Normal Service Has Been Resumed

Probably those words will not mean anything to younger people, but they will be very familiar to my generation. When I was a child it was fairly common for technical difficulties to interrupt television programmes (there were only three channels back then) and the when things went wrong they would put up the test card and play music until they could fix the problem. The announcer would tell us that "normal service will be resumed as soon as possible" and we would wait hoping that the break in service wouldn't last very long and even normal broadcasting was about to resume the announcer would say ".... Normal service has been resumed"

From the point of view of the blog 'normal service has been resumed'. I stopped writing the blog several months ago because I was unwell and my stamina levels were extremely low. It was a real struggle just to cope with the essentials of life. I was determined that the blog would not become a miserable tale of woes, but it was such a struggle to keep my writing bright and up beat when I had been feeling unwell for so long that I was losing hope of ever feeling better.

The good news is that after attending a lot of hospital appointments and seeing three different consultants I am finally getting better. I am not coughing anymore - well not much anyway! More importantly I have reason to hope that this is not just a temporary calm between bouts of illness, but a sign that we are dealing with the  causes of the problem rather than the symptoms. There is still a long way to go but I feel so much better.

So what has been happening with us over the last few months? I suppose there are lots of things that I should have written about, but I will catch up with some of those over the next few weeks. Robbie has been working in Darlington for the greater part of each week. Surprisingly it is an arrangement that suits us both fairly well, Robbie enjoys the work and staying in Darlington is better than a long commute every day. I miss him of course but it is nice not having to get up before the birds every day to take him to the station. I'd better make the most of it because his contract ends in mid September and his next contract will involve a daily commute. He is really looking forward to a new challenge and it will be nice to have him at home again. My daughter obtained her post graduate qualification in June and she is now a fully qualified geography teacher. She has a job at a school about half an hour away from our home and she is looking forward to the new challenges that the September term will bring. 

Robbie and I are getting ready to go on holiday to Norfolk, so I will do my best to update the blog every day, but the Internet connection in Norfolk is precarious that I will not make any promises! I probably will not be able to add any photos I get home again.

Time to Get Up!

As soon as I woke up I could tell it was a beautiful day, the sun was streaming through the bedroom window and when I wandered through to make contact with the kettle the view of the bay was incredible. I went back to bed, but 'Sleeping Beauty' just grunted and went back to sleep, I had no chance of dragging him down to the beach before noon so I left him to it.

I got up, showered, had breakfast, washed a couple of towels and some clothes and hung them out to dry, but still the men in my life were not sufficiently awake to form a coherent sentence. Robbie promised that he would follow me down to the beach in a little while, but he must have been working on Cornish time because it was almost two hours before he turned up. I enjoyed the peace and quiet, I wandered

down to the rock pools and took some photos, then I read my family history magazine while relaxing in the sunshine. I love this place, I can't think of anywhere I would rather be.

Robbie finally turned up to enjoy the beach, but I made the mistake of telling him that my family history magazine was focusing on railway history. He was especially interested in the article about 'Steaming Ahead' the recently opened museum and railway resource centre at Darlington. He said he would like to find out more about his grandfather's work as a signal man. He spent the next half hour working out train times and connections to Darlington. I finally managed to stop him talking about trains, but when I put my magazine down it vanished, I think Robbie must have added it to his collection.

Abandoned 25.06.07

I have been abandoned yet again, this time he has gone to Darlington to a Train Planners Meeting and he is not due back until late tomorrow. Robbie had a terrible journey this morning, he had to take a very complicated route involving 5 trains because many routes were closed due to flooding. Have you noticed that there are always extreme weather conditions when he travels to meetings etc., last time it was the gales.

It is very quiet at home, maybe he could be stranded at Darlington for days!