High stress levels this week and we’ve barely started this journey.

This is going to be a mixed post. Yes, I went to the allotment and I’ll show you some of the work done there but there have been a LOT of other things going on too. Life isn’t too easy at the moment if I’m honest.

To get to the allotment, I have a change of transport and I now go like this:

The car went in for it’s MOT on Thursday – and failed. The garage is trying to book us in as quick as possible and I was meant to get a call on Friday confirming whether or not they could do the jobs on Monday – but I didn’t get the call. That’s stressful anyway but there is another reason this has been extra stressful which I’ll come to in a moment.

On the plot, we managed to make some progress this week. I’ll give you a gallery style so show you:

I don’t normally do the ‘word for the year’ thing but I did this year for the allotment and that word was ‘Interest’. I wanted it to get to the stage that no matter where I look there would be something of interest to look at and I think I’m just about there. Note that doesn’t mean perfection or even beauty – but interest.

The wooden compost bins need re-built but I’m not doing that any time soon so it’s make do and mend – even if it means screwing in rotten wood to hold in compost.

We are doing pretty well with the weeding. We’ve nearly finished the bay I’ve shown you here and we’ll be moving onto another one soon.

And now for the stressful news. I wasn’t too sure how or when I would be bringing this up on the blog but this seems like an appropriate time.

So we have no car at the moment and that is inconvenient on one level but a real kicker on another.

For a couple of months now, my husband, who has several health issues already, has been experiencing a few new health issues. In fact, we are now at the point where he is to undergo some procedures to see if he has prostate cancer. He was due to have biopsies done next Friday – but we don’t have a car and due to his other health problems, public transport is not a possibility. We don’t have anyone we could ask to borrow a car and when I checked out how much it would be to hire a small ‘economy’ car for a day it was £110 – which we can’t manage.

So that’s why the garage was trying to fit us in but as I said, I haven’t had confirmation about when the repairs can be done. On top of that, we start our home-school after next week so I need to get the plan finalised. Luckily, I know pretty much what we’ll be doing but I still need to print things out, write out the plan etc. It feels a bit overwhelming at times.

I keep hoping everything will be fine, with regards to my husband but there is no denying he has lost a lot of weight recently too. I’m doing my best to make sure he gets a lot of fluids, protein etc and I’ve done a lot of internet searching for things that can help if we do get the bad news which I’m praying we don’t. I’ve developed a rather annoying habit of bursting into tears at random times – quietly of course and without letting the family see, but it happens more often than I would like.

Apart from all of that – I’ve got the grass to cut, dinners to make, the dog to walk, the ironing to do, the house to clean (although Dearest Son has taken on a lot of this – he is a champion). I’m not sleeping that well and my back pain flare-ups are lasting longer than ever which I put down to the stress. I’ve noticed a pattern there so I’ve spoken to a doctor and at least I can keep that in check.

At this point all I can do is keep going. Cycle, weed, harvest, cook, clean – do whatever is needed – and pray. Feel free to join me in the last one. x