Mon 31 July - Billesdon

The weather forecast was for rain today, so I popped out early to take some piccies of the perfect little village of Billesdon.  Quite a few of the houses have thatched roofs, one even has a thatched dog on it's thatched roof!  

The Queens Head - about a 2 minute walk from Chris's house.

Although I just called it little, the area of the parish of Billesdon is over 2000 acres and it has a population of around 1000 people. 

Escape to the country at its best

A bit later in the day we took a trip to the town of Oakham to sort out bank accounts for both Dad and I.  Dad's was ok, but much to my horror, in the process of enquiring about my previous accounts the bank manager let me know that our account had been closed with a debt, that I had a negative credit rating and that I'd never be able to have an account with HSBC again.  I felt like a crim, it was awful.  I offered to pay it back but he said that wouldn't clear the negative rating and advised against it.  Crawled out of there feeling so low.  Plus I can't get my damn phone to work either, nor can I pay for anything online because visa keep sending verification codes to my Australian number that I can't access because stupid iinet don't offer data roaming.  😠  Boy oh boy have I learned some lessons these last few days.

And a not so happy part of this blog post.  I love England, have done since I first came as a child. It’s a small beautiful country full of millions of people, but it’s missing one. For me right now England is about the absence of Mum and it hurts. We’re catching up with people who knew and loved Mum and I wasn’t prepared for what this would bring up. I thought my grief was fading but it’s hit me all over again. The last few days have been tricky - I’m a careful planner and highly organised - but things on the technology and banking front haven’t gone well. It’s been costly and stressful and it’s made me wish more than ever I had Mum to talk to. My beautiful Mum who taught me everything except how to live without her.

Miss you so so so much Mum.

So - I've temporarily lost both my happy thought and my mojo, and to be honest I'm sort of at rock bottom on the emotional front right now. The only good thing about that is the only way is up. I've been here before and I know I'll be right, just need to dig deep.