One day, maybe one day soon, we will ACTUALLY move into our new house….

This is getting tedious!

My boobs are hurting, I have had ten period free days in the last eight weeks, I am tired, irritable and teary….Our house is still unsold after three weeks of continual nagging at the teens to keep the place tidy, and a steady stream of prospective buyers who traipse their way through my house, are not filling me with confidence with the snippets of comments that I just happen to catch as they are going around!!!…..

Our teenage son has added to my increasing grey hair quota this week, and I can’t wait until he has actually left for this trip to Australia. Ed’s Dad is giving us some cause for concern this week too.

OK do I feel better for the moan?

Perhaps.

I am taking a large daily dose of Ev*n*ng Pr*mr*se (don’t really want to pop up in Google if I can help it!). I have had blood tests and suspect that I am anaemic yet again and that my thyroid replacement levels need increasing.

Now come along girl - pull yourself together - what is this site called? So where IS the sunshine……?

Well, I have not had a full blown migraine for 6 weeks and I have lost one and a half pounds this week. Will that do?

Oh yes, and most importantly…… My husband is the most wonderful, patient and loving man in the whole world and he must be heading for Sainthood for putting up with me and my moods….. Thank you so much Darling Ed. Just remember..

“All this shall pass”

The roof man came today to sort out our persistent leak. He came half an hour early. Ed was out with the dog and I was standing in our bedroom having just got out of the bath…. Good job he did not put his ladder straight up onto the roof - what a sight he would have seen through the skylight!!!

After the last time, I asked Ed to ring him as he may take more notice and it was arranged for the contractor to come here on Wednesday - but, you have guessed it - Wednesday came and went without a sight of them… So yesterday, (Thursday) I rang and stressed my point very firmly so to speak.

So you can imagine my surprise when he actually turned up early today. He poked his head out of the skylight, looked at the roof for less than a minute and asked me for a bowl of water. Now I just happened to have a bowl handy - well I would really, there has been one on our bedroom floor for months to catch the drips when we have heavy rain.

He asked me to watch as he poured the bowl of water on the place he thought the leak was originating at and, lo and behold, drip drip pour - in it came. He had it identified and fixed in under half an hour… he did say, in a vaguely apologetic way, that HE should have come out himself before now and not leave it to one of his foremen… it was, apparently, a small crack in one of the slates. Well, if it was that easy, why has it taken since the early Summer to sort it out.

All we need now is some heavy rain to test it out…. we probably will soon, as we are having loads of rain at the moment - but I bet we won’t get a really heavy shower until 3.00am… It just better not leak then - or I am getting straight on that telephone and getting him out of bed to come round and sort it…..

Anyway, just thought you all needed to know this.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all my North American friends out there.

Wales is very green. If you have seen any of my Flickr photos then you will know how green the grass is.

This is because we have lots of rain. This year was an exceptional Summer and had far less rain than usual..

But we are having enough now to make up the shortfall.

Rain is ok. Soft gentle rain beating upon the roof while I lie warm and cosy in bed is quite acceptable. Heavy torrential downpours are not. Neither are hailstones. Why?

Because a) the rapid drumbeat of rain or hail bouncing off the skylight above the bed wakes me up and keeps me awake, and b) it makes the b****y roof leak, sending a tat tat tat of drips into the carefully placed bowl on our bedroom floor because the dratted roof is STILL leaking.

Perhaps now that Ed is not so busy with work he can chase the tradesman up who did some major work to our roof in the summer and says that he is unable to trace the source of the leak.
He said that the next time it leaked, to call him over and he would come as it would be the best way to see where the problem is. Our problem is that these heavy showers have not happened in the day, but usually in the wee small hours. I have left messages the next day for him to ring and so far, we have not heard from him. I am not around in the day so much these days to keep hounding him - and anyway, why should I? And I tell you something, if he does not come and get this sorted next week, then I am going to ring him at three o’clock in the morning or what ever time it is. This HAS to be resolved soon. I sleep badly enough as it is - I really can’t handle this for much longer.

The worm has turned.. no more Mr Nice Guy - or should I say Mrs Nice Gal (no, that doesn’t work)…

I wish I could be like Ed. Sleeping like a baby through the rain, gales, hail thunder and lightening. If only I could be like that………. now I am going to get the spare duvet and sleep on the sofa.

Saturday night is usually take away night here in this house. No cooking for me…yay! Tonight it was burger and chips.

But getting a chip caught in your throat and and going into a coughing spasm which resulted in a broken blood vessel and coughing up blood - and, three hours later, still having that dratted chip lodged in the oesphogus is NOT fun. TAKE MY WORD ON IT!

Now, having been advised bythe paramedics to drink some white wine and relax, and let nature take its course, and the dratted chip will finally soften and be digested in time, I am going to bed.

Thankfully, I could have had fish and it would have been far more serious had it been a fish bone that is lodged there… at least that is something to be grateful for.

Goodnight….

Eventually, after a very long story of let down by tradesmen, our roof is being sorted.. expensive but necessary…

The ridge tiles have been replaced - after 110 years of wear and tear, they have almost crumbled away.. we knew that this was something that needed to be done when we bought the property 5 years ago.

The worse thing is though, that since Christmas, we have had a leak. It started out as a small problem and it has now become a big problem. The first thing the roofing contractor did was to patch up the area where we thought the leak was coming from. They then had to wait for some dry weather to the big job. But the leak continued and all last week, while we waited for them to come back, and the rain continued to bless our fair land with it’s wetness, the drip kept dripping. The roofman said that the water was probably coming in from under the loose and broken ridge tiles..

I was absolutely delighted when I came home from work yesterday to find that the job was almost complete…

I was not absolutely delighted when, at 4.00am this morning (it is now 4.30am) I awoke to the sound of heavy rain and the discovery that there was still rain coming trough the roof and into our bedroom. Infact, as I type this, I am close to tears and am feeling really disappointed..

But, we hold the trump card, and we certainly won’t be parting with a penny until they manage to fix the problem..

Meanwhile, I am sure that things will look different in the morning and I am going to resort to the usual course of action at times of stress… I am going to make a cup of tea and go back to bed…

I don’t know about Sunshine on your Shoulder….

The way I am feeling it is more like a dark, foggy cloud hovering around my neck!!!

Head stuffed full of cotton wool..cough, splutter, sniff, groan!!!!

But it is very quiet around here as I just have a little tiny squeak of a voice… though I think that the voice went at the same time as I saw that little beastie on the worktop - read Ed if you don’t know what I am talking about!!!

I see that Ed has posted his favourite song lyrics. I will have to think about that one…

Thanks for all your best wishes..

Happy Weekend to you all.

Bye.. cough, splutter, sneeze……. aaacchhhoooooooooooooooooooooooooo

I think it was Tammy Wynette who sang the song that starts

“Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman”

There are certain times when I fully endorse those words… and today is one of those.

I don’t know what it is about me recently.

I sometimes wonder if it is because I am hypo-thyroid, but far too often, my head feels as if it is stuffed with cotton wool. Or mashed potato.

I appear to be walking around in a fuzzy, slightly yellow-edged fog.

I am there, but I am not here.

I here, but am I there?

My brain seems less sharp than it should be.
My reactions are slower.
My words get muddled.
My memory is jaded - it is there - it is just slower to hit the recall button than I feel it ought.
Just not quite “with it” - or perhaps, just a little “without it” - but I reserve judgement on what exactly “it” is.

It’s like one of those join the dot puzzles I used to do as a child. You can make out the shape, you can see what it is, but, with the dots unjoined, the image lacks definition. And without that defining line, it is if all the contents are gradually leaking out and dispersing into the ether. It is not controlled. It is not contained. It just lacks outline..

I know it sounds weird. And it is weird. And how am I supposed to explain this to a Doctor. I can imagine his response now. It’s that look over the edge of his specs and the slightly elevated eyebrows look of “oh my, we have a right one here”!!!

Much of this is due to tiredness I am sure, and, as I have mentioned before, that wall of tiredness is thicker some days than others. Perhaps I really need a string of early nights rather than the odd one thrown in occasionally..

And before you ask, the only drugs I take are prescription medications for my Thyroid deficiency and I very rarely drink alcohol…so I can’t blame them.

On the other hand, it could just be my age……………………..

Hmm. Now there is one to ponder!!!!

PS This is my favourite song of 2005 - Damien Rice and “The Blower’s Daughter” - now this is often inside my brain and very welcome it is too….