I had to promptly sort out the munchkin’s lunch while S came over. We were both phoned by the DJ (S on her mobile) and then the fun started! Initially he couldn’t connect us both properly, we could both hear S but she couldn’t hear him. He gave up and called us back. This time his systems worked. He spoke to S first and asked her how long we’d known each other before speaking to me. He explained that he’d ask me 3 questions in a minute and that if I could get them all right I’d win a bag of prizes for both of us. S had said the questions she’d heard that morning had been about recent films and music, not my strengths by any means so I wasn’t sure how I’d do for her. The DJ said that S could give me clues but no answers.

My first question was ‘what is Lewis Hamilton famous for?’ A good start, I knew that one (a good thing as S was looking rather blank!). The second was ‘which TV show was Amando Holden a judge on recently?’ again something I knew (though I didn’t watch it this year). At this point the DJ said that there were 40 seconds left and to think hard about the next one. The final question was ‘what is the monument at the centre of Trafalgar Square?’ I knew that Nelson’s column was in the square but was it central? I couldn’t think of anything else so I just answered that. The DJ made me repeat it 3 times pretending he didn’t hear and asking me to shout it (grrr…thanks…make me shout on the radio…!). S admitted later that she hadn’t known the answer to any of these, so it was a good thing it was me answering for her and not the other way around. I’ve always been a bit of a sponge for random information, though I didn’t think these questions were too bad.

Apparently I’ve won us both a bag of summer goodies. Flip-flops, towels, sunglasses and a Top Shop bikini were mentioned as well as a couple of other things I can’t remember. S called me earlier and said that she’s had a phone call from the radio station to confirm our addresses and they should be coming out to us soon. I’ll put up another post when they’re here. The bikini could be interesting…how will they guess our sizes or will we get a voucher to get one? I’ve never worn a bikini, pre surgery in 2000 I was too top heavy and since then I’ve not been confident enough about my tummy, I’ve not been ’slim’ since I was about 14/15. As Suburban Mum said on Twitter, I could use the bikini as a goal for my weightloss.

Talking of which, I weighed in yesterday with no loss, but also no gain. Not too bad for a busy week where I wasn’t very careful. Maybe, I’m finally managing to retrain myself to eat less (I’m still snacking, but not as much and I think my main meal portions are smaller too). About time too!

It shows how bad things are in the house when I’m paying only a flying visit to my blog.

D&G (Mr H’s sister and her husband) are staying tomorrow night en route to Italy and the house looks like a bomb has hit it (yet again!). I’m trying to get the house, or at least any bits they’ll see, tidy. However I’m sick of just hiding the mess and it all coming out again so I’m trying to make sure everything gets put away in a proper place. It’s more than a little bit time and energy consuming. I should ahve done before and after pictures to shame myself into getting sorted and then staying on top of it, but it’s too late now. I just hope I cna finish it as I want it to be before the arrive tomorrow evening!

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

I’ve just seen this over at Chrisb’s blog and thoght I had to have a go.

I don’t think it’s too far off me, though I wouldn’t have put sloth that high…

What does it say about you?

I saw this on Suburban Mum’s blog and thought I’d have a go.

According to the little spiel under the results I’m an introverted intellectual. Hmmm….well….

I’d definitely agree with the extroversion part. I am fairly quiet and introverted (though I open up with alcohol…). I’ve never had a lot of self confidence but following breast reduction surgery when I was 19 I’ve definitely now confident now.

I wouldn’t call myself a martyr, maybe I wasn’t 100% honest there. I do try and help people whenever I can though.

I do like things to be organised, and I have an almost pathological hatred of being late to anything. I’d love the house to be organised, but any little thing (illness/holidays etc) and it descends into chaos again. I can be flexible when I really need to be, but I’d much rather know what’s happening when well in advance.

I can be a worrier, and I’m definitely emotional (it doesn’t take a lot to make me cry sometimes). I can be insecure, though Mr H helps with that one a lot.

Am I an intellectual? Well maybe, I’m not particularly imaginative in the creative way, but if I need a solution to a problem (barring blog stuff when Suburban Mum helps a lot!) I can usually work something out. I’m fairly practical, though I do pass almost all the DIY in the house to Mr H. I could do much of it if he wasn’t around though.