Heatwave

 All over the news for the past few days they have been announcing there will be a heatwave. Apparently this one will last more than 24hours too.

Today is the first official day of said heatwave, although we have been living outside for most of the past week, hiding under umbrellas in the humid weather during the inevitable showers.

We have managed to plant a few of our potted plants into the garden now and are trying to grow a mint offcut so we can have two mint plants in the garden.

Without a doubt, the best purchase we have made recently has been the BBQ. We used to have charcoal ones that took so long we always gave up. This time we went for a gas version and we will never look back. It is just like cooking inside except the unique barbecue smell floats around the garden, making all the neighbours salivate.

We also have our inflatable hot tub up and running for our girls and us, but it is mostly occupied by our daughters and their friends. A couple I suspect are only here because of the hot tub, but as long as everyone is safe and happy I don't mind. When things have gone too far then we have had to step in and stop people calling over, but usually it all works out well.

Now that I can safely access the rear garden and spend time with my family outdoors, life feels more free. Before I felt as if that part of ourhome was out of bounbds for me and that was very frustrating. We have a lovely selection of potted plants along the side of our home now, near the door i can use to enter and exit the house. I love to sit out there, or at the corner of the ramp and watch the bumblebees and butterflies in the garden.

There is nothing better, on a warm sunny day than sitting in the warmth with a gin and lemonade or a glass of wine, a book and hearing the sound of children having a good time whilst smelling the tea cooking on the BBQ.

I have such a selection of books to read I can't decide where to start most days. I am currently reading a few books. I am reading:

The Runaway Daughter by Joanna Rees- a large print fictgional novel about a girl who escapes her previous life and begins a new life with a new name in London.

PDA Paradox by Harry Thompson- A book about PDA by someone who actually has the PDA diagnosis and can offer an insight into day to day problems from the inside.

Have You Eaten Grandma? by Gyles Brandreth. Strictly a book about grammar and the use of the English language, but full of comedy and quips.

I keep changing between the three, depending on my mood and surroundings. I need to concentrate more for some than others and am reluctant to take the library's book out and about in case I leave it somewhere (quite likely knowing my awful memory).

Having our girls and their friends happy and playing together, doing role plays around Undertale and FNAF makes our day. Quite often it comes to around 9pm and the girls are asking for sleepovers, negotiating with us over where people will sleep, if people will sleep and times to get up the next day. We love it and know it is what Miss G wanted in our other homes but couldn't do because of her own difficulties and the children in the locations we were in.

The BBQ also seems to bring people together. We have a lot of veggies on ours because I am not keen on meat, but it is great to see the children trying new things for the first time. One girl shocked me when she said she doesn't get food like this usually. They just have chips, sausages and food like that with healthy food on a friday. One other girls thanked us for inviting her over, saying it was the first time she had ever been over someone else's house.

I went rogue the other day and purchased a telescopic flag pole and a fish wind sock for the garden, along with festival style ground flags. The fish makes me smile when I see it 'swimming' around in the breeze out there. I just hope it doesn't annoy the neighbours too much.

A day in pictures

This was how my 'relaxing day in the sun' began. I pass this area on my way down the ramp tothe back garden, so we have most of our potted plants together. I love it- they are so bright and smell amazing too. We already have bees visiting and a plethora of butterflies too. Our of shot are angel wings, roses, herbs and a selection of colourful flowers. We are also hoping the meadow flower mix will take but perhaps we left it a tad late this year.

The bark sesemed dry so I decided to top them up with water early on, givew them a fighting chance. The heat hit me as I left the house, like when you go on holiday and leave the aeroplane to a wall of warmth. I was so impressed with the strength of the rainbow it deserved to be captured in a photograph. If only it was that easy to create a pot of gold at the end too ...

Hubby arrived home with Miss G and her BFF just as Miss A was getting into mischief in the hot tub. I haad found myself a sunny area to relax in with my books, drinks and dogs and had even been able to drag a chair around again as a foot rest for my terribly swollen feet and legs (not heat related). The dogs had their campbed out in the shade (of course they didn't use it, preferring to lie in the sun and pant terribly (so Miss A soaked them a few times to help cool them down, especially our largest). We started off with two of these water cannons, ended up with just one, but the girls all had good fun soaking eachother, making it rain and cleaning the top floor windows. Strict rules over not soaking me or my chair were about it. The trampoline, garden and all who entered it were fair game.

Miss A and I had prepared for the day together as we left the house by collecting jars of water and adding mint. Apparently wasps don't like mint plants so it was something we had to try. I was ready with my Migralens overglasses on, two books to read, umbrella (it did rain later on a few times so I just carried on sitting there in the sticky heat, but in the shade of our beautiful inside out umbrella). 

I don't know how I managed it, but i finished reading How to be human, then moved on to this book pictured and have got to the point where the plot is becoming unravelled and it is getting more interesting. It seemed that I was being called every few seconds 'mummy...'.....'mummy....' with the oddest questions (actually fairly regular in our home). Between Miss A calling me, Miss G getting hot and bothered and not coping very well with it, then her BFF being left outside whilst Miss G calmed down again, I don't know how I managed to take in anything from the books or my surroundings. I felt like having bacon on the barbecue so did a quick amazon now order and we waited for our early evening delivery.

As soon as the delivery was made- Morrisons food in brown paper bags- the veg was chopped, sausages and bacon on a clean tray and out we went. The BBQ was heated (gas thank goodness or we would still be out there now waiting for it to heat up from our previous experiences), and on went our tea. We had sweet potato slices, courgette slices, onions, mixed vegetables, peppers (I love them when the skin is burnt and bubbles), gluten free chipolatas and, of course, bacon. 

We were umming and ahhing over whether to purchase a barbecue. Not being huge meat eaters we wondered whether it would be worth the money- would it be used enough? Since we have had it and found the patio gas we have had atleast four barbecues already. Vegetable kebabs, melted cheese on sausages...delicious. We were talking last night about whether we should have gone for the larger size- it never seems to be just our family here, we always have visitors....maybe next year 

After all the sun, reading, children, cooking, eating and drinking, a dip in thehot tub was in order. Not very dignified or graceful, but I got in and out safely

Busy busy

This week seems to have gone extremely slowly, but so much has been fitted in when I sit here and think about it...

It began, I suppose, with a sleepover for four girls (plus our two). By the time one asks for a friend over, the other is left out so we invite a second friend, then they seem to multiply 🛊🛊🛊🛊🛊🛊

We love it when our two are happy and surrounded by their mates, so we don't mind one bit. Besides, ever since our children were little, we have always seemed to be the hgouse where people come and congregate. I prefer this to not knowing where they are. I can't imagine miss A going out to play and us not knowing who she has gone to play with or where she is at any time with how unpredictable and impulsive she is. What ever nerves I have left would be shot!

Miss G wouldn't cope with the uncertainty of going out to play with no direction or plans, so having her friends come here is the best option for her. She does go out to play now and again with her friends, but they tend to play outside our house anyway. Miss A does that too sometimes, especially on a sunny day in the colder months.

Of course we have days where we just need to be as a family, and those are the times when the children are all allowed in our garden but not into the house (except emergency comfort breaks). They are all pretty good and understand I need to rest a lot so know to be quiet if I am resting. 

As I type this there are six girls here. Two are inside watching YouTube andthe rest are out in the hot tub in our back garden. They have already had a BBQ here for lunch, played with the parachute on the trampoline and had a water fight (not all the girls were allowed in the hot tub today so we included them by giving them water pistols, water balloons and the hose pipe). 

I have been sitting outside in the garden by some of the plants we have grown, swollen feet up on a garden chair, with three dogs crammed around me. I had intended on reading my book but honestly only managed a couple of pages. I spent the rest of the time watching everything else going on and chatting to everyone. I chose a different spot to my normal garden space today. I usually like to stop, surrounded by the lavender, gladeoli and foxgloves we are growing, but today decided to sit by the flower seeds we planted earlier in the week and the French lavender instead.

I have a number of books to read now. The home link library delivered twelve for me, of which I have started two but not got that into them. I can't get to the boxes where the rest have been put (one of my main frustrations). I also have a few I have bought from used bookstores online or from our trip to Waterstones a couple of days ago. 

Hubby and I found ourselves alone, both girls at their friends' houses. As usual whenever this rarity occurs we had no clue what to do. We didn't want to waste the chance by cleaning or sorting out the house so went to a nearby town for a wander and a hot drink. It was there that I spotted the bookshop and couldn't resist a visit. I prefer used book shops and love the smell of books, but new books are always good too. I am trying to expand the genres of books we have available in the home. We seem to have numerous nature books, both fiction and non-fiction and books about autism and PDA, but not a lot of other options. With the new school approach we plan on using in September (no point until then with all their friends here) we need to have different books available as well as library visits planned regularly. 

So, I purchased a few (ahem...) interesting titles that I want to read and are suitable for all. They include:

And Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

How to be humanby Ruby Wax

The PDA Paradox by Harry Thompson

Monster Tamer Girls by Mujirushi Shimazaki

Have You Eaten Grandma? by Gyles Brandreth

Happy by Fearne Coton

and a few magazine style booklets about Dinosaurs, History and Minecraft.

Hubby has also purchased a couple of books recently, both for me admittedly, about minecraft since I have begun to access the PC more now that I have coloured acetate screens covering the computer screen to prevent my migraines and eye disturbances. I started building my own world, trying to follow guides in Cool Builds in minecraft from game master, but got confised so many times I went off script and gave up on the book. I felt it was written for people who already understand Minecraft and was missing out too many steps for me to follow without regular googling sessions inbetween stages. The second book he bought me was an official Mojang Minecraft guide to Redstone. I totally overloaded myself with the first few pages, but once I found the first build to follow, it all started to make more sense to me. 

I also bought a kindle book this week called Cautionary Tales for Children. I read sections of it out loud to my daughters and Miss G's best friend whilst we waited outside the vets which made everyone giggle and feel terrified at the same time. Most of the tales ended up with death or serious injury to the child involved with no niceties or happy ever afters to be seen.

As you can probably tell from all of the above, i am still trying hard to distract myself. Everything is punctuated with unanswered texts to my son or his biological father, the knowledge he has seen my WhatsApp message and not replied, or has been on WhatsApp and deliberately not opened my messages. The mind games being played by him and his father are so hard to cope with and are really messing with my own head. I am not sleeping well atall- last night I was still awake at 3.30am and then at 7am, 8am and finally 9.30am. I am trying my best to not nap in the day in the hope that will make me more tired, but my mind won't let up. The house goes quiet except for the sound of dogs and people snoring and my brain seems to get louder. I can't decide what to do- whether to keep messaging my son in the way I have been, just updating him on what we are doing, sending pictures now and then and memes, or whether to give up because then the onus would be on him. It is so hard.

Whenever there's anyone here, the mask goes on, everything is fine, don't worry about me, nothing to see here. I find it exhausting though. Pretending it is OK seems wrong, but noone wants to know the truth. I haven't wanted to talk to my best friend about it or talk small talk for the sake of it either. I just want to be in the family, at home and busy.

Also this week we have been to a theme park. We went to Gulliver's and had a wonderful day together. I felt it was pointless me being there except for support for Miss G when she couldn't go on the scarier rides that Miss A loves. 

We have also been to a dinosaur themed farm park, discovered Floof,  been to the drive in cinema to see The Life of Pi, and had a terrible accident happen to our smallest dog.

The farm park was so well organised when it came to being covid-safe we didn't feel concerned at all. The same when it comes to the drive in cinema too. We even had our food and drinks delivered to our car windows!

When we got home on the evening of the cinema trip (where we had taken two friends aswell as our own), the dogs were excited ,as usual, and rushed to greet us at the doors. When I looked down at them to say hello, I noticed Chica's eye was bleeding. She is only tiny (a chihuahua crossed with a yorkshire terrier- a Chorkie). I immediately told hubby and got onto the phone to the emergency out of hours vet (of course this would happen in the evening on a weekend during a pandemic!). They arranged for her to be seen that same evening and she was given painkillers, antibiotics and anti-imflammatories too. She came home very chilled out and has been spoilt ever since. 

She went to see our vet on Monday and it was confirmed that she is blind in that eye now. We don't know if it will be permanent or temporary bless her. She sesems to have adapted very well. Her eye is far less swollen than it was but the white is red and the pupil is cloudy. Now and then I am testing her vision and there is still nothing there now, five days later, but maybe it's early days- I don't really know. Later that evening, hubby spotted a trail of blood near their bed. It looked as if the dogs had been in there when we got home and perhaps Chica had been pushed against the wall in the rush to get to greet us first. I guess one of the others must have caught her eye with their paw because the vet told hubby there is 'a significant scratch on the eye'.

All in all it feels like someone is trying to test us all. I don't know what else there is coming but I do know I have had enough now. I have asked my GP for help with my mental health and have spoken to something called 'the access team' who said they are referring me to something called 'secondary care'. I don't understand or care about the jargon used, I just need some support as soon as possible because I can feel myself going under and have done for weeks now.