A Toasty Warm Fire at Ambleside

It’s so exciting…theres a fire in the grate at Ambleside! I’m sure the chimney sweep thought I was bonkers but he seemed to enjoy showing me the brush sticking out of the chimney pot and my delight when the little smoke making thingy all went up the chimney and the little puffs popped out across the roof top for the first time in years. Theres nothing quite like a real fire and I’m thrilled that I’m able to put one back in. 

As you can see from the pictures the hole is very small at the front with a big gaping hole at the back but I was determined to have a fire in it straight away! I got a grate from B&Q much more cheaply than I’d expected but even that one was too big so I had to chisel some of the brickwork away last night and wedge it in. I had an open fire at both of my first two houses but even with all that experience it took me over an hour to get the coal to catch but when it did I sent a photo to my relatives and facetimed my Mum so she could see it. How sad! 

Today I went over to Mums and brought back the coal bucket and TOOL SET that I’d had for those first fires. I was so happy in those first two houses, making fires for my babies in the mornings all sleepy and warm in their little sleep suits, they’d help Mummy make the fire and then sit in front of it eating their porridge while it was still dark outside, just the three of us snuggled in fornt of the fire, the calm before the playschool run storm. Those were the happiest days of my life and the fire set brings back wonderful memories, I’m so glad I kept it at Mums all these years and have it now. 

I’ve had another fire tonight and I’m not happy with the coal, it doesn’t give out heat unless your sitting right on top of it and it doesn’t smell good so I will need to try and find out where I used to get coal from as that warmed the whole house and left my husband and I sitting in the living room on the coldest winter evenings stripped off with the heat it chucked out! 

Theres a fireplace shop at the end of the road and I’d noticed that they have piles of old fires obviously taken from houses that they’re putting new fires in so I nipped down there yesterday to ask if they have any infills for open fires and if they would consider selling me one. The lady in the shop showed me a fireplace in the back that I would be thrilled to have but it depends how much they want for it, I have to go back on Tuesday to talk to her son. The whole idea of this house is that I’m doing it on a very tight budget, trying to discover bargains and as seen as I got the fire surround for £25 it would be thrilling to find a fireplace as cheaply as I can to have the whole thing cost a fraction of what it would normally cost to put in a real fire. Fingers crossed!

Thoughts

I have a few different friends going through relationship stuff at the moment, I wont go into details as it's their private business  but they are all trying to find a light at the end of their current tunnels. I feel for them I really do, I've been there. What strikes me is why, when couples don't want to give up hope on each other, don't they really take the steps to rescue their relationship before it becomes too late. We all talk to our friends about what it is our partner does that is causing real distress and we tell our partner some of that but it seems to me that people don't really lay their cards on the table with the very person that they are supposed to be able to say anything to. Unconditional love can become all about conditions " I'm not doing this because she's not doing that" and " he needs to stop doing this before I will try that" It's crazy but we all do it.

There is a point where the hurting creeps in, where the boundaries are crossed and the resentment and dislike begins to build.What causes this?
I think it is a lack of honest communication, really honest down to the bare bones 'this is what you are doing that I don't like' talking. If one partner has built up more resentment than the other one, you then get the situation where one closes off and the other genuinely doesn't know why but is wounded and so closes off too. That person only finds out what their partner's problem really was with them when they become an ex partner and find that the previously silent partner is telling the world exactly what the problem was.
Then there is the situation where the other one does know what their partners problem is with them but doesn't want to or can't change what is hurting the relationship, which leads to a battle of resentment between the two that there is no going back from.

It hurts to hear criticism from a partner and it feels horrible to tell someone you love things that you know will hurt them but if that doesn't happen the problem builds and leads to the inevitable blurting out of nasty comments and in a lot more cases than many couples admit, physical fights. The whole thing is emotionally shocking, draining and it takes time to get over these huge upheavals to the relationship which is probably why couples try to avoid them at all costs but that just doesn't work. If a previously warm and loving partner becomes cold and disinterested or a previously mild mannered and easy going one becomes snappy and derogatory there is a reason for it! The frustration is when one partner won't talk "nothings wrong" "I don't know whats wrong, I'm just not happy" but these are just cop out avoidance phrases, they do know and if they don't then they owe it to the relationship and all the other family members to figure it out.

 One of the really sad things is when your partner just won't talk, won't change and wants to drift on as things are, being cold to you but not telling you why. Living like that is like a slow death, it can destroy you, rob you of all your confidence and leave you feeling depressed and unhappy with every aspect of your life. It's torture to see your partner happily interacting with work colleges, friends and extended family whilst theres a huge problem between the two of you thats not discussed. Sometimes it can be unbearably lonely inside a relationship thats struggling, especially if one person is struggling more than the other. The other very difficult situation is that if, on the whole, you get on well day to day. Home life is calm with smatterings of real happiness, holidays where everyone gets on great and family occasions that lull you into a false sense of security, which is shattered again when the problem rears its ugly head once more, which it always does.

Back again

I haven't written for a while. I made my Facebook Page public and added some personal Facebook friends, it was too soon, it stifled my writing completely. I hadn't expected that at all and it was because there was now a link to me telling my story and the people that knew me before. Having lived so publically and negatively like that for so long, I had for the past year and a half withdrawn and lived a life that no-one from my past had anything to do with or knew anything about. It was what I needed and in hindsight it was exactly the right thing to do. I have built a new world for me and one day I thought I would merge the two, old and new but now I realize that I just don't want to. More specifically I don't want 'him' seeing my words, knowing my feelings, there is just no need. I haven't written any of this so that he would know it. I haven't written it so old acquaintances would know it either, it's none of their business. It's funny how time changes things, how what seems so important at first isn't important at all when time has passed.

A Year and a Half Anniversary

Yesterday was my year and a half anniversary and I spent it right in the heart of my old village working at the Carnival! Scary stuff and have to admit yesterday morning I actually wondered why on earth I had volunteered to do it! But I'd taken all of my steps to 'presenting the best me I can be' which is something I've taught myself over the last 18 months. Its something my Councillor and I have been working on, ever since she asked me what unconscious body language message I was giving off to people. Hmm, I'd no idea.
I'd had to go 'back' a few weeks ago, right into the heart of the old party and I was stressing big time. I definitely didn't want to be treated like a 'victim' and I didn't want to be giving off that message subconsciously, not in that environment so we worked on the 'something different about her' message. I liked the idea that I would go back and be different, not in appearance but something they just couldn't quite put their finger on and not at all the old me that they had known. A new free person, ready to stand my ground in a place where previously I had hidden behind the main player. I hadn't been me for a very long time in that position, how can you be when your not living an authentic life, true to your values. I had become this frantic, trying to cope person and every ounce of the stress of it must have subconsciously shown. My Councillor wanted me to walk back in displaying an air of confidence, a calmness and inner peace that was genuine. I would be different on the inside and that would show on the outside. I hadn't liked the me back then and am so glad that I don't have to be her anymore, so I liked the sound of that!
I began to think of where that inner peace was to be found and wrote and wrote it out in my diary until I got my answers, then I decided to write my conclusions out into a plan that I could refer back to everytime I felt the heeby geebys coming on again. IT REALLY WORKS!
In couplesville you can loose so much of who you are, of what makes you, you and in the mist of the aftermath of a break up if your foundation is gone , your left utterly realling with nothing to grab hold on. I wish I had this plan right at the beginning of my break up and I'm going to put it in my book right along with the how to wallpaper instructions.
Soo back to the Carnival, I was nervous to see some faces that I didn't want to engage with. I was nervous to being pushed into conversations that I didn't want to have, ones that made me a victim, so I did some work on that too. I wrote it out, the questions and statements that could come my way and my response to them, I was prepared for every eventuality. It worked like a dream, made me feel much more confident, less vulnerable and that plans going in the book to!
I was touched when one group of old couples friends that I hadn't seen in 18 months took the time to acknowledge me and say hello, decent people so no questions, just a lovely exchange. There were other awkward looks, which I dismissed with a huge genuine inner peace smile every time it happened. There was the inevitable visit by someone I had anticipated and put my pre-plan into practice and didn't acknowledge her at all. The old me would have been so desperate to people please and prove myself, that I would have given her attention and allowed her to disturb my inner peace but this time I didn't even open up that possibility. I've learnt that this kind of deflection is essential to rebuilding and it doesn't have to be a nasty experience for anyone. Its so lovely to be on the other side of it all as I have a choice now and the choice is looking after the inner me first.   

Wise words

As I was weeding the tiny front garden yesterday after all the excitement of the hedge removal, a neighbour that I haven't met before stopped to chat about the renovation I was doing to Ambleside. He voiced how he'd always wanted to buy an old property and renovate it and just the way he spoke about his dream reminded me that I'm not a women who's lost my dream, I am a women who has been given many other peoples dream and one that was once mine. All the time in my relationships I had longed for my own property to renovate as a project or even a career and now I have it. It's been a little overshadowed by my heartache, quite a lot overshadowed actually. This year and a half has been tough, adjusting to a change in my life that I hadn't wanted and it's still a shock that I left even after all this time. I still feel sometimes that I really ought to be going home now but it's a home I don't want, it's a home that isn't home anymore but neither is this new life. It's an odd limbo land I live in now and sometimes I forget that I have a goal, a purpose. Yesterdays conversation got me back on track and I suddenly felt very lucky in a week where I had been focused on everything that I didn't have. It was just what I needed. I have renovated properties before but never one as run down as this and never solely on my own. I have drawn countless plans for people renovating their properties and always felt envious. The joy that my dream had come true had been numbed by in all my emotional turmoil over leaving and job losses and the annoyance that my life was seemingly worse in comparison had crept in. Everything is perception, controlled by the thoughts in your head and what one man saw as everything he ever dreamt of was everything I'd ever dreaded to me this week. I saw the light. It's my baby, everything I do to Ambleside is my choice and when it's finished I will be so proud of it because I did it on my own. Because of finances it's taking a lot longer than I would like and even though I'm getting frustrated at living in such a mess, I must keep focused that it's all heading in the right direction. I may not be having holidays and meals in lovely restaurants and new clothes right now because all my money goes on Ambleside but I have something other people can only dream about and I should be really really grateful for that.

Changing Ambleside's Face at last

Huge excitement at Ambleside this week as I had the embarrassing front hedge removed. I didn't really have the money but I saw a man post a card through the door promoting his Tree Removing Services so I opened the door and asked him to give me a quote. He started at £150 to chop all the conifer trees that made up the hedge back to their roots, I made a face like that was too much for me and told him I really needed the roots removing and how much would that be? He said £200 to which I said I couldn't afford anywhere near that and I'd have to wait a few weeks and earn the money and I would keep his card to call him when I had it. He said he could do it for a bit less so I told him that I really needed to shake on a fixed price because I didn't want him trying to charge me more on the day or leaving the job half done. He said he could come back the next morning and get all the roots out for £150.
£150 was a doable amount for me really and I reached out my hand and shook his hand. I've learnt a lot about how the process of getting people in to do the job works by trial and error and I'd like to think I'm a lot more street wise than I used to be.A handshake is supposed to seal the deal. Famous last words, I was still nervous that I might be taken for a ride but I took the money out the bank that I had put by for something else (never a good idea but I'll worry about that tomorrow) and the man and his man turned up in a big truck the next morning and did a really good job. I was like an excited little child running from window to window taking pictures of them chainsawing at the hedge. The front of the house looks really run down and after a year of living in the house it had become quite a source of embarrassment to me that the outside world clearly could see that I didn't have the money to improve it. This was a big old shout out to all the curtain twitchers that I was still progressing. Vain I know but there we are. The roots proved as stubborn as I thought they would, having been there for years but the man had a cleaver hydraulic line on his truck that once wrapped around the root pulled them out in no time. Everything was cleared and carted away in the truck within two hours which was worth it's weight in gold to me as it was a job I hadn't a hope of tackling on my own. I spent the rest of the day looking out the window and smiling, especially when the little boys who live either side shared the excitement too. It's caused quite a stir in the neighbourhood and several people have stopped to ask what I'm going to do with it now it's cleared. That's the burning question with a very low if not non-existent budget!

hey you up there!

I yelled at the universe today, driving in my car yelling out of the windscreen up at the sky like a madwomen  " if your listening to the thoughts in my head I'm going to just stop thinking because its not working and your just listening to the negative. There are lots of very positive thoughts, I've told you what I want clearly, can you give me the positive ones for gods sake!"  I was fuming " are you listening???"
I was driving over to pick up my son for an emergency doctors appointment as an ultrasound has shown the lump he has could be cancerous. I'm sick of this, it's getting to the point that I'm wondering if any of this positive action and thought works as I feel like I've been running through mud and going one step forwards, two steps back for years! We're keeping positive right now, it seems to be an isolated lump and we still don't have it confirmed yet so no need to panic. That seems very cold but as a family there has been a lot of serious illness in the last few years and doctors and hospitals are familiar territory. I've had major operations myself with years of tests so I know the score. We've waited for news in the past and its been the worst news and I know there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, call it self protection or aversion to unnecessary drama because frankly we've had enough of that. My son is not disturbed right now, I am expecting a wobbly moment at some point when the news sinks in and I'll be there for him. I wonder if I lost my job so I can be there for him? I'll not be much use to him in jail because I can't pay my bills though will I universe! Are you listening???