APOLOGIES FOR THE BREAK IN TRANSMISSION.

Normal service will be restored as soon as possible…………

(Seeker has gone and got herself yet another flippin’ virus!)

FRUSTRATED…….

………is probaby the best word to describe my feelings at the moment!

Daughter is here all day every day – and driving me just a little bit crazy! I had an argument with her yesterday (not really an unusual event!) because I was nagging her about getting a job. I do tend to nag her a lot about getting a job – partly for selfish reasons, because I do long for some space again. I enjoyed the time when she was at work too much! We fight over the computer as well – she has been on here most of the time the past few days and I can’t get near it. Time for blogging? No chance!

Her laptop has still not been repaired. After all the time I spent on the phone to my new friend from Dell in India ended up being futile because she needed a new hard drive, daughter took ages actually deciding to purchase one. Things were not helped by my husband telling us to buy one from a place about 30 minutes drive from here: when we finally got there last week, we found it was just a warehouse in a God-foresaken place in the middle of nowhere! We purchased the new hard drive okay, but the guy there was completely unhelpful! I asked him one little question – but he obviously was not going to help me at all and, in fact, the brief reply he gave me was incorrect, causing me a lot of trouble when I was attempting to insert the new hard drive yesterday.

At the end of my dealings with Dell, they sent me an e-mail saying that if I replied to it they would help me with setting everything up again. I think I could probably re-install Windows with the help of some instructions I printed out, but I am not sure whether I would remember which drivers to install from the time I did it with the help of my Indian friend. So, I e-mailed them on Wednesday and was hoping they would ring yesterday as the e-mail said they usualy get back to you within 24 hours. I have now got to wait in again to see if they ring today. Maybe we just left it too long before replying to the e-mail: they didn’t give a time limit though! I just hate having to do all this……..

Apart from frustrations relating to daughter and her computer, I have been doing my best to injure myself! First of all, on Monday I discovered I had hurt my ankle – the one I broke a few years ago! Some days previously, I had knocked it on a door: I didn’t think too much of it at the time because it always hurts a lot when I knock it now and the ankle bone really sticks out to a sharp point (there are metal screws and bolts inside and my husband always worries in case these are suddenly going to emerge from my skin!). Anyway, it wasn’t until Monday that I discovered that the knock had actually broken the skin and left a scab and it was still quite painful. 

Then, on Tuesday just before Table Tennis, I fell over in my kitchen! I was carrying a big basket of washing and fell over a bag of apples (my daughter had got some shopping earlier and I had put everything else away – but I forgot the apples!). The way I fell is a bit of a puzzle to me – I must have fallen forewards first, because I banged both my knees (and have the bruises to prove it!), but then I somehow fell backwards and ended up on my back. That was the most painful part, because as I went suddenly backwards a muscle at the back of my left leg went into spasm and really hurt me. Hubby and I both thought I had done some serious damage – but amazing I escaped without any serious after-effects. I even went ahead with our visit to our Table Tennis club as planned!

That very night though, I went and walked into something (the bag containing our table tennis bats!) when on the way back from the loo in the dark – and again knocked my bad ankle. It felt very weird for a few hours afterwards – but seems to be fine now and the scab is still in place! We were so relieved I was okay after all these escapades – especially as I am off to Croatia (with the dental tourist and his boss) next Thursday!

I am very depressed about the weight situation at the moment. I don’t seem to be getting anywhere, in spite of my efforts on the bike. There seems no end to my frustrations here…….

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UPDATE I got the hard drive in and started to try to re-install Windows, only to get a message saying there was no hard drive there! Now I am worried that I damaged the hard drive when putting it in. The unhelpful guy in the warehouse place told me I didn’t have to remove anything from the old hard drive, so I tried slotting the new one in just as it was. I soon saw that he was wrong! But then I couldn’t it out again. I had to use a screwdriver to remove it – but I then discovered that the screwdriver had marked the metal. It was only at the back of the drive and I thought it wouldn’t matter – but maybe the whole thing is damaged after all. It cost £80 something pounds too!

These events seem to have proved to be the last straw for me. I got really depressed and was tearful all day. It wasn’t really about the hard drive; just about everything is getting to me at the moment………….

I didn’t feel well all day either and have a bit of pain in my side. It feels like I have strained something. Maybe it is delayed reaction from the fall on Tuesday? Anyway, I was unable to use my exercise bike today. There seems to be something forever getting in the way of my good intentions!

We are off to the B&B near Stansted on Wednesday evening. We fly out to Croatia early Thursday morning and are returning the following Tuesday. Hubby isn’t looking forward to it because he is having a lot of work done to his teeth. Maybe the break will do me good though. I certainly hope so!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Summer definitely isn’t coming yet – it was was like Christmas here yesterday! I woke up very late and was stunned to see the world outside covered in a blanket of white stuff. This was the scene in my garden: – 

I don’t remember us having so much snow for years and years – and in April too! It didn’t last long though and has nearly all gone now!

The Daily Mail, in an article about the snowfall here, printed two pictures of Brighton taken last year and this year on the same day . You’d never know it though!…………

6th April 2007

6th April 2008

IS SUMMER COMING?

Yesterday was a really beautiful day here and my daughter and I took our dog to the sea front. The sea was as calm as a millpond due to the wind blowing from the north (why, oh why, is the sea never that calm in the summer when I want to swim!). Unfortunately though, the wind also blew in an amazing number of little black creatures (they looked a little bit like tiny black beetles with wings!). My daughter’s white cardigan proved to be a particular magnet for these creatures – a fact that she was not really all that happy about!

With the weather so warm and calm yesterday, you could almost believe that summer might be on its way. Apparently, cold weather (and even snow) is on the way for the weekend though!

KIPPERS ARE ON THE MENU FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE!

You will be forgiven for thinking that I mean the edible kind, since I did mention in my last post how hard it is to find healthy dishes to cook for the whole family! However, I am not talking about the fishy, bone-ridden kind here! The KIPPERS I am referring to here actually stands for Kids In Parents Pockets Eroding Retirement Savings.

These days, with the high cost of housing (the price of renting a flat in Brighton now is phenomonal) more and more kids are staying at home. Some mums and dads are happy at this situation – others are not. A couple we know have given their son an ultimatum – be out by a certain age, or else we will kick you out. Whilst that attitude doesn’t exactly go far towards fostering a good relationship with the son in the future, I do have some sympathy. Grown-up offspring at home definitely do erode those retirement savings – big time! And (as I am always complaining on this blog) other strong-willed adults living in the house with you does not do much for ones freedom. The quiet retirement we once saw as out destiny is quickly revealing itself to be little more than just a pipe dream! And privacy?………………forget it! We have precisely none!

As I write this blog and complain about the consequences of having my one-time babies still close to my apron strings (if not exactly still tied to it!), I am aware that to many readers who are not in the same situation, it may seem as if we are over-indulgent parents who let our kids get away with murder! Well, it is always easy to advise someone else to throw their kids out of the home and make them stand on their own too feet – but not so easy when you actually have to do it! The mere thought of doing so, particularly with my son, makes me fear that we would never see him again. I would find that very hard to deal with.

You have to remember here too that both my children suffer with depression – and my daughter was anorexic for a while. Only when it actually happens to you can you really appreciate just how terrible it is to have to confront the real possibility (at times, it seemed a real certainty in my mind) that your much loved daughter – the baby you once held at your breast – is in danger of actually starving herself to death. The fear (however remote) that it could happen again is never far away from me. Even now, she regularly tells me how unhappy she is, what c**p her life is. Can you imagine just how painful it is to hear your  own flesh and blood talk in that way? Son does not have much better a view of his life either. Much as I would love them to go, if I actually kicked them out and something bad happened to them subsequently, I would blame myself for sure. I doubt that I would ever get over it.

The modern Western world seems to have this idea that as soon as kids reach a certain age they should go out and make a life for themselves. As a mum, I certainly do not want to hang onto them – my daughter, in particular, can be emotionally very tiring and I long for a bit of respite during holidays etc. It is worth remembering though that, even today, other cultures do not always share our views: I once talked to an Indian who really disapproved of our tendency to nudge our offspring from the nest as soon as possible. So, who is right here? Probably neither view – each individual case has its own merits.

Whatever age your kids are, kicking them out when they are not ready (for whatever reason) is probably not a good idea. I do hope though that my little darlings will be ready, both emotionally and financially, soon – although I doubt that there is much chance of the latter happening in the next decade or so, even if (by some miracle!) the former is achieved fairly soon!

As to blame, how much of the situation is our fault I do not know. Maybe we should have done everything differently…………… I guess blame is irrelevant now though; we simply have to deal with the current situation with as much tolerance as we can conjure up!