I know I have been out of touch for a while but for the last 24 hours I have never felt so disabled.  It is really stupid, but I am very upset and it just stems from a silly comment which just drummed into me that I am totally useless.  I have a small garden (at last) and I thought that I would be able to manage the two little borders.  I want my garden to be pretty and fragrant and it is not a huge amount.  I should be able to do it myself, but Ijust need a bit of help to get going.  I want to pull up all the weeds and dig the borders.  I want to make a compost heap to use the grass cuttings and the rubbish in a more constructive way.  The hedge needs to be cut back and Mark started that but then decided that the best place to put all the clippings is onto one of the small borders and he told me that my idea for a compost heap was "Ridiculous". 

I can't really explain how trapped I feel in my useless body.  I am sure that someone out there will understand.  I have been brave and stoic for the last 6 years, I mostly make the best of what I have got but right now I don't feel like I want to do any thing except cry and curl up in bed.  Maybe it is more a reaction to all the stress over the last couple of years, but I do fel like giving up the battle.  Walking is painful, I know some of you will think how ungrateful I am but it is maybe again just a passing phase and tomorrow I will be feeling back to my old self.

I have had my black moments in the past but they have always passed very quickly, this time I just feel awful.  Sorry to go on about myself in such a negative way but I hope that by writing this down I might be able to break the cycle and also some of you will come back with some way of cheering me up and sharing your experiences and how you have dealt with these dark days.

Fifi

It is amazing how quickly we have settled back into life here.  Once a doctor was found I am called for blood tests, blood pressure clinic, mammogram and referred back to Stoke all within a week.  I thought that the NHS was supposed to be failing and falling apart but so far all seems to be running smoothly.  Even Mark has booked himself in to have a funny thing on his eye looked at.

So the weather is colder but we have heating so where is the problem with that.  The heating is a bit poor as it is only storage heaters but I am now the proud owner of an electric throw, not something that you use to capture and exterminate rats but an amazing warming rug which has solved the problem of cold legs in one swoop.  I love it and the way it works is brilliant as it cannot burn you so I am not allowed to get cold.

We have realised that the doors are going to have to be widened into all the rooms which is a bit of a pain, it is either that or I have got to go down two inches in wheelchair size and the chances of that happening any time soon are a bit remote!!   Still I suppose I will have to do something or my arse will become a local land mark with visitors coming to see the highest point in the fens!!!  Next week I will join Weight Watchers!!  I promise next week!

Today Mark reversed the door in the bathroom to open out into the corridor so that I can go in and shut it whilst I perform my ablutions in private!!  Nothing like doing a digital evacuation with the door open and a house full of visitors!! 

My sister and her family are all visiting this weekend so we will be taking them to one of the local attractions (No not my backside!!) the Butterfly Park which is in the next village.  Hopefully it will make up for the fact the kids are going to have to have a big sleepover party in sleeping bags on the sitting room floor.  I understand this is very popular amongst kids, personally I would rather stick pins in my eyeballs!!  But now we have at last got our BT Vision working we can buy them some films and keep them happy.  They can also clean out the fish pond, which will be very mucky work.  Our neighbours cut their hedge and the cascade (plastic rocks) is filled with clipping which I am sure is not good for the fish.  I am also hoping my sister will be able to advise me on how to look after these Koi carp the size of a good fish supper.

Dave and Ross have settled at last and are going in and out via their cat flap.  Dave has got very short legs and the flap into the house is quite high up and once he has his front legs through he has to do a sort of seesaw action and a wriggle to get his fat little body through.  It is really funny and I will try to capture it on film and post it, along with Ross the slimmer sleeker model who has taken to running down the corridor and bouncing off the wall about a metre up so that he can make the corner.  Another one to capture on film.  Both cats are showing a keen interest in the pond and I think that soon the worries about how to look after the fish may be solved along with the need to feed the cats.

Tomorrow we get our first delivery from Tesco so we will see how effective that is for shopping, then it is off to Kings Lynn to see what that looks like. Holbeach is a bit of a wheelchair disaster lots of very interesting little shops with steps and no room to move once you get inside so I guess we will not be going there too often. 

The RAF are bombing on the ranges tonight and it is a bit noisy but quite a sight once I get my all terrain buggy I will be going up to see them performing.  Until then I must content myself to nearly jumping out of the chair each time they fire off one of the bombs.  They lost one a few weeks ago luckily it has not been found in our garden!!

I just spent an age writing a long blog and poooof it has disappeared into the ether! 

I guess you may have wondered where I have been for the last wee while, well on my travels and off line would be the answer to all of that.

We left a very rainy France in the middle of the afternoon of 16 March and drove to Calais in the rain.  It did stop for a while but then it doesn't rain when you are in the Tunnel sous le Manche!!  Started raining again as soon as we came out the other side and rained all the way to Lincolnshire!!  Deep joy!

We arrived absolutely knackered but the adrenalin rush of being in our new home kept us going all day.  Although I do admit that our productivity level was very low and we kept going round in circles and couldn't remember where anything was or what we were supposed to be doing.

Next day our broadband connection failed to arrive and we were left wondering what had gone wrong.  But it appears that the saga of our address and its recent changes were just too much for them to comprehend.  Firstly the post code was changed by the post office, the road was changed by the council and the house name was changed by the previous owners back to its original Eastview from the twee and nauseating Bear Lodge.  So tryng to get it registered that we had a new house name, road and post code was too confusing by far. They thought we had moved house, which indeed we had but not the move they thought we had made.  I think that after two weeks we have got it sorted out but we are still registed in the phone book as at Bear Lodge and I have now discoverd that there is no point in roaring down the phone.  I did find that calmly saying I wish to make a complaint worked a bit and when I said I wished to cancel all my services as I had been treated so badly worked even better and I have even managed to get some compensation!!  Mark spent a lot of time talking to a man in India who he couldn't understand and who couldn't understand him.  Welcome back to the UK!

Well I have got a doctor so now I can get a referal back to Stoke for check up and MOT and for my botox jabs.  Wouldn't want the old bladder to get all wrinkly again!!!

I would add that moving house, death of a partner and divorce are supposed to be the most stressfull things that can happen to you in your life, and last week we nearly had all three, as I was just about ready to either divorce or kill Mark who until now has been my hero!!  But all is calm now.

I always fancied living in one of those appartments in a warehouse and now I know what it is like, except they forgot to take away the package cases.  I am camping in the spare room that smells of teenage boy (very disturbing) in addition to the doggy stink that fills the whole house.  There are some decidedly worrying stains on the carpet and on the walls but it is best not to think too hard about them or I would not go into the room at all.

I will fill you in on more details just as soon as my new laptop arrives and I can sit in front of the fire to write.

But it is good to be back.

Fifi

I am just running this off quickly before I lose mu computer to the moving truck tomorrow morning.  I am not sure that I will see it for about a week so I will give you a quick run through and the see you all next week sometime.

We have been packing boxes for days now and I am not sure that it is all going to fit in the truck.  I have yet to clear out all the cupboards in the kitchen but I am leaving some stuff for my friend so I shouldn't worry too much there.  we have been out to dinner nearly every night so now I have emptied my store cupboard of all the old half pots of jam, odd bits of flour and half empty bottles of vinegar.  I am not sure why I needed 8 of theses but then that is the usual baggage of life, half full and half empty junk!

The cats go to the vet tomorrow for their check up and then finally on Saturday afternoon we will all head off for the North and the Channel Tunnel.  13 hours in the car with two cats wailing to be let out of their cage.  I just hope they dont decide to cr@p!!!  LOL

Well Guys think of me arriving in my new house in England.  It is 18C here today and I think I am going to die of frost bite when I get back!!  Still kind friends here have promised to send me pictures of the sunshine so I will feel even colder!!

I will fill you in on the horrors of the journey just as soon as I am back on line next week, hopefully with a new computer as this one was rescued by Noah in his ark!!

Fifi

I had to share this with you all and ask you if you can do better. Today I visited the doctor's surgery and as usual had a look at the old magazines and the first one I picked up was dated June/July 1995!  Is this the oldest magazine found in a doctor's surgery around the world of Wheellife?

Fifi