So....

I am just getting on with getting on.

H looks well, he has lost weight, has more energy, loves being up here on the allotment. My sister rents this ground and with her husband is growing beautiful vegetables and fruit, they both work full time and so they don't have much time to go and tend the plants, H has taken on some of the ground and goes up there every day, the boys go with him and together they spend hours digging and watering ( the boys spend most of the time climbing trees and chasing each other but it's outside and they are happy and healthy, perfect!)

I have found, with the worry of H not taking his medicine that, along with the others worries that would see me in the mad house, I just have to take things day to day, not dwell on it and try not to see disaster in every minute.

I bought a very cheap mobile phone and when H takes the boys on hikes or bike rides, I insist that one of them has the phone with them. H is stubborn but Isaac loves the phone so he has hit with him, at least, if the worst should happen I know the boys can call for help.

I am so excited about the fresh fruit and vegetables when they start to come in. We only ever eat organic, free range meat now, it costs 3-4 times as much as supermarket food but oh my goodness, what a difference.

I pay about £16 for a chicken, the funny thing is, raw it looks awful. It is solid, not squishy because there is no added water, it looks very dry and of course it is hand plucked so there are always more feather stubs! I was very wary when I fist cooked one of these chickens because it just looked so rough! My goodness, I have never tasted anything like it. Moist and tender, pure tasting and each chicken ( about 6lbs in weight) easily gives us 3 meals. The carcass makes the most delicious stock. The whole family loves the soup I make with the stock, add a couple of cans of creamed sweetcorn, some single cream and some of the meat and you have the most glorious soup to eat with some crusty bread.

Last week we bought some mutton and H loved it ! I cooked it in the slow cooker with onions and tinned tomatoes, when the meat was falling apart I made a curry sauce using the tomato and onion liquid the meat had cooked in. Heaven!

It took me a week and 2 different meals to decide that paying that much more for this meat is worth it. I will never buy meat from a supermarket again, the difference is so stark, so incredible that the thought of ever eating that watery, steroid pumped shop meat again is ridiculous. The boys eat every scrap, Seth especially loves the chicken. I feel I want to stand on a soap box and preach to people about eating free range, organic meat!

We eat much less meat than before, it is much more satisfying, you need much less on your plate to feel sustained. We eat meat perhaps 4 times a week, we buy sausages, minced pork, roasting joints, ribs and pork fillets from a friend who has a small holding, we also buy eggs from her, again the difference is amazing, dark orange yolks, beautiful tasting eggs. We buy beef and chicken from a farm about 4 miles away. Spending about £40 a week at the farm I buy 1 chicken, some mutton and ground beef, I also buy great bread and jam from the shop along with some fresh vegetables ( until we have our own!!) I spend about £30 every 2 week on the pork. I do have a fairly full freezer now though so won't need to buy any meat for at least a month.

I really recommend going this route if you can, once you try and taste the difference you won't want to go back to the wishy washy stuff of before!

*Stepping off soap box*

I am just in heaven with the weather we are having at the moment, oh such heat! Such sunshine! Such heavenly days of relaxation and untidy house! Really, does anyone clean and scrub when the weather is like this? The boys are doing really well tidying up after themselves and earning computer time, laundry is done and dried outside but ironing? I think not!

Living in England we can never be sure how long the sun will last, why waste an hour of it to vacuum and tidy when we could be at the water park or beach?

Car boot sales have been fabulous, it seems people don't mind sitting out in the heat selling their trash as other people's treasure! We have found sales 3 days a week and H and I love wandering around and finding bargains.

Life is OK, sometimes it's fabulous, sometimes it feels so hard I would love to crawl into bed and stay there. The best thing is to keep getting on with getting on. That's good enough for now.