Mum got worse again over Friday night/Saturday morning - no more falls thankfully, but several bad bouts of diarrhoea, so they’ve wheeled in the big guns, and she’s now on a super hefty antibiotic than can only be given intravenously, so more needles (she is so badly bruised by now) but hopefully better results - watch this space (and keep going with that there wishing lark).

In other news, Chris’ house sale is progressing nicely; they’re having the survey done on Thursday, and Eric has discovered flies (so I’m eternally putting net curtain rods back up).

Following yesterday’s blog, I have listened very carefully to many good friends.

Some have known me for umpteen years, some for less than that. All, I would say, know me - the real me, worts and all me - very well.

And they’re right. Having a laugh isn’t against the rules. Neither is spending some time on me; that’s exactly what the Doc told me to do. So is knocking myself out every so often to try and keep some level of sanity - and safety (it’s a 30 mile round trip to the hospital). None of these things negate the fact that I truly need this break - there are many feelings and anxieties I haven’t shared on my blog because they’re too personal, too scary, and only Chris and one other person know just how low I’ve been. I keep having to remind myself that I was signed off before all this latest business with Mum hit its peak. That has only made the original stress that much greater, and extended the time off I need. Now, and only now, am I getting some sort of peace.

I have the support of my family, my true friends and my employers. I must not let any one individual undermine the severity of how bad things had got, or how I am managing, despite the odds which sometimes seem stacked high against me, to get through, and get better.

Which I will.

It was a fairly good day.

It was a fairly good day, until some silly, throw away comment, that I can’t throw away.

Maybe not everybody is being as understanding as I thought they were.

I’m too tired, too down, too bloody everything to be able to let it wash over my head.

Oh boy. What a day.

A really - and I mean really - crap night’s sleep was not what I needed. I’d been finding that I couldn’t sleep more than about an hour at a time, hence the need for narcotic induced sleep the other night - it’s as if my body clock is on permanent standby, and ready for action, so won’t let me rest properly. Add to that the nightmares, where I’m in everyday situations that then spiral totally out of my control - I’d thought they were a one off from the events of the weekend, but no, they made a comeback too. So I haven’t exactly been on top form today.

First step was a trip to the doctor’s - I wasn’t happy about taking Mum’s medication again without some sort of official OK, so wanted to speak to him about that - and the lack of sleep and the nightmares etc etc. The upshot of that was some official sleeping tablets of my own, and a stern warning to REST - with another sick note for 2 weeks. He’s said I can review this myself at the end of next week, and start work again after the bank holiday if I feel ready, but I have the extra few days as a cushion if need be. If I could just have 72 hours with no stress, I think I might be in with a chance - but that wasn’t going to start today…

I rang the hospital at midday to see if Mum wanted me to take anything in for her. She did - her handbag - and she’d been told she might be being discharged tomorrow.

Whaaaaaaat???????????????

When I get to the hospital, I am told that she may indeed be discharged tomorrow, but they’re waiting on the results of some tests. Tomorrow is Friday. If they don’t know until tomorrow, which is what they were inferring, then how the heck did they think they’d get any kind of extra social services support ahead of the weekend? Or how the heck was I going to get any respite care and the associated paperwork sorted in the time? With that now all too familiar tightening of the chest, I set about making some phone calls, and learnt that none of the places we’d consider for respite care had any spaces. The ward sister said I’d need to speak to the *Discharge Facilitator* (amazing job title) to talk things through, but that she’d tried to bleep her with no luck. There seemed to be nothing I could do except wait.

Having said goodbye to Mum at the end of visiting - and with my hand literally on the door handle to her room - I was met by two porters who cheerfully announced that they’d come to move Mum to another ward. Huh? They’re followed by the same ward sister, who explained that Mum’s consultant had been on the phone, he wanted Mum moved to a bed on one of his wards (remember she was admitted to the assessment unit), and there’s no way she’d be discharged until the other side of the weekend.

Whilst I was extremely relieved to hear this, because in my opinion, Mum is still waay too weak to be sent home, the sudden chop and change really did very little for my stress levels. Why the hell didn’t the ward sister know that’s what the consultant was planning? Who on earth had told Mum she might be going home tomorrow? Doesn’t any fuckwit consider the impact of all this uncertainty on the patients and relatives?????

Still. Look on the bright side. I know she’s in safe (I hope) hands for the whole weekend. My 72 hours might just start tomorrow…

I thought you lot deserved a little light relief from the ongoing dire-ness of my bonkers life, so I thought I’d recount a conversation Chris and I had on the way over to the hospital this evening.

To be fair, I should first say that Chris is a pretty intelligent chap, and would certainly be on my phone a friend list if I ever get to sit opposite Mr Tarrant.

We were talking about my day, and what I’d been up to (very little, I’m pleased to report). I mentioned that I’d been online, and had found and ordered a Bramble Pet Hair Remover for Carpets and Upholstery (Eric in particular sheds like you wouldn’t believe) - *Bramble Pet Hair Remover* he repeated - *wassat do then?*

Now I know he meant *howzat work then* but that wasn’t what he said. My ensuing fit of the giggles was badly timed however, as we were going round a roundabout at that precise moment, but we lived to tell the tale. Reminded me of a similar incident a few Christmases ago, when the conversation concerned a Low Needle Drop Tree - you can guess the question…

So, today in a nutshell now you’ve all had a good laugh at my poor husband’s expense : lie in, lazy morning, walked to a friend’s for lunch, walked back, flaked out on sofa (I had another good night’s sleep, but am still unbelievably tired), trip to Mum’s to collect some bits she wanted, visit to the hospital and a chinese. Add a couple of washloads, a made bed and this blog, and that, my dears, was my Day of Me.

Mum was in quite good spirits, still pretty weak though, and still having 2-3 bouts of diarrhoea a day - I took her three clean nightdresses yesterday, and she’s got through all of them. Just call me Widow Twankey. The ultrasound hasn’t shown anything abnormal - good I know, but I’m at the point now where I need explanations of what IS wrong, not what isn’t. Her clotting levels are better, which is good, and she’s off her drip. We’re still taking it all day by day - no point planning any further ahead.

Tonight I intend to see how I get on without any narcotic assistance, have a normalish day tomorrow, and see how I fare. Oh, and collect my new glasses. I’ve taken out a second mortgage for them, so I’d better start wearing the darn things!

If you were in the chatroom last night you’ll know I had a Plan. This plan involvd snitching some of Mum’s sleeping tablets (a brand I had ages ago when Dad died, so I knew I’d be OK with them), and getting a Good Night’s Sleep.

The Plan, although good, was somewhat thwarted by my forgetting to snitch them from Mum’s, and because I really hadn’t got the energy to go back out for them, had to wait for Chris to pick them up on his way back from footie.So I didn’t actually get to take them until nearly 11, but - oh bliss - sleep!!! - until 7am this morning, and then another hour while Chris got ready for work.

So - and don’t worry, it’s not going to become a habit - but as I didn’t get the hungover effect, but am still pretty darn tired, I’m doing it again tonight. And as Chris has said he’ll sort out Mum’s mog in the morning, I can sleep in. Yay!

In fact, I have planned tomorrow as the Day of Me, where I don’t actually have to do anything except ring the hospital late morning for an update, and go and visit Mum with Chris in the evening. Double yay!

I do, of course, fully expect this plan to be scuppered (it’s called realism), but we can but hope. This morning when I rang the hospial, they hadn’t put right Mum’s missing anti-depressant, in fact they informed me they’d taken her off it as they thought it might be causing the dehydration. I explained carefully unto them that she’d been on the tablet for years, and didn’t they think the ongoing diarrhoea (yes Paul?) might be a more likely culprit? Furthermore, I asked them to liaise with Mum’s consultant psychiatrist before tampering with her medication. And then, beause I don’t trust them an inch, I rang Mum’s CPN (Community Psychiatric Nurse), who rang them, and suffice to say Mum is back on her full dosage of anti-depressants. It should not be this hard!

When I actually got to the hospital I had a bit of a shock - I’d checked with the ward desk that Mum was still in the same side room, and on reaching its door, found it closed, with a poster *Code 3 Infection Control - all staff and visitors must wear aprons/gloves and wash hands before and after entering*. Excuse me? Have I missed something? On querying this, I was told that as they still don’t know what’s causing the diarrhoea (I’m getting the hang of this), they’re taking pretty hefty precautions. They are retesting for c diff too. Anyway, all aproned and gloved up, I went in and sat whilst Mum slept, and was then ushered out of the room while they did an ultrasound scan on her - she slept through that too! They’d had her as nil by mouth until the scan was done, so once I was able to give her a drink, she perked up a bit, and we had a little chat - I told her the scan had better not show twins, at which she laughed. Her spirits are surprisingly good, long may that last.

I also mentoned to her the possibility of her going into Briar Close - the respite care home she was in when we were on holiday (was that really just over a month ago??!!) - when she’s discharged, to help her get back on her feet. This had been suggsted by the CPN, and Mum seemed pretty keen on the idea. I think it’s a very good idea, so will sound out social services tomorrow - of course, no idea as yet just when she’ll be discharged anyway! Her clotting levels have gone totally bonkers, if you remember last week she was 8 (very high) then went down to 5 - well she’s now back up to 10. Yikes. Please God don’t let there be any more falls.

Oh, and this Me Time lark is getting expensive. I tried to kill time before visiting started by buying boring stuff from B&Q with left over wedding present vouchers, but they didn’t have what I wanted, so I had to kill time in Next instead. Kerching!

It’s a quote from Friends. 

On the plus side, we seem to have Mum into hospital in the nick of time - she had two more falls last night, and at least two bad goes of the big D (I cannot be arsed to look up the spelling of that word every time!).

On the minus side, they have already got her regular medication wrong, missing out one of her anti-depressants (it’s on a typed, laminated list I gave them for crissake, can’t they fucking read???), and they’ve had to take her off warfarin to reduce the risk of a bleed because she keeps having falls. And you know how long it takes for them to get her stabilised again…

On the other minus side, I’ve had virtually no sleep because I can’t get the image of Mum struggling on the bathroom floor all night, all messed up and frightened, and not knowing how to call for help out of my mind.

There is a train of thought that says God will never give you more than you can cope with. Right now - and sorry to anyone this may offend - I wish God would sod right off and find someone else to pick on for a while.

I blogged too soon yesterday.

The phone did indeed ring at 08.45 this morning - only it wasn’t Capital One, it was the on duty warden at the control centre for Mum’s flat. Mum was on the bathroom floor. I was dressed and there inside 5 minutes.

At some point in the night - we don’t know exactly when, but it was dark - Mum had to get to the loo fast. She made it, but it was a pretty bad go. On getting up, the giddiness overtook her, she stumbled, almost caught herself, stumbled again and fell, knocking her head on the wall on the way down. And there, drifting in and out of sleep, and suffering another bout, she stayed. All night. In her own mess. Unable to crawl out to the emergency pullcord in the hallway. It wasn’t until about 8.30 that she was with it enough to remember there was another emergency pull cord in the bathroom, and that’s when I got my phone call.

There was no way I could get her off the floor on my own (and Chris was away this weekend) and besides, enough was enough. I propped Mum up with the raised toilet seat frame and dialled 999.

Enter Angel no. 1 - Michelle the rapid response paramedic. She arrived inside 5 minutes, quickly summed up the situation, and called for a crew to help Mum up off the floor. She then sat on the hall carpet with me and Mum, keeping her distracted, and sympathising with the horror of the past 10 days.

Enter Angels no’s 2 and 3 - Gary & Alan, the ambulance paramedics. They got Mum off the floor, covered her with a towel to preserve her dignity, and helped me strip her (very badly) soiled nightdress, and kept her standing while I cleaned her and the bathroom floor up as best I could. One clean nightdress later, and they did all her sats and obs - which were remarkably OK - but on hearing how things have been, were adamant that she needed to be be looked after and rehabilitated in hospital - there was no more I could physically do, and they were shocked by how much I had been having to do. So, we had 2 choices : go the A&E route (not great on a Sunday morning), or they could contact the on call doc and he would assess her and admit her direct to a ward. Both would probably take the same amount of time, but at least with the latter, her 4 hour wait to be assessed could be in the comforth of her own home, rather than on a trolley. Plan B it was then.

True to form, the on call service started living down to my already low expectations, and I honestly don’t think they would have come out had it not been for the insistance of the paramedics. They finally advised a doctor would be with us within 4 hours. Gary and Alan went on their way, after making me promise to dial 999 again if things didn’t go according to plan, and we’d do things the hard way instead.

Fast forward 3 hours and 25 minutes (it’s now 2.10), and enter Angel no. 3 - Dr M. I was prepared for a fight - I’ve had too many dealings with the on call service (which is a contracted out one) to think things might go smoothly - but bugger me they did. He listened carefully to me, examined Mum, and pronounced that there was no more I could do for her at home, and that hospital was the best place for her - he’d even big up her symptoms a little to ensure there were no quibbles. I could have kissed him.

We had a 2 hour wait for the transport to take Mum in - and lo and behold it was Gary and Alan again, hurrah! - and the upshot of all this is that Mum is safely tucked up at Derby City with all sorts of tests and x-rays and you name it, they’re doing it over the next few days to find out why on earth she’s still so ill after 2 weeks. I finally got back home at 7.30, to my dinner cooked by archangel Chris, who’d jumped in the car this morning, and set a record time for the return journey from Swansea, doing the Tescos run on the way.

Now - hopefully, although I’m bloody worried - I can have a rest. Gary and Alan said they’d duff me up if I didn’t.

If Capital One ring me AGAIN at 08.45 (like they did yesterday, and like they did today) to offer me a better mortgage, can I scream abuse at them down the phone please?

Mum update : 2 bouts in the last 24 hours, both pretty mild. She’s still very sleepy though, confused and incredibly deaf. I really need to work on that one next week somehow.

Me time update : well, I’ve not done hugely well today (total 4 visits to Mum’s across 5 hours), but I really should have learnt by now NOT to venture out with my credit card when I’m tired and depressed. Two tops, one pair of jeans, some toys and bits for the monsters and a nice new lamp for the sitting room later…meh, it’s only money. Life’s too short.

When a small, black cat with a purr the size of a steam engine lobs a scunched up post-it note at your feet - and miaows at you very loudly - it’s hard to feel too tired to play. And when the same small, black cat then jumps up on your lap as you’re finishing your bowl of cereal in front of Jonathan Woss, it’s easy to lay your head down and think *just five minutes* - and then wake up two hours later.

Which explains why you’re getting such a late blog! - you’re just lucky I had to come up here and turn the computer off anyway…

But just quickly, as I’m here anyway, I must just say well wished everybody! We’re by no means out of the woods, but with only 3 bouts in the last 24 hours (and only one of them required any cleaning input from me), Mum does seem to have turned a corner, so well done and keep on wishing - it’s obviously having some effect!

When she’s me apparently.

From what I have been able to gather today, what I am doing (mainly on the cleaning up side of things) is not nursing, but social care. You can guess what my thoughts on that particular gem are. So, it’s not down to district nurses, but to social services. Who have still only said they will try and put in a extra call a day (weekdays only), but haven’t called me to confirm. If I wasn’t around, Mum would take a higher priority. But I am, so their limited resources have to be asigned to those who don’t have any family around. Triage by another name.

I would rant, but you have to face facts. Other people have greater needs.

The C diff test has come back negative, so that is a big relief - and the doc wants to see Mum again on Monday if things are no better, so they can do some more in depth investigations (he did a full exam today - as invasive as you can imagine - and can’t find anything untoward). At the same time, he signed me off for another week, observing, quite rightly, that I haven’t had the rest he prescribed last week, and have indeed got even more stressed up than I was. Work, thankfully are very understanding of this, so at least I’ve managed to get rid of the guilt.

Mind you, if further investigations are required, they are going to have to do them in hospital, and I will stamp my feet to get this point across. I need a break; if she’s no better by then, then she obviously needs even more care than I can provide, and I do need to get to a position where I can go back to work and not worry about her.

There’s a new moon tonight. I have been wishing like crazy for Mum to properly turn a corner. Wish with me.

Sorry, these blogs are probably getting a bit repetitive, but that’s life right now.

Mum is getting worse again. She tried something a bit more substantial to eat than bread and jam last night, and it was a huge mistake - she has had 6 bouts f the Big D in the last 24 hours, two of which have required major clean up operations. We’re due back at the health centre tomorrow for her clottng blood test, methinks we’ll be seeing the doc again too. If she’s still really bad in the morning, they might both have to be home visits. I really don’t know how long I can carry this on for, it’s getting way beyond my limited experience, but boy am I learning. But am I doing everything right? I just don’t know.

Social Services are meant to be ringing me tomorrow about putting in one more call a day - not enough, but certainly better than nothing. I’m also going to ask the doc about any district nursing help that may be available. There must be something, surely? What would happen if I wasn’t there?I really don’t want her to go back into hospital, having pretty much lost my faith in them anyway, but I’m starting not to see any realistic alternative.

Today’s silver lining? My car was sorted out under the warranty for the new discs it had earlier in the year, so no huge garage bill. Hoo-flipping-rah for small mercies.

Having left the house at 9.55 this morning, I didn’t get back until gone 5.30.

In that time I : got Mum up, gave her a drink, dressed, unmuddled her tablets (I’d left out the Tuesday box for her, so God alone knows why she dug out Wednesday’s), made her drink some more, did a bit of cleaning (not too much thankfully), put on a washload, sorted out the cat, got her to the doctors (doesn’t look like it is c.diff, so that’s a relief), got her to her blood test, got her home, made her drink some more, went to get her shopping, delivered and unpacked her shopping, made her lunch and another drink, went to get my eyes tested (need new glasses/sunglasses, that’s another 300 squids to find), got my fringe trimmed (and outpoured my woes to my long suffering hairdresser), took a call from the anti-coagulation clinic (Mum’s clotting levels have gone haywire, not quite tap her and she’ll bleed to death but not far off), rang social services to ask for more help just for a few weeks (they’ll get back to me), explained (at great volume) to Mum about her clotting levels (she’s very worried by it), installed the new microwave I bought for her earlier today after her old one had a pyro incident) and made her another drink.

When I got home, I delivered my desk key (message from work) to a neighbour, who basically told me I looked like the proverbial. Which I know. Chris obviously agreed, because he took one look at me, and volunteered to do the early evening & last call visits to Mum, (either side of his footie match) as long as I rung her half an hour before he would get there the second time, so she’d be ready for bed. I’ve just rung her and she’s nowhere near ready for bed, she’s been asleep all evening. I have forewarned Chris.

Talking on the telephone is incredibly difficult at the moment, her deafness seems worse than ever. She blindly carries on talking, and can’t hear questions or anything back, so face to face visits are the only way to establish what’s going on. But it’s so frustrating. Take yesterday - having seen her at lunchtime, I had said I would call in late pm, and then Chris and I would call in early evening. However, I conked out on the sofa, and instead tried to ring her at 4 to see if she needed me to call - any cleaning up etc - or if she could hold out til about 6.30. *I can’t hear you J* she said *but you’re coming over so you can tell me. Byee*. I went over - almost drunk with tiredness - she asked what I’d been saying, I told her, and she cheerfully told me that no, I didn’t need to come over til later. IT WAS A BIT BLOODY LATE!!! I know the deafness isn’t her fault, but it’s one more thing to try and sort something out about.

I’ve just remembered, I didn’t tell you about the other night - a call at 02.56 (instantly awake, adrenaline flooding through your veins) - *J - weren’t you meant to be coming over this morning? Is something wrong? I think I’ve overslept* No Mum, it’s 2.56 a.m, it’s the middle of the bloody night. She took some convincing, and I took ages to get back to sleep…

This rest lark is going really well so far.

On the plus side (there is one!) I had a call from a friend at work, and they’re all pretty worried about me, and understanding of why I’m not there - including the MD who she was talking to about it all. That’s nice to know.

Today, my beloved hit the ripe old age of 44.

Aside from wondering when the hell I got old enough to be married to a 44 year old, I thought I would wish him a bloggy happy birthday, and tell him he’s been bloody brilliant over the last few days/weeks/months. We’re off for a quiet meal out at the local pub, nowt posh, but even so I hope I don’t embaress him by falling asleep in my dinner!

I’ll blog a Mum update tomorrow when we’ve seen the Doc again.

Another 4 visits today, and we have made it through the weekend. Mum still seems to be improving, although very, very slowly. I think we’ll be OK until the scheduled appointment on Tuesday. In addition to force feeding her drinks at every opportunity, I helped her have a shower this morning, which was actually hilarious - I think I got wetter than she did! Even Mum found it funny; I am so relieved that all this hasn’t (yet) triggered a low.

We also had a nice few hours off this afternoon in the company of some jolly good friends, as one of them and Chris share a birthday tomorrow, and so a pub lunch was called for. And what a gorgeous day! I actually almost felt myself relax at one point, a very unfamiliar feeling!

I am however feeling more than a tad guilty at being off work this week - without going into too much detail, someone else in the office has just had some very traumatic news, and will almost certainly be having some time off, which will impact very heavily on those left behind. I know - oh believe me I know - I need this break, but still, it’s weighing a bit heavily on my conscience.

Apologies if that blog title offends anyone, it’s the black sense of humour that’s seeing me through right now…

I thought we’d turned a corner this morning. Apart from her body clock being completely up the spout, Mum did seem better, no *episodes* to speak of, and she seemed quite a bit more with it. So much so that with an interim check visit from Chris, I felt happy enough to leave her for a few hours, and head off for a long standing engagement -taking our not quite teenage cat sitter for her promised shopping trip. We went, we enjoyed, and I’ll blog about it another time.

On my return, I checked on Mum, and all was still well, so I did a few odd jobs, and then we popped in again on our way to a bbq. All still fine. We stayed at the bbq for a couple of hours, and then popped in for our final visit, to make sure she was ok for the night and all tablets taken.

But yes, the big D had struck again, so we had to have a bit of a clean up operation too. Pardon me for being a bit detailed here, but as she’s hardly eating anything, I’m surprised at what she’s managing to produce - something’s not quite right. Friend Sarah, nursing guru, had mentioned a notorious hospital bug - Clos-something-diff, so I’ve looked it up, and it does seem to tally. I am loathe to ring the on call Doctors service unless I absolutely have to, as I have been less than impressed by them in the past. If I can just get Mum through the weekend, I can get her back to her own GP on Monday if need be. I take Maris’ previous comment on board fully, but unfortunately there isn’t really anyone to bang one’s fist at outside of Monday to Friday 9 to 5, and to Mort’s Mum - yes, I also agree fully, but this isn’t (I hope) an ongoing problem, but a one off bug that needs to be vanquished. I am loathe to get her back into hospital unless there really is no choice, as the long term effect only come back on me again. Meh, it wasn’t as horrific second time around tonight. I’ve missed out on nappies (so far), maybe this is nature’s revenge! At least I am off work at the moment, now if I was having to deal with that too, I probably would have gobne stark raving bonkers by now. But thanks all of you for loving and supportive words, thoughts, hugs and everything. They mean more than you know.

I have just got back from my fourth visit to Mum’s today.

Three of them have involved cleaning up her flat. One of them involved cleaning up Mum herself. I don’t know which one of us found that more horrendous.

We saw the Doctor again this morning, he’s taken her off immodium, and just wants her to drink as much as humanly possible. Which isn’t very possible when she’s sleeping about 22 hours of the day. Missing tablets unless I go and wake her up to take them. Sleeping through her bouts of diarrhoea. She’s so listless, she has no energy. If she’s no better tomorrow morning, I think I’ll have to call the on call doctors service, as she’s really not fit to be at home. I’m very, very worried about her.

So, this morning, I went to the Doctors. It was a long standing appointment to see how I was feeling, and of course having hit the deck running following our return from holiday, I wasn’t feeling brilliant.

I talked - and blubbed - he listened. He was concerned about the number of physical symptons I’m experiencing - anxiety attacks, chest pains, bad indigestion, constant bad tummy, headaches - but reassured me that they are all down to sheer stress. He had suggested time off when I saw him in January, which I declined - this time he suggestd it a bit more forcefully, and so I agreed. Rather that than burn up completely eh? I need some time to catch my breath. So he’s signed me off until a week on Monday. Enjoy the rest he said.

And I was managing quite well until this evening. Mum is still pretty poorly with her post hosp bug, had been asleep much of the day, hadn’t taken her morning tablets, and is still making raher a mess of things in the bathroom department. I spent over an hour there this evening, I shall have to try and get her another doc’s appointment tomorrow. And take her to it.

I just need a few days where nothing happens - I gather ol’ Jimmy Saville is back on our screens this evening, do you think he could fix it for me?

…but next time I do some washing for Mum, will someone please remind me to check her pockets for tissues? It looks like it’s been snowing in our kitchen…

Yes, we do have them occasionally!

The garden is tidied, the new mower road (or rather grass) tested - if you got us B&Q vouchers for the wedding last year, then ta again! The house has been hoovered to within an inch of its life, and I have enough fur to make a not very small cat. The assorted drawers from our self un-assembled furniture have been mendified. Even the Drawer of Crap in the kitchen has been sorted, decluttered and tidied, And put back on its runners properly.

We have both worked very very hard, and are now going to consume obscene amounts of chocklit in self-gratfication. Yum!