It's been a long time since I bothered to write anything. Mostly its because nothing changes and life is hard and depressing...not a good combination.
In June I managed to contact the roofer as we'd had water leaking in through the bathroom ceiling. He went and had a look and discovered a lot of expensive work that needed doing...what a surprise, our whole house is a total mess and could do with burning to the ground. Its a cheap build and it really shows. Anyway I spoke to Dad who was vey generous and sent a decent cheque...there was supposed to be some left over to go towards redoing the bathroom but the roof cost a lot more than the initial budget so we'd nothing left over. Anyway we get to the beginning of July and there's one days work left and the roofer just vanishes. I get a couple of texts and a few promises but no actual work and the scaffolding stays up. I gather the roofer has been in hospital all summer and one of his workers has been on long term sick with a cancer scare... all very dramatic but the constant worry as to if he'd gone bankrupt and how I'd sort finishing the roof and sort the scaffolding was stressful and I had enough sources of stress without adding anymore!
Anyway the work did finally get finished at the end of September so now I just need to wait for the scaffolding to go. And we are still saving for the bathroom refit...maybe next year if we are lucky and don't have any other emergencies.
One of the stressors this year has been my aunt...I've not seen Margaret for years but she was incredibly kind to DB1 and I when we were kids...having us over to stay in the summer holidays and taking us to Brimham Rocks, that kind of stuff. Margaret got me my first copy of The Hobbit...in fact she introduced me to quite a few different genres of fiction...science fiction first came from her. She'd not been well since Covid and was struggling on her own but was very reluctant to go into a home. Well she had a fall in about March and was in hospital for months and months...totally refusing to get out of bed and do anything for herself. She was basically willing herself dead. She did finally get into home but died not long after...I did visit her once but she was very clear that it was nice of me to go but now fuck off. Her daughters were left trying to help and organise stuff from miles away...one cousin lives in Aberdeen and was also coping with her mother-in-law dying, in Ireland, at the same time! Not good.
Anyway Margaret's funeral was at the end of August and I can see why she stayed where she was even when she was pretty immobile...she had so many friends around her and I think staying made a lot of sense. But still more work for her daughters to clear and then sell her house... at least DF has done that job for me...his flat shouldn't be too big a job.
At the funeral DF was chatting to DB2 who was calling him 'Dad'...well my DF didn't recognise him and was asking me if he'd managed to get to the funeral...way to make a guy feel wanted! DB2 has always been a bit unwilling to keep in contact with family but I can see why... when we were all talking about stuff we'd done as kids he kept saying he wasn't there or had been in bed earlier than whatever mayhem had occurred... he is 8/9 years younger than me and will be maybe 4/5 years younger than my youngest cousin. But his DF failing to recognise him...as they were chatting and he was being called 'Dad' is a new low! Its also very telling that no one is thinking that this is strange behaviour and that we should get DF assessed to see if he's developing Alzheimer's...no he just is that self absorbed.
DD has been flairing on and off...mostly on...all year which hasn't been good. They have been working really hard at loosing the weight they put on over winter and with the stress when I broke my rib, and they have lost some but its incredibly hard which they find depressing. They are also finding Instagram very hard... the algorithm keeps changing and is increasingly erratic...but does does seem to shadow ban creators for mentioning genocide or anything other than slavish devotion to Zionism.
That's been another major source of stress this year...the news is horrific. Israel has gone totally insane and behaving in unimaginably brutal ways...they are definitely emulating the worst behaviour of Nazi Germany! And America is backing them without any question funding massive arms shipments to them...as are UK and Germany etc etc. Its beyond depressing. To add to the depressing news there have been a number of record breaking storms this year... Nepal, Nigeria, Poland and America... hundreds have died and with global warming it won't get any better that's for sure.
Its not all depressing news...DS1 has passed his driving test...so impressed and proud of him. Hopefully he will get himself a car fairly quickly and be more independent which will please him...who knows he may even start looking for a house and eventually move out!