Long time, no write!

Yes, it truly has been a looooong time! March and it's now September. Much of that time has been eaten away by life in general. I suppose I wasn't really properly well until June any way.

So, what's new? I went home to the UK for the summer. Literally! Spent 6 weeks there, 3 with my MiL and 3 with mum. MiL is lovely. She looked after us so well. We went all over the shop with the kids and they had a ball. They ran her absolutely ragged, insisting that she went round the block with them every night. While we were there she went off her diet (she's lost 3st since last summer) and didn't think she'd put a pound back on with all the walking and running after the kids she did!

Mum was also great but she is in so much pain she can't do much. I went with her to the docs and argued the toss about getting her an appointment to see the orthopaedic surgeon so that she can have a new hip. Originally, the man she'd seen at the hospital had told her that she couldn't have the operation until she had got her BMI down to 31. Not being funny or anything, but Mum was on a 500 calorie diet and put weight on because of all her various hormonal issues. She is also in so much pain that she can barely walk, let alone exercise to shift weight. So basically asking her to lose that kind of weight (4st), whilst leaving her in agony, is tantamount to human torture. I put my point thoroughly to the doc. The doc wrote the letter, she got to see the specialist who told her that he didn't know who'd told her that she had to get her BMI down that far but he was talking rubbish and they scheduled her in for 18 weeks.

Gah!

Anyway, my Grandpa, who will be 95 in December, is also quite sick. The hospital can't quite decide if they're going to send him home because he's doing so well or whether he's never going to go home again... His sister, my great Auntie Marie, came over from Australia to see them for what she though would possibly be the last time and seemed to be on the money. She's been kind of looking after my Nan, who's not always very lucid, while my Aunt Pam has been away as Mum isn't really able to do so. This is frustrating for everyone. Mum because she can't do the looking after, Pam because she had this holiday booked and then Grandpa took sick, Marie because she's kicking on a bit herself and didn't expect to go on holiday and have to look after her much older SiL and Nan because she can't understand why Grandpa just can't come home.

Mum's also dealing with Dad and his failing business. I think we always knew it was a lost cause but everyone was pleased that he could give it a go. I just wish that he had taken some advice and not just played at being a boss. I'm still not sure that it would have succeeded, but at least he would have been able to say that he gave it everything. As it is, they're going away from the business about £40k to the wind at a time of their lives when they need to have put away every penny *sigh* He's not taking the loss very well. I think he felt he had something to prove, having lost his first business to a scummy business partner. Now, he has no one else to blame, though he's trying to blame Mum...

Anyway, we had a lovely time at home. Coming back here was hard. Don't get me wrong, I do love where we live and I love my house and our standard of living is crazy high but with Grandpa and Mum sick and Dad depressed, I really wish I was 45 mins down the road and not 3,000 miles away.

We've fallen back into the old place and the kids have gone back to school now. Miranda's started half day Kindergarten and is loving it, though she's so tired by the end of the day she can do little else but lie on the sofa watching Spongebob! Imogen's in 5th Grade and the homework amount has gone through the roof. To be fair, she's thriving on it at the moment; she hates school when it's slow and dull!

We bought a kitty last week. The kids have been going on forever about getting a pet. I don't want rodents (have enough mice in the walls thank you!) or lizards and I wasn't sure about getting a budgie, so we compromised and got a 'low allergen' cat. He's a Maine coon and he's called Jones. I'm not sure he's that low allergen as Imogen started sneezing the moment he arrived but she's very good at taking her meds! She knows full well that if she doesn't, the cat goes back and she'll do anything to avoid that!

Here is the little man. He's quite handsome!



Anyway, enough of all that. That's where I'm at today. Not tremendously interesting, but there you are!