Please advise - it's all gone SO wrong

MatyMoo

MW - I really do feel you made the best decision for your Mum. Very difficult situation though

Barcelona is wonderful, I was there for four days in May and spent most of my time doing the Gaudi stuff, it is amazing. Enjoy!

My nose has been peeling a bit but didn't blister luckily!

mrstreacle

I really enjoyed coming to see you today, and I've emailed a request for a bin for you, so hopefully that will get sorted.

Lesley

Merrywidow wrote: »

Hi Happy - welcome back. Don't let ANYONE tell you what to do :mad:

On Monday week I fly into Barcelona for three days. Always wanted to go. I collect Air-Miles from my Tesco stuff, and they mount up, so I am using them up. Then I head on down to just below Alicante to stay with DonnyGal for a week. It will be hot there and I am still recovering from Littlehampton. I have a blistered nose, as does Poo. We all ended up that Friday of the reveal with bright red faces. We had nowhere to hide whilst waiting for the reveal.

Hope I can make it. I visited my Mum (98) this afternoon, and her breast cancer seems to be taking over. Its so sad to see her like she is. She also has vascular dementia and is blind. No quality of life. They want to scan her brain for cancer traces and I said No. Why muck her around at the Hospital. She will be scared and the whole process wont change a thing. I just want her left in peace in the lovely Nursing Home with all the lovely people who are looking after her. She is content and well fed and looked after very well. The Sister said I shouldn't cancel the holiday. She said she will slip away in her own time, but doesn't expect if just yet as she is still eating very well. So sad.

I had MrsTreacle around for coffee this morning. She was anxious to hear about Mike and his house. She loved my T Shirt and the photos that I made. I wont be putting them on Facebook because they are identical to those of Phycho and Butti. Not as good in fact.:D

Will communicate with the thread on Donny's computer whilst I am there.

Off to get some dinner. More later
Janet:cool:x

Merrywidow

Hi Folks. www.littlehamptongazette.co.uk has loaded their picture gallery for last week. LOTS of piccies of the reveal. Great photos of Mike and the boys.
janet

Happytogetdebtfree

i dont know where to look /

Merrywidow

Happytogetdebtfree wrote: »

Ahhh we normally stop near by alicante i love the sun im a sun worshipper well i like to think i am it takes me long enough to get some colour... ahh bless your mum i think you were very right to refuse the scan while shes happy keep it that way ... how long will you be away for ?? x

Hi Happy

I will be away for 10 days. Back in town on 16th July. I love sun but never sun bathe. I have blond hair and fair skin and I burn very easily. Factor 30 I think will be needed in July in Spain.

Glad you thought I handled the scan problem well. She can't stand or walk and has to be hoisted out of bed, onto an Ambulance stretcher, hang around for hours in A&E. They forget to feed her or give her liquids. She can't have her cat naps and gets very fractious and scared, then angry. I am always exhausted when I have been thru a day in our local hospital with her.

When they diagnosed her breast cancer two years ago the doctor said to me then, I don't think we should bother with any radical treatment, I think we should leave her in peace. I still feel the same. Whatever they do or investigate is not going to prolong her life, there are no potions or lotions that will help so why bother. I talked to the sister today and they are going to start on a more serious pain relief to give her comfort. That is all she needs now.

I personally think that the Doctor in the Nursing Home has boxes to tick in case I decide to sue the pants off them for neglect. No chance, they are brilliant. When you see press reports of the way some old people are treated I count my blessings. Her nursing home room would do the Hilton Hotel chain proud. Its brand new, en suite, purpose built. Perfect.

janet:cool:x

Merrywidow

Happytogetdebtfree wrote: »

i dont know where to look /

Happy. When you have got the web page, near to the top of the page in the middle is "Picture Gallery for week of...to " Click on that and you get a video screen. Press play and wait till the pictures roll round. Try again.
janet:cool:x

Merrywidow

Butti wrote: »

Surely there are people more skilled than me!!!
Do you think DIY SOS would do my place - my friend on going to the loo has said 'Do you actually bring people up here?'

B

What YOU need is Mike's Mob - we'll sort it out. We will trash the place, swear blind it was the builder and send DIY SOS a thousand emails till they submit - OK? Sorted.:rotfl:

MatyMoo

Merrywidow wrote: »

Hi Folks. www.littlehamptongazette.co.uk has loaded their picture gallery for last week. LOTS of piccies of the reveal. Great photos of Mike and the boys.
janet

As you say, great photo's. All good, but my favourite is one of Jackoriah, made me smile to see that great grin again :j What an amazing, emotional day we all had. Would do it again in a heartbeat :beer:

Mike - if there is an article about it in this weeks paper can you save a copy for us to see please :T

Merrywidow

mrstreacle wrote: »

I really enjoyed coming to see you today, and I've emailed a request for a bin for you, so hopefully that will get sorted.

Lesley

Thanks Lesley. That is great. Lovely to have friends in high places. I too enjoyed our natter. Now you are up to date with all the gos on The Dolls House, and all the piccies.
janet:cool:x

lisawaters

Hi again. Sorry for the enforced absence due to internet problems, floods, pestilence, laziness and disease.

What to write? How can I summarise events leading up to, and following, the best day of my young life, apart from when the boys were born. And when I got promoted to head of department. And when I bought a Triumph Spitfire...


Last Friday was a helluva day. The 10 days leading up to it were amazing. It's all been amazing. Ask anything you want me to know.



Too weird to describe. Being led blind by Nick to the front of the house, then inside, standing on carpet (huh?) while he counted down and said a few words. Blind but aware there were people in the room. How many? The hum of cameras. The smell of paint. When I opened my eyes I thought it was a model of the house I had envisioned for nearly three years. Like a computer simulation. Very accurate in detail. Smelled right. Some of my stuff, but very light, and bigger than my front room. I'd thought about what to say as OMG is a bit overdone.

Then I think I said 'Wow'.

Nick told me to look around. My telly, but in the wrong place. No plywood sheets, microwave oven on a trestle table, instead, everything new and gleaming and splashes of intense colour.

He led me to the door to the garage. The film crew moved behind me. I had to close my eyes again. Then I was told to open them and look. Instead of the low ceiling, brick walls and mud floor, covered in boxes and piles of cement bags, a kitchen. Like in a brochure. Somehow bigger than the garage? A higher ceiling?

Upstairs, to Jack's room. A real teenager's bedroom. Perfect. Then Sam's room, my old office... now a stylish bedroom. Everything new and co-ordinated. I'm sorry I can't tell you here what they did, but it went way past anything I could imagine. I felt humbled, happy and very, very lucky.

So what did I think? How can you answer that? A huge mix of emotions... Much too good for us, better fittings, furniture and rugs than I could ever afford. Was this real? It was very like the rooms I had gone to sleep visualising for three years. Only better. Brighter, whiter, cleaner, the colours more saturated, vivid, three dimensional.

I was led round a corner and asked to wait out of sight while the living room was revealed again to Jack and Sam. I was beckoned to walk in, and saw their faces, smiling, red eyed, speechless. Then they saw me and we all lost it, and just held on to each other. It seemed to last a very long time, and it felt there were just the three of us, although surrounded by film people, familiar faces we had come to know during the past two weeks. They looked happy for us. But they also had a job to do.

I followed the boys round while they were shown the rest of the house... dying to talk to them about what they felt.

Finally we were told that a few people wanted to say Hi to us, and we were led to the front door and told to stop. The cameraman followed us as I opened the door and stared into the sunlight street. How many people? 100? 150? I knew most of them. They were cheering and clapping as we walked out and looked back at the front; the architectural details had been picked out across the front in sage green, against blisteringly white flints and cobbles.

Then I started to shake hands, hug the people waiting in the street. A sky was a fabulous deep blue, and even the three hour delay while the last bits were put together didn't seem to matter to anyone any more. I worked along the front of the crowd from the left, as people introduced themselves... 'Hi Mike, I laid the flooring...' 'Hi Mike, well done, we supplied the ******* (I can't say what was done here, so sorry)... it seemed to be never-ending. I looked to my right and saw Jack and Sam working towards me from the right. I was determined not to miss anyone, and when someone I knew, or a family member, or a friend was next, it felt as though I'd died, and this was the people at the funeral saying one last goodbye... The light felt dazzling, the camera crew stopped telling me what to do and where to go, and just followed me as I said thank you to these incredible people who had made this happen in just nine days.

Some were proud to describe the special features of what they'd done, others just shook hands and wished me well. I hope I got everyone. How long it took I have no idea. Time didn't seem relevant.

I think I'l skip for now the aftermath once the film crew and the celebs had left for their own homes. How My Mob between them carried the boys and me through the next few hours, taking pictures, pouring drinks, disappearing to supermarkets and coming back with bags of stuff, most of which they put in the fridge and the cupboards. Glasses were washed, teas and coffees appeared, people were showing how things worked, proudly pointing out the bits they had done, telling stories about their days on the site helping out, for up to twelve or more hours a day, working in tiny spaces with too many other people!

I can't really remember the rest. Somehow and at some time, everyone dissolved into the night and back to their B&Bs. The boys and I sat on the sofas and just stared around us. All the hubbub and noise and excitement and shock of the day settled around us and we felt like we were sitting in a furniture showroom window. But there was enough that was familiar to remind us that this was the same place, but somehow we had moved forward in time what seemed liked years, but which was of course only a little more than a week.

At some time, we went to bed. I think we left all the lights on in case by turning them off, the vision would be gone. In case when we looked again there would be mess, bricks, dust and wires, as there had been for more than two years, through all seasons.

I was absolutely exhausted, but I lay on the bed listening to the unfamiliar silence, and the creaks and squeaks of the building cooling down after a hot sunny day. I looked around my new bedroom, closed my eyes and tried to sleep, but gave up after two hours, and went downstairs and made a cup of tea. All seemed to be much as it had been earlier in the day.

I walked around the house slowly, looking at all the details I had missed, looking at the rooms from different places. I felt the cool night air blow in through the open door, heard the silence, tried to reflect what had happened over the past 24 hours. I missed the DIY crew we had come to see as almost friends, the researchers, cameramen, sound men...

I missed the sea of faces that had greeted us as we walked out onto the street for the first time, into the dazzling light.

Was I excited? Not really. It was more an intense feeling of happiness. A feeling that something incredible had happened. That our biggest problem had been solved, completely, by people who barely knew us, without charge. That the smiling faces on the street were showing me that they approved of what happened. They felt we had had enough. That they felt it was appropriate that we should be helped out in a material way, which would in turn help us resolve the non-material issues we still had to face. That, yes, we did deserve all this. We'd had enough.

Nick had said some very kind and thoughtful things when we were alone, waiting round the corner. He knew what was about to happen, and how people react, not just at the moment they opened their eyes, but in the days and weeks that followed. How taking away a huge weight frees people to put things into perspective, to start really looking ahead to a life where recent worries and obsessions were laid to one side, to be pursued another time, when there was time, and not letting them take over our lives any more.

I sat there in silence, looking around and thinking, then put my mug down on the table, switched off the main lights and went back to my room. Through the window I could see that it was already dawn, and it was Saturday, and the boys and I had all weekend to explore the house, and explore our feelings about it and what we had all been through, and then have our first proper summer in my place with friends, barbecues, a house full of people, all enjoying being in a tiny cottage near the sea.

And then I fell in love with my funny little house all over again.



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