Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Thank you...

You couldn't believe what happened last night, its like the devil is on our tails... Franco finds a nice warm bath helps his pain, so he fills the bath and is in the bath, maybe half hour, three quarters... anyway, our living room is next to the bathroom and after some while I start to hear a 'drip drip' noise, I couldn't work out why? or where it could be coming from?  I didn't even check it out immediately thinking it was just in the bathroom somehow..

Then I did, I knew Franco was alright, I could him in there, suddenly panicked in case the water was coming out over the top of the bath and running onto the landing and dripping down the stairs... Checked the landing, no... checked down the stairs, no... walked further down the stairs and saw water pouring from the ceiling lights... I shouted to Franco and he quickly got out of the bath and opened the plug to drain it...

Saying to me not to put on the light as I in fact was doing without even thinking of it!


Luckily it didn't shock me or short out the electricity!

Water was coming from cracks which had appeared in the plaster on the ceiling, all over the place, mainly over the ceiling light here above, it was dripping off the fan blades, dripping from the lights themselves, luckily we had recently taken out the four lights surrounding the big one and they were so bright!!

Plaster fell from the ceiling onto the blades and onto the floor along with the water... the new day bed was soaked through in one place, the mattress the drawer beneath...

... and several places all around.

So I pushed the day bed out of the way as best I could, mostly on my own as I didn't want Franco doing it, I had to move the dining table first and the wet rug... What a nightmare!!



For a long time we just watched it pour then change to just constant drips wherever the water came from... Franco got a head full of plaster, which was blue on one side?  Looks like they painted the cement blue?? So got the blue smurf treatment all over the floor and heads!

In the end after about an hour and half I just went up stairs, got into bed and felt numb, empty and nothing... 

I took this photograph when I came down this morning, I then preceded to sweep, mop and move furniture back into place and now only the blue above and the cracks are still there... that and the fact we can't use the bathtub!! The only bathtub in the house! Two toilets, one tub!!

Why has it happened?  It can't be the tap that broke while I was away, a little of back splash water from the shower could be the only thing and the taps are not leaking at all, it wasn't that the pipe work got blocked because the tub just wouldn't have emptied at all, or the sink... so it must be that the exist pipe, or around the plug hole somewhere has become detached... Its not like we jump about in there!! Or dropped something in there even, nothing we can think of could have moved the dam thing to allow all the water from the full bathtub to empty through the TV room ceiling!!

The plumber came out this afternoon, he is coming back tomorrow, he has to remove the tile on the side to get to the exist pipes, we don't have a bath panel, just tile, so we will lose those and don't have any spares... of course!

And in due course when the cement has thoroughly dried we will get someone in the re-plaster that!

Its unbelievable isn't it!

But then at least I am here, home... and here is where I am going to stay now!  I cannot possibly ever leave Franco home alone again...



Friday, January 27, 2017

Francos words...

Thank you

My son goes back tomorrow morning after spending a week with me, we spent quality time together catching up on the past and what the future holds.

I haven't been out a lot because of the treatment I'm getting and now he is spending his last few hours cleaning and dusting and making me some food.

I certainly wouldn't have managed without him this week, will miss him. 

Thursday, January 26, 2017

Francos words...

Nice to have my son out for the week, just to help and have some company.

Normal chores are getting more difficult and Marian being home for a while is going to be great.

I'm not allowed to lift any weight, and can't seem to sleep more than a couple of hours a day. Driving has become a pain and had a puncture the other day so had to change the tyre on the side of the road which caused me a lot of pain in my back.

Feel so helpless, but I'm not going into a hospice to lay down all day.

I've always been independent it's just the cold that gets you.

It's not fair on Marian, don't know what I would do in her situation, just trying to stay fit and strong.


Wednesday, January 25, 2017

The path less travelled...

Thank you

I was just about to switch this off and try to sleep... it's the 25th today, yesterday would have been my moms 89th birthday... oh mom... I wish I could talk to her even more now than ever before since she passed...

Three sleeps including tonight, if I'm lucky enough to actually sleep I mean, two here and one en-route.  Last night I just couldn't get myself out of a pit of despair, I just don't want Franco to not be here, for him to stay and us to carry on doing our stuff... then my mind turns dark and nothing is there, I just see me turning to him and he's not there and I cannot bear it. Family and friends heard me say sad awful things on messenger, I'm sorry, if I don't say them I'll lose it... Yesterday I called a well known phone line, thought it might help, you know, someone separate from my emotions... Rubbish! It was mmmms and arrrhhhs! and silence when I stopped talking... I said I had to go, awful... I have more words of compassion and strength, and giving... but I don't feel my words now... I feel empty now, I just want Franco and home.

Being here makes me keep strong when I am busy, sharing the days activities with the customer, but it's  beyond hard hearing things my mom could have been saying to me, from someone else worrying about her daughter...

I wish it wasn't me feeling this, I wish it wasn't Franco leaving. I can't do it.



Monday, January 23, 2017

The Rocky Road...

Thank you.


It is hard, if not impossible to get my feelings my emotions spoken, out loud voicing them and I am I tears immediately, shaking, sick to my stomach.  This is no uncommon happening I realise... but this is us, it is different, everyone is different.

I feel like I am unravelling, I can see only a black wall, nothing ahead, Franco and I always do and go everywhere together, there has been no 'I' in our together... So I can see nothing ahead.

Thankfully I can see to the end of this placement, thankfully I will not be here for the upcoming funeral because quite honestly I don't think I would have been able to stay, I couldn't of. Period.
I was asked to stay on a further week to be there to support the lady, believe you me the support I would have needed afterwards would have outweighed hers by a million times...

Only three complete days now, (four really), but anything that sounds less is fine by me...

Ironically wanting time to speed now, is the very last thing I want when I get home...

I am so overwhelmed by peoples love and generosity, by everyone... I think I would have run from here as soon as I realised the situation in this placement, without constant emotional back up, messages, phone calls, emails...

Keep 'em coming...

I think... well I keep thinking of all the things we always do, the places we love to go, all the plans we make all of the time, just like everyone does of course. We might be in the car, or watching t.v. or walking hand in hand, as we do... and we are always saying we're going here and there, we always have always do... and we always go where we say we're going to... not especially out of the normal places, but our places, around where we live... and bigger stuff, back Vegas where we got married, my niece is getting married in a month, we would have gone to California for the wedding.  Visit with my aunt again in Queens was very high on our agenda...

We want to go to Portugal! Well, really its so close isn't it! And Morocco... We plan to stay in a cave house again, like that Christmas before...

And to Málaga each Christmas for the lights, to Fuengirola because we love it there together, to the Mijas pueblo we love, to the parks to walk our Pipster, to live in our home together until we grow old because Franco said on our second date that he wanted us to grow old together...


Thursday, January 19, 2017

You know when your on a downhill struggle into the abiss and the light has left you behind, another death of a close young family member was really the last straw..

I cannot contemplate leaving Franco again, I have done something, a fundraising thing, I had thought of it, well needs must and we need...

I am overwhelmed with the love and outpouring of support we are receiving...

I actually got out of this house yesterday for an hour and half when family visited.

Went for a short walk with neighbour and their dog.  Fresh air for the first time in two weeks, nearly.

Soon home, one week two days of desperation to be home with Franco. The time must fly... Then so shall I.


Friday, January 13, 2017

So just read this morning about stress causing heart disease... They can test if you have some whatsit

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/01/11/scientists-finally-discover-stress-causes-heart-attacks-strokes/

or other in your brain...

Okay, can't link on my properly...

After my mom passed away, I was left with MVP, and SVT and dangerously high BP...

I wonder... You hear don't you of couples dieing within days, weeks... Of each other, I wonder if this substance some people have is what causes this phenomenon, they say always, 'it was a broken heart...' I think maybe it's closer to the truth than anyone ever realised until now...


Phew well okay getting the hang of positioning these photos using the the smallest part of my finger! Lol

Bit of sleety snow yesterday afternoon, and overnight a few millimeters, when I took bin out this morning, photograph at end!!

Been here a week, I want to go, it's hard, did I tell you lady is mourning her husband... I keep just wanting to run run run away, run home, get home... Two weeks to go, I can't bear it, trying not to cry all the time in front of her is hard, I'm being as positive as always for her, for the people I support I can do, but for me... No.




Sunday, January 08, 2017

Sunday today, I arrived here, Herefordshire on Friday, flight was okay, train to Gloucester, then it should have been bus and cab, but it was raining and I got a cab from Gloucester! Cost a bit but will reclaim it when I leave here.

It's been foggy last two days, we're in a blanket of it here, no sign of surroundings.  Out in a small village, without shop or paths! Taxi driver hadn't even heard of it!

Ran out of milk yesterday, the smallest size carton ever, skimmed! Arh! I need those good fats in the full fat please!

I ended up asking a neighbour I had never met for some this morning, it's ridiculous that I have no access to milk, and nothing of my choice at all for a week, the shopping is only on Thursdays...

Not able to sleep, I know I haven't been sleeping properly anyway, but I am being woken up a great deal and then can't get back to sleep... no breaks either, I mean nowhere to go anyway, and sit up in a room with a window I can't see out of!! No.

Mmmmm well about three hours have passed since above paragraph!

Lunch done, porridge and milk arrived, thankfully!

This must for many reasons be the hardest placement I have had, mainly because I just shouldn't be here! And supporting someone else who has suffered losses is not helping at all... keeping it together is giving me a headache, a real one.

My need to flee is very real and very urgent, and I can see Franco in my minds eye at home, and that's where I should be and want to be, and trying to be positive with words for a customer talking about the future makes me come to only a dark black wall in my mind, one too high to see over and there is no way around it...
I've never seen this wall of nothingness before.  It's scary.


Thursday, January 05, 2017

Just having a practice at Blogging on my phone; I'm not going to take my laptop, it's not too heavy, but I just can't be bothered... I'll have my Kindle for (small) TV, this and that do internet, I was taking the camera, but also can't be bothered to take that either, it's this little phone that will do it all, and its counterpart I also always carry with me, one can never be too careful...

Neither of us sleep well, for obvious reasons, and last night I tried to knock myself out! Unintentionally of course, although I have read somewhere nothing happens unintentionally... Like when I broke my little toe!?! Oh what happened? I got back into bed and misjudged it, slammed my head into the wall, above my right ear on that but that sticks out, sort of level with the forehead... Well on me anyway, it's the same on the other side, not a lump :-) but it still hurts! I think along with the virtigo which is getting better every day, that something is telling me not to go anywhere... Well, sorry universe, I have to...

Now... Going to upload a photograph here!




It's worked! The photo bit usually does, it's trying to get the next paragraph to start on the left not central, I'd have to have finger tips the size of Barbie's to hit that bar easier! If I zoom in to get the choice more manageable, the box disappears somewhere unattainable! So it's miniature or forgot it!

For future reference, if I can't get it straight off I won't be bothering!

So, I'm packed, the bag is light, and if I haven't got it, I'll have to be without it for three weeks, just need meds today from chemist, for Franco and me!

We have dog food for a month, more water than the resivoir!

A Kings cake to finish! (Just kidding). Freezer is stocked..Tank of fuel for Franco to go hither and thither! We used one of the many new gas stations recently popped up, no shop, no staff and very cheap fuel, even takes cash, you put notes (only), or credit cards in, the amount of filling up, then it gives out the fuel, if there's insufficient space for what you've paid for it credits your card or with cash prints out some sort of credit note? Not sure how that works...

Friend is going to walk the Pipster every day for us, shout out to Franco.  Friends will pop in, call, and or see him about town and coast. All bases covered... Apart from me being where I want to be, here, at home.

See you from England amigos!
TTNF
Marian



Tuesday, January 03, 2017

Over the years, many it feels now, I have completed the journeys through Blooming Human and Gratitude, on-line groups, 40 days usually of emails filled with positivity and thoughts on life... They have helped me through many parts of my life since, but along with the Inspirational quotes I have, had, been posting daily from my email box to my Facebook page... these things seem rather fruitless, empty words... I am a positive person by nature, always finding the good out of the bad, always happy and laughing, always a smile... I find myself now just with nothing much on my face at all... a real bad screensaver face permanently etched there, here... People who I would normally see are having to call to me, or come across the street, or shout at me.. period!



Three mountain shots taken up at El Chorro

I usually see everything, things people wouldn't even normally see, as so many of my photographs prove to the point!

Today I spoke with a friend on the phone on my way into town, I was in the Plaza Legion, I must have looked strange from anyone watching me! pacing about, holding the rail, stepping from ledge to ledge like a big kid!  Talking, crying, talking... then she wouldn't leave me until I stopped crying so I recalled a moment from long ago, and we laughed and we hung up the line...

Next a stopover in friends shop in town, cup of tea and chat and some strength gathered along the way, and in the street stopped to talk to a friend, we normally see each dog walking, and I know, now she is reading this! LOL! Welcome!!

I do some of the people who read my Blog, but going by the mail I receive the majority I do not... You guys have been with me some time now... This one has been going ten years... no eleven now!!!  and I blogged before that on Blogspirit, but I think its gone now, which is sad, also a Blog I wrote on behalf of my step dad was on Blogspirit and I cannot gain access to that one either... I am guessing I started back in 2003 then...

Flowers by the Kiosko

Eucalyptus tree
We came out of the bar before lunch and my camera was free to live and possess what my eye came upon.. so the flowers and the eucalyptus, I love eucalyptus trees, the height of them, the bark, the smell... and the memories of them... lining the road near my uncles Charlies in Yonkers...

Roaring fire in Kiosko
 This was the fire crackling and spitting throughout our lunch... should have actually recorded it shouldn't I?  Would have been more effective maybe!

Wind turbines in the clouds
and the aforementioned wind turbines in the clouds....

This taken from my secret location!!  lol

Well, what have we been doing since last posting? was new years eve... and today is the 3rd!  I sadly still feel the memories strongly at this time seven years ago... and it was exactly seven years ago on Friday when I am travelling to Bristol airport that I flew to Luton from Malaga, to get to my mom urgently, I thought it was today, the 3rd, but just reading back to then, it was the 6th January 2010... I can't believe its seven years, I wish I could fly over there now, get to Watford hospital and find my mom still there, boy would she be annoyed with me!! lol... but just to talk to her, get comfort from her...  Seven years...

Anyways, yesterday Franco woke up with the need for [more] suckling pig!  So off to the coast we went and after many stores we found 'him' in Eroski! Eroski is closing did I mention that? Yes, I think so!  And today after getting home from town Franco had already got him roasting in the oven, he had named him!!! Really!! Enrique!! So we had to eat something with a name!! Arrrhh!!  He also, in the photo Franco put on Facebook bore a strong resemblance to Pippa when she is sleeping!!

Down town I needed to get a few last things to take with me to work on Friday, allowed ten 100ml bottles, which is fine, just enough for three weeks hopefully, because there are no shops anywhere near where I am going!!  I thought I would go into the perfumaria instead for the few things, what a mistake!! Apart from the cost being higher I forgot Christmas present buying is in full swing and all packages are wrapped here... so stood in the line for about twenty minutes!!

A positive note though, our gorgeous baby granddaughter is now two years old! Already! Impossible I know!  We spent time on Facebook cam which was lovely, no substitute I know, but a million times better than past generations had the benefit of... photographs below taken in late November when we were visiting, Cassie and Franco relaxing and chatting on the sofa...

Cassy at Christmas keeping warm :-) 

Todays weather has been beautiful, a bit misty over the Guadalhorce valley from out of the window just now, but the sun is shining and the flies are out!!! Whats with those flies?? Could it be the piglet!!

TTFN