Not sure if the social media weaning is going well? I recorded an hour less screentime than last week. Although still 4 and a half hours a day!

I mean some of that is sensible stuff like online banking, messaging apps and stuff like Duolingo but fuck me. Small targets. See if I can now reduce it to four hours a day. I feel thats acceptable considering duolingo and whatnot for the way to work.

The Brat went away for his 40th! WE ARE ALL GETTING SO OLD!!!! And J who is on Jury service in London and has met me for lunch last few days stayed Friday night until today.

I can't ask him to live with the Brat who still seems incapable of flushing toilets and tidying up after himself and equally I cannot move in with him because of my furry dependents. 

It was nice though - We went to a gig! My first real gig unless you count Jason Donovan back in the days of Derby's Desperate and Easy. or Girls Aloud and Chesney Hawkes at the Uni Ball in May 2003? 2004?

Anyway I saw Feeder and I enjoyed it very much although I knew about half the songs. J loves live music and indie sleaze type stuff and I enjoy it too although I'm a bit of a music magpie and pick up odd songs here and there unlike him.

Payday tomorrow and need to organise trains up to Derby. Remember when I started this? I had my student rail card and it was 18 pounds return! Now I'm thinking myself lucky to get returns for us both for under 100 quid!

I do miss my car! 

 I'm trying to wean myself off of the social media addiction. I just find myself doomscrolling and getting angry at the state of the world. 

I had my anaesthetic procedure on the 1st. Very strange, also surprised at how tired I was considering they didn't do anything. That was on the Monday and I went back to work on the Thurs but I was fighting to stay awake past 2pm.    

I'm trying not to panic about how when he came to see me the pain had returned and he said that, that made surgery less likely. Of course the minute he left the local kicked in and I was pain free until about 2pm.

I'm more panicking at the moment as on Fri night/Sat Morning I woke up at 3.30 in pain and it was 5am by the time I was able to go to sleep again. I took some of the heavy painkillers so I could go to the Charlton-Millwall game and then to J's mums birthday party but I was pretty much glued to my chair all night, not wanting to move about too much and trigger pain.

Need to stop second guessing and ChatGPTing everything!

Mum comes home on Thurs as we're going to the funeral of the guy I mentioned previous post. the Brat turns 40 this week and had packed himself off to go to the Lakes. 

 Oh one more little August update. On the day of the BBQ, I learnt that JW a childhood friend had a sudden heart attack and died. He was my age. We used to play in and out of each others houses, cops and robbers and rode our bikes together.

Haven't spoken in maybe 15, 20 years but always think fondly of him and his family 

 August update!

Still struggling along with no car. J got a little inheritance though and we did go to Bristol for my Birthday!
Amazing to see CL, went to a buffet and worked our way into a food coma, on Friday we went to Bath, looked at the Roman Baths and then did a modern day Spa.
Sat, Went to see Charlton play Bristol City and got a credible 1-1 draw. They were the better team in the first half, we were in the second, probably a fair result.
Also during that week off, we went to see Hercules at the Theatre, went to Camden, visited the Ice Cream Project and climbed the Cutty Sark rigging. 

Over the Bank Holiday we did the very adult thing of hosting a BBQ in my garden - imagine! Having the garden tidy (ish) enough for that!

I'm going into Guys on Monday for a procedure under anesthesia for my hip. Getting quite nervous about that.

Also slightly concerned about Mrs Spaniel. She got a clean bill of health on her vet check up, but the same night was lying in my lap and wet herself. And worst of all didn't seem to realise what she'd done.

Apparently its a sign of doggy dementia but she's not ticking any of the other boxes, so I think I'll monitor and if it happens again then, she can cost me another fortune at the vets getting scans and God knows what else done. 

My car fund sits at 400 so far, not nearly enough and not impressed if I'll have to use that for her checkups - although I will without question. We'll see. 

 My car has gone to the great scrapheap in the car. I was actually quiet sad about it, "Cars" has a lot to live up too!

It was just too expensive to repair. I can't afford a replacement any time soon, but i'm hoping to save anything from 100-300 quid a month with it gone, we'll see. I've long since given up any hope of being able to predict this. 

Sorry for the dogs too as I've had to cancel all their hobbies as I just can't get them there any more. Our walks have been so very boring. 

I will try to reassess come October/November but I think it'll be well into the New Year before I could feasibly consider starting to save for a new one.

TP and TJ bless them sent over a wee donation towards The New Car Fund and that's locked away in a 95 day account to be added too whenever I can.

Reality is starting to hit me with this though, not only the utter boredom all three of us have now but the practicality of it. I have Mrs Spaniel booked in for a groom this Friday - ordinarily not an issue, nip down on my lunch break, pick up at the end of my working day.

Now it involves two buses- a predicted heatwave of 28 degrees and she will hate it. Getting a Pet Uber will cost me nearly 60 quid! Just to go to Lee and back and its not like I have anyone else who will take me.

Getting their jabs done in August (there goes any potential savings that month!!!!!) There is no bus that runs from my house down to the vets so its a bit of a walk and then a bus and then another walk. Muzzling Mrs Collie who will be snappy and barky about it.

J is off that week, maybe he will stay over and help. Can't rely on it though.

Food also majorly cut back as again no direct bus so limited on what I can carry from Charlton.

J and I were planning on going to the Bristol City away game in August. Not sure that'll happen. Not sure how I'll get to Derby in November for H2's wedding - very much thinking longingly about my student railcard and how it used to be £23 return!!!! 

We'll manage. We did before and hopefully I can save it away and stop having disasters that cost me all my money every time I start to be able to push away from the edge of being absolutely destitute.

Had a call from the hospital apologising about my long wait - considering the 4 years its taken to get me to this point I feel things are whizzing along! They sounded like they would try to prioritize me and maybe the op will happen before the end of this year.

Again NHS waiting lists so we will see. Pre- assessment assessment due in August..... 

 So in March, life was full of hope.

It no longer is, the car requires a lot of work to keep it road worthy, cheaper than buying a new car but yet will take away the cards I've cleared.

I had a huge dent in one of them regardless as I had two flat tyres just before we went away to Wales so I ended up using the money i'd saved for that and then having to hit the cards to survive.

We went to Chester and Wrexham btw. Bit strange being there since Welshy. Place still looks pretty similar, we kayaked over the highest aquaduct in Europe and had a lovely time.

I've met with the hip surgeon, been given a new MRI, new X-rays, a CT scan for first time ever and now on a waiting list to have a procedure under anesthetic before they decide to put me on a surgery waiting list. They prescribed me Tramadol which i'm yet to take as the side effects have put fear of God into me. 

Its stopped any idea of Thailand this year (even if the car wasn't buggered....) and from the face he pulled, I'm guessing next year also iffy.

G did come back for the playoffs - another Wembley win! The '98 play off shirt lucky again!!! Good to see him as well.

Things with J still going really well. Hoping to have a weekend away in August perhaps to co-incide with Bristol away and meet up with CL.

H2 is getting married again in November and hip-dependent we're hoping to go away to Derby for that. So looking forward to it and showing him Our Beloved Friary and other places from all those years ago that still exist.

So yeah, maybe no further abroad trips this year. I'm back to be horrendously broke and already just a few hours after payday, worrying about how I'll make it through the month but hopefully can get those little trips under our belt and it'll be better than nothing and hopefully next update won't be 3 months later and I'll be able to tell you about the procedure and that i'm on the hip replacement waiting list. 

 So here we are in March. I'm trying to organise my finances. I took out a loan hmm, maybe two years ago. Because of Spanielface becoming Piratedog and the car being constantly on life support, i'm not in a position to pay it off like I was hoping to in September.

In fact I'm almost worse off than I was before I took the loan out. But. I've been working hard at it. Thanks to flyball, I've mostly paid off one credit card (took a small dip in it to cover an unexpected outgoing in Morocco and I'd planned to use part of it for J's 40th present) but its minor. 8.99 when I get paid this month.

Another is well on the way - it was 700, i've got it down to 200. I've taken another loan out, which will cover the remainder of Original Loan and leave me 100 a month better off - oh no, it won't because the fucking council tax is now due. But I tell myself at least it wont leave me worse off. 

The goal is to lose those two small cards and then pick another (three other cards and a paypal credit limit) all of which are over a K each.

 Mother and TWMWB came back, I have a lovely new kitchen floor. My back room is almost useable. Spring is finally in the air and my garden will spring into life - i'm now a person who has daffs and crocuses in their lawn instead of bramble.

I'm still (I think this got mentioned in Oct last year's update) working on removing all the paint from the stairs so they can be varnished. My house is slowly starting to look like a house.

I spent a lot of my thirties, depressed, unable to afford food. Finances are still a HUGE HUGE worry, I still hate living at home but I've accepted my fate now and I'm going to damn well outlive him even if its only out of pure spite and I'm going to make this somewhere I want to spend the rest of my life. 

I want to go visit G next year in Thailand. I've spent nearly 10 months saving airmile points for me and J to visit for 300 each. We can hopefully book in May and then spend the rest of the time saving for hotels and adventures. 

I'd like to go away again this year but that's me living in fantasyworld and anyone who's been reading this for a long time knows, that I'm prone to disasters that are beyond my control. 

I have my next hip consultation in two weeks time, I'm not expecting the MRA that I was back in Oct, reality has sunk in and I think it'll be another pointless chat and then the waiting list for the MRA.

I don't know what else to update this with, apart from I veer from sleepless nights worrying about my life to absolute daydreams about backpacking around Thai jungles.

In the real world? God I suppose I should mention Trump being absolutely Batshit, how uneasy Musk makes me. The way it feels inevitable that we are slowly, slowly pulling towards a war, the way everything is so expensive I can barely afford to breathe.

But the sun is almost here, Spring is almost here. I'm ever so slowly going the right way financially and I'm going to carry on day dreaming because that's all I have. 

 Marrakech was awesome! I loved it! It was kinda like a toned down, more sanitised India. We did a sunrise Hot air balloon ride, amazing experience! Quad biking in the Desert - I got mine to at least 42kmph and had no control and drove straight into a bush.
We saw snake charmers and monkey handlers, and had a traditional hamman spa experience (they go EVERYWHERE with their hands!), rode a camel and had ice creams and cocktails and a fabulous time.

4 days was the perfect amount of time to do everything we wanted and made such a change from the -5 to +15! I'm very broke now and will need to be good for a bit as its J's big 40th next month and lifes expensive!