April Showers in Scottish Meanderings

Not really much to report this month - April continued to be very rough so there's been very little done apart from the basics and sometimes these have fallen by the wayside as well so everything's built up and got behind again. I did start to stabilise a bit this month (May I mean) but we had the family get together and then I was babysitting all 3 kids plus Alfie last Saturday so I held on till both those events were over before I made another cut on Saturday night. This week I feel really shit - sleep is all over the place, I have no energy, frequent trips to the loo and a host of other stuff too boring to mention but which drives me to distraction. I'm struggling with trying to stay positive and the thought of having to carry on like this for the next 2-3 years.

It's also made me resentful of other people just enjoying a normal life and I hate that. On Wednesday in our family video chat with Ian, Margaret and Lorna, Lorna was basking in sunshine at a campsite between Inverness and Nairn, full of the joys of life and the birdsong around her and away to meet friends to spend the weekend with. I was struggling to stay upright on the chair and 'put a face on' for the screen and I couldn't help thinking how lovely it must be just to take off like that and enjoy the simple pleasures in life. This drug has robbed me of being able to do anything like that - there's no ability to feel joy in anything at all so I'm basically pushing through everything in order to lay down some decent memories.

But it's also kind of interesting how I've dealt with that - almost like my body knew instinctively what it had to do.

I adopted a strategy of operating from memory. What used to give me pleasure? What gave me joy? What made my soul sing before this all happened? So I tried to do as much of those things as I could figuring when I'm able to feel joy again, those foundations will be there and built up all ready for that fantastic day when that feeling breaks through! And it does work - there was one evening the fog lifted just for a couple of hours and someone had mentioned a particular piece of classical music (Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata) they loved. I brought it up on my phone and started listening to it and began crying because I could feel the emotion of the music and appreciate it properly - and that led me to get out the sheet music and start playing it on the piano - at 11.30 p.m.! Thankfully these houses are well insulated!

It doesn't help that the house is so cluttered and I'm not making progress with any of the 'big stuff' but it's all around me so I can't help noticing it or be distracted from it. I'm still waiting to get the base done for the summer house (landscapers are doing the base - a different company are doing the summer house) so the back garden is a real mess because the weeds have started growing again and it looks like there's at least one live cable from the shed out there but the source can't be found so I'm hoping they will still be able to build around it. So the bike and lawnmower are still sitting in my sitting room and there's stuff from the shed in my kitchen and spare bedroom plus the boxes I took into the house and didn't manage to sort through before it was demolished.

I have however managed to get my oven working again - it's been out of action for - oh over a year now - but because I still had the microwave, grill and hob, it wasn't on the 'urgent' list so I finally got a new element fitted on it last week. Then I sliced through the cable of the lawnmower I literally had just bought the week before and wasted time thinking I could repair that myself because it looked simple enough on YouTube - but I couldn't find anything to strip the very thin insulation from the wires. I asked one of my neighbours who had helped me fit extra spacers on it previously and he said he'd pop round on the following Monday night then never turned up. I don't understand when people do that - I mean how awkward is it going to be when I see him when we're coming and going outside now??

Anyway the electrician who fitted the element sorted it for me so that's done but when my Dyson packed up in the same week and the filters I ordered for it didn't fit, I couldn't cope on top of feeling so ill so just ran up to Curry's one night and bought the newest version (V12) in 10 minutes flat! I'm glad I did though because it's much lighter to operate and doesn't hurt my back quite so much as the old one did.

And I think I've managed to find what seems to be a nice dentist after a long search. I've always had issues with the dentist after a bad experience as a child and I'd found one I could really trust several years ago so that made the whole process of going so much easier. However she upped and offed to Texas with her family about 3 years ago and I've been trying to find one ever since without much success. I e-mailed a couple of dental surgeries who proclaimed to deal with nervous patients and was impressed with the reply from one of them - several paragraphs explaining they don't have a one size fits all strategy because patients' fears differ a lot and although they did offer sedation, patients often didn't want it and preferred to try and work through the fear if possible.

I liked the sound of that so made an appointment and had a checkup. I had to go private though so it cost me 140 quid! However she had a lovely manner and took time to talk to me about my fears initially then make sure I was okay while I got the exam and x-rays done. I knew I had very bad gum disease and my teeth are in really bad shape - the last dentist I went to told me very bluntly how bad things were - but she gave me the same information but in a much nicer way and made me feel like she really wanted to help me get things back on track. So I have an appointment for the first filling needed at the end of June. That's going to be difficult because the last filling I got made me ill for 10 days - it seemed to be a bad reaction to the injection and we thought it was because of the epinephrine as some folk react to that but the dentist didn't think the injection I got had epinephrine in it so that caused confusion. I know I'll be terrified the same thing happens again but will just have to go and try.

So - tiny victories - but I have to celebrate them nevertheless - it's good for me to do these entries because it makes me try and think of positives for the month.

And another one is this not-so-little-girl-any-more turned 8.

She was out at Joel's on her actual birthday so the night before I came out and babysat Lily and Ruari so that Nikki could take her for some Mummy/Daughter time - they went to the pictures and then had tea together. They were just leaving to go out after she blew her candles out and by the time they got home it was bedtime so she never got a piece of that cake until the Sunday night when she was back home again!

Nikki got a blood test for the bruising I mentioned in my last entry and the doctor did a complete turnaround and doesn't think it's self-harm now so she's been referred to the Haematology Department at the hospital for them to investigate further. They're not too worried at the moment because she's not unwell with it but if anything changes obviously Nikki can get back in touch and they'll speed things up.

Other than that all 3 kids are fine and Nikki's loving her childminding although has stressful days sometimes - she sent me this photo of one such day where she was trying to get two little ones to nap and they kept being woken by something - first of all it was one of the cats being sick, then Alfie barked, then someone started up with a drill outside, then the doorbell went, then the phone went, until she eventually got one down but had to sit with the other one holding his hand. He finally dropped off after which she managed to get the grass cut for 20 minutes before she broke the blade on the lawnmower and they both woke up! I think it's just such a cute pic though!


Lily is turning into a real bookworm.


She reads her favourites over and over and tries to guilt me into buying her more books which, if she was the only grandchild, I would in a heartbeat😊

I try to get out for a walk every day no matter how bad I'm feeling and sometimes Nikki will text to see if I've had one yet and we all go together - or if the girls are at Joel's she'll text me to go for a walk with Ruari and Alfie.

This is from a recent one we were all on and to look at it you'd think we were one big happy family - but 2 seconds later all 3 of them were fighting with each other😁


So that's me - hopefully there'll be a better report when I come to do May!