2018

Let us begin with a bad event that turned out well. In November last year Maria's disability benefit was taken away following bad review result. In a reversal of the maxim 'innocent until proven guilty' they also immediately ceased her benefit payment

We compiled our case, see photo of paperwork, and applied to go before a Tribunal where you are interviewed by a Judge, Doctor and disability expert

So, 9 months after the benefit was withdrawn, not only did the Tribunal immediately re-instate her benefit, thus re-instating her right to use the Blue Badge, they then awarded her further points which upped the benefit a bit!


 


 

Maria has bought a new spinning wheel. Look at her tiny feet! Each evening she is watching TV with me whilst pedaling furiously, I've told her "you'll never get a tune out of that"

 

Maria needed to be able to see the top side of the bobbin as the yarn went onto it, so to save constantly having to lean forward each time she has invested in a small rear view mirror.

I wonder if she uses hand-signals as she spins?

A further enhancement was the attachment of an old used plastic container she has screwed onto the back so she can stash all her bits and pieces such as oil for any squeaks, a lint-free cloth for cleaning, and sandwiches (she said "don't put that!")"


 

Maria's beloved snowball bush got infected by some horrible black creepy things and ate all the leaves. So she chopped it all back (left) and applied bug killer and surrounded the base with some good feed. Now, two months later, on the right, the leaves have all started to return


 

Maria found a moth! It was the wrong kind of moth but she said where's there's one there might be more so all her woolens were hung in the sunshine (left) then they were all washed and finally all stashed in the freezer for four days. i think we may be moth-free!


 

Here we see the result of a allowing the weeds to take hold inside the greenhouse. I have since had a great session with the strimmer and cleared it all out.

You can see the vegetable beds and glass cold frames through the rear of the greenhouse, the weeds were out there too, see next pic

 


 

A view across the vegetable beds shows where I have strimmed a lot of the weeds away and there are still some left in the photo and you can see they reached about two feet high

As it's unlikely that Maria will ever be well enough to take up serious gardening again and David has little interest except when slashing and burning weeds is required, we are likely to "get a man in" soon to sweep the lot away and lay it all to lawn

 


 

Maria has been heavily into yarn dyeing and has now taken over the kitchen

 


 

My cousin John and I have a love/hate relationship! This was during a meal to celebrate his father's 85th birthday down in Bexhill-on-Sea in June

 


 

Here we all are at Uncle Dave's 85t birthday meal. at a bar/restaurant called Milligans in Bexhill-On-Sea. Who is the only person not smiling at the camera as he is too busy stuffing his face?! That's my brother Sam on the far right with sunglasses on his head. He came from Thailand for a week and footed the bill for the meal!!!