HWA

It’s easy to write off a year and be glad to see the back of it but, even the worst years will have added something to our life experiences and made us who we are. What we do with those good or bad experiences shows everyone what we’re about. Not bragging too much about the good, not overplaying the bad. Coping when we can cope and accepting the help when we cannot.

For me perhaps ‘interesting’ best described this rapidly departing year. One of highs and lows both of which have been heavy on the emotion.

Serious issues with Zoey resulted in her finally moving out. That was a very unpleasant experience for many involved.

Me and Dennis getting stronger in our relationship, becoming engaged, failing to get a visitors visa for him to come here, succeeding on getting a fiancé visa, huge highs and lows. Dealing with some huge trust and betrayal issues along the way and coming through it making us stronger. My getting close to the new family over in the Philippines

Setting in motion getting Dad moved up to Northampton. My terrible choice of solicitors and all the headaches which came with that choice. Relatives getting too involved, an ex wife not stepping away as she should and making life for Dad and those around him more unpleasant and, in October his dementia taking a turn for the worse and his ending up in a home and me effectively becoming a landlord of his Northampton flat.

I’ve been really fortunate and done some amazing travelling this year and travel remains a passion of mine.

So many celebrities died this year but, if I am honest, it makes no difference to me, their work lives on and none of them were people I knew personally. It’s sad for their loved one but for the rest of us, we have our own people we need to think about.

My health has been reasonable I guess.

One thing I know my mind wanders to is seeing my Dad how he is and realising, when he’s gone, I become the older generation. I think our parents cushion us from the realisation that we have become our grandparents. I am a granddad and yet, I don’t consider myself anything like the grandparents I remember and, perhaps that was because they didn’t have parents, how can we ever really be old if our parents are still alive? I do remember my nan at 50 and ‘knowing’ she was old. My mum never managed to get as old as I am now. It doesn’t help when I hear the question … ‘what were things like in your day’ like, today isn’t my day, I’ve had my day!

As I say goodbye and thank you to 2016 what does 2017 hold?

Let’s be honest, much of what happened this year I could not have predicted in 2015! The plan was always to bring Dennis here in 2017 but, that meant not applying for the visa until June of 2017 with his arriving perhaps in September and, knowing Dennis, he’d have extended that until 2018 anyway! I didn’t imagine Zoey would be moving out in 2016. I honestly thought Dad was fine in Wickford, certainly had no plans for him to move to Northampton and never expected he’d be living in a home.

So, my flimsy guesswork for 2017 … me and Dennis get married in March. We succeed and get the next stage visa and we’re both working by July. We go Disneyland Paris in November. That’s as far as my thinking has gone with what I hope is likely.

I have some wishes … I’d like some resolution to my allergy issues. I’d like to be financially secure, no more money worries. I would like anyone who currently has depression to be better able to manage it.

So, not a vast, in detail appraisal, the tiniest of summaries. There are blog entries throughout 2016 for anyone wishing more detail.

Be safe, be healthy and love yourself

I visited an old school friend earlier, first time I’d seen him in several years. When I say ‘old’ I mean the same age as me but, in his case, ‘old’ works. He answered the door and whilst it was obviously him what I saw was a little bent over old man.

This guy has been an alcoholic for a great many years. He’s lacked confidence for as long as I can remember and acted the fool at school as it was his mask to hide his insecurities. He was a young man growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who was of a generation which were always old in attitude and look, a lovely lady but, never young from my recollection, probably into her 40’s when she had him. He has a brother who put it about, on wife number 3 and I lose count how many children he acknowledges. His older brother was gay, he passed with a HIV related illness a long while back.

He’s spent his life in the closet, not just for his sexuality, which he now acknowledges but also from life itself, too afraid to live a life in case it all goes wrong and, as a result, it’s all gone wrong.

By comparison, hell, forget the comparison, I have been really fortunate in my life, so much has worked out OK and I am mainly happy, healthy and looking forward. My friend has memories of his youth, predominantly around getting drunk and it wasn’t unknown for me to join him, back then it was just a social drink. How sad it was to see him drinking a cider so cheap it comes in plastic bottles with a name I’d never seen before.

He says he’s happy, I believe he thinks he is. I wish he’d made different decisions, life would have been so much kinder to this little old man I went to school with.

In the last month I finalised the sale of Dad’s flat in Essex, I worked out a 3 year plan whereby he keeps the ownership of the new flat in Northampton and has tenants in (already done) and this part pays for his care home which I found and he’s been in now  for 3 weeks. It’s a 3 year plan because part of that funding comes from his savings. Sadly, they won’t last forever but, when they expire, in about 3 years, the property should be worth a lot more than currently it is and he’ll have an additional funding source adequate for the rest of his life.

I visited Dad the once after he moved into the care home but it was a horrible experience. He’s was at the stage whereby he knew I was, sort of knew who Daisy was but is in lala land for most everything else. He’s totally forgotten that I’ve been there for him these past few years and blames me for everything in his life going wrong. I will visit again but it’s been a really hectic time so I need to get myself emotionally strong enough first because, Dad isn’t all which is on my mind.

Zoey reverted to her animal state at around the same time. This time they’ve not rushed her into hospital and placed her back on medication but, the results are not particularly good. She’s been very nasty and aggressive, not taking care of herself and she’s put a lot of weight on. To a great extent I have left it to her carers to manage it with me more as a consultant, I am not responsible for her now and so stepping back seems a sensible move especially as her medics are once again looking for someone or something to blame. Obviously, be stepping back they could blame me for not being more involved but I have to keep reminding myself that kids moving out at a certain age is normal, I don’t need to micro manage what is already in place, I need to leave them to do their job.

I had some really serious issues with the registration services in Northampton. Once again they were doing the whole misinformation thing about how much notice we had to give for our wedding. For the vast majority of people it is 28 days, for some, those who didn’t already go the appropriate visa route, it can be much longer. The law is quite clear, with the fiancé visa we have all the documents we need to just require 28 days but they were insistent that I was talking rubbish and that we’d have to cancel the wedding and arrange it for later in the year! Eventually I got them to see my way seeing as it’s the law and not the damn inaccurate guideline they were working on!

So, this is the December update. Dennis will be here next month, right at the very end but next month. Christmas is just around the corner and I am attempting to relax despite life making that difficult!

Dad’s condition took a turn for the worse. He now lacks capacity and cannot move into his new flat after all. Just when I finally got the solicitors sorted and working Dad gets permanently ill. Because of how useless they are he’ll never get to live in the flat and that’s a huge shame as he actually seemed really happy about it.

That’s all up in the air. He’s in hospital now in Essex, within a week or two at the most his address will be Northampton and I’ve got to get one of the authorities to take responsibility for it all. He will either have to self fund which I’ve worked out a workable plan for or, I might be able to persuade them he needs health funding in which case his property and bank balance are preserved for anything he might want to do with it. He doesn’t even get his assessment until likely the end of next week which is now looking really busy.

Great news is, Dennis got the visa (yay) which is the best news ever which I’d enjoy all the more if I wasn’t stressing so much dealing with the ‘dad’ thing. I did manage to fit in getting Dennis a flight so I am happy about that at least!

There is so much to arrange though. I have been up until about 2am most nights since I found out working on scenarios of what could work and what couldn’t and I have still barely scratched the surface. All of this could get blown up if the assessments come up with awkward conclusions. Please let them decide health funding and give me a break already!