#family #Christmas #elves #caring #school #fixingthings #overcomingchallenges

Another Year draws to an end almost Goodbye 2022

The questions we have as writers

Hi Everyone how has December been for you? Have you faced any challenges? Had any major celebrations? Achieved goals you set for yourself? Sometimes in the moments or writing blogs you think of the person who maybe is reading what you write and just ponder how there life is. Do they have the support they need. What maybe impacting them and their families?

The last Few Years What did we learn?

Through Covid people shared a lot about their lives and the impact and it was like a big community of everyone being able to relate to each other through isolation through loss though working from home. We all shared cooking, work experiences, Parenting through lockdown. Not seeing our loved ones.

The sharing of music and dancing .We looked at life through a different lens and for a while the world of lock down gave people an insight into what autistic families or families with disabilities feel through most of their lives.

Support services were withdrawn and peoples mental health was affected especially the impact of children mental health was talked about and those her were clinically vulnerable.

we saw communities becoming closer virtually. At a time we were separated from our own loved ones in the physical sense.

The ending of 2022 this one for our family has been a more challenging year, but still through those challenges have been some real memorable moments.

The issues of the world, People trying to get a balance of control after years of restriction, and struggle

War between Russia and Ukraine, Energy price rises, cost of living, fuel prices. Changes of prime ministers. Now the year ending with strikes. The NHS, Train and tube strikes, boarder strikes, people crying out for better pay, Affordable pay for the current situation. So they can afford the basics and have a little left over for unforeseen issues.

To keep a roof over head their head food on their table and some warmth to their homes. Inflation.

Examples of Unforeseen Issue. a pain at the best of times during a cost of living crises somewhat more frustrating , I handled it with humor though you have to laugh or you may just cry. I was more like bring on the challenges, I am so ready to face you head on. Plus I wasn’t alone Hubby was right there sorting them with me.

For example last week my oven broke the heating element decided to give up working, then my car went. We had snow here in England waking up to sort the oven and the car it was cold We boosted the heating and it didn’t fire up. They say things come in three’s and it it usual true although I don’t like to be superstitious it randomly works that way repeatedly. looking at it for a different point of view would be you normally save money and replace multiple things at once so it stands to reason they may break down at the same time.

Solving and fixing

The car was sorted in a couple of days but it was expensive to get busses and taxi’s for school runs which were needed due to how cold it was and sensory issue. Thankfully though I get AA cover with my bank account. They were amazing we already knew what was wrong with the car. master cylinder had gone again, they confirmed this got my car working so I could drive it to the garage thankfully it was under warranty so was replaced without a cost. The kind AA man also dropped me home from garage so I didn’t have to walk back. the car was fixed within 2 days. We called up our local council as we rent our house at 9 am they were here by 10 am and by 10.30 the heating was up and running never been more pleased with putting heating on than that moment temps have been -6 here.The oven part was delayed by a day but once it arrived hubby had fixed it and we could again cook a proper home cooked dinner.

My laptop that broke during lockdown is now fully repaired by my hubby and software sorted so its running much faster, He also repaired the kitchen chairs ready for Christmas guests years of kids stimming had taken there toll and every thing was become lose.

we didn’t think we would hit the light up the house for Christmas on the first but we surprised our selves and did it.

See there is always a solution in the end.

What else did the last year bring.

The loss of our Queen and the hand over to the new King of England. Their personal family struggles.

Hopefully for families before to long the Gas and electric prices will also come down to a more affordable price.

Anyway what more is their to say on the subject we are all super aware of the issues infract I say we are hyper aware.,

Family

Some out and about shopping with Niki

Finding the fun times

Making cookie with Hayley spending time with the kids then for the Christmas decs and putting up the lights.

I love it when the house begins to look like Christmas smell like Christmas.

One from my grandparents tree, one from my parents tree they are old and worn now but I love them.

For our daughter Amy always part of our Christmas despite never having been alive to celebrate one herself.

The outside tree always has a star on the top to Guide us home and the tree in out living room always has an Angel to watch over us that is always Niki’s Job to put the Angle on the tree.

Candy canes, Always there. Elves and the emoji bauble were added in 2016 when I wrote Emo The Emotional Elf and of course over the Years from play school upwards the little things the children have made. so yes a busy tree full of memories and our family traditions. Mr fox now we have a real one visiting our garden every day, and one night he some how got into our shed and completely messed it up knock pink paint all over hubbies tools we knew it was him because he left pink paw prints. I Mum calling him Big T. because this fox is trouble. but also cute he comes a little closer to our door every day he isn’t scared of us more curious we kind of let each other b and watch each other from a distance.

The Elves are back

First they needed to wash there travels off them so much smog in the sky. They came with Advent calendars, hot chocolate, candy canes,OH and not to forget there smiles. Jakes favorite Ginger buiscuits playing cards and we all sat down for a fun evening.

Night Shift with Tom and Holly. Lots of baking.

The kids went to sleep happy, we had lots of fun together.

Their puppies have got new homes now but they were super cute,

Pretty playful little things and also a little mischievous digging up the newly planted garden.

1st of December

My Mum continues with her recovery and we celebrated her birthday early before we took her home.

Her actual birthday was the 12th of December and we celebrated by throwing her a small surprise get together so she could se the children and her kids before she went home. Hayley managed to keep the surprise from her for weeks. She helped organize it.

3rd of December

Next up was Our Izzy’s birthday.

A surprise get together organized by her hubby and family we had such a beautiful day celebrating with her and seeing our sister Ellie and Izzy Mia and their children.

Our Jake Didn’t come to this party he wanted to stay and spend time with his Nan and do some studying but it was such a beautiful day and we get to spend Christmas day with them all too this year.

After the party in the day Izzy went out to celebrate with her hubby for some reason he didn’t get in the pictures I will have to rectify that at Christmas. They kept our Niki with them for the night and gave her the very first night club experience.Jake phoned and asked to stay with his Nan to so we had a kid free night first time in a very long time.

They kindly drove Niki home the next day. In the morning i went to pick Jake up and helped mum get her things packed ready for her Journey home My brother was driving and My dad came to fit a new carpet in her home.

She did all her Christmas shopping online and had it delivered to ours so we got that all wrapped before she left so she didn’t have to worry about over doing things.We gave her partner a little incentive to get things ready at home for her return a chocolate cake with lemon filling.

That cake

There is kind of a funny story about that cake. So i thought i would get an early night before we drove the next day, kind of fell asleep about 9pm mum called and we chatted for a while and she mentioned that Marty was looking forward to the cake my Brain still half asleep suddenly remembered I hadn’t made it i put the phone down dived out the bed to go make that cake , only to realize no Eggs and it was a Sunday after nine pm.

I get in my car get to the shop to find they ran out of eggs and after driving around a few places I managed to get some and the lemon curd filling. I get home mix the cake. I will never forget it. That was the night my oven decided to brake down on us .

So I call my dad and told him to warm his oven up thankfully he only lives a 10 minute drive away with the already mixed cake in a tin and the filling and chocolate icing in hand i drive to dads and put it in his oven wait for it to bake cool and added the filling and icing before driving bake home. must of been close to midnight. so much for early sleep but a promise is a promise.

Driving Mum Home

So after dropping Jake at school the next day, We all loaded mum and her things into my brothers disability van.

He had only just got back from being fixed it broke down,the day after we picked mum up from rehab center. They had trouble getting a part for it something to do with the airflow or something like that.

The journey wasn’t the most comfortable for mum and although a long journey we stopped once we couldn’t get mum out for fresh air as we had her big reclining chair and her things packed in behind her. we stopped once on the way there at the services my brother and dad went to get the drinks while i sat with mum and i popped in the shop after them.

It wasn’t till i returned to the car that i realized my brother had parked next to a drain emptying truck OMG the smell was so bad,we were all heaving. how those guys work with that smell every day i don’t know they definitely need a medal for that we did not hang around.

The country views were amazing

Back at Mums

First off unloading Mums reclining chair so she could get comfortable and just recover from the journey it’s no fun traveling when your in pain. While dad put the new carpet down and new trims in the hall ways I set about Unpacking.

First we unpacked the Medicines, and making sure all her things were put away. Putting things at hights she could reach without bending down. Her walkers and wheel chair were in reach.. to get her normal back her independence but in a safe way. Marty was home before we left, so we didn’t stop after he returned to give them some space it had been so long since they saw each other, I from what I have heard from mum he has been amazing helping her. I speak to my mum every day still maybe even a couple times a day.

At home services

She had the opticians come and check her eyes at home today and she has some new glasses coming Its great they have these services that can go out to peoples homes that cant get to them.she had to do a self referral for physio now she is back home and hopefully that will come through soon as she hasn’t had any access to that since she left rehab.

I wonder if that is a barrier in peoples recovery. The reason for readmittance? due to falls the lack of after care once they are discharged from hospitals or lack of out paitients services.

Surly in the long term having access to these services promotes and independence. While they build up that strength. Not just in the part that was operated on, but all over strength. and regaining balance especially if you now have one leg shorter than the other. When my mum was recovering in hospital and at home she tended to lean to one side and was unable to sit straight. Add dizzy spells to that and balance can be off. she has had the district nurse out to test her RNR and that seems to be more stable now and the results are instant with the machine they use so she doesn’t have to wait untill a doctor is free to get results.

Anyway I am glad mum is settled and making progress good days and bad days are part of her life with her complex health issues but she is one strong lady.

Hayley’s Christmas Panto

It fell on a work Night with the kids and Hayley so because mum could be here for hayleys play we all went to watch it together.

First I went to pick the kids and there mum up. and got to see Little toms and his families christmas display.

He is so sweet.

We loaded them all in the disability van and made our way to the local theatre, picked up the tickets and got some treats for them all.

Hayley did so well if fact all of the adults from the day center remembered thier lines and brought so much humour and talent to the show the support staff also were part of it and Andy one of the support staff made a fantastic ugly sister he really got in to the role and had us all laughing, Tom found it funny.

The theatre was wheel chair friendly in fact me and tom got front row seats we couldn’t all sit together so Toms mum sat with my Niki and Toms Sister Holly. we got back home after Hayley finnished and the kids were so tired they went straght to sleep so night shift after that was quite even Hayley went to sleep pretty quick.

My car was still out of action so they kindly lent me the van so I could get Niki to the all star event then it was time to put Hayleys tree up and take her christmas shoping.

First though I returned there van and got a taxi with Hayley back to her house, called the garage who said my car was nearlly ready.

Hayley’s Tree

By the time we finished the tree the car was ready to pick up, just in time for picking Niki up and doing a spot of Hayleys Christmas shopping.

We had a spot of lunch while waiting for Niki to finnish before we got a Few gifts.

That was work over for the week end.

The next day was Sunday and I was having a day out in london with my Niki. It was Niki’s friends Birthday and they choose the Sataic flee market as a place to go, we didn’t want Niki Taveliing to london alone so i said i would take her and drop her off but they invited me to join in the day. it wasn’t what I expected and was very creative and artsy. although we had to wait for about ten minutes to get in and it was set over five floors everyone was very friendly and they had some unusal art work was a great day out though we all stopped for lunch together before returning home by train. it was less busy on the trian home and as we neared the last few stops, we had the delight of seeing it had snowed.

The was a variety of age ranges at the event , so really colourful outfits and hair,There was many stalls it was not my kind of thing but still from a creative perspective it was very deep.you felt alont of intense emotion inthier art work. personally it felt a little heavy for me. But niki enjoyed it her friend had a lovely birthday. It was probally a once in a lifetime experience for us.

When we got out of the building i felt all light again. I am a bit extreeme of the other end of the spectrum fairy tales and elves and sighlty child like.Thats where my creativity lives.

New week was less challenging and run more smoothly things were fixed school was rounding up for the week. Jakes exam results cmae in and he did so well exceeded his targets and on course to get pretty high grades but that is because of all his hard work, he is also applying for some apprentaships and has been going through interview processes he doesnt want to go to uni but does want to go into accountancy and work and learn so this is a huge step for him. He has had a few regections but eqaual amounts of moving through the processes. we have spoke quite alot about both acceptance and the not so successful applications that is part of adult life and just becuse your not a fit for some doesnt mean the right one isnt going to accept him. Some Know hw is autistic it kind of comes up in the interview process. but he doesn’t want any special conciderations he wants to get it bacause he would be good for the role. I wounder if other Autistic adults feel the same in this situation we never been through this part yet so it’s all new experience for us. Highering for who they are and what they bring or highering because they want to have more diversity. I believe Jake will make a great addtion to a team, he works hard can be very focused looks out for others.he is a great talker when he Noes something and a pretty good learner. Super honest too.

Do You Want to build A snow man

I did tell her to wrap up warm but the sudden erge to build Olaf over took comman sense. still she warmed up after, and poor olaf fell over the minute she came inside and that cheecky fox ate his nose.

Mr cheeky has been helping me get the house ready putting up lights fixing things , my oven, my laptop, the kitchen chairs and table strenghening them.

He has infact done more in the house than i have as you can see work Mum and the kids have kept me pretty busy.

Hayleys christmas Shopping was finnished thursday and she has the last few days of the day center before she breaks up for christmas.

She was very Happy to get it finnished Early.

I am doing prezzie shopping today now everyone else is sorted, i already did all the food just a few fresh veg to get.

Last night oout before Christmas was of course Christmas Karaoke it was fun and was a chance to just let our hair down and sing our hearts out.

What a night it was.

Thats my blog for today to a while to write had to stop yesterday as it got so late but here i am five am writing as i could not sleep and have lots to do today.

Much love Faye happy Christmas week.