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dear diary ~ still here, still busy

Scarborough August 2025

Hi there, how are you all? It seems an age since I ventured here…I have almost forgotten how to edit a photo and write a few words.

So sorry to those readers who have been patiently waiting for a new post to appear, I could say that I have no excuse for not writing sooner other than my life is really very far removed from the peaceful retirement DH and I had planned and we find ourselves with no time to spare after fulfilling obligations and appointments. And that is partly true, but there is another reason I have not been able to write recently, one which has been a bit distressing and is the main news of this post.

Beach Cottage 2024

It is with a heavy heart that I can now say that there will be no more stories from our beach cottage in Scotland. Many of you will have followed our adventures when we visited the cottage …all the ups and downs and the drama of the flood in 2014, but as many of you know it had gradually ceased to be our happy place since the little caravan site neighbouring our property was taken over by a young man who had desires from the beginning to drive us out. Within months he had managed to get rid of the people who had been on the caravan site for some years, removing their older caravans at a cost to them and gradually replacing them with expensive new ones sold on to new people at a higher rent. Where there were two or 3 caravans sited just below us he changed this into boat storage instead. As we left he had increased the number of boats and the sea angling competitions he organised to one a month during the season. Some of the villagers are quite annoyed at the extra noise and activity down on the local beach where they launch the boats with a tractor but can do nothing about it. It appears that anyone can run a business using a public beach.

Our cottage and land was his only means to expand his business further into a larger boat storage facility and he tried every type of bullying during the last few years, crudely chopping down our hedge alongside the lane (which earned him the title of machete man), putting a barrier across the lane (our only access which he wanted to keep locked), installing a huge noisier extractor fan on the back of his kitchens only yards from our back garden, blocking the access into our drive with boats and tractors, allowing greasy sewage from his kitchens to spill out of the drain and run down our banking, hiring a bird scarer pointed at our woodland and also putting up security cameras that directly looked over our property. Other than that just generally making a nuisance. Every time we went up on a visit we became more anxious wondering what we would find next.

We had originally bought the cottage with this stunning sea view in 2004 to renovate ready for our retirement but sadly this dream has now come to an end. There were numerous reasons why we really needed to give up the property but safeguarding ourselves from the toll of the mental stress was foremost. After much soul searching we decided there was no point in continuing to deal with this person that made us so unhappy no matter how beautiful a place it was.

There were other factors too…we recognised that my mum might be one of these people that live well past 100 and going to live further away in Scotland would just not work out. She is now 99 and very needy; her memory is getting quite bad and as soon as we have made a visit she forgets and is asking when we will be seeing her next as if we have never been. Presently, we travel for 3 hours (including a short stop) to see her for a couple of hours between the carers visits and wheel her to the nearby park and back and then travel back home for 3 hours. We do this as often as we can, one snag is that she likes us to go on a Sunday so we leave Saturday free to prepare for the trip and then Monday to recover.

With more frequent visits we were finding it difficult to fit in a visit to the cottage and stay for any meaningful length of time. With 3/4 of an acre of garden it needed a lot of attention from us, attention we gladly gave as we have a passion for gardening but not being there often enough it was soon becoming unmanageable. The first and only time we tried to go for 3 weeks we were called back after the first week to help with a family emergency at home. We never tried again! To add to everything the journey up there was more tiring for us even with the hotel break overnight at Carlisle to rest my back.

Everything felt right to let it go but equally everything felt wrong, but in the end we had to let our head rule over our heart this time and reluctantly last May put the cottage up for sale. We made our final visit last October, the caravan site owner, as expected, made an offer for our cottage and land when we put it on the market and we accepted. We had other interested parties, (one of whom came from a neighbouring village here at our Yorkshire home) but in the end our conscience would not let us sell to some unsuspecting person who would think they were buying an idyllic place only to walk into a load of unknown problems in the future. It is probably for the best that the neighbouring caravan site and our cottage and land have been reunited as a whole as they once were at the beginning of last century when it was a Creamery.

We were heartbroken to leave this sleepy little village down on the Mull of Galloway, the place that once seemed like a little piece of paradise. Packing up after 20 long years and finding new homes for all the things we couldn’t bring down home took quite a bit of time. Our static caravan in the garden, which had become our refuge after the flood of the cottage, had to be sold too and a lovely lady purchased it and transported it to sunny Spain. Saying goodbye on the final day to my beautiful garden and the sound of the sea was indescribable and even now tears are very close to the surface all the time…we are both still grieving for a life that was almost within grasp but we couldn’t cling onto any longer in the hope that our circumstances would get any better soon.

And they haven’t….we are as busy now as ever and never on anything that we would ideally choose to do as it has been a year of helping other members of our family. Mum has been increasingly worse…not in health more in her moods and endless complaining. In addition both our daughters decided to move house this year, one moved unexpectedly over Easter and is now more or less settled. The other is presently in the throes of moving. We are decorating and gardening at her new house and providing childcare while they pack up the old one. Hopefully they will be installed before the new school term in a couple of weeks.

We may still go back to Scotland for a holiday, after all it was my husband’s home town, and he has family there. He was born in Stranraer and lived at Castle Kennedy Gardens on the estate for a while with his grandma and grandad (who was head gardener there) so there will always be ties that bind us to this area. We decided not to go this year though, it would still be too emotional for us especially as we heard shortly after leaving that nearly all the trees in our little wood have been chopped down and soon the cottage will be demolished too as the new owner has made a planning application to build a new house on the spot.

So now my journey is on a different course…I am not sure where it is taking me to but when time allows I will be back blogging, leaving a written account of my day to day travels.

We have just returned from our family holiday in Scarborough. We had the best weather, dry hot and sunny. No rainy day amusements for the grandchildren required this year.

And now… this week….. back to the decorating of course and more childcare, oh and a visit to see mum at the weekend.

I do hope you are all having a lovely summer, I do drop in to read your stories when I can and try to catch up with your news, I might even comment occasionally.

Bye for now x

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dear diary ~ creating a very simple Christmas

Just stopping by to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas.

My life is rather chaotic at the moment and has been all year…so many times I have tried to write here…. but to no avail. I am ever hopeful that I will be able to continue blogging next year, though January is already looking busy with dental, hospital and MOT appointments together with two birthdays (one a very important one as my mum will be 99), and a trip to the pantomime with all the grandchildren.

I have so much news as there have been many changes to my life over the year and mum continues to be quite challenging as her memory continues to decline and her rather complaining nature increases, as well as the amount of care she needs.

It will be a quiet, contemplative Christmas for us on Christmas Day. We have chosen to stay at home whilst my two daughters spend Christmas with their respective in laws and partners. I think we will be glad for an enforced stop and a chance of a rest. We will however be gathering together as a wider family for our ‘Not so Secret Santa’ buffet and present swapping festivities on Sunday. The four grandchildren are so excited and can hardly contain themselves…it is a joy to be with them.

As many of my readers will know my Creating Christmas posts have been a record of my activities up to Christmas and full of crafts and Christmas ideas and should you wish to see these click on the picture below. This year I have done very little worth posting about and what I have done was in such a rush I didn’t even have time to take a photo.

Until next time – Have a joyous and wonderful Christmas. X

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dear diary ~ all’s well

Many thanks for all your lovely comments I only wish I had a bit more time to read and comment as I used to on the blogs I read. Everytime I think I might have some spare time looming on the horizon it is like that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – never quite within my grasp!

Over the last few weeks I thought I would never be able to say all’s well again. I had such a bad virus that kept coming and going and I had almost learnt to live with it. I have also had to have a few medical tests and scans recently (nothing to do with the virus) which had to be cancelled due to illness and rearranged but at last I have worked through all of them and I am relieved just to have a week without any appointments.

Last Monday we had a drive up to north Yorkshire to visit my mum. She has been a little bit less demanding over the last two weeks…in fact she is quite calm at the moment for which I am really grateful and it has helped reduce both my stress levels and blood pressure.

We spent about four hours with her and I can’t think of anything that she complained about, which is unusual. The TV remote was working, the carers have been on time for the evening call at 6 o’clock to get her to bed and they have all been the carers she likes…so no grumbles which made a pleasant change and a much more pleasant visit.

Last week she was most thoroughly told off by the senior wound control person who went to see her and discuss the options for the rodent ulcer on her leg which is ‘festering’ badly and not far from becoming gangrenous. She has been turning away the district nurses who dress her leg and won’t let them put the necessary dressings on and if they do get them on she removes them but to be fair the sticky edging to the plasters do make her skin sore. The nurses want to put compression stockings on as a way to help the healing process but mum would not hear of it – she says she would not be able to get her shoes on and they would look so awful when she goes out. Bearing in mind she wears trousers all the time now and can only go out when my sister takes her to the local park in the wheelchair or occasionally to a nearby Costa or Pizza Express for a pizza no-one can fully understand her reluctance to wearing the stockings. Anyway she was told by the wound control person in no uncertain terms that if she did not comply with the treatment then she would eventually be taken into hospital, probably with sepsis, and could lose her leg or not even come out again – it was up to her now.

Harsh I know…. but it has done the trick and she didn’t mention her leg at all yesterday – normally she would say how sore it was and throbbing and how awful all the nurses are and that they have no idea what they are doing and it is them making it worse, not the fact that she leaves the wound exposed and allows it to get more infected. So now it is all dressed and wrapped and she hasn’t complained once. Result.

I don’t know about where you all live but here we have barely had a day without rain at some point and going in the garden to do some jobs has not been possible. I have managed one day so far and had a bit of a tidy up. Surprisingly, even with the bad weather it is full of colour with all the tulips, forget-me-nots and wallflowers and the amalancier is looking magnificent in full bloom.

On Easter Sunday we had all the family to tea and held an Easter egg hunt in our back garden…. in the cold although… the children didn’t seem to notice the wind chill whilst busy trying to find the hidden eggs. Master Freddie made these cute Easter baskets for us all.

On Easter Monday we went with all four grandchildren and their mums and dads to RHS Harlow Carr – even their garden was suffering from the cold and wet with many areas of the garden waterlogged.

Whilst the weather has been so bad I have continued with the major decluttering project – some things are hard to reduce in number – these little china mugs for instance – I did get rid of a couple and kept the ones in the photo. I have made a few sales already on Ebay – listing items can take such a long time… taking photos and then giving a detailed description and I find selecting the right postage a real pain with all the different parcel sizes and weights, but well worth it when our unwanted items go off to good homes and I get a little bit of money for our holiday fund.

I had to make a menu plan at the begining of this week that would leave us with an empty fridge by the time we leave for Scotland, so I had to plan carefully and only shop for the absolute necessary items to make a meal. The pantry is well stocked – perhaps a little too well stocked, but I had to buy some fresh fruit and veg to get us through the week. Over the last few weeks my stomach has not been good since the virus and the meals have been just a little of what I thought I could manage…..and that was mainly a baked potato – not the most healthy diet in the world – but thankfully all is back to normal again so curries, nut loaf and pasta bakes are back on the menu.

I am reading three quite different books at the moment, but the one I can’t put down is the Persephone book ‘The Village’ by Margharita Laski – I bought it with my Amazon voucher from Christmas and I really have to stop myself reading late into the night. The book about the Brontes was gift and How to Live is from my local library full of good advice, I just wish I could have read it years ago as the latest research on health and chronic disease is quite enlightening. I do try and implement gradual changes to my diet but isn’t the healthy choice often the more expensive. Being vegetarian we have always eaten plenty of fruit and veg but it is far more expensive now than ever.

Whilst in Sainsbury’s I picked up the May issue of Gardener’s World which has the 2 for 1 card. I was astonished to find it is now £9.50 a copy and the free packets of seeds that come with this issue has been reduced down to four, though they are all seeds that I will grow – Zinnias have become a firm favourite and I love the jewel colours in late summer.

My next project when I return from Scotland will be helping my daughter arrange the Christening for baby Chocolate – how difficult can that be? Well let me tell you it can be difficult. We live in a parish of 4 churches, but only one vicar. One church has no heating, since the boiler broke over 3 years ago, we did have Master Freddie’s Christening there one November and yes it was cold – we took a hot water bottle for my mum. Another church (the preferred one by the village hall that we would like to hire) had a Christening last week and part of the ceiling fell down and we are waiting to know if it will be repaired, the other two have services much earlier at 9.30am (rather than the 11.15am of the others) which is quite early for those relatives that live a long way off and also for preparing the Christening tea beforehand. The dates offered are near the end of May or end of October – neither being that good for us – May is a bit too soon to organise and October a bit too late in the year….but we were told there is a possibility of a date in August and that would be ideal.

Is it just me or is life getting far more complicated and complex than ever before?

Hope you have a brilliant weekend with plenty of sunshine and welcome to my new readers – it would be good if you leave a comment without completing the form if you could put your name at the end of your comment so other readers know who you are.

Bye for now x

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creating ~ ScrapHappy April

Welcome to Scraphappy Day post for April. Apologies to readers for the long gap recently – any kind of craft work has been a challenge these last few months as I have so little time for myself. As I recently noticed my box of greetings cards is very much depleted I set aside an hour or two to make a few more, so this challenge is about reusing paper items such as old birthday cards and scraps of paper as an alternative to recycling them.

Old greetings cards, thank you notes, postcards and even those art cards you can pick up free at exhibitions and galleries can be turned into new cards. Here are some examples:-

Many of these ‘new’ cards have been made from old cards and the card at the bottom was an ‘art card’ from a gallery and cost me nothing.

I make a little label to stick on the back of the card just to tell people this is recycled.

When I was clearing out the craft room last month (and it is still very much an ongoing project) I found a stack of small colour photocopies I had taken of my own watercolour sketches and turned these into little cards too.

I also came across a sheet of rather lovely printed wrapping paper of vintage seed packets and I have no idea now why I bought this – it must be a few years old – though no doubt it would have been for some craft idea of mine back then and I never got around to it.

Instead of keeping it to wrap up a present I cut around each of the illustrations and together with this pack of handmade 3″ square concertina cards (a find at my local art shop that I bought last year) …..

….I decided to turn these cute little pictures into tiny cards – the idea being that I will send them to friends and family with a pack of flower seeds included.

And here they are in the making – not easy cards to photograph especially with the low light levels at the moment but I think you will get the gist.

It is always worth a visit to all the other ‘crafters’ that take part in the ScrapHappy Day they make some beautiful and inspiring things and below you can link through to their blogs. I am just hoping it is an up to date list.

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue, Lynda,
Birthe, Turid, Tracy, Jan, 
Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Dawn, Gwen,
Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera, 
 Ann, Dawn 2, Carol, Preeti,
Nóilin, Viv, Karrin, Amo, Alissa,
Lynn, Tierney and Hannah