Looking back – 2010 Bumper Post

The trouble is the longer you leave it the more the words in your head build up until it all becomes overwhelming and it’s a lot easier not to bother – a lot.

So biting the bullet and getting it started again is a good thing.

First off – I hope everybody had a great holiday period.  We had a interesting time of it, with both of us having a really nasty flu which took ages to disappear.  Lots of people we know have had it too – in fact our neighbours have both suffered badly and have had to cancel their two month long holiday in India because they were so sick.

Yule afternoon I spent with my good friend Emanation and her family.  Emanation and I swapped pressies and I received my first proper crochet how-to book from her, as well as a really cool crocheted flower motif wall hanging.  We ate lovely food and drank lovely drink and she dosed me with some head blowing herbal concoction to try to alleviate my flu.  It didn’t work totally but was an experience for sure.  It was amazing to have found someone here who celebrates the solstice and to know that she and her husband Smithy are bringing up their son to celebrate it as well.

Thinking back on it, I should never have gone around to Emanation’s that day as I really was feeling rough and risked them catching it as well.  But fortunately they are made from hardier stock and remained well.

Emanation and me - Yule 2010

 

Smithy and I and Puss

Thanks to said flu I really did not mind that Mr T worked late Christmas eve and I was home alone.  Just felt like curling up on sofa and blobbing in the warm.  We were both well enough to make it to the Baskerville Arms on Christmas Day to have our (already paid for) feast.    Although not well enough to walk all the way there and back as was the plan.

I got some lovely presents on the day – I have the best friends.  One of them, Louise,  had surprised me with a gift bag of goodies from her shop which contained six or seven little wrapped presents that I had great fun opening – lip balm,  candle holders, colourful machine embroidery threads, cool stuff like that.

Me and Presents - Terrys Chocolate Orange, fingerless gloves, crochet book and one of my most fave pressies - A HEAD TORCH!!

Later in the day after Christmas lunch - full up with good cheer and the flu

Mr T - Christmas day

New Years Eve found us in Swansea celebrating at our favorite Queens Hotel with our besties Jules and Kath.  I love being back in Swansea for a visit – it is sooo different from being in Hay.  Having lived there for about four years on and off I am fully aware of some of the down sides of the place but.. I have a huge soft spot for the city where Mr T was born, I love people watching and listening to the accents.  And of course walking the spectacular beach, which we did horribly hungover on New Years day.

It was very, very good being with Jules and Kath, just great people and great fun.  A huge blessing..  And Jules makes a mighty fine New Years day fry up.

The Gang - New Years Eve 2010

 

I made no New Years resolutions, I just the hope that I will be able to handle this year better than last.

2010 was a doozey in some ways – some of the negatives

• Most probably making the decision to return to the UK bought about a return of the Black Slug Depression, perhaps not the brightest idea for a person who apparently does not deal well with stress.

• Leaving my Mum and all my friends.

• The collapse of our plans to rehome our lovely Polly, two weeks before we were due to leave the country.  Then having to leave her in a safe but unfortunately temporary home.

• The stress of moving to another country, finding a place to live, jobs, furnishing said house, finding an affordable car, feeling alien and not wanting to open my antipodean gob while out shopping to stop the millionth person from asking  where I come from (because then I would have to kill them)

• Relationship problems in the first couple of months of being in this country – really needed that.

• Failure to cope with pub job, getting another really quite enjoyable job that I could cope with and then having it taken away.

• All of this whilst the depression ran rampant and did it’s best to sabotage any good at all

BUT  I have survived and our marriage has survived and at this particular point I am extremely thankful for all the amazing, wonderful, simply fucking beautiful things that have happened as well.  All of those negative things have turned out ok.  We have coped with all the problems that moving to a different country brings and some of the stuff we needed to set up life here just dropped into our lives as if by magic.  I have to say that a lot of our good fortune has had to do with people – good hearted, friendly, helpful people – some of whom were pretty much strangers but they made starting  our lives here so much easier than it could have been.

Next post – the positives

Outside our house..

Off to do the washing, our bedroom window at top.

Up our street

Down our street

From the top of th Hay public car park

Mooooving..

Well, we moved out of our house last week, so it has been a bit of a mad time.. hence no posts for a while.  In fact the last three weeks have been somewhat traumatic, for me in particular.  Things started to go pear shaped when we got a phone call from Phillipa,( my birth Mother), who nominated herself last year, when we first decided to return to the U.K,. to take over as carer for our dog Polly.   Phillipa’s bull terrier, who normally gets on well with our girl, had attacked Polly, and Phillipa no longer felt that she would be able to offer Polly a safe home.  Right..

So we had two weeks to find a suitable home for our much loved hound, as finding the four and a half thousand dollars needed to take her with us would be most unlikely.

I then decided to fall apart.. and spent hours each morning crying and days trying to cope with the return of the huge fatigue which come with my particular brand of depression… Queue necessity of taking anti depressants, which normally don’t work well for me but which in this case lifted most of the tiredness and extreme sadness and enabled me to cope with packing, selling, cleaning and the style of socialising which goes along with moving country.

We have been staying with two lots of lovely friends since we left our house, who have been very kind and hospitable.  Our ‘going away’ party is tomorrow night – it is going to be sad, not my most favourite kind of party for sure.  Then next Tuesday we will drive down to my Mum’s house to spend the last week with her..

Hmm..

I don’t sound very happy or excited.  I am hoping that will come when we finally leave the country and all this ‘saying goodbye’ stuff is over.  Really, actually, all is well, or as well as can be expected under the circumstances.  Some of my amazing friends have stepped up to give a home to Polly, and I am sure she will be well looked after.  We have enough savings to last quite awhile when we get where we are going.. and there are lovely friends to see again after two years away – and lots of new friends to meet.  To be honest, I have a A4 piece of paper covered both sides with stuff I love about being in the U.K. – so mainly it is the depression talking,  and I also know that it will be defeated eventually – as it has been before 

Our Samhain altar

The Great Emptying Begins..

Well – there we are then.  The man has just been to pick up our giant telly and give us some money – goodbye telly, I will miss you..  Tomorrow someone will come by to take possession of the sofa.

The plan, which has been in the making since November last year is gradually happening.  I think I must have been in denial about it all – just the packing, moving,  saying goodbye to stuff and people and places, is all stressful and up till last week when our possessions started to find their way to new homes, I had been quite apathetic about it all.

Now however I am starting to get a bit of energy and I can feel the excitement beginning to build.  It helps that we now have a plan for the first couple of weeks when we get to the U.K.  We have a week in a apartment on the marina where we can get over our jet lag,  buy a car and set about finding somewhere to live and work.  Then, the following week we head to Hay on Wye for five nights in a cottage, where we can relax.  Maybe look for a house, although I have been in touch with a Hay estate agent and apparently because we are unknowns, from out of the country, they would require 6 months rent in advance!  That is just not going to happen.  So we would need to find a private landlord/lady.

My friend Alison from Agnes Coy has set me up with an introduction to a lovely lady called Louise, who owns a really yummy shop in Hay on Wye.  We have been in touch and I am visiting her for a cuppa when I get there.  Isn’t that cool!!

So that is about that.. I am not prepared to go further into the future than that – there be dragons.  Except to say wherever we go I hope I can find a friendly craft group/ stitch and bitch to join up with..