Never underplay the role (or title) of a Housewife.

"And what do you do?"
"I'm, erm, well technically I'm a housewife....."
"A Domestic Engineer!"
The above conversation at church this morning led to the following exchange on the way home:
"Domestic Engineer. I like that. I think I'll keep that."
"You haven't got 'Eng' after your name, you can only be a Domestician."
"Sounds too much like Domestos for me."
"Domestic Technician?"
"House Trained. Yes."

Surprised!

I think it's incredible the way your body gangs up against you as if it thinks it actually has control.

Last night I felt like I was going down with a cold, I had a headache, earache, sneezes, tummy ache (that might have had something to do with how much lasagne I ate), and thought that my glands were up. This morning my shoulders have been really playing up and my hip was slipping as I walked to the leisure centre. My whole body seemed extremely reluctant to go and do this "body pump" thing. And then the mind kicked in, are you sure you want to do this? Nervousness. Scared. Wouldn't it be better if you got your shoulders sorted out first? What if you damage your shoulders more? What if...? What if...? And then I got to the gym and was really early and had to sit and wait, and the receptionist was busy looking and sounding very efficient, and I didn't know where I should go, and the technique session that I had been told was this morning only happens on Saturdays......

But. Do you know what, I've really enjoyed it. It was exactly what I was looking for, just what I needed, and I'm going again next week. And I can still walk!! Having a few issues getting down the stairs but hey, it's all part of the experience...

Bitten the Bullet

I just had to record this, for posterity. I have signed up for a class at the gym, of my own accord, with nobody pushing me into it or dragging me along. I am terrified.

Sunlight poured like molten gold...

Sunlight poured like molten gold across the sleeping landscape.

[Footnote: Not precisely, of course. Trees didn't burst into flame, people didn't suddenly become very rich and extremely dead, and the seas didn't flash into steam. A better simile, in fact, would be "not like molten gold."]

Terry Pratchett, The Light Fantastic

This is the view from my window at eight this morning... watching the sunlight pour down the hill like syrup.

Incommunicado.

I feel quite antisocial at the moment.

I have been bored almost to tears by a bank manager who seemed to want to control every aspect of our lives, and spent three times as long as was necessary telling us that they weren't able to give us a loan for a car (turns out the car in question needs one of either me or Steve to have at least 2 years' no claims bonus before our current car insurance company will insure us on it. Handy when you've not owned a car for two years due to being abroad and broke). I have spoken to insurance brokers (at last I've finally sorted out contents insurance) and car dealers, and TV licensing to inform them that we don't have a TV (expect a visit just to confirm this) and BT to try and figure out what they did when we set up our account with them (complicated - bad advertising and miscommunication).

I have one phone call left to make and then that's it. I shall be incommunicado to the world for the rest of the evening.

Goodbye.

Boy Racer

We went looking at cars last night. It was interesting, to say the least. Steve and I discovered we like very different things. It could take a while (and several more test drives) to agree on which car to buy.

The question is: nice, sensible, small family car (an Octavia estate, 6 months old, 1.9TD) or a saucy, racy, Boy-Racer-Red hatchback (a Fabia RS, complete with sporty seats, couple of years old, 1.9TD)?

The Fabia is half the price of the Octavia. We will probably be needing an estate car in a few years' time, when we will hopefully have a young family. But do we need one now? Or should we invest in the estate car now, while we have House money? Or will that mean that I have lived my youth without ever having a nippy little hatchback?

As they have the same engine but are two very different cars it was interesting driving them both. The estate is nice and sensible, perfect for a young family, hard to come by (you buy one, you keep it until either it dies or your family gets too big for it or your kids leave home).

The hatchback is uncontrolled adrenaline. It goes like a rocket. Steve is torn. He likes the Boy-Racer-Red. Somewhere under all the estate cars in his head, there is a boy racer screaming to be let out for one last romp around the country lanes.

Newbies

After church yesterday Steve and I were talking about how different churches approach the area of new people just wandering in. Churches are so different, and have such wildly differing levels of preparedness!

When we wandered in off the street so to say into the pentecostal church in Iisalmi, we were blessed because Charles and Paula had only just come back to that church the previous week and they were pretty fluent in English. Everybody knew everybody so when two strangers walked in it was pretty obvious. Even though, they didn't know what to do with us newcomers! Charles and Paula welcomed us wonderfully but there was no programme in place in which to bring newcomers into the "fold".

In Littlehampton yesterday although the Holy Spirit was obviously with the Church there, and the Church was so evidently alive, we were pretty much left to ourselves afterwards. Rachel's family came and said hello, but either nobody else noticed that we were strangers (or we looked so at home) or nobody really knew what to say to newcomers, or everybody was so busy catching up with everybody else that they just didn't notice anybody standing by themselves. Maybe we should have made more of an effort.

It just made me think of Kings, and how they've hit on something there. They expect new people at the meetings and welcome them publicly, and people don't seem scared to talk to other people who aren't in their immediate circle of friends.

Having not been a church-newbie for a long time, it's quite scary walking into a room full of strangers. In times past this would have been my ideal situation - new place, new start, new identity, nobody talking to me or asking awkward questions - but I really want some place to belong to. I'm craving belongingness. We're going to go to Jubilee Church in Worthing next week. I so don't want to become a church-hopper but I so want to find the place that God wants us to be in. I want to be welcomed in, drawn into the fold, to feel wanted and loved and accepted, and find my place with God's people. Or, just KNOW that we are where God wants us to be.

New Toys

This feels like the first "proper" weekend we've spent here. It's actually the 4th though according to Steve. The first weekend Steve had a really bad cold, the second weekend Jamie was with us and we were all shattered from the late night van driving and early morning panic, last weekend was good with the airshow and going to church, but the car episode of the following two days kind of sacked that one off. So today to celebrate the first weekend of normality returning we've been shopping (clothes and cameras.) and been for the walk that we've been meaning to do since we moved to Steyning and found a leaflet about it. Took us an hour and a half, and Steve got to try out his new toy. He'll improve, I'm sure, once he gets used to it.

Tomorrow we're going to go to Littlehampton again, and if the weather's nice we'll go for that walk again, but hopefully this time in daylight. Next week is a full week here, and so hopefully by the time we have to make a trip up to Manchester I'll have recovered enough not to get ill at the thought of travelling. I'm looking forward to tomorrow and next week.

Earwigs and Emotional Episodes

Earwigs. Like or loathe? I don't like them personally. Never had a problem with them in Manchester, but I've lost count now of the number of earwigs I've had to evict over the last couple of weeks. This morning it was 3 (so far), they were hidden in the blinds so when I opened the blinds in the kitchen one fell out. I was ready for the next two and the vacuum cleaner was brought out.

Had a call from the estate agents yesterday. Now why couldn't they have told me this when I was still in Manchester, rather than waiting until we're calling off any travelling for at least another fortninght?? But they need proof of address (she didn't specify which address, woodhouse lane or charlton street?) and proof of ID. And there's no way I'm posting my passport to them. So they'll just have to wait until we're next in town. Anyway there's already been one viewing on the house, and another one scheduled for next week sometime. I'm still praying that the right person will buy it, preferably a Christian who will make friends with the neighbours and look after the garden!

I'm having fun with the hire car. I think it's alright to drive, Steve says it's like driving an arcade game (with reference to the steering) but I'm not fussed. It's nice just to be driving a new car. We've had a look at getting a car on a contract, but it's quite a lot more expensive than paying off a loan although we really didn't expect it to be THAT much more expensive. I guess I'm coming to the opinion that I really don't know what all the fuss is about owning your own car. It just means you've got another Thing exerting influence over your life (it needs constant feeding and maintaining) whereas with a contract car the servicing is sorted out for you, and you get a nice new car every couple of years. Ah well. Maybe one of these days. We're going to have a look at nearly new cars on Saturday. Had enough of old cars for a bit.

I went to see the family planning nurse yesterday. Wasn't really sure why I had to go and see her, I thought I'd just be getting weighed and measured etc etc and another repeat on my prescription for contraceptives. But no, because I have to go onto insulin in preparation for us wanting to start a family, the pill I'm on currently has to go. It has issues with insulin apparently. So we talked and I'm being put on a progesterone only pill (POP) because that doesn't have issues with insulin. So I start them tonight, and in a couple of months' time I will go to see my new doctor and we'll have a chat about how my emotional stability has been, and whether I think I can cope with these little things. Emotional stability has been the main thing that has affected which pill I've been on over the years, and Marvelon has been the best of a bad bunch I guess. I get easily emotional just before I'm due, rather than psychotic. Not bad really.

Watch this space.

What A Weekend. Stupid Car.

Oh the trauma!! What a weekend it's been.

The airshow, by the way, was incredible. Really sad with one of the pilots killed in a crash, but the show was stunning. I've only been to one airshow before and I must have been really young, all I remember of it is the blue ribbed jerseys that the RAF wore. I loved it! I never want to get so into cars or planes or bikes or trucks that I qualify as a geek, but I do love machines....

Just as we were leaving the airshow we got a call from Tze who had caught the bus to Brighton that afternoon with a friend. The bus seemed to take an eternity to get to Brighton (from Tunbridge Wells) and by the time they got there, everywhere was closing and the last bus home was about to leave. The last train that would get them home was ridiculously early as well, so we met them in Brighton for a meal and they stayed over at ours afterwards.

I'm beginning to realise how far away from everywhere we are. It took nearly three hours to get into London on Friday evening (a bit less to get home though), and it took nearly an hour to get to Brighton - at least it felt like it! So yes - we don't actually live in Brighton, it's just the nearest town that most people have heard of. If we want fish and chips by the sea we go to Worthing, which is about 8 miles away over the hill.

Sunday morning we went to church in Littlehampton with Rachel Evans and her family. That was good. As the family said afterwards, it was a bit of an odd service (ie not the usual) but I enjoyed myself, and it was so evident that God was with them. They're on the case of the invisible church in Steyning, so hopefully soon we'll have a lead! We had Sunday lunch with the Evans' family, and they're so happily barking that I felt like I was having Sunday lunch with my family! Conversations dived off at tangents regularly, and with 5 fairly sleep deprived people in the room it was interesting to say the least. Neither Rach nor I wanted to go to Manchester after that.

But we had to, so eventually we set off and that's where the fun started. We crawled most of the way up to the M40, at which point the road cleared up and the coolant warning lamps started flashing. There was no way we were going to make another 20 miles to the next services so the AA were called out ("you're a priority because you're on the motorway - we'll be with you as soon as possible within the hour" - they just made it!) to find that the car had dumped all its coolant. Nice car. The guy topped it up and spent a while checking for leaks and things, couldn't find anything so signed it off and off we went. We got home ok and I crashed at Rachel's overnight.

In the morning the car was going to the garage for a service so I took my stuff to Woodhouse Lane and from there set off for Hazel Grove where the garage is. I got as far as Cheadle Hulme and steam started pouring out from under the hood. No warning lamps, just lots and lots of steam. Handy pub carpark nearby.... Popped the bonnet, sighed at the green puddle under the car, and called the AA again. This time I wasn't a priority so it was a potential hour and a half wait for them to turn up. I'd not had breakfast (the plan had been to drop the car off at the garage, and then go foraging for food) so thankfully Sainsburys was just down the road so I went off to buy a paper and some pencils and some breakfast. I'd only just picked up the paper when my phone rang to say the patrol would be there in 10 minutes!! I was still running back to the car when the patrol phoned me to say he was there...

Well he topped the coolant up again, couldn't find any leaks, checked it over, and said he'd follow me to the garage. I got maybe 400 yards down the road and had to pull over, warning lamps flashing furiously and steam starting to seep out from the bonnet. Oh joy. The head gasket had gone. Garage said please don't bring it here, we won't be able to look at it for 3 weeks and then it's going to be a month-long project to sort it out. I was taken back to mum and dad's on the back of a recovery truck. (The afternoon then consisted of me trying not to cry, being consoled by the cat, making dinner and falling asleep on my parents' bed - I forget what I was doing, but evidently the brain decided to shut down for a while.)

Little aside here. The guy who picked me up and took me home was such a gentleman! He didn't talk down to me and I expect he would have happily explained anything to me, but I was able to hold my own in a conversation about cars and engines but he still opened doors for me and was just generally a really nice chap.

So the hunk of junk is now parked on my parents' driveway, and it's a case of Watch This Space to see what happens. We've got a hire car (a brand new sexy Megane with the sexy rear end) for a few weeks while we look for something that's hopefully not going to break, and I've had enough of travelling for the time being. We'll have to come up to Manchester at some point in the next few weeks, but I'm looking forward to a fortnight at home to relax and recuperate and generally de-stress.

Feels like it was only Yesterday

Got in at about 1.30am last night - took us nearly 3 hours to get from here to central London - and that was going the recommended route, avoiding the roads that would simply be one long crawl. We could have got most of the way to Manchester in that time. The groups' schedule was, as Hanna put it at 9.30am, messy... so by the time that we arrived at the Highbury Centre, they had only just finished eating and had made it to Victoria tube station! So we had time to kill waiting.

I read about Gerald Coates and decided he's a pretty amazing man of God, and read about other bits and pieces such as God healing and how He answers prayers but just quite often not the way we expect. The article I read told of a guy who came forward for prayer for healing of his terminal cancer. He was touched by God in an awesome way, and was saved and baptised by the following week. He died the following year - God hadn't healed his cancer, but He had healed his heart.

Then the guys finally arrived - they had all run from Highbury&Islington tube station - it's a 15 minute walk to the Highbury Centre - so Anssi and Kimmo were the first in, hugs all round - yes it was worth the wait! It was so great to see all our old friends, the language barrier was still there although it hardly mattered, I've forgotten most of my Finnish but I was able to follow bits and pieces. Arto is determined that I should learn the language again. I don't think he's going to let Anssi correspond with us in English! Charles is great as ever, he still writes his sermons in English and after a year and a half he still doesn't seem to realise that things like "fascinates and assassinates" (in reference to sin) is just lost on an audience that doesn't speak English! It makes him him really, I suppose.

We sat in on their bible study, they were looking at denying your self (Mat 16?). It made me think. It's all very well to deny your self, to say a big fat NO when your self wants to do things that are not in line with the Word of God, but what do you do instead? I remember being taught to "align your self with the Will and Word of God" and somehow that seems far more conducive to actually getting somewhere than simply saying no to all these things that you shouldn't do. Of course there's a balance that needs to be struck, you do need to say no to all these bad things, but then, if you have aligned your self with the Will of God, surely these things just won't be a temptation any more? Or at the very least, they'll be a lot easier to overcome - after all, we are Overcomers.

Afterwards most of them went to bed - they got in and got to bed at near to 2am in the morning, and then to have a full day of walking around London and getting back to the Centre at 9pm, it was a long day for them. So by 10pm, most of them were falling asleep on their feet (don't forget their bodies are still on Finnish time so it was midnight for them already!) and we stayed up chatting to Mika and Hanna, Tuulija, Arto and Anssi. Hanna is still poorly, she's been bedridden with flu and had recovered enough to fly to England but is still coughing lots and lots. Hope she gets better soon. We talked about houses and it turns out Kimmo might be working for Omatalo so Anssi is going to find out. Hanna scoured their website for me but couldn't find anything about them exporting, or even any way of contacting them to ask! So it's not just me... But we'll see. Anssi has offered his help in building too, I think! I wasn't listening to that conversation, so I will have to check, but perhaps.... anyway, that's for the future. Got to find the church body that God wants to join us to here, and then I'm sure we'll see doors opening for us with regard to land and importing the house that we want etc etc.

Arto is a pilot so he was interested to hear that we were (hopefully) going to go to an airshow today, I've just looked on their website and it looks amazing! I hope we get there - Steve's still asleep bless him, and It's gone 11 already - the displays started at 11am and go on until 5pm. It's on again tomorrow so we might catch some more tomorrow afternoon as well.

And, they've recorded a CD! The project started to raise money to build a church building in Lahore, Pakistan, and they've recorded a full CD of songs and sold loads in Finland and in Canada (where Mika and Hanna have been for 3 months) and raised enough to build the church building. Incredible! So I must get a copy of this CD. They recorded most of it actually in the church in Iisalmi, using the equipment that Steve helped them buy and set up, and I've heard a couple of the tracks and they're pretty good! I'm impressed! Tuulija, the "quiet one", has written a song and it's really beautiful. And they've been blessed with a very good cellist who was with them for a few months, just long enough to record the songs.

People are moving on though. Eila, Katja's mum, has sold her house in the country (the house we considered buying if we moved to Finland!) and moved to Lahti (pretty long way off), and Tuulija has moved to someplace about 50km outside of Helsinki, to go to Bible School, which has songwriting as part of its course. Katja didn't come on the trip but she's back in Oulu now, she's got maybe 4 or 5 years on her course so she'll be there a while. But since Eila has moved away from Iisalmi, I wonder if she'll really have much reason to visit there any more.

I really pray that God helps these young people to come out of themselves. I pray that He puts something on their heart to see the place where they live won for Jesus. I wonder what it is that they want, whether they have any particular desire on their hearts. I wonder what God is teaching them at the moment, I wonder what journey He's taking them on.......

A Tight Fit

Feeling pleased this morning. Steve and I got the slipcover onto the sofabed in the attic last night - what an ordeal!! Don't think that'll be coming off often, only to wash. We gave Steve's mum and dad the old white sofa for them to put in one of the rooms at church, complete with slipcover. My goodness by Ikea make things a tight fit. They took it off to wash it (not quite so hard to get the thing off) and mum said she thought she was going to break a finger trying to get the thing back on again! Hmmm, we said, yes..... it did take two of us to get it back on as well, and we didn't do it that often simply because it was SUCH an effort....

Anyway. I started putting the slipcover on by myself yesterday morning, and by lunchtime I'd given up. I decided that it would probably be easier to try and put the cover on while the mattress was still in the attic, rather than try and get the mattress downstairs by myself. Steve agreed so at least I felt better about that. Managed to burn all my knuckles though, trying to pull extra inches out of the fabric so that it would fit properly! Ah well. Done now. The attic was then tidied!! We put boxes away, created more space, swept all the sawdust up - tidy!! At least, it was tidy, until I put the washing up there and 3 bags full of single duvets and spare pillows. Not really sure why we have one double duvet, and 3 single duvets.


Think the attic is going to be the escape room. The den, to escape to when everything just gets a bit too much. It's quite chilled up there (and warm and cosy because the sun heats the room up rather well), relaxed. Very informal, unlike the front room which feels like it's on show most of the day (we SO need to get blinds or something) and needs to look good. Not that the attic doesn't look good, it just looks a lot more informal... like a normal-use living room, rather than the parlour.

Ok... today.... shopping, banana bread, look at short shelves at B&Q, drive into London. Yay!

Dinner Dates

I am SO excited! I think tomorrow the excitement might make me pop though... A group of friends from Iisalmi (Finland) are coming over for a couple of days in the Capital, they've got a jam-packed schedule but we're going to meet up with them tomorrow evening and I am SO EXCITED to get to see them again! Never mind that we're planning to go to Finland again at New Year, that's still 3 months away and this is TOMORROW! I spoke to Pastor Charles yesterday and arranged when and where we could meet up, and this morning I got an email from my friend Hanna (she's ace - she was really shy when we were in Finland, and even though she could speak better English than Mika she would only correct him, not speak herself! They've just spent 6 months in Canada though so I think that will have had a major impact on her confidence) so I'm just getting more and more excited about seeing them all. Hanna told me some names of who is coming over, and I'm kind of relieved that it's not just Pastor Charles and the youth. Pastor Jouni and his family are coming (I can't wait to see his wife again!) and Anssi (I've got some cool pics of his kids, they were such posers!), and Päivi and Arto, and of course some of the youth. There's about 21 of them in all coming for a whistle-stop tour of London (Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Madame Tussaude's, the Eye, Parliament...)

Anyway I think you get the idea that I'm so happy to be able to see them again.

Steve and I went on a Date last night - it was a really nice sunny day so we had a drink at the White Horse at lunchtime, and decided to go for another after work. And as we sat there we decided we couldn't be bothered going home to cook, so I asked if there were any tables free (on a Wednesday evening - it was practically empty!) and we had a brilliant impromptu dinner date. I enjoyed last night :) It's a lot more like Autumn today, the sun's hidden and it feels damp. Gutted that I put the washing in late yesterday, instead of in the morning... Don't think the washing machine is too happy. The dial broke a couple of weeks ago (it was already damaged) so I have to use pliers to turn it to where I think we've worked out the usual programme position is, and part way through the cycle yesterday afternoon it caused the main RCD to flick, and everything in the house went off.... very disconcerting. So I think I will not be using the computer or the stereo when I've got the washing machine on in the future, just in case...

Right, breakfast calls. And paracetamol...

A Nip in the Air

Now what was it that I was going to write.... I thought of something, and by the time the computer had powered up and I'd checked facebook I've completely forgotten what it was.

Tell you what though, it's definitely Autumn now. There's a nip in the air which continues much later into the mornings, and the shadows are cold now, rather than providing respite from the sunshine. Might be time soon to put the sandals away and start wearing slippers indoors, and proper shoes outdoors...

We went to Worthing on Monday evening, I was too sick to even pretend to try to cook anything for tea, so we decided to wrap up and go to Worthing and buy fish and chips and sit out on the pier in the evening sunshine. There's a really good fish and chip shop in Worthing, right next door to a fish and chip restaurant.... popular too, somehow we managed to get there just before the queue started spilling out onto the street. The sea was so calm, I can't remember the last time I saw such a calm and peaceful sea; the sun was low in the sky, shimmering over the exposed sand. So beautiful. Just what we needed - a 20 minute holiday.

Not too much work lined up for me today. I've had a really painful stiff neck for a few days now, and Steve thinks I've managed to strain a muscle lifting things that are actually too heavy for me to lift with a dodgy shoulder, so I'm on the painkillers and only light work while that sorts itself out. Still, there's plenty to do. I'm determined that all the boxes that are currently here from the last trip are emptied or at least sorted out before I go to Manchester on Sunday, so that when I get home on Tuesday the stuff I bring with me actually has a chance of being sorted out instead of just being added to the list of things to do.

Onwards...

Looking Good

When I was a kid and had a nasty cold (or whatever reason it was that I was dragged along to the doctors) I remember sitting in the waiting room trying my best to look ill because I was convinced that if you were sick, you should look it! But sitting in the waiting room this morning, trying not to nod off, it occurred to me that quite a lot of people who are really sick don't look it. Jane Tomlinson, for example. If she could do what she managed, being that sick, then I really don't have any room to complain about a cold stopping me.

The only reason I keep going to the doctors is so they can keep an eye on me and the diabetes. The diabetic nurse this morning is convinced that although I'm non-insulin dependent, which is now classed as Type 2, I'm actually a Type 1 but taking my time about it. (Harks back nearly 27 year. Apparently I really took my time about being born. Made them wait until the next day, I was so reluctant. Apparently.) The fact that I'm now on 3mg Glimepiride means that I'm ever so slightly closer to being on insulin anyway, so not to worry about going on to insulin for pregnancy preparation. She's going to be keeping an eye on me anyway. Which I guess is nice, really. She kept me talking nearly 50 minutes - I'm one of her more "interesting" patients: I think that means that I don't fit nicely into any boxes!

I did a second glucose test just now and it's still really high, that's about an hour and a half after lunch - sandwiches with a non-sugary filling, and a glass of no added sugar juice. Nothing in there to make my glucose levels go that high, but I'm not going to start worrying yet. I suppose this is a good incentive to start testing my sugars more often!

More blood tests next week, and a referral to one of the clinics at Worthing Hospital to get me started on insulin. It would happen to a needlephobe. Wonder what the correct term for that is...

Nerves

I'm going to see the diabetic nurse in half an hour, to see if we can get the ball rolling with regards to Steve and I trying for mini-Entwistles next year sometime. So far, as far I know, it will go like this:
Get Jeni on to Insulin.
Monitor Jeni's blood sugar to make sure it is within strict boundaries at all times. (Bit worried about this one, I've just tested my glucose levels and they were 17.8 but I'm putting that down to 3 slices of toast with jam this morning for breakfast.)
6-9 months later, stop taking the Pill.
Start trying for kids....
Constant monitoring, eagle-eyed watching, .......... I remember when we were about to move to Finland for the year I joked to Steve that could we please have our first out in Finland so that we'd be away from the eagle-eyes of the families!
But as much as I'm not looking forward to being watched so closely, I think once it comes to it I'll be pretty glad of the attention. Seems we have one of the best diabetic nurses in the country down here in Steyning, and it's a pretty big and well-equipped health centre. I'm sure I'll be well looked after.
I'm also sure that I'm going to get told off for not checking my glucose levels more often. Apart from just now, I can't honestly remember the last time I checked. I think it was while I was still working at Parklands, which was over a month ago now. Ah well.

New Home, New Start...

Thought I'd make another attempt at blogging. Since I'm so far away from home, again, and this time maybe permanently....

Don't think there's any need to go into details past here, although here's the story.

Today I feel sick again! Joy. I'm coming to the conclusion that it's due to the stress of moving. I didn't actually believe the stories about moving house being one of the 3 most stressful things you can do, along with having a baby and something else which I can't remember. But, I thought the stress was due to moving away from friends and family, being alone, having to carve out a new life. Doesn't worry me much. Apart from the internet bringing family and friends closer, I've never been one to worry much about a new start. The thing that's got me is all the stuff that Steve and I have managed to accumulate over the past 8 years - that's including the time before we got married, when the traditional "bottom drawer" grew into most of my parents' front room.

We've had incidents in the past when some attempt at sorting out all the junk has been necessary, most notably when we had an arson attack on the house in 2003. Problem is, when that happened all that ensued was everything (everything) got put into boxes and taken away to be cleaned (although now that we're going through everything again, we're constantly having to wash soot off our hands from the supposedly cleaned stuff) and then we never got around to getting it out of the boxes. 4 years ago! Two years ago, when we moved to Finland for a year, we didn't actually sell our house so basically everything that we didn't need or want to take with us, we just dumped in the attic. Bad move... Necessary, but still a pretty bad move.

So over the past year we've been up there on occasion and taken things out of boxes and found things that we'd not seen for 4 years and thought we'd lost, and found so many memories. One was a little porcelain owl that mum says I got when I left primary school - a "wise owl" and a mini dictionary was given to every child. The fact that so much of the stuff in the attic has a story attached would be great if I could remember any of the stories. I've got a feeling I'm going to be pretty useless when my great grandkids ask me to tell them stories of my childhood!

But because we have been up in the attic on occasion, and taken things out of boxes but not done anything with them, it means that we have an attic floor strewn with odd bits and pieces, not in any particular order, not in boxes. And so, very difficult to just pack up and move. And every time we visit Manchester now, it gets harder and harder because it's not a visit home, it's a visit to dredge up more old memories, and usually the ones that do come back to me are the ones I'd prefer to forget.

On a happier note though, I'm so relieved that when we go back we don't have to sleep in the house!! There's no furniture and no kettle and no pans and no microwave so no way of making a cup of tea in the morning, and sleeping on an airbed just manages to kill any hopes of my right arm being of any use at all the following day. Two couples from church have opened their spare bedrooms to us when we go back for sorting weekends, and rather than sorting and taking junk back to Steyning we can sort and take junk back for further sorting to my parents' house which is 15 minutes away rather than 4 and a half hours away.

But still, mum's worried about me because I'm feeling sick so often, and I'm fed up because I've lost weight again (I have a target weight which is half a stone away (heavier, not lighter), and I just can't get there, no matter how much I try) because I'm not eating my usual amount of food because I feel sick so often, and I'm soooooo tired. I'm looking forward to the week after next. We might actually manage a full fortnight in Steyning.