God is Stirring

It is said that God moves in mysterious ways well there have been a lot of “mysterious” things happening in my house of late. So I take that as a sign God is stirring.

I was going to write, nothing as mysterious as things that go BUMP in the night – but then I remembered the ceiling falling down at 1 a.m. and I guess that is where it really all began…

(you can catch up on that part of the story here.)

When the hot water tank was replaced there came a point where the valve connecting the Aga to the water supply needed to be turned off. I had no idea where to find it and it is only because the cupboards were being pulled out at the time that it was uncovered at all, at just the perfect moment. It was hidden from sight right at the back behind the fitted cupboard with NO access whatsoever.

I’ve been pondering ever since how we can leave a gap to get to the valve and apart from having a false back to new cupboard, which would still be awkward I’d drawn a blank. I knew there must be a solution but it wasn’t something I was going to figure out alone. I’m just not qualified.

Then last week when we had the walls plastered the Aga had to be turned off AGAIN so the plaster didn’t crack as it dried.

Not a problem, so I thought, I could use the new immersion heater for my hot water needs and I could switch the Aga back on in a couple of days and everything would be up and running by the weekend.

If you read my ups and down post the other day you’ll realise that things didn’t go quite as I had planned.

Firstly I discovered the immersion heater wasn’t working when I jumped into a freezing shower!

Then when I tried to re-light the Aga I failed miserably.

I stropped about and stamped my feet, this was all too much to bear.

The only viable option open to me was to call in an engineer to service the Aga and to ask the plumber to come back and fix whatever the problem was with the water heater.

He couldn’t believe there was something wrong with it and do you know what when he came round today it all was working fine!

Now I tried it more than once over the weekend to no avail.

I feel so stupid – except - once more the timing has been perfect.

You see the Aga engineer had already arrived and I’d asked him that all important question.

“Can we move that valve to make it more accessible?”

“Not a problem. It just has to be done by a plumber.”

So when the plumber turned up half an hour later I asked him if he could move it. He checked the size of the pipe and he’s going to give me a ring and get the job done before all the new cupboards are fitted. 

Knowing very little about plumbing or maintenance I have successfully managed to find the right people to solve my problem but I can’t take all the credit.

I think someone else has had a hand in this "mysterious" timing – you can call it co-incidence if you wish but I believe God’s hand is in all of this. 

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.” Isaiah 55 v 8

I’ve spent so long waiting for this new kitchen, so long dreaming up colour schemes and longing for the day it looks magnificent and sparkly but hidden behind the scenes are all the little details that will make things run smoothly. As I have discovered throughout this whole experience you can’t rush those.

And if God can order events in my kitchen to happen at the right time he might very well be working behind the scenes in those other areas of my life I’d like sorting out too.

Some dates you NEVER forget

Birthdays and anniversary dates become ingrained forever in your brain.

Today is one such day.

Nineteen years ago the 7th May was a Saturday, it was our wedding day. The sun shone, although maybe not quite as brightly or as warmly as it was today, I remember a light drizzle in the morning and some clouds.

May 7th 1994

I had no idea when I made my vows that less than twenty years later the “til death do us part” bit would already be fulfilled.

I can honestly say I can’t remember many anniversaries in between; Andrew rarely made a fuss of our special day. He will have been away working for about a third of them anyway.

But today, 7th May 2013 I will always remember. 

I was rudely woken at 1 a.m. by a loud noise; a huge chunk of plaster had fallen from the kitchen ceiling. It was inevitable really with the amount of water that has poured down the walls over the past couple of days and it’s all going to get worse before it gets any better.

the ceiling last night - just a bit of water damage!

oops-a-daisy - all fall down!

“Better or worse” now there’s another line from the wedding vows.

How seriously do we take them? Well I know we do take them seriously but we don't believe the bad bits will ever happen!

In fairytales the wedding is the beginning of the Happy Ever After. In reality that’s where the hard work begins.

When I got up early this morning to clear up the mess (I really couldn’t face it in the middle of the night) I wondered if my fairytale was going backwards, I’d had the wedding and now I was back being Cinderella before the ball.

Maybe it’s all too easy to get sucked into self-pity. 

I Tweeted and Facebooked what had happened and got some wonderful comments back from friends. Prayers and virtual hugs made me smile and have carried me through the day.

But as the sun sets my thoughts are taken back all those years ago to the day when the words “death” and “part” and “worse” seemed so vague and the only words that truly mattered were 

“I LOVE YOU”

With all my messages of support perhaps I have discovered on this special day that they still are the most important.

Off Balance

I had a bit of an accident the other day, it was one of those silly little things where you immediately wish you could rewind a few minutes  of your life and take the necessary care and attention to avoid the incident all together.

It happened when I went shopping. I parked the car in the roof top car park of the supermarket and proceeded to walk down the stairs. If I am shopping with my mother-in-law I used the lift but when on my own or with the boys I like to kid myself that taking the stairs is healthier than the escalator.

As I was nearing the foot of the stairs I took the thank you letters out of my handbag. (Oh what a good mother I am getting my boys to write their letters well before the end of January and similar thoughts were running through my mind...) There is a post box by the check out and I was eager to pop them in the box before I went on my way.

Then I missed the last step completely and landed heavily on my ankle.

Part of me wished a hole would open up and swallow me while another part of me just wanted to sit and cry waiting to be rescued by my handsome prince, well these things always happen in the movies!

My rescuer turned out to be an elderly gentleman in a motability scooter. He attracted the attention of a fellow shopper nearby who offered some home spun advice, telling me about the time she fell over and broken a bone in her hand.

I managed to get to my feet and delicately rotated my ankle first one way and then the other. As I could put weight on my foot I self-diagnosed that nothing "appeared" to be broken . Apart from some potential bruising, mostly to my pride, I decided I must be OK so being terribly British and not wanting to make a fuss I hobbled on my way.

When I got home treated myself to a sit down on the sofa, foot up on a cushion of frozen peas!

It’s just another in a catalogue of incidents and accidents, little anecdotes I can then type up on my blog. You are allowed to laugh or sympathise at will, I’m convinced my stories are not at all unique.

We all lose our balance some times, our focus blurs, our concentration wanders and we stumble.

Last week was one of those wobbly weeks which only got worse after another couple of incidents also threw me off course.

I still don’t feel I’ve quit regained my balance but here’s hoping this week is a better one and that my current mood is just a January blip that soon will pass. I've had enough unravelling to last me a lifetime and I just want something good to happen!


A little while later...

I was all set to post this when a friend rang and I popped round to see her for a cuppa before the school run. It's not been a bad day really...

I'm thankful for a reliable car that gets me from A to B even in the snow.

I'm blessed to have a warm and comfortable home.

I'm glad of great friends to share cups of tea with.

And here's a bit of re-ravelling I've been doing... a new scarf I've just finished knitting myself today.

Best of all I have Narnia outside my window... but maybe I'll save that story for another day...



 

RADIOACTIVE!

     

     This is your home, a place of safe retreat, yet there is an overwhelming sensation that all is not quite as it should be. 

     It’s dark. 

     Too quiet.

      The door to the left is open and there seems to be an unnatural glow percolating out into the hallway.

     You move closer to investigate; all five senses in a heightened state of alert. 

     There’s no discernible taste or smell but your ears detect a sound, a crackle in the air like static electricity.

     And then it strikes with an overpowering ZAP – radioactive bolts of lightning that sparkle as they touch you.

Today’s prompt for my 100 word piece of flash fiction is my own life! I am the radioactive “thing” that’s glowing and crackling ready to ZAP you if you come too near.

At least in youngest son’s imagination there is some truth to the tale.

I have been diagnosed with an overactive thyroid and today I was given radioactive iodine to stop it working quite so vigorously.

It sounds quite dramatic but the whole affair was extremely straight forward.

I had to swallow a tablet.

No needles, no pain, no blood – easy peasy lemon squeezy – although I confess I was worried the tablet would too big, I hate swallowing tablets but I am getting better with more practice – another positive to taking anti-depressants!

So the procedure was fine and there are no real side effects to contend with.

I just have to avoid close contact with anyone for a couple of weeks or they will be ZAPPED. Not quite as theatrically as in my story but youngest son is having great fun acting out the ill effects of too much radiation!

At least my boys are old enough to understand the implications although when he's not dramically falling on the floor gasping for his last breath youngest son is already complaining about the lack of cuddles.  However my parents have come to stay and help out for a week or so and they will gladly provide the hugs. 

Looking on the brightside Dad is also going to help me decorate my bedroom while they are here. It’s long overdue a makeover.

I also get to have a good excuse for retreating, having my own space to read or write. In theory there could be more blog entries for you to read. Perhaps even some progress turning unravelling-edges into some kind of book manuscript...

Maybe it's not a complete win/win situation, I will miss those cuddles too but in the grand scheme of things it is a minor inconvenience.

Just watch me GLOW!

A Rude Awakening

I haven’t written anything for over a week and I feel like I’ve lost the knack of stringing a cohesive sentence together but here goes...

As you may know I’ve been away on a “holiday”, a strange word, one that rarely appears in my vocabulary but something other people seem to master with ease.

I will write about it but I have something more pressing to express today, a ringing in my ears that just won’t stop until I get this down.

I came home on Friday and was looking forward to the joy of sleeping in my own bed but my pleasure was cut short when the house alarm went off at 2am.

I keyed in the number and the noise stopped – only to start again a few seconds later. This pattern continued. My dad came downstairs and punched in the number while I looked for…

…what did I need?

The instruction book? Eventually I found it but all it could tell me was the problem was a BF, you can fill in your own expletives as you wish but actually it stands for battery fault.

Who could I call? Last time this happened who sorted the problem? Andrew. It took lots of fuss and bother, many more rude words but it was 9pm not 2am and he at least had some ideas to try and I was at a loss.

Dad said ring the police, I did, not 999 this didn’t constitute a proper emergency. Their advice was ring an electrician.

Have you ever tried to find an electrician in the yellow pages at 2am when your vision is blurry? None of them advertise they are happy to be woken up.

So I rang a friend instead who’s used to disturbed nights on call, he suggested a local alarm company.

I rang them and got no answer at all.

By this time youngest son was shouting, “Hit it with a hammer!”

Mum was installed by the keypad to tap in the number again and again while dad and I went to look at the battery with a view to disconnecting.

Which wire do you cut? Not just red or blue to consider like in the films but orange and yellow and green all tangled in a box at the back of oldest son’s wardrobe.

Finally we found the bell box at the top of the stairs that was making the racket and dad just touched it and it fell off the wall. The wires detached and the noise subsided to a more manageable whine.

“It should stop in 20 minutes.”

After settling the boys down and shutting doors to minimise the sound we had a cup of tea.

Twenty minutes passed and then thirty. The whine continued. We wedged a cushion up against the key pad where the irritating noise was coming from, held in place with the step ladder – how resourceful you can be in the early hours!

I lay in bed, youngest son beside me, always a comfort for us both when things get tough, listening intently to see if the noise had stopped, it hadn’t. It took a while for me to tune it out again.

I thought I’d never sleep and remembered that first night after Andrew died when I tossed and turned finding no peace whatsoever.

Finally the birds started singing, it was almost 4am. They drowned out the artificial sound, but then I’d have to stop and listen for it just to make sure.

Eventually I fell asleep.

In the morning I punched the number in again, it stopped for good this time. I got someone to come out who changed the battery and now the system should be as good as new.

That constant ringing in my ears is just like grief, always there but sometimes you can tune it out and carry on. You think you are doing fine, the noise has finally abated but then you catch the sound once more and it stays with you a while longer.

It’s like the pain I get in my back. Apparently there’s nothing wrong but every now and then I ache and the only way it goes is by being so involved in something else I forget about it altogether – until the next time I remember and there’s that twinge again.

People think I’m strong and brave but actually I’m so fragile. I try so hard to live normally and enjoy the things I have but there is so much I want to change that’s immoveable, so much I am enduring not enjoying.

Lack of sleep doesn’t help; Andrew always knew when I was too tired to function properly and would advise me to get some rest.

It’s strange, I’ve just come back from a holiday but I now feel as if I need one more than ever.  I need a break, a chance to get away and stop the constant ringing in my ears.

Although as I will write, probably tomorrow, even that is fraught with tears, this path is never easy...