Official 'man flu' and dead fish

Well at least we got an official diagnosis.  Fed up with Phil being in bed for days and twinned with a little worry, I phoned the doctors first thing on Monday morning and got him an appointment for half nine. He moaned and groaned, but reluctantly he showered and shaved and went to see Dr Roque.  She checked him over and said that he had flu and because of his weakened immune system said that he had a slight chest infection.  Dr Roque said that if he wasn’t feeling better in another week then he was to go back for blood tests.  He came away with a prescription or antibiotics. I did point out to Phil that in fact, I’d had the flu bug for 3 weeks and it was only went I took the drugs that I began to feel better.  But girlie flu is insignificant, MAN FLU is far, far worse!

A bit of a sad day in our cul-de-sac on Monday because this was the day Sandy’s house was being repossessed. Sandy and the kids actually have actually moved out but they were still scurrying around in the house on Monday sorting stuff and selling their good stuff on eBay.  As I type, I have their dining room table and chairs in my garage and I hope their buyer comes to collect it soon because our house sale looks imminent.  Yes, okay I have been saying this for weeks now, but we had a call late on Monday from Simon at Michael Graham to say the buyer had signed contracts and it look likely that exchange will happen today.  Our buyer is coming to view the house this evening with a kitchen/bathroom specialist; god knows what that’s about.  If it was me, I would replace my bathroom but I can’t see that anything needs changing in our kitchen.   But why I should I care what she changes? It would be a boring old world if we all had the same taste.   I can’t decide whether to be here or not when our buyer comes to view, the nosey side of me wants to meet her and see whether she will fit into our cul-de-sac but the other side of me wants to be totally removed from the whole thing.  I shall decide later today.

Thankfully the pills started to work almost immediately and Phil did seem a little better on Monday afternoon.  He did talk about going for a walk but instead we went over to Jan & Steve’s to see to their animals.   Phil freaked when we went in the lounge to feed the tropical fish because the light in the tank was off Phil said it should be on.  We fiddled with the wires and in the end, we decided that the bulbs had blown so we took them out and went to Morrison’s to get some replacements.  It was only when we replaced the bulbs that we realised the lights were on a timer.  The reason we panicked because there was a dead fish floating at the top of the tank and we thought, great the first day of animal feeding duty, and we are one fish down.  And Steve by the way, I have sent you a message on FB regarding this, so be grateful if you could advise when you are able to read your mail.

On Tuesday morning,   I went over to Sue to pick up some tools; poor Sue was having a bad day.  She received court papers from her ex tenant saying he was suing her to the sum of £3,000.  We both find this unbelievable.  Not only is the b***d not content with stealing all of her furniture, he wants paying for the privilege.  This is another battle that Sue will have to fight and a battle I’m sure she could well do without on top of all of the other shit.  Still, I am certain justice will prevail and these evil people will be sorry they took her on.  After Newport, I popped home to handover some flu drugs to Harriet.  She’d phoned me at 7am to say she felt unwell.  She’s already on a course of antibiotics for a slight case of tonsillitis.  Trouble is, she is going on holiday on Friday so she needed to take some action.  The doctor gave her some more penicillin and hopefully with some bed rest she will by Friday.

Ill health seems to be domineering our lives at the moment.  What with me and Phil and then Harriet and even Sue has been coughing and spluttering.  Also Phil’s dad has not been well for the last week.  He went to the doctors and ended up at the hospital having a lung x-ray.  The results revealed that he does have water on his lungs and his heart is enlarged which would explain why is struggling to breath.  Next week he is back at the hospital for an ECG and they have taken him off his angina pills.  Lets just hope next week there is some improvement and he starts to feel a little better.

Yesterday we loaded the car and went to Overstone to lay the carpet in the new shed.  We’ve been carrying this carpet around in the boot of my car for weeks so it was about time it was laid.  Silly thing is that Sue has just tipped two perfectly good carpets from her house and either of these would have been perfect for our 6 x 4 shed.  Never mind, hindsight as I always say is invaluable.  Poor Phil really wasn’t well and fitting the carpet in the shed and drilling two holes in it to secure it to the ground pretty much took it out of him.   I felt bad for making him get dressed and leave his bed and the sofa.   I felt a little depressed being back at the caravan and spending time at Sue’s large house and at home, our little caravan seems tiny.  So, so tiny and I wonder how we will cope living in such a small space 24/7 without killing each other?

After carpet fitting, we went for a carvery at Overstone Manor, it was okay, cheap but the veggies had been slaughtered to death. It’s not the best carvery that I have tasted and next text I think we should try something else off the menu.  We drove back on the motorway and once back in MK we stopped off at Westcroft to feed Jan & Steve’s animals.   Unfortunately there was another dead tropical fish floating in the tank which has made us really worried.  Steve, if you dip in to our blog can you ring or email Phil.  I know you’re en route to Adelaide and don’t want to spoil your trip but we could do with some advice.  Phil phoned Daniel yesterday but he couldn’t help and we have no previous with tropical fish.