Autum Departs Winter Sets In

Well I don't know what happened to autumn but winter has arrived & the leaves are still on the tree's!
The wood burner is being lit every day now. May be most days, in the last 4 days, we had just one log but today I am on the 4th & it will be kept alight through the evening, as it is bitter & blowing a gale today, which means next doors pears are going to be all over my path! A lot of Bulgaria is under a white coating of SNOW!!! We were forecast to have it here but so far so good, it hasn't reached my village. I want to know what happened to our gentle lead into winter?????
You can tell it's cold as three of the dogs are all in by the fire, sleeping the day away, snoring & dreaming of chasing the cats. Trouble is Reggie takes up half our floor space so I have to step over him all the time, Mini has decided to take over the leather sofa & only Kamishka is in her bed. Goodness knows where Sophie is but she must be ok or she would be at home in the warm.

Kamishka & Reggie enjoying sleeping by the fire

Reg takes up most of the floor space

Minishka nicks my sofa!!!!

So the time of hibernation has arrived. Now don't get me wrong I like this, its a nice quiet time, keeping warm & comfy but all I want to do is sleep as its so warm. Also I need to get back on my diet, as the stone I have just lost has gone back on in a wink of an eye. I have been cooking, well baking. Cooking is not a problem as everything I cook is low fat or healthily cooked, its the baking thats the problem :-(  I am going to make a few things over the next few days & enjoy them then it will be freeze, freeze, freeze. So today will be a rice pudding, but made with semi skimmed milk. I am also going to try one with skimmed milk & liquid sweetener, but will wait till I have enjoyed the next few days :-))) Then today I will make mini Victoria sponges, half of which I will freeze. What I really need to do is bake the upside down cakes, apple cakes & grape cakes, before I lose the fruit!
Hey anyone out there want to be a sleeping partner & help me open a tea room lol :-)))) My dream now I think. Its been a while trying to think of things I want to do. We will celebrate 3 yrs here in January & its taken this long to actually settle on what I would love to do. The idea has been there all the time but I wasn't sure about it. Then I have seen a few set up in different parts of Bulgaria & in fact a friend is, or wants to do something similar in another area. More & more I have been drawn to this. It was always a dream of my mums ( now she is an amazing cook!!!) & I am sorry she is too old to be able to do it now. I had my eye on a place & for two years when I was umming & Ahhing, then typical for me as soon as I thought that yes its what I want to do it has been taken over :-( It even has a covered outside area, oh well I will keep my eye on it & if it becomes empty again maybe we will be able to do it.
I am going to look at some properties this week in different area to me. It will be nice to have some more properties on my books. I am an agent for a larger estate agency. Basically if someone comes to me with a property to sell I am their agent, I do the listing & viewings but they get advertised on my site & a large agency online. They get a personal service as well as all the benefits being on a large world wide site gives :-) Good huh! Mind you the market is pretty dead at the moment.
Thankfully Nigel has had some work on, in between having a bad back! So we are paying bills & able to buy provisions :-) It's amazing what word of mouth references do for a person :-) He is in a new area which is fantastic.
I am worrying myself lately. My memory problem is getting worse, my mind just goes blank & I just can't remember the word, I know what it is I know the meaning but the actual word just will not come! Same with spelling, sometimes I do a spell check & not one word is out but other times its riddled, also I get words I just can't remember how it is supposed to be spelt! Once, mind you this was almost 4 yrs ago I lost where I was in Worcester town. I had lived & worked there for 7 yrs!!! Twice in a couple of minuets. I was walking along going somewhere, when I just suddenly couldn't remember where I was or where I was going!!! It took a few minuets to fall into place, while I got very worried, then I remembered & had to turn around. I then walked for aprox 1 min & again forgot where I was & where I was going! To say I was scared is an understatement! It has never happened again but my memory for names of people things & places is getting worse. I think its to do with being an old fart, but at 52????? Still I am not in the realm of dementia, yet. My mother in law had dementia, it was terrible to watch her, she was living in a different world to us & it was a world full of fear. I don't know why she was in fear & I know not everyone is like that, but it was really awful to witness. Mum didn't know who we were, this happened very fast after she suffered a stroke. One day she was looking at me with that blank look she had, when all of a sudden her eyes changed in recognition & she gave me a huge hug, then just as suddenly she pushed me away with the same look in her eye. This was more upsetting than anything :-(
Wow I went completely off there lol, that was all because I couldn't think of a word as I was typing! I have since gone back & put it in :-)))))
So now is the next day..............

I have woken up to a SNOW covered winter wonderland this morning!!!!! What the heck is going on??????
We also have no electric which in this house means no running water or flushing loo's as we are on an electric pump :-(  Its all very pretty but very inconvenient, we are not quite ready for this. On top of that it's very cold brrrrrrrrr!!!!!

This is my veggie area, somewhere under here are all my butter nut squash & pumpkins! Still they are better after a frost so lets hope they will be beautiful :-) best get them in now!

Ok moan over, on the positive we have wood, kindling, fire lighters & loads of paper & cardboard so we will be toasty warm once I get the fire lit :-)
We get the results of mums bone marrow tests today, not sure how I am feeling worried & a bit apprehensive, butterflies in the tummy!

My mum has been poorly one way or another for the last 6 yrs. It started with a perforated bowel & that has been the catalyst for many a health problem. Mum though being the in dependant lady I have always known her to be insisted we move out here & have a good bloody life. Do I feel guilty, yes, but my mum would never accept that, she is our biggest champion for us to live here. I won't bore you with all the problems but this newest one is worrying me/us. Mum was found to be very aneamic had lots of camera procedures to find if she was bleeding & couldn't find it. Then her blood count was half what it should be & a 3 pint transfusion was needed. Two weeks ago she had a bone marrow aspiration, so now we await the results, with trepidation. Please God let her be OK!!!!!
Hoping for something that is easily treatable or nothing at all :-) Will let you know in my next blog x