When it all. comes tumbling down......

When it all comes tumbling down........Sometimes, all we can do is clean the fridge, make a tuna and sweetcorn jacket potato, have a little laugh at life, its ruddy antics and pray for better further down the line!

Obviously I'm being facetious here, please don't worry! I'm also being a bit 'gutter press' using misleading headlines, shame on me!

*insert sigh here!

Oh, and whilst I've got you here, I've decided to continue blogging on this platform! Yeah! I will endevour to pen a separate website, for the new business going forward at some point of course. You did tell me you'd miss my ministering, so I'm thinking we've have a deal?

Dear folks, nothing major has actually happened in our world today or indeed yesterday, sorry to panic you! Definitely nothing bad enough, to make me feel like I did when I was living in France. No, it's just that another bit of the rotten rental fence came down today! The same fence 'they' were supposed to have replaced but instead they just patched it up, adding a few new bits here and there which have already been falling down since Christmas! Funny that, but when one nails new to rotten, it's just adding weight to an already wobbly house of cards! Doesn't take genuis to figure it out eh!

Anyway, I needed a sign today and I got it!

I also had my very own wobble moment the other day!

Are we doing the right thing moving?

Look, it's always good to pre check big moves, remove the rose tinted specs for a moment and take a breath before steaming ahead into lord only knows what! Sometimes better the devil you know and all that! Does it all stack up?

In this case? Yes, we believe we are making the right move for us and the falling over fence just confirmed it! We've absolutely made the right decision to move on from here pronto, before the lack of care and maintenance finally gets us down. If we stayed any longer, we'd be forced into investing heavily in this property, only for someone else to benefit down the line. I think it's okay to make cosmetic changes when renting but anything else needs a business case. This property isn't suitable to run a business anyway, so there's really no point. Had we planned to spend 5/10 years here, alright then to a point but given there are issues with windows, floors, bathrooms and heating, it would be an expensive renovation! We pay a market rent for this area not a reduced rent or no rent at all.

As it stands we are already worried about ordering more oil as the Landlord still hasn't hooked us up again! This has been ongoing since we moved in! Also will we get the money back for whats left? I doubt it! We are still on the temporary tank and P's amazing cool box tower that is pulling the oil! Thank goodness I'm married to an engineer that can!

If we don't refill the big tank and get it pumping the AGA will be off very soon and whilst I can still cook on my gas range, that side of the house really benefits from the heat of the AGA. The rest of the house is cold, so we've very much appreaciated the warmth of the AGA. I'm also sure the dogs will pack up and leave home if they aren't toasty at night! There could definitely be a doggy mutiny and I might happily join them! All this and our electric bill is enormous despite the electric heating being worse than useless. Honesty, If I never see an electric radiator again it would be too soon!

The plumber did come out late last week to hook up the new oil tank but the oil was still in the temporary tank. He clearly needed oil in the big tank with no way to put it back in, we've not seen him since and so we wait.

Listen, we've never not paid rent on time ever, but I'm feeling a rent reduction incoming for our last month as compensation. The amount of inconvenience we've suffered here from day one is just ridiculous. If you remember on the day we arrived they weren't ready for us and we had to scrub the place top to bottom. Honestly we should have walked away then! Since move in there's been a lot of work done but sadly there's a lot to do still. However, I've just looked into the legality of withholding and we can't do it, not legally anyway. What we can do is go through the small claims court once we've left. I can absolutely be bothered to do this!

We moved into this ramshackle farm house on the 2nd of July last year, just over 7 months ago and it's been nothing short of annoying most of the time. Our Landlord doesn't seem to have a handle on what’s needed here, what’s being done, nor does he check the work already done? He owns a lot of property, so I can't give him the excuse of being naive now can I?

I digress, back to the fencing. I was a little flummoxed for a minute because I knew something in my view had changed but what? Then I realised, I could see the whole of P's lorry and not just the top of it! The recent high winds had seen another few panels of the rotten fence off but this time it actually helps! You see we haven't been able to fully unload the lorry because of a deeply sloping, quagmire of a drive way and so the fence coming down right near the lorry makes it a little easier to move out now! We are going to pop some wood sheets on the grass to ensure we don't get bogged in but it is still a little uphill. Of course we won't be emptying the lorry now, it's too late but there is a little positive to the fence loss when reloading, except we look more like we live in the tatty farm yard with the bulls and no boundary left!

My loves, sometimes the universe moves us forward an inch or two, even if we didn't realise we needed the shove, the reset or the opportunities that come knocking as a consequence. Gotta face change head on and not fight it too hard eh?

Oddly, I was just chatting with a dear friend who has undergone a massive shift in her life, due to a neighbours fire, which badly damaged her property on New Year's Eve. Just awful! Maybe she will be back in the house in 4 months? Who knows? These things of course take time to resolve. Meantime she has no choice but to dig deep and keep going.

It's true, sometimes we have no choice but to be strong and then it hits, the trauma has to be acknowledged and dealt with somehow. She had absolutely no control over what happened but also no choice but to protect her family and roll with the punches. As I reminded her today, every disaster that forces a complete lifestyle change even if temporary is deeply challenging, but often brings new opportunities. Somehow we have to make the best of it and one day we will look back and realise we weren't going that way anymore anyway.

I feel just like that about our French farce. One door closed but many have opened since. However, we have learnt to expect the unexpected!

Digging deep is what we are doing here, at faulty farm towers whilst making a plan A, B and C! Just in case. After these last five years, we've learnt to have a contingency plan or three!

I have been rather out of sorts these past few weeks, a tad grumpus, possibly a little bitey but I've been adjusting to having B back in our lives and she's very needy. Understandable of course. She's now in a secure mental health unit near Manchester. It's a psychiatric ICU with step down care available but that won't last forever and so we wait to find out whats next for her? She most certainly deserves to be in one safe place, appropriate to her needs and soon. So far she's been in and out of hospital, care, prison and halfway houses for over a decade.

Cruel right?

Right now I feel a little drained, as it's me she leans on and also verbally beats me up at the same time. I wish the very best for her but I also have limited power over what happens to her as a 32 year old adult under section. It can be very frustrating for us all but we must all keep calm, be patient, move forward with love and hope.

Just keep swimming.

D x