Picked up the new car yesterday...

... and as much as it's nice, I still preferred the old one. Maybe because I'd become used to it, I knew how to park it and the width, for barriers and just general driving.

I'm not a fan of change anyway, so having change forced upon me never works well.

I should stress that the car is for my Dad... because of his disabilities he qualifies for a new car every three years under the Motobility Scheme (which is all about giving people with disability more opportunity to get out and about).

I've just had to go out and move it because of the atrocious weather outside... it's pouring with rain, the wind is gale force and it's tossing large wheelie bins about like a child throws toy bricks! The small bin belonging to "her next door" has blown over twice, and when Mum looked out of her window it was being blown straight for the new car!! Despite putting it back it happened again... so she came and told me and I moved the new Betsy (all cars are called Betsy lol) to a more secluded part of the road (a small parking section referred to as 'the pan' because it is shaped like a pan... it is also away from the main road, you can just make it out in the picture on the right behind the car). I was still in my pj's and didn't wait longer than it took to put on socks and shoes to move it.

Now I'm sat on my bed with cold knees as I'm wearing shorts. My socks are wet and I had to dry my shoes as well lol. My coat got drenched, and as it's an old wool coat you don't notice how wet you are until ten minutes after you take it off lol. I have a sort of lingering chill across my shoulders and I suspect my night shirt it damp as well.

At least I can't say my life is always uneventful hahaha. If nothing else the weather keeps me on my toes.

Some arsehole has keyed my car!!!

The brand new Kia that we got for Dad through the Motability scheme (so not really mine, but I'm the main driver). They have keyed the initials "WCB" in a graffiti style on the left side of the bonnet... what utter fuckers! It wasn't there yesterday. It's not huge, about 2" high and 3" long... but even so...

Why?! Why do people do that?!?! It makes me so bloody angry! My last car got keyed in ASDA's car park... what gives people the right to touch the possessions of others in such a destructive way?!

If I ever find out who did it, it'll be a sad day for them! Maybe I should key my initials into their skin... see how they like that!!!!

I JUST GOT A PARKING TICKET!!!!!

I'm so angry right now! I got a parking ticket for being parked in a suspended bay, but I didn't know that it was suspended... it wasn't yesterday!

I wouldn't mind, but the workmen working on the road said that they would knock on our door and let us know when we needed to move the car, they said they did this morning, but no-one in the house heard it!

So now I have a £120 fine for parking my disabled fathers' car as near our house as I can! We could pay £60 if we do it in 14 days, though... (what a bargain [/sarcasm])

We are contesting the ticket on the grounds of my fathers' disabled status... for feck's sake it says "disabled" on the tax disk! **

These road works are really pissing me off now... I can't even cross the road now without walking to the top of the hill as there are four foot barriers running along the kerb edge. I also don't have even one place near our house where I could stop the car to let Dad get in, either... so unless he can manage to walk all the way up the hill to where there is a place I can stop (which he probably can't as he can barely manage to get to where I park the car as it is, and once he does he sounds as if he's run a marathon his breathing is so bad... thanks asbestosis!) then he is going to be a virtual recluse again, as he can't get out!!

Oh, the irony! Dad's blue disabled badge just arrived in the post, hehe!

**(will probably not get us anywhere, as on reading the leaflet that came with his badge parking in suspended bays is forbidden **sigh** oh well, at lest contesting it means we have more time to find the money).

I feel better today.

I feel so much better than I did last night... at one stage I thought I was going to be really sick, and according to Mum I went totally white in the face and looked awful! I took ages to fall asleep, as I was overtired by the time I got to bed, but fortunately I had a dreamless night, which was great (I was expecting nightmares about people having car crashes, and stuff like that, so it was wonderful that it didn't happen). My eyes are stinging like mad, but that's because Mum has been cutting onions for our tea and my eyes and onions do not mix well (they really seem to badly affect my eyes... weird as they are one of my fave veggies).

We had to go and sort out the parking permit for the car today, gladly it was done straight away (I thought they sent it in the post and it took seven days, but I was wrong) so I don't have do the "traffic warden watch"... they don't come round here regularly, but you can bet that the day I leave the car parked in the bay without a permit, will be the day that they decide to come down the hill, LOL!

We have such a hectic weekend coming up. Sissy is here, her brother, Bradley, is coming over sometime tomorrow, Tony is coming down from Coventry for the weekend. Then on Saturday, Lynn is coming down from Glasgow for the day (and night) and then they both go home on Sunday (fortunately they are both staying in a huge pub just down the road from us). Then I may have to drive Sissy back to Brighton sometime after 8pm as she has (or is certainly in the process of) broken up with Ross and he was due to take her back again after spending the last half of this week with her (which she stopped him doing as neither of them feel well). Makes me tired just thinking about the next three days. Plus we are still working on Friday (three kids), and after doing the school run, I then have to take Josh to yoga. Non-stop central, haha.

Sissy has finally decided that Ross is not the man for her... he is so smothering, and it seems as if he is somehow trying to get her pregnant (probably to force her into staying with him!) He is so needy and clingy and if he isn't sitting in her back pocket, he's not satisfied... she's had more of a laugh with her friend, Steffan (who is here in the back room with her watching tv and chatting) than she has in the entire time she's been with Ross (which is getting on for three months!)

I witnessed a road traffic accident earlier today...

... between a large Royal Mail van and a motorbike.

It happened right in front of me as I was attempting to drive Sissy to see a friend in Ealing. There was an ambulance on the scene instantly (as it was already in the Commercial Road for some reason and it stopped to see if the rider was hurt)... and after about two minutes a police car appeared. After making sure that everything and everyone was ok, the van drove off and we were allowed to go on our way again. The whole incident took about ten minutes from start to finish... and they were the longest ten minutes of my life! At one point, the van driver pointed at me and I was sat there thinking to myself "what if I have to give a statement saying what I saw?" and "what if he's somehow going to try and blame me for the accident?!" I sat there desperately trying to order my thoughts in case I had to tell the police my eye witness account of the accident. It wouldn't have taken long... van pulled across my lane trying to do a u-turn, driver was looking the wrong way (left at traffic on the other side of the road, and not right to check the traffic on his own side), bike carried on, so did the van, van hit bike, rider ended up on the floor after the van clipped the left-hand back side of the bike. Ambulance and police then arrived. End.

We both sat there with our hands to our mouths, and I'm still a little shaky over it now... even though the rider of the motorcycle got up and walked his bike to the pavement. I think it was the shock of seeing him collide with the front of the van, that shook me up a little (plus I already had a stomach ache, which didn't help)... I've never seen anything like that before (in real life). Sissy and I were so shaken up that we turned around and came home and she went to Ealing on the Tube instead.

I was in the new car, too. (Which is brilliant, by the way. So nice to be able to get out and go where we want to again... I'd missed the freedom that having a car gives.)

I don't know if it's because I had a fairly restless night last night, or the comedown from seeing the accident (a little shock, maybe?) but I'm so very tired, and once or twice earlier this evening I swear that I dropped off for a few minutes in my chair at the kitchen table... you know that heavy tiredness in your eyes that you just cannot fight? That.

That's a relief.

Ross never arrived today... he's not feeling well, and neither is Sissy, so he's not coming up until Thursday.

I have to say that I'm very relieved... I really wasn't looking forward to spending three days in the company of a total stranger (and a stranger that doesn't seem happy unless he's either with Sissy 24/7 or else knows where she is! He's a very smothering person, it seems like).

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow. I have to go and collect the car between 10-10.30am, and I'm incredibly nervous (as it's a totally different car than I'm used to) but I'm also looking forward to being able to do all the things that not having a car has meant I've not been able to do, like a proper weekly shop (which nearly killed me last week as I dragged a huge shopping trolley up the hill full of cans, bottles and fruit!), running my parents the places they want to go, and even silly things like going to the local chip shop and buying some tea!

Roll on tomorrow :)

We are getting the new car...

... I have to go and collect it next Wednesday between 10.30 and 11am!!

I should be excited, but I just can't be... it seems too good to be true, and until I actually have the keys in my hand and drive the car away it won't actually sink in. So many times in the past I've got all excited about things, only for them to never happen, so I think it's best if I let the inner pessimist loose (just this once) and not get my hopes up.

We also had the MedEquip people round this morning, delivering some of the things that the occupational health visitor suggested Dad might need... some of the things are dumb, like the seat for sitting in the bath that sits on the top of the bath meaning that nothing but your feet are in the water, or that if you're having a shower because there is no way to get the shower curtain under the thing, that the water will just pour down the shower curtain and the outside of the bath and make the floor all wet! The only good about it is that if you were having a shower it would give you a place to sit down if you needed to, but my Dad has the shortest showers, ever... he considers anything over five minutes as long, so I can't see the point of it! They are coming back tomorrow to put leg extenders on the chairs in the back room (so that it's easier for him to get up out of the chairs), but then again he rarely sits in there anymore, so again I can't really see the point... and if they are not able to take my weight that means that I can't sit in them (which is stupid as I sit in them more than he does!). They gave him a grabbing thing for picking stuff up, which is rubbish as my Nana had one, and we sent it back, but the one thing that he does need (**TMI ALERT** something to help him clean himself after he has a poo, as he cannot reach anymore and it's a real struggle for him), they know nothing about! So much for that, then **sigh**

I feel quite strange today... sort of unsettled about something, I can't really put my finger on it... there is just something not quite right. Maybe it's because I got up late and I feel all off kilter, time wise. I'm used to getting up and going for a walk in the morning, but this morning as it was so cold (and the cold air really affects my seasonal asthma and makes me cough and feel as if I have something constricting my chest) Mum let me stay in bed. I wish that I'd got up now, my back is killing me and I think I was having a weird dream, but I can't remember it. This head cold has also brought back the low pitched humming in my right ear, which is really annoying... even when there is silence I still have the humming, in fact the quieter it is, the louder the humming seems to get!

Even the grey of the sky is starting to piss me off... I can honestly say that I can't wait for spring this year. Even for just a day of sunshine or failing that just a hint of blue sky... it would make all the difference. Everything just seems so dismal and boring... there doesn't seem to be any life to see anywhere, when all is so ashen and bare. Everything seems so dark and depressing. I can see why people get depressed in winter or suffer from SAD, I'm just fed up with it now, I can't imagine what it must be like to be actually deeply affected by it for months on end. Anyone that is has by complete sympathy!