Hi ANNIE,  I also was watching 24 hours in A & E, it is a heart warming programme,  despite the trama. My town is Darlington so it's funny how much we resonate with places and previous life in our chats.  If you make it up here I have  car so can meet you wherever.  We have been to Reeth today as it's beautiful again, my lawn is being watered whilst  catch up with this blog.  Norman is asleep as it's hot, he's driven a long way and we called into Walworth Castle for food.  Football tonight,  which I have no interest in whatsoever! !  Take care. Xx

Another beautiful day, hubby has gone to have the car serviced, so I pop to the post office to send Lisa's card, it's shut and closed for good in April, so I go to Newton Aycliffe to our main one, park the car and walk to the main one, it's shut for technical update, I won't tell you what I said!  So I have to drive four more miles to the next one and pay £1 to send one card!  Back home hubby is in pain and I can see he's not in a good place.  Let's go to Reeth he says I don't want to stay home.  So off we go and it's a wonderful day and the journey is lovely, tunnels of trees, sheep and lambs wandering the road side and lots of hikers doing the coast to coast, many of them quite old and I worry about them in this heat.  We call at the Punch Bowl and sit outside looking across the valley and spot some swifts and swallows,which cheer him up enormously as we hadn't seen any.  This is why he has fought to live longer because simple every day pleasures are worth living for..  We call at Walworth Castle on our way home and have an early tea, there is a wedding on and we sit and watch them through the leaded windows in all their finery and hubby makes plans to bring our family there, there are birds of prey to see and nature trails for us able bodied ones.  We meet the chef and chat to him, he tells us he lives in the Dales but travels every day as he loves his job.  Hubby is asleep on his sheepskin rug and I'm content that he's here and making plans.  A good day.

It's a gorgeous day and Kelly my lady gardener is coming to cut our prickly hedge, this hedge is lethal to all humans but the birds love it, how they don't get impaled on the spikes is a mystery.   I catch my neighbours mini tiger cat stalking the birds and bang on the window, being a cat he lifts his head disdainfully and saunters off, I think I need a new cat scarer!  Kelly arrives with her son Isiah who is growing into a lovely young man.  They ask about the old garden furniture and I say just take it as I was giving it to the YMCA,  she wants to pay me but I say no.  She has had a hard life, being beaten by her husband who then tried to burn the house down with her and two babies in it.  When he failed he  comitted suicide and then her brother did the same.  Her faith is so strong that even fourteen years later she still tends the graves..  So if we can do a good deed then we will.  Hubby is impressed and says we may actually get a car in the garage if anything else goes!  His hands are so swollen today they look like sausages and it's hard for him.  He goes to Richmond to collect the golf club he broke on the tree, Luke has mended it and left it at my brother's garage, when he arrives my brother is going nuts as someone has gone in his office, taken their clubs and hubby's repaired one as well!  So he's not amused!  Steak pie for tea and the last episode of The Bridge, I can't wait.  Have a good weekend all my fellow carers and sufferers.

We have a leaky toilet so I'm sent on a mission to get a repair kit, saying I would rather get a plumber went down like a bomb!  I do some retail therapy as well and buy a lovely cushion with a bunny on it which Ella will adore.  I get home and am met with, where have you been?  Does he not know me at all, I'm not going out for a stupid ball *** kit and nothing else!  So he balances precariouslying backwards on the toilet seat and I'm handed a screw driver to turn the water off. Apparently I've not bought the right kit so off I go again.  Long story short, it's still dripping!  His toe is still hurting despite the new plasters it's five months now and I wish it would heal.  After all my running around and do it yourself I've spent the afternoon sitting in the sun.  It's too hot for hubby to sit out so he's sat in the kitchen drinking chilled larger.  Teas over, another relatively good day on the health front but it's still below the surface, as he said how fast the year was going, but at least he's still here!  

Well a good start to the day,  his toe is hurting him and his hands are so swollen and painful I have to hold his glass whilst he has tablets and the stupid toilet is worse than it was so I've had to bale the water out with a jug as it's too full to get under the pipe!  So finally we try to fix it again, I've spent most of the morning on my hands and knees under the toilet to the point I ended up with a stiff neck.  PLEASE can we get a plumber, nope I'm not paying some poncey plumber £100 per hour to fix a leaky toilet, says his lordship.  Long story short, the water is turned off permanently!  I pop to wish Josie happy new start to her job and she's got engaged!   I'm thrilled for her as she was widowed aged 22 years old and then bounced into an unhappy marriage, until three years ago when they divorced because the dog had died and she had no one to talk to!  So she ended up opposite me.  Her daughter and sister are not happy for her as he is fifteen years older, but we all know full well on this forum that you grab happiness when you can.  So a card and some bubbly have been taken over and I wish her all the happiness she deserves. Xx

So ten fifteen ls night he storms into the front room asking why the toilet has filled up, I don't know I say reasonably, I'm not a plumber.   He asks me the same question three time and gets the same answer,  I then get the regular mantra,  that the fairies must have done it.  I'm so mad at being called a liar that I end up shouting back at him, he's tired and had two strong largers so it's pointless trying to reason with him, so I go to bed.  I've got up early this morning and bailed it out again, texted Norman next door and ended up going to screw fix for a new part. All this time he's still in bed,  so when I get back he shouts at me again for involving Norman.  Long story short, he's gone out as he's obviously not needed, I just stop myself from saying yes you're not needed because this will get us nowhere.   This type of behaviour is always related to how impotent he feels as  man but I'm not being sworn at and called a liar, so I'm standing my ground on this one.  I get very angry as his cancer is smoking related and even though he was told to stop mamy years ago, he refused.  I feel that the smoking came first and us second,  so issues like this bring my anger to the fore and his is because he knows it's his fault and we are all suffering as a result.   So anyone who thinks they can carry on smoking and dodge the cancrr bullet,  I tell them,  think again because this is the life you will end up with.  Signing off as a very cross wife.

He doesn't arrive home until 5 pm and as he hasn't been out this length of time for a long while I'm beginning to think he's chucked himself off a bridge!  But common sense prevails and I know it's to teach me a lesson, so when he arrives I stay sitting in the garden drinking my wine and he doesn't come out, so status quo!  The door bell rings and it's Norman come to fix the toilet, this means he has to speak to me to know where the part is, so there,  I won!  I hear a load of shouting and dash in the house, Norman has turned the water on but left the top off, so everywhere is soaking wet including him, numerous  tea towels later we're dry and have a flushing loo.  Do you want tea, nope, well that's fine, saves me cooking, so off in the garden again and another glass of wine, which is chilled by the frostiness in the air.  This morning we are civil and I'm having a quiet day at home.  Lisa rang last night to say that Harry could do  some swimming thing for half an hour each day in the first week of the holidays, so she would come Thursday afternoon and go back Saturday,  so one and a half days to us, I'm not amused and tell her not to bother coming if that is all we are getting, I feel like I'm at the bottom of the heap amd no one is considering me at all.  This hits home and the situation is being re thought ! I've turned Faye down for that week because of her sister and then she changes her plans.  I tell my friends this,  this morning and they all say that I'm at the top of the heap with them, so there all of you, someone cares!!  Hopefully see you tomorrow .

Hi ANNIE,  I'm having problems with this site since they updated it and my message to you yesterday has disappeared into thin air.  I hope your foot is a little better but the hot weather doesn't help.  I think animals are suffering too and the garden could do with some rain.  I guarantee when the schools break up it will rain!  Take care. X

Hi.  Chill out; you sound very wound up with everything.  I am sorry but I did laugh about the water all around the place; it just sounded so ridiculous.  But what is really bugging you - not that you don't have enough to get upset about but you usually seem to cope better.  I think children - even when grown up - can sometimes take mum for granted.    On reflection I did the same.    I find the hot weather irritating - maybe it doesn't help you either.  How are you feeling today?  Thank goodness for your friends.

I am p'd off too; I was in so much pain last night I rang the doctor today and was told they were going to refer me to the physio - I would probably hear within six weeks!    Told to take some ibuprofen to get the swelling down.    Annie