Seeing life through new eyes

I’ve been really bad at blogging these last few months. I don’t really have any excuse aside from the fact that once the clocks go back I tend to hibernate so hence I haven’t been up to much. It hasn’t helped that my computer problems have gotten much worse. The Compaq pc which I inherited from Phil has been shaky and slow for a while but a few weeks ago it stopped loading Google Chrome which is the browser that I use. I have tried reloading but to no avail. Phil stepped in and defragged and uninstalled loads of programmes and it has speeded up a little but internet is still iffy and I still can’t load Google Chrome so I am having to use Internet Explorer version 7 which is basic. I have tried loading IE8 but it won’t let me. My backup Acer PC is behaving even more badly and has just about stopped working. I need to have another go because I use Basic Real Time PAYE once a month and am not sure if I can just load onto another PC. Ian very kindly lent me his old work laptop and I can get quite a good internet connection but I can’t print to the wireless printer and also it doesn’t have Word or Excel. Last week was uneventful. Mum phoned up early last Tuesday to say that her TV had gone wrong. Now it’s a fairly new TV so initially I thought she’d pressed a wrong button. I decided to call out a TV engineer from Melton who were able to get to her mid morning. I was glad I did because it turned out mum needed a new aerial and replacement cable because of water damage. You never know if you are being ripped off but they sounded genuine and at the end of the day, TV is mum’s life so it was worth paying out for. Emma my next door neighbour from no 11 came round for a cup of tea last Thursday and we caught up with gossip. I miss living in number 11, I love our little flat but some days these 4 walls seem to cave in on you. Life seems pretty good for Emma, Jason’s business is thriving and the children are doing well at school, so all is good. I went to Tesco’s at Kingston last Friday to get my eyes tested. I knew that my prescription had changed because one night I struggled watching the telly in the bedroom. I put it down to tiredness but turns out that my long distance sight had got worse and so had my near vision. I now need glasses to drive and watch the telly. I ordered 2 pairs but it was BOGOF so the total price came to £95 which I didn’t think was bad. The trouble with me and glasses is that I tend to loose them, or break them, which is why, for the last couple of years I have been buying £2 specs from Primark. I need to be more careful with these new pairs, glasses don’t grow on trees. On Saturday morning I went shopping for curtains at the city centre with Harriet. We got there early so had no problems parking. I guessed we shopped for a couple of hours and ended up getting curtains from BHS. I dropped Harriet off at Newport and then went back to the flat to iron the new curtains before going back to Newport to hang them. The new curtains in the bedroom fitted lovely but the curtains in the dining room were a couple of inches too short which was a pain. There was no way I was going back to the city to change them so instead I went to kill a few hours in the gym. I was up way early on Sunday morning which was just as well because I was going to mum’s for the day. I was on the road by quarter past seven and arrived in Melton before 9 am. Mum had quite a bit of paperwork for me to go through and I had to sort out the new mobile phone that I had brought her. I thought I could just switch the sim card but the phone was locked so I had to add contacts and credit. Actually I don’t know why mum has a mobile, she carries it in her hand bag whenever she goes out but I don’t think she has ever used it. Still she has it if she has an emergency. On the way home I stopped off to see Sue & Ian at their new caravan. It made sense seeing I was driving right past the park. Ian’s daughter had been to stay for the weekend with her 2 children and I don’t think her visit was a success; both Sue & Ian looked done in. I stayed for about an hour and then went back to the flat. I had been up since 4 am so it felt like it had been a very long day. I have spent the last couple of days applying for jobs; I’ve got an application in for a job at The Stadium MK, I’ve also applied to be a check out girl at Asda (28 hours per week) and after posting this blog, I am submitting an application for an admin job at the OU. All of these jobs I could do standing on my head, but whether I will be invited to interview remains to be seen. Jobs aside, I feel like I have got my life on hold at the moment. The funeral for Marie is next Thursday and I will be glad when it’s over. The results of the post mortem showed that Marie had an oedema which burst in her heart, it would have been instant and she wouldn’t have felt anything. Marie also had high cholesterol, high BP and hyper tension. She was 66 years old and otherwise healthy. Step dad is not doing so well which is not surprising really. I phone him every night at 6 pm and some nights it can be quite hard work. Actually step dad has taken mum’s phone spot so now I try to fit her phone call in either late afternoon or while the ads are on in Emmerdale. So now I have 2 depressed people to call every night. Maybe I should apply to be a Samaritan? Step-dad John & Marie on holiiday

You just never know

So much has happened this past couple of weeks that I’m not sure where to start; probably best to start where I left off. The Sunday after returning from holiday I went to see mum in Melton. Phil hadn’t been down since the start of his MSC so she was really pleased to see me which was sweet. She cooked us a really lovely roast lamb dinner which was good of her because of trouble with her dentures she was barely able to eat any of it. I did the usual jobs, opening jars, sorting out the post and put all the clocks back. Why do old people have so many clocks, Bett has 4 clocks just in her lounge alone.

I am not sure if I have talked about my cleaning jobs but whilst I was in Egypt I accepted 3 cleaning clients and the first started at 9.00 am on the Monday morning. I’ll admit to being a bit nervous which is crazy because I know I am a good cleaner. My first clean was for Normal and Ann who have a 4 bed house on the Poet’s estate. Norman showed me the house and told me where the cleaning stuff was and basically left me to get on with it. The house was immaculate; I don’t think I have ever cleaned such a ‘clean house! I had a job spec to follow and I had done this and more and still had 40 minutes to spare. I ended up cleaning the insides of the windows just to make up the time of 2 and a half hours.

My next job was an hour and a half clean for Becky in New Bradwell. I knew that Becky was a child minder with several pre school children, 2 dogs, 2 cats and a snake in a cage. The house was an old rectory and it was pure chaos when I arrived. The kitchen was filthy but I was fine once I got stuck in. Once again I found myself with half an hour spare so I cleaned the utility room and scrubbed the dog’s bowls. After I finished there I ate my sandwich in the car and went to the gym. Four hours cleaning and 2 hours in the gym and I was knackered after my first day!

I was back cleaning at New Bradwell on the Thursday but this time for a 2 and a half hour clean as I had to do the upstairs. I wasn’t too comfortable cleaning the room with the snake in but I did make myself peer into its cage but I didn’t see it.

On Friday I had a 6 hour clean at a big house in Bozeat. By chance I discovered that the client was a friend of Emma’s (next door neighbour from number 11) on Facebook. I sent Emma a text on Thursday evening and she gave me some background which was really useful. Just goes to show it’s who you know and not what you know! The client Annika showed me round the house which was massive. They had a gym with a pool which was actually bigger than the gym at DW. It wasn’t ideal because the kids were home and also the grandparents were staying. Again, I had a job spec to follow and I worked like a Trojan not evening stopping to go for a wee. I was exhausted by the time I got home just before teatime.

I won’t name the company that I am cleaning for but I have not been impressed with the way they operate. The deal is the company charge a monthly management fee and then the clients pay you in cash, and of course if you are doing it by the book, this income has to be declared. This is not a biggie but the thing that pissed me off was the agreed days and times with the clients and turns out they had double booked me, leaving it to me to negotiate different days and times when I could clean which was not want they originally asked for. I am certainly not afraid of hard work but I need to earn more than a 100 quid a week so suffice to say I was certainly having second thoughts last weekend. Events sorted out my dilemma but I will come on to that next.

Phil went into Cranfield to study last Saturday and I went to the gym in the morning and then went over to the caravan. I paid Dennis next door and stripped the beds. I checked to see what was in the fridge only to discover that we must have had a power cut and the fridge had defrosted. It was a right mess. I am thinking now that I really should have turned the fridge off but I can do that another time. After cleaning up I went round to have a cup of tea with Sue and Ian. It was a lovely day and initially we sat outside but then the sun went in so we had to go outside. I guess I stayed for an hour.

We did the usual on Saturday night, a light supper and then X-factor which I fell asleep in the middle of. I woke up around 10 only to find that Sue had received a call from Kay in Spain telling her that Marie, step-dad’s partner had dropped down dead at Stansted airport. To say that I was shocked was an under statement. Unbeknown to me Marie had flow back to the UK for a couple of weeks to get some dental work privately. She was flying back to La Manga on Saturday evening and taking her oldest Granddaughter. Becky had gone through to the departure gate with the cases and Marie I think had gone out to have a last fag and was just approaching the departure gate when she collapsed and died. Meanwhile friend Kay and step dad were having a Chinese meal in a restaurant near Mercia before heading out to the airport to collect Marie and Becky. Kay took the call from Marie’s daughter and had to break the news to John. When I came round I had to speak to Sue, Kay and John who was booked on a Ryanair flight back to Stansted.

I later found out that Marie had collapsed and died instantly. She was attended to straight away by a Swedish doctor who was travelling and happened to be close by. The paramedics and even the air ambulance were called out but it was too late. As it happened in a public place the police were involved. Nikki, Marie’s eldest daughter drove to Stansted and the other daughter, Lorraine, who was travelling back from a holiday in Cornwall with her family, also drove to the airport. John was escorted off the plane by police when he landed and I think it was 4 am by the time they got back to Nikki’s. I know it was half one in the morning by the time we went to bed.

Unfortunately I was due to go to Melton to see mum so I had to phone first thing to let her know what had happened. I spoke to step dad and arranged to meet him and Marie’s daughters at the Princess Alexander hospital in Harlow. There was a problem on the M1 so I was forced to go the back way, I got horribly lost even with the sav nav but eventually got there 2 hours later. I met up with Nikki, Lorraine, Harry, Becky and John and we were taken to see Marie. I didn’t really want to see the body but I didn’t really have a choice. She just looked like she was asleep.

Afterwards I drove John back to Suffolk. As him and Marie had intended to spend 6 months in Spain everything was switched off, I left John to open up the house and quickly nipped to Waitrose to get some food. John was a complete mess and although I was reeling from the shock, I knew that I had to get my practical head on. On Monday after we all met up a funeral directors in Ipswich and then went to check out the new cemetery. It wasn’t a fun afternoon not helped by grey skies and torrential rain.

Everyone came back to John’s house and it was then that Nikki and Lorraine produced a will that Marie had done in 2007. John wasn’t aware of this so it was another shock, he thought the wills they had done together in 2004 were the only wills. We checked the drawers on Tuesday morning and sure enough his will was still in the drawer but Marie’s was gone. Although we searched we couldn’t find another will for Marie.

I know this blog is private but its not my place to share someone else’s business but what I will say is that Marie left everything to her daughters including her 50% share of their park home. From what I understand, John will have to either sell or buy the daughters out. The situation is not helped by the fact that John doesn’t get on with Nicky. We had a few meetings whilst I was in Suffolk and the atmosphere was very strained.

My sister Julia only lives a couple of miles from John so I arranged for him to have dinner with some neighbours and I went to have supper with Julia. It was nice to get away for a couple of hours. I had planned to come back to MK on Friday but as we hadn’t had the results of the post mortem I decided to go home. The park where John lives is a very nice place and his neighbours, since hearing the news, have been brilliant so I left knowing that he has a good support network. Whether he uses it, is entirely up to him.

I was so glad to be home, I got back at 2pm and Phil was already home. I sent him a text before I left and I think he came home so he could tidy up before I got back! To give him credit he’d done all his washing and ironing, he done the towels and even the dishwasher was empty. Just a shame he didn’t think to buy some milk and bread but hey, a girl can’t have everything.

Thursday was a big day for Phil because he had his first exam. He thinks he did okayish, he has to do a project as part of his mark so he is hoping that this will save him. Phil went to Cranfield to study on Friday and well, I just caught up with domestics. I wasn’t in the mood for the gym but I did have to get some shopping from Tesco’s.

On Saturday I went over to Overstone as Sue & Ian had invited me for lunch. It was another miserable day, I had to get some stuff from my caravan before going to Sue’s but I got to them at midday. I have to say I do like Sue’s new caravan, it is very homely and cosy. Sue had done fajitas for lunch and it was just nice to catch up with them both. Obviously we talked about John and Marie, Sue and Alan had a pitch next door to John & Marie in La Mange knows them quite well. Actually it was through John and Marie that we met Sue & Alan.

Yesterday Phil went to Melton to see mum and cut her grass. She has been whittling on about it for ages but Phil hadn’t seen his mum in ages so a visit was much overdue. I was in no mood to go to the gym and neither did I have the energy. I spent the more doing little jobs, just pottering really. Harriet came for lunch and stayed for a few hours; we were discussing Christmas decorations and she did make me laugh when she said that Billy came home with a box of coloured lights (everyone knows that white lights are more stylish right?). Apparently Billy had asked to have red tinsel and those paper lantern things that you hang on the ceiling. Poor Billy, his Christmas wishes will not come true in a million years.

Not much else has happened. I ripped half my fingernail off whilst changing the master bed in the Bozeat house and ripped it even more when I was unpacked my case. It is taped up and doesn’t hurt as much but I do need to get it seen too. I also got a £60 fine for driving in a bus lane en route to the hospital in Harlow last week.

I feel in limbo land right now just waiting to hear when the funeral will be. It’s very unlikely that it will be this week and maybe not even next. Still life goes on and this week I need to pull all the stops and try and find myself a 'proper' job