I think I was rolling down a hill sideways last night in the tent.. may have to reconfigure the set up.

Was out for the count until I realised that Craig and the dogs weren’t in the tent! The dogs needed out and returned all having done a wee which was good but I was now awake and trying to sleep flat while the mattress was lying at an angle. Then the mind starts to tick over. Yay, great time for overactive kind to kick in…. I’m sure I fell asleep again but I know I’ll be having a nap later!

We’re sitting chilling today. It’s lovely to have nothing to do, except write the blog… the dogs are fast asleep!

And then there was a nap…. the end of a movie followed by a 2 person, 3 dog nap. The best sleep ever. I wanted to get down to the village for high tide at 5pm but it was 5.55pm already. Best laid plans eh?!?

Had a lovely FaceTime with mum and dad and they’ve been here before and they are stuck in the house just now. Walked back up to the campsite and now have the bbq on again.

I’m just getting my camping mojo back. We pretty much know where everything is finally. I’ve had no shoulder or neck pain at all and yet I’m lying sleeping on the ground every night. Shows me it’s all stress and tension….

Camping is the ultimate relaxation.

With the caveat… as long as it’s dry. And not to windy… and no midges. Amen.

Stay safe everyone 🔥🔥🔥

We escaped from Wales without being caught by the dangerous archer in the woods thankfully. It rained a lot over night…. think it started about precisely 30 seconds before I needed to run the gauntlet to the loo. Typical huh?! Thankfully as is always the case with rain, it sounded so much worse from inside the tent than it actually was outside.

Nothing better than being snug and cosy in the tent with the 3 “dry” dogs (wet dog is never good). It’s my favourite part of camping. My least favourite part is needing a wee in the middle of the night which I invariably do!

The reason shower is in inverted commas is because it’s gonna be cold water and in all seriousness, I think I would rather just be dirty than have a cold shower… outside in September!!! It’s just no happenin’.

We stopped passed McDonald’s as it was about 5 miles from the campsite and “Mrs-I-really-can’t-stomach-meat-anymore” tried to order something veggie… got told it wasn’t serving today so ended up with a double quarter pounder meal as the sign was right in front of me. I ate it but yeah… bowffin’ gave one of my quarter pounders to Craig. Filled a hole but made me turn my nose up a bit.

So poor Craigie had to nurse the clutch every step of the way… fine once we get on a dual carriageway or motorway 🛣 and get up to speed but not so fine on take off and up hill (yes I realise we weren’t in a plane ✈️…. 😂)

The road is changing now, single carriageway, up hill gradients of 6%, 8%. 9% and we’re taking every 5 mile stint as a win. Of course the sat nav takes you up and over Corney Fell….. over the hills on a tiny back road which is not suitable for caravans and Motorhomes. Normally we’d be ok but the gears keep slipping with acceleration.

Of course we had to go find a shop before we set up for the night as we didn’t have enough for 4 nights. Poor Jeepey back on the road again. Quick shop with masks 🎭 again and back.

Everything on this campsite is closed due to COVID-19. No toilet block 🚽 🚾, showers 🧼 🚿 nothing….

Planning another quiet night chilling and patting Jeepey ever time we walk past, for not letting us down. The clutch is ordered and will be delivered when we get back. Just need to last until then.

Stay safe everyone 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Today is a day of rest. We both needed it I think. Up for coffee and rolls and sausage/vegan sausage a la Juliesie for a change. It’s been very mild overnight which is just as well as “someone” had the king size duvet and 2 blankets wrapped in a wee cocoon last night while I just had my sleeping bag… he wonders why he was so hot all night?!?

At one point I thought I’d got them back only for him to roll away from me and take them all with him again. 🤨

We had steak for dinner last night on the bbq. I think I said. I had vegan steak which was actually really nice. I have no idea why my tastes have changed so much recently but they really have. I just don’t feel comfortable eating “animal”…. I can eat fish without a a second thought, cheese, eggs but I’m just not that fussed about meat.

My mood changes instantly when the sun is out. I relax, I chill, I calm down, my mind stops racing…. it’s hot and it feels lovely on my skin. The place might be a bit or organised chaos but things can dry out in the sun. Everything can lie out in the sun. Including me… all day.

I’m gonna make this a short one today as I’ve just issued day 165 part 2 and I don’t want to sit on my phone all day. There is peace and tranquillity to be enjoyed. I may need a nana nap of course. I have not looked at COVID updates this week at all. There is not much sign of it in Wales to be honest.

We were masks in shops even if others don’t and there’s hand sanitiser at various points on the site but interestingly I’ve hardly seen anyone using the toilets. Think most folk brought their own. While we have, we’re usually the facilities while we can.

Limping the clutch to the Lake District tomorrow, that wee bit closer to home.

Forgot to say, for all of you who asked, mum is home now and starting her recovery with Dad as Chief Nurse. Hope to see her soon.

Stay safe everyone ⛺️⛺️⛺️

Saturday was our first real over landing day out, we’ll certainly for me anyway.

As there were about 18 of us on the day, we split into 3 groups and somehow I heard Craig saying that he would lead our group. While that’s all very well for him, I’m suddenly starting to click that this means I am gonna end up being lead navigator.

My head doesn’t like that…… I am trying to follow a map with tiny arrows on it but guess left and right from the past directions rather than the map moving in the direction I travel. My brain just does not compute this… it panics…. it throws its wee brain hands up in the air and has a wee paddy whack to itself… I try to voice my thoughts but I let them float away when they hit the air… placated by “it will be fine”… “fine”… that bloody word that doesn’t really exist.

On the positive side of this I was in and out of that Jeep running up and down green lanes like a loony all day so hit my 10k steps easy. No wonder I was exhausted at night and about the first one in bed!

Someone (!?!?) had “placed” the giant rock right in the middle of the lane. It was so muddy folk we’re sliding into it. We had the bonus of being behind this group so Craig could see exactly how to get round it. That doesn’t always mean the ground lets you do it though. Craig got past it but couldn’t get the Jeep to turn out of the tracks so he just kept going until it looked less muddy.

Everyone agreed it was time for a coffee stop!! ☕️ One of the LandRover’s has a winch so be towed it out the way after we all got through. Save anyone else hitting it in future.

Now this is where all the “fun” starts…

Drive up past this cottage and take a left… there don’t seem to be any lefts except some overgrown driveway into a field… but yes….

Round the bed and up a rocky almost dry river bed. Then… all of a sudden, smoke blowing out from under the bonnet. At the same time someone shout over the CB “get out the car” and I honestly thought she was gonna blow.

That is how irrationally I was thinking. Honestly my head fell apart. It was so dramatic that you’d honestly think I thought we were going to die there. I mean, how bloody ridiculous but I was in a total tailspin. I couldn’t breathe properly. All the while trying to keep that stiff upper lip while talking to everyone so no-one would really know. That road was terrifying. I’d be surprised if anyone had driven it in a car in years. The Jeep looks like about 20 kids have keyed it (to pinch someone else’s joke!)

I got the dogs out of the Jeep as the clutch smoke fumes were a bit overwhelming. I then tried to walk up this rock and tree strewn track and realised that we were literally less that 100ft from what I kept referring to as a “concrete” road!!!!!!!!

(Found out later that the “get out the car” was not for us but one of the Landy’s that had got caught in barbed wire on the track… so nothing to do with us, though don’t know how we missed it!)

The relief…. was short lived as I realised that there were 2 large, angry dogs up on the “concrete” road who wanted to eat my dogs… and me by the looks of things.

Thankfully the owner sussed there was something not right with me and had to drag her dogs by the scruff of the neck to get them in the house to reduce the barking. She took me into her garden and got me to sit down and breathe. I just left Craig to get out of the mess while I sat and shook.

I was livid that we had been told to go that way. We’d specifically said we wanted an easy route. It seems so completely irresponsible to send people down there on their own with no previous experience.

However, all that said. We did survive…. obviously…. and other than the clutch which was already on its last legs… the Jeep is not broken. We are just limping it about for the rest of our holiday. Not driving where ever possible so that it gets us home. To top it all off, Craig had so much fun, loved it but wasn’t keen to do that one again. Imagine if folk had been coming in the opposite direction?!?! There I go again…. 🤔😬😆

On this occasion I had a right to be nervous, even scared but no need for the total panic.

Just majorly out of my comfort zone I guess.

So after all that 4 of us decided to head via a supermarket and then back to camp. We were done for the day.

A completely different day for me and looking back I did really enjoy it. Just a complete overreaction really…. welcome to the world of an over anxious mind.

Stay safe everyone 🤯😆❤️

So we had the opposite problem last night…. or I did anyway, I was ROASTING in bed as we bought a 4.5 tog king size duvet and cheap cover yesterday… I spend half the night de-layering in my sleep. I woke at 3.42am and couldn’t get back to sleep until we realised our heads were ever so slightly lower than our feet so we had to burl round. That’s a great Scottish word, “burl”!! No mean feat with 3 dogs in the tent too!!

So back to sleep and up at 7 to walk the dogs then back into bed until 9.30am. I reckoned if I got up then I might be a little less grumpy if I stayed up at 7am!?! Hmmmmm not sure…. 🤔😬

Had veggie sausages on a roll for breakfast and a lovely coffee made by Craigie because he stayed up at 7am 🤔🥱

Then we jumped in Jeepey and headed down to Prestatyn beach 🏖 to talk the dogs for a big run. Honestly the minute we got out the Jeep the heavens opened!

And of course…. the rain stopped!!!!!

Back up to the campsite for lunch and had fish fajitas while the dogs conked out! Just how we like them… not a peep!

Then we all went into the tent to watch a movie as it was a bit overcast and threatening rain. I may… just may have fallen asleep for a weeeee bit of it, like most of it!

BBQ for dinner, huge steak for Craig and a veggie steak for me. I don’t know why I don’t fancy meat these days but looking forward to the veggie variety! The bbq is just heating up and it’s 7.50pm already. I don’t know where the day went though there is a chance I was sleeping for most of it.

It’s been a year and a half since we were away camping for any length of time and I’m not going to lie, it is messing with my head a bit. A place for everything and everything in its place is not possible with the scale that we are working with. I need to learn to chill and stop over stressing about muddy footprints everywhere and it being able to find things.

As Craig says camping like this shows us what we still need to improve on.

The best news ever though is that the wheelie bonus out back home thanks to Claire who is adulting enough today for both of us!!

Still not got around to sorting through the million pics from our overlanding day but I’ll get to it…. that holiday feeling… manyana… 😘😘

Stay safe everyone 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

What an amazing nights sleep!!!!! I was out for the count all night. One of those sleeps where nothing wakes you at all… not the cold, not the rain, not the dogs jumping around in the morning… nothing. Soooo good.

I know I haven’t written about yesterday but I’m going to do that separately as we did so much it would be a shame to miss it out.

Craig already bad breakfast and coffee ready… he’s a good lad.

We got everything all packed up in time to try and get a photo shoot with all the vehicles before everyone left. There were 18 in total! We only knew the Overland Bound guys but the rest seemed a good bunch too. From a COVID-19 perspective there is no shaking hands, no hugs for the guys we know which is all very strange. No sharing of food and just socially distanced fire pit at night.

We’ve had to take it easy today as Jeepey’s clutch isn’t the best. It was an advisory on the last MOT and after the drive we did yesterday over mountain and down dale Craig’s having to nurse it gingerly. 👩‍⚕️ haha a nurse came up on new predictive text thing! Had to use it.

We had fish fajitas for dinner tonight. Was lovely. Now sitting watching the sunset with a coffee. It’s a beautiful evening. A very quiet site.

Planning crochet 🧶 reading books 📖 and walking the dogs 🐕 and precious little else.

You don’t have to wear face masks 🎭 in shops in Wales but we have been anyway. Just to be on the safe side. The same hand sanitiser everywhere etc other than that we are out in the fresh air… just how we like it.

Stay safe everyone 🌄🌄🌄

Well that was a cold, cold, cold night! It was fureeeeezing! Even with 3 dogs to cuddle it was freezing. Didn’t sleep much, tossed and turned and fought with blankets… although I did have a revelation through the night when I wrapped myself in the blanket and then got in the sleeping bag. No more blanket sliding off every time I moved. Clever huh?!?

So I’m gonna be really honest here, we’ve had an amazing day and I have so much to talk about and so many photos but I’m sitting round a campfire enjoying the heat and feeling very rude for having to sit and write the blog.

The greenlaning ended with a drive on the craziest road we have ever been on and a huge puff of smoke from engine the bonnet….. Craig did so well while I had a meltdown and ran away up the track with the dogs!!!

Stay safe everyone 🔥🔥🔥

Yesterday blog was a bit of a reminisce so I didn’t tell you that we finally got the Jeep all fixed and ready for holidays by about 5.30pm last night! What a relief… we honestly thought that we weren’t going to get away.

So as you can imagine we were plunged into a “we’re not ready to go away” panic…. in my mind anyway. We went to the pub i stead. Alcohol free 🍓 and Lime Kopparberg for me. I love it!!

So I woke at 3.45am and was wide awake until at least 5.15am just kind of packing in my head! As you do…. when Craig woke at half 6 I was apparently snoring my head of… I say apparently well, because I’m a lady and we don’t snore…. 🤦🏻‍♀️

By the time we eventually got up and got moving and had a leisurely coffee it was probably after 9.

We had a productive morning getting everything ready and this time we’re really only bringing what we need. It was after 1pm before we finally got away.

We had to leave the house twice of course as we went home for our big camping table which was still lying in the office. 🤷🏻‍♀️ we took a wee drive round Beith to get back home.

So the biggest issue facing us was to try and pick up Calor gas ⛽️ on our way. We stopped at Morrison’s in Johnstone. The lady saw me and said over the tannoy there was no gas…… so I started phoning places all along the M8 and M74!!! When the lady at Hamilton Morrison’s answered the phone saying “yes they had some but you need to have an empty to swap”…. I shout “ooooooh I have an empty!” And she laughed. We were there within half and hour and I told her she’d saved the holiday!!!

So our estimated time of arrival is 8pm which means we’ll be pitching the tent in the dark but that’s ok. It’s pretty easy to pitch and we have gas if we want to make dinner 🥘

Of course since I’m in the car we know that we will be stopping a few more times as this old bladder ain’t what it used to be. Already had to stop once

At this point it only fair to mention that I spent a good bit of time hunting for the cause of a draft in the Jeep when we first set off…. only to realise it was the blowers…. obviously…. I knew that. 😬

So we’re now in Englandshire 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 well on our way to Welsh Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿… must ask mum but I’m fairly certain that I have Gran to thank for this naming of countries 😆

We are hoping the weather gods are on our side this holiday as we’ve had a few howling gales on the last holiday we had. I’m actually reflecting on that holiday in June 2019… it was when we were up in the Outer Hebrides that I realised I couldn’t go back to work. We came home early and I was signed back off sick. I just need to rest.

The wind was incessant that holiday… we’ve hated it ever since.

I just missed the Welsh sign…. haha! Craig’s on to his mum and waving and I’m writing this… dammit never mind. So we’re in Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 now. Only and hour and a half to go so I’ll sign off now, think of us lying on the ground trying to sleep tonight in a tent with 3 border collies 🐶🐶🐶. It’s gonna be fun!!

Stay safe everyone 🧡🧡🧡

So today marks the second anniversary of the start of my official mental health journey. As I’ve said before I can see now that I had been suffering for years but soldiering on through it all. Putting on that brave face. Smiling through it all while inside I was allowing everything to chip away at the little self confidence I had left.

There was a time I would say that I was bloody good at my job. As a people pleaser I knew who to get the best of out everyone and was a master of negotiating and influencing. I only wanted what was best for my customers but also what was best for the company I worked for. I was in my element on a customer visit to the factory, taking control of the situation and was so proud of everything that we achieved but secretly proud to be co-ordinating it all. My customers all knew me, I was considered the “expert” that they all needed to talk to. I was in my element for a while. People needed my advice and people listened. People came out of their way to come in to my office, shut the door and talk to me about their problems too.

Those that worked with me will have seen the growing instability for years. Gone was the golden girl who could do no wrong and was promoted without even an interview. Replaced by some defensive, angry but very sad, empty shell who couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

I had started to mask my feelings by rewarding myself with a glass of wine in the evenings… nothing wrong with that but it became my crutch. Living next door to our lovely village pub meant that the weekend started on a Thursday night and rolled into a late Sunday night. Work had become a highly toxic environment for me as I realised I could not please everyone all of the time and gradually it felt like I couldn’t please anyone. I took every teeny, tiny piece of criticism to heart and it only endorsed my already shattered self confidence. I was not worthy.

On the morning of the 3rd September 2018 I drove into work a quivering wreck. Driving through tears, trying to shake them off and talk myself up in the car “you got this girl, you CAN do this”…. “it’s gonna be a good day”…… I got into the office and I don’t remember anything much other than quiet terror. Hiding away in my corner office hoping that no one would come near me, no one would speak to me or question me, just let me hide and get through the day.

Of course that could never happen and the tears just would not stop. My mind was flipping at the emails I was reading and I didn’t have the first clue where to start. There was nothing out of the ordinary in my inbox that day. It was my head that was no longer working.

My boss at that time was in Head Office for a meeting and I desperately waited for them to come back to talk… I needed to go home and get some sleep. By 10am I just couldn’t hold on and sometime late morning I made the bravest decision of my life and I picked up my stuff and walked out. I drove the hours drive through sobs and snot. With hindsight not the safest move I’ve ever made and I got my first appointment with a doctor to try to fix whatever was wrong with me.

I also signed up for counselling and Kinesiology which was a life saver but all at my own cost.

I have a lot of bad memories of those early days. I felt I was letting everyone down and I couldn’t explain what was wrong with me as I didn’t understand it myself. I had to plead with the doctor to give me some time off work. That did not come naturally to me at all as for years I’d been begging them not to sign me off. Now that I really needed it I actually had to ask for it. I had to fight to get appointments, fight to get sick lines, when I was at my lowest ebb and had to pull up my britches and fight for what I thought was right. The only time I could relax was when I was with the counsellor or Health Kinesiologist and they seemed to understand me.

It was just so so very hard.

My sick line said “anxiety”…. what did that even mean. That old saying “auch she’s awfy bad wi her nerves that one”….

I did got back to work for 5 months from Dec 2018 to early June 2019 but I was a shadow of my formal self…. ready to crack at any moment.

So back off sick again…

I honestly wanted to go to sleep and never wake up. I felt such a huge burden to everyone that I felt it would be better for them all if I wasn’t around. The smiley, happy, chatty, friendly girl had been buried alive. Under a pile of anxiety.

As I’ve said I had to source all my own counselling, my own support, the one referral that I did get wasn’t joined up with what I was told it would be. The guy actually kept looking at his watch while I told him my worst. “Don’t know why they thought we could help with blah, blah,blah as they know we don’t do that…….” magic, thanks for nothing.

All this money spent on mental health these days and I never saw any of it working for me. My work very kindly helped out with Cognitive Behaviour Therapy for a good while towards the end of 2019 though which was a great help.

Finally after moving to a new doctor surgery I found a doctor who seemed to realise just how bad I was feeling in November of 2019. She changed my meds and gave me the first appointment on 27th December so that I had something to “look forward to” over Christmas. She could see how much I was dreading the “party” season and everyone being happy. She helped me start on the road to recovery.

The girl who worked those crazy hours and gave her all to everyone else just wasn’t who I needed to be. I needed to be me. I needed to care for me and I needed to love me.

And I do now. It’s taken me 2 years to be able to admit that to myself.

I still feel I have a bit to go on building my confidence back up but true healing comes from vulnerability and if this peeled onion Julie 🧅 isn’t vulnerable then I don’t know what is…. (that was just an excuse to use the onion emoji!)

I want to thank each and every one of you for helping support my journey. I’ve had the most amazing support and have had to rely on some people more than I ever thought possible.

I promise that I will pay this back.

I thanked my counsellors and I thank Shelagh, the lovely Kinesiologist, all the time but I have never written to thank that doctor and do you know what… I’m gonna do that right now. Tell her that she listened at a time when I needed it the most. Maybe she needs to know that she made a difference.

Onwards and upwards.

Stay safe everyone 🧡🧡🧡

I had the most amazing sleep last night. I think I deserved it after surviving everything yesterday threw at me! I am also grateful that Craig showed me how to get some predictive thing up on the screen so I even get predictive emojis to choose from! 😊

Ok for those of you who have had this for years then we’ll done you but for me this is a whole new 🌍

Volunteering today but Craig phones to say the Jeep needs a fan belt and a fan belt tensioner so I spent the morning trying to source the Jeep parts and explaining why I randomly didn’t turn up at peoples house last week! (If you remember they thought I was on holiday so the guys took my deliveries before I got there!)

One lady asked for my number so her niece could get in touch with me about crochet. I do hope she wants to learn how to do a granny square as that’s all that I can do!

Still no luck with the Jeep parts… 🤯

One man leaves his gates open if he goes out for a wee walk in the mornings. He takes the car then walks from the car. It was pouring with rain today and his gates were open so I drove past twice but his gates were still open so he was still out. Come back to this later…..

The next lovely lady was worried something had happened to me!!! She was worried there was something wrong with the dogs or that she had said something to upset me… awww isn’t that dreadful. So they all know that I am on holiday next week and won’t be delivering.

This is where it all goes even more pear shaped……. as I jump back in Abbie I realise that there’s a letter for this lady that I forgot to give her. Jump out the van, run to her door in the rain. Shove the letter in the letterbox and run back to the van as I hear a click. The van has locked. The keys are inside the van…. the van had locked. Who even knew that was a thing?!? In all my years I have never locked my keys in the car. I didn’t think for one second the car would lock with the keys in it?!? But it did….. I’m outside in the rain with a T-shirt on and thankfully my phone!! 📱

So I have to go into her house to keep dry and stand just in the front of the living room. I phone Holly from next door who is out.. I phone Eddie from the Beith Trust who is in Dalry but he’s on his way back so he comes to get me and bring me back up to the house for the spare key… of course I don’t have the house keys so I popped into Claire’s to wait for Holly coming home! Holly is the keeper of the spare key!!! 🔑

Very randomly this morning I made a huge thing of locking and checking all the doors (maybe because I keep locking the dogs out….) but any other day I’d be able to get in. Safety first today just so that could inconvenience everyone else including myself….. happy days!

Holly then arrives with the key and drives me back down into Beith so I can continue my deliveries. 🚚 📦

By this time I finally finish and get back to Geilsland it’s after 2pm. I put everything away including the food for the lovely man who was out…. by the time I got up to the office I found out he wasn’t out and wandering where I was and couldn’t understand why his gates were open!!! So in future that can’t ever be a sign that he’s out… poor thing wondering where I was and I was just driving past…… so finally home by 2.30pm…… shattered! Holly has left me a bottle of Nosecco and a bag and bar of chocolate!!! 🍫 🍾🥂 so very lovely! I messaged her to say she’s the only person ever that does ME a huge favour and then gives ME a gift!!!

Still waiting to find out when the Jeep will be ready but I got into bed 🛌 just before 5 and I plan to stay here until crochet 🧶 at 7pm!

I am soooo tired with all the mental stimulation that the last few days has brought. I am still smiling and getting through it all which is something to be proud of.

Stay safe everyone 🔑🔑🔑

Morning everyone it’s 5.55am and I’ve already been awake for over an hour as today is Craig’s gym day…. it’s also the day my lovely mum goes in for surgery. I’ve not written about this before as it’s her business.

I went to bed early last night having spoken to to her at 8pm and told her the phone would be on all night if she needed me. So pleased she’s in a wee room by herself with her own bathroom. I was out for the count and woke up with such a start at Craig’s alarm at 4.45am!! Thankfully I haven’t missed anything from her as I’d have felt dreadful offering that support and sleeping right through…. 🤦🏻‍♀️ though I bet nothing would surprise her. By the time I publish this it will hopefully all be over and we can breathe a wee sigh of relief.

There’s a fair bit of COVID news to catch up on so I’ll get some of that out the way today in an emotionless “talk about something else” kinda way 😌

Mum had to have a COVID test on Saturday and as suspected it came back negative. The test involved a swab to the back of the tonsils and a swab right up at the very back of your nose which feels like it’s coming out of your head!! Pretty uncomfortable but over in seconds. All done from your seat in the car! Told her I was proud of her as she’s the only person I know to have gone throw it.

So all good up until this point and then the day goes crazy…. 🤯 went out this morning to get some last minute stuff for our bathroom refurb next week… tile adhesive, downlights, extractor etc… so I’m trying to drive around Irvine to pick up all this stuff and I’m getting calls from dog behaviour clients trying to book (all good) and then the call comes from the garage……

They won’t fix Craig’s Jeep. We’ve been waiting for this appointment for over 2 weeks and we even had the parts and they wouldn’t touch it once they realised what the job entailed. 🤯😱🤯😱🤯 gutted doesn’t even come close. Fuming. Raging. Angry. Inside.

Of course I don’t show any of that and I tried to appeal to his better nature, I mean we are taking the Jeep on holiday on Friday morning…… 🏕🏔 THATS ONLY 3 MORE SLEEPS UNTIL MY HOLIDAY AND YOU’RE TELLING ME WE WONT HAVE A CAR?!?!? Again…. all inside while smiling sweetly but looking politely confused as to why a garage won’t fix a car just because it’s big. I lose. Garage wins.

So lots of WhatsApp chat with the Overland Bound guys who were so helpful with suggestions. Honestly I love the support these guys show each other. A couple of them even offering to do the work for us if we could get it up north to them. I phoned loads of garages as did Craig when he wasn’t working. Nothing. We can get it fixed anywhere on 22nd September… handy….. did I mention we go on holiday Friday and that’s the 4th!!!!

So to cut hours out of the day…. we finally got it in somewhere who will not promise to get it ready for Friday but promise to try…. that’s something right?! I told the guy that I would set up a deckchair in their yard just so he would remember us and work on the Jeep…. he laughed. Part of me was not kidding…. 🤔🙄

Needed to get some work done and make some calls for Pawsitive Solutions which is actually a welcome distraction from thinking (ok yeah, worrying and stressing) about everything else. Booked the 3 I spoke to. Boom.

Nice chat with dad as mum now in HDU and he actually got to speak to her…. then a message came through to our family group chat. So lovely to hear from her!

It’s now 7.48pm and I have just sat down to catch up with this and poor Craig’s STILL out at work. It’s been a very long day and we’ve both had so much thrown at us. I only snapped maybe once or twice and we both agreed that the anger was over the garage and the Jeep and not at each other.

That reminds me that I have been really struggling with my concentration over the last few days and have closed the sun room doors while the dogs are still out the back… locked Bhruic out on Sunday so she made a bid for freedom… think she tries to get round the front to see if we’ll let her in there. 😥

On the way to out to the garage today Craig realised the Bhru and Calaidh were both shut out. Bad dog mumma. I know how serious it is if they get out but I am doing so much without thinking clearly. I now have to count 3 dogs….. every time. Craig shouted bye when he left and said “see you all tonight, HOPEFULLY…….” 😬😬😬😬😬 #cringe

So glad that today is nearly over. Expect tomorrow to be a breeze as we’ve done our share today thanks.

Stay safe everyone ❤️🧡❤️