Family Update & My Best Friend Is Coming To Stay.

[willows]

Hello everyone again, Over the past few months I've been trying to get myself together , not an easy thing for most of us but with Mike up and down and Mark more down than up , esspecailly when it comes to stairs it has been a very hard few months , which is why I've been very quiet here.

I've now sorted out a new bathroom for us, having a wet room instead of a bath with shower over it should make a lot of difference. I've also sorted out a stair lift for our very steep and twisting stairs, poor old Mark has come a cropper on a number of occasions and each time he hurts himself a little bit more, so the stair lift is a real must for us here.

Mark is a little better , his two broken toes from the last stair fall have mended and his toenail which was taken off the same foot is now almost healed. He's been a bit down in the dumps over the past few weeks so he went and camped out with a mate of his ( in the freezing cold ) and came home feeling a lot happier, some might find this a strange thing to do but Mark was a mountanear and ice climber before he started to fall and then have to wear a foot and ankle brace so the cold is in his blood and sleeping out under the stars is his idea of heaven.

Mike has to go back to the hospital on the 3rd of March for his test resualts , some of you may know that I discovered that Mikes heart was raceing all night at around 200 bpm and he was so tired 24/7 that he had to come out of college in November 2009 and as yet has not returned . On Monday he starts his driving lessons as he now feels its about time he goes from 2 to 4 wheels , still single he will be 19 in three weeks time , OMG how time flies now.

Harley Davidson , my four legged furry bottomed critter will also be 1 year old in March ( same day as Mike ) he's still as crazy as ever and each night comes and lays full outstretched on me with his head under my chin and his two little paws either side of my neck , he is such a long slender cat that his back feet almost touch my ankles then he does this and his tail still drags on the floor when he walks. I'm still able to call him in , when he does go out for an hour , by meowing at him and it doesnt matter how far he is he comes running like a bullet from a gun !!!

A real 'mummies boy' I can do anything to him and he still tries to wash me when I go to sleep .......his latest thing is to bring me gifts of dead mice, the front door mat, some clean underwear ( out of my ironing basket) and one slipper all are carefully pulled up the stairs in the dark at night to place on my chest for inspection , so its a good thing I'm not terrified of mice its it !!!!!

And finally me, well my fingers are getting worse and I now have four that are growing hard bony joints that hurt each and every day 24/7 , this is making my writing a pain , but as ever I keep at it. Some of you may recall that in 2006 I found after searching for some 35 years my closest and best friend Karen, who lives in Suffolk , we met for the first time on her 50th birthday

Well we have been in contact ever since then and written, emailed and talked on the phone for many many hours in the past 4 years.

In May last year Karen's dad died and in November of the same year her mum , both of these people had been so good to me in my youth and Karen had been their main carer going in every single day to help them as well as looking after he own family and working at the very school we both went to in our youth.

Well Karen has been having a very bad time of it since her mum died , what with this and her sister behaving in a very distressing manner about the parents old home, contents ect its all become a bit to much for her and she is now suffering from very bad depression , anyone who has had a perent die will know how hard it is, so think about loosing both in 6 monthsand then having a sister go scits-so on you as well .

Karen arrives here on Monday afternoon for as long as it takes to brake the circle thats making her only see the worst of life ................and as I'm the only one who can get any sence out of her and ven talk to her at this time she may be here for some time , the boys are behind me in this and even her husband and her three daughters think its the best thing for her .

So................I've warned the locals that next week there will be two 15 year old school girls mascarading as 50 year old grannies in the village so beware .

With luck I will be able to lift her out of the dark and into the light within a few days , I did this once before when another of our friends died at school from cancer aged 13 years old ( I trained as a Sam ) so taking to people in this way is not a new or hard thing for me to do and if some of you have read my story you will see that I have had just about everything flung at me in my life and still walked away sane and intact .

Well bye , bye for now Happy Valentines day to all ..................Ami and her trusty little black shadow 'Harley'

[Noreen]

I hope your visit goes marvelously. The change of scenery and the positive environment will do your friend a world of good. It seems no matter how old we are when both of our parents have gone, we now are 'orphans' .and kindness and understanding goes a long way towards coming to live our new normal life - we don't 'get over it' but integrate the loss into our beings without breaking down every other second.

I hope you and yours have a wonderful Valentine's Day

Gentle hugs,

Noreen