Moisture

 

Out home has been getting progressively more prone to build ups of moisture and it is driving me to despair. Its been there over the last five years or so. Maybe its been there longer. But over the years it has gotten progressively worse to the point a few years back I could no longer ignore it. Thankfully what I feared was damp turned out to be mould and after some Youtube videos I was able to clean, treat and repaint the affected areas. This year in particular though it has cranked up a few levels and its a constant job to keep it in check.

It started with the the windows. We were finding condensation on our windows every morning and would wipe and dry them. The moisture increased and so my wife bought a Karcher window cleaner to deal with them and it did. But in this last year although it still work sit is no longer condesation on the windows but a soaking and on the sill a puddle of water. We have tried ionisers and all sorts without any success as I think the moisture too much. The obvious solution is to keep the windows open but its bloody freezing so that is not an option. That is a daily morning routine but it can also be repeated multiple times a day. The window cleaner used to be emptied weekly but now its two or more times a day because there is so much water. 

Of course this has brought on mound and again I treat it but now I am finding water droplets on the ceiling near the windows because the air is so full of water. We have taken measures like reducing drying clothes in doors and ensuring the bathroom door is shut during bathtime but still the build up is incredible. And because the ceilings are wet I am now having to wipe those down every morning and cannot repaint because they are never dry. 

The summer will no doubt clear things up and put off the problem for another year. I am though beside myself trying to work out what is going on. I have spent many hours researching the problem without success. There is something nagging at me though telling me its the loft. At the moment we cannot get up there because you access it through a cupboard and that cupboard is full. A while back someone came and put new insulation in and I remember a few weeks later when I went up it was wet and hot. They were supposed to come back to put in some sort of ventiliation but never did. I need to get up there but also dread what I will find. Something for another day I suppose. For now I'll just keep treating it. 

Christmas already

 

It would appear its Christmas time already and maybe has been for longer than I have been aware. I have not been getting out much so cannot say I have noticed until now. I don't have the radio on but my wife assures me the Christmas songs are in full flow already and Noddy Holder can start rubbing his hands with glee again. It was only the other day when out for a walk in the dark venturing further than normal that I first noticed the Christmas lights lining the main road. As I moved over the road and along I came upon the town Christmas tree fully lit. I have no idea how long it has been this way as I used to subscribe to a local news feed on Facebook but binned it when the news became more national that local like we don't have the BBC for that. I would then have read when the tree went up but without that I was oblivious. Still mid November seems a bit premature to be. 

Do people reach saturation level by the time Christmas Eve comes around? For kids this should be a special time but I cannot help think its being diluted by the prolonging of it. Something tells me this started after COVID when people wanted an extended Christmas to make up for the wasted one the year before and it has just continued from there. Its lost something I feel. Maybe not right now but I bet in a month's time it will feel like something most people just want over and done with.

To be honest I hate this time of year. I loved it when the kids were young and they appreciated lots of boxes of cheap toys with lots of extra presents from relatives. Its different days now and has been for some time. The first signs were when the oldest hit High School and started noting what other kids were getting and more importantly what she was not. Her sister followed and every year we were made to feel more and more inadequate for not being about to spend hundreds on the latest Iphone or Ipad or Iwhatever. Social media of course is a big part of that. Rich kids use it to show off their loot on the big day and the night before they now show off Christmas boxes filled with gifts so they don't have to wait for a sleep to get gifts. It is all expense from the gimmicks employed each year to empty our pockets to the bright garish flashing lights outside people's homes as they compete to be the best at celebrating Christmas. Social media has soured Christmas for me but "progress" has not helped either. When the kids were small we could bulk up their pile with DVDs, CDs and books as well as other things- computer games as well. Now its all digital and what is left to hold in the hand is as tiny as it is expensive so there is no pile and what lies beneath the tree looks wholly inadequate.

I know there is a lot of good to Christmas and I do miss those days but maybe I just have to accept that it is part of life. It was probably like this before the kids came along. Now at Christmas there is no visiting family like we used to do mostly because of my agoraphobia and that has led to many a Christmas spent alone leading to further resentment. This year though will probably be the least Christmas of all. Usually my wife takes the kids up North to her dad's house but he is spending this year down south with her sister and her family. On top of that even if her dad was not going away it looks like my wife will be having to work over Christmas so it going to feel very strange indeed. And maybe that is why I feel a little annoyed at seeing Christmas brought forward because to be honest I don't want to think about it right now. I shouldn't have to think about it for at least another couple of weeks but alas already as I sign of I can already hear Mariah Carey calling out.  

Green

  

This is not a political broadcast on my behalf. Its just something that keeps bothering me and I feel the need to get it off my chest. And this post is how I see it from what I have seen and read. I am by no means an authority on politics and I am pretty sure there are many who could shoot holes in this post with very little effort. I don't take a great interest in politics but enough I feel to have some sort of opinion.

I was listening to a lady on the radio a while back talking about her daughter voting for the first time in the last Scottish elections. Her daughter voted the Green Party- in Scotland that is the Scottish Greens which is a completely different entity to the UK Greens it should be said. I can understand young people voting that way. This is the world they are inheriting. This is a big deal for young people. I watched the Greta Thunberg series on BBC and she is a remarkable young woman with a lot on her shoulders. It angers me when I hear cheap shots and negativity towards her. That is inspirational. Some young in Scotland would not like to admit it but I am sure she does sway their view. 

Anyway this young girl was proud to have voted Green in the election but shocked later to find her vote for the environment was being used towards a mandate for Scottish independence. She was not wanting that. So what does a young person concerned about the environment do with their vote if they are not a separatist or nationalist or both? In an old bag I had flyers from the last Scottish elections and that is the Green one again. As you can see no mention of independence apart from the one line about securing a future as an "independent European country".  Is that not a contradiction? And where have I heard that line before? 

This bothers me but more bothers me. The environment is a massive issue for the young people all the way up to the old in the shape of Sir David Attenborough. Only one party on Scotland represent those issues. But this party has of late given the environment a backseat while it pushes its agenda for Scottish independence. Were that not bad enough one of the co-leaders was calling for the abolition of the Monarchy. Green party? Its scary because their party name does not do what it says on the tin. They are a front for nationalism using people's very real concerns over the world environment as a mandate for turning Scotland into Ireland which is the most Green I suppose. 

Anyway I may be wrong but if I am not I would hope real environmentalists would pick up the mantle and create a proper environmental party to challenge them as I fear it could create a backdoor to independence for the UK. Why they want to be apart from the UK but still ruled by Europe is something else I don't understand but probably the most bemusing thing about that is what it has to do with a Green party.  

Off the grid

 

Finally we are back on the grid after falling off for a week out of the blue. It is amazing the things you take for granted in this modern age until they are gone. I like to think I can do without technology and find ways to spend my time elsewhere but it turns out I suffer the same seperation anxiety as everyone else when I am expelled from the matrix. That is circumstances at the moment for sure. A few years ago I could easily have sat and read a book all day and enjoyed it whereas at the moment I feel constant agitation and no enjoyment in reading. It has become a chore. But my main escape was the outdoors. Having overcome the vast chunk of my agoraphobia I liked nothing better than to just head out for a few hours and get back into the outside world whatever the whether. At the moment just getting around my block is hard enough and mostly I am leaving it until quieter times so I feel more hemmed in. The day the Internet died I found the first few hours in particular very hard indeed. I am used to typing things out to deal with them and now there was no way of doing that. I forgot my Chromebook relied on an Internet connection and without one it was as good as dead to me. 

Anyway one day the Internet stopped and a few hours later it come on. Then it went off. Then it came on. Then it slowed down until it eventually stopped and just when it looked like it was gone forever it popped up about 48 hours later but at a snail's pace. Now this is the hard part and most frustrating part. Knowing that it is a bit of kit that is at fault is all well and good but trying to convince BT of that is another thing altogether. I remembered back to the time we made the switch from Sky to BT and the week without Internet trying with all my might to convince countless people in countless places that it was the line that was at fault and having to go through scripts that were futile. We had two boxed I think sent which I knew would not work and didn't. Finally they sent out an engineer and within a minute he said the line had not been patched in- something we were told over the phone had been done. Frustrating. I had no appetite for that again so my wife instead cancelled out Broadband and we went with someone else. 

Finally we are back online after what was a very long week for everyone. It should have been an opportunity to take a welcome break away from technology and find something else to do but unfortunately it wasn't. It was paying for for more 4G than normal and watching the clock. Sad really but that is the reality for most in modern life. 

Groundhog Day

I seem to have found myself in an endless loop going back to the middle of August in relation to having panic attacks at home. There is a pattern to it mostly but it does occasionally deviate depending on intensity and outside factors. At its most basic level though I wake, at some point a daily situation arises that causes panic, I go through it and then I am fine for the rest of the day. I sleep and the next day I go through it all again. Loosely that is it. I could add in more. The bit about I panic, go through and I am fine happens but more often that not that happens two times or sometimes three. Also just as a filler from waking to the first panic is apprehension over the incoming panic- anticipatory anxiety. Ironically it is this apprehension which actually causes the feared outcome and then it happens again sometimes and finally some how it stops- the body no longer fears danger so no longer sets off fight or flight. And that is how it should work for recovery. This is the process. But that should be it from start to finish and then at the end there should be no fear so no panic to come. Instead though I wake and I am back at the start again.

So it is very much like Groundhog day in that respect. It is tiring. In time it will pass but right now I feel so drained by it. And although it will pass it won't be overnight. It will take time. It will probably take months. It is not a case of overcoming it but getting used to it because it is a daily thing and when I am used to it then it holds less fear and so stops happening. That is the theory at least but from here it looks a long way off in the distance.