Angry and upset

Those of you who follow me on Facebook or a couple of forums already know this, but last night I came home to find my house had been broken into. I came home in the dark, on my own, to find that the bathroom window was wide open. I walked out again and got my neighbours to come in with me. At first it seemed nothing was missing, which made me wonder if I'd disturbed them. The police were fantastic, someone was round within the hour, a forensic expert came over and covered the bathroom, hallway and upstairs bedroom with silver dust, and they were very concerned with my welfare. It wasn't until after they'd gone that I found that some jewellery had gone missing. Over the course of today I've discovered more and more places they've had a good look through, and what exactly is missing. It seems they were really only after jewellery, and only gold at that. The item that I'm most upset about, is a ring that my mum gave to me when I turned 18 and that I was supposed to give to my daughter if I ever had one on her 18th birthday. I hadn't worn the ring for a long time, but it was there waiting for I. to turn 18.

The weirdest feeling of all this is not feeling safe in my own house. I keep jumping up, wondering what's going on in my bathroom or why the security light by the garage is on, wondering if I heard something or someone. I've lived in this house for 15 years and never felt unsafe here, but suddenly I'm jumpy, edgy. I'm sure it'll pass, same as the anger will pass. But I'm not sure I'll lose the sadness of losing some items that had emotional value to me, but don't mean anything to the person who took them, apart from maybe a few quid.

PS Things with mum are okay at the moment. She had a CT scan last Tuesday and we're awaiting the results right now. The surgeon who saw her, was quite clear he didn't think her symptoms showed a return of the cancer. The scan will show whether he was right or not.

Last Tuesday evening, I unexpectedly travelled to Holland to be with mum for a few days. In the last few weeks, she has had a few bouts of bad abdominal pain and vomiting. The first time, her blood sugars also went way too high, causing us all some anxiety, but they stabilised and we thought that it was just one of those things. But last weekend the same thing happened and wouldn't get any better, and by Tuesday I just wanted to be in Holland so I could be there for her. You just feel so powerless being so far away, and the fear that she might be ill again with cancer, never leaves me.
It seems though that things have calmed down again, she feels better physically and mentally. At the moment, it does look like these episodes are being caused by a hernia in her abdomen, which can be rectified quite easily by a simple operation. She has an appointment next Thursday with the surgeon who performed the operation 2 years ago and we will know more when we've seen him. I came back to (a very white Britain) on Friday night, and will travel back to Holland again on Wednesday evening so we can go to the hospital together. I haven't booked the return journey yet, but will wait to see what the surgeon has to say on Thursday.

Holland was absolutely beautiful, it was very cold, much colder than Britain, no snow but hazy sunshine most days, and I couldn't stop taking photographs. Below are my two favourites.

Fingers crossed that Thursday brings good news...

And then there was 2010

And the holidays have been a real mixed bag. It's been joyous spending time with the children without the distractions of everyday life, but there was having to drop them off with J. several times and not being with them for New Year. It's been relaxing to be able to stay in my pyjamas on the sofa all day with endless cups of tea, my knitting, the computer and a fire, but there has also been a fair bit of walking on eggshells around hard-to-please people. It's been enjoyable having so much time with B., both of us getting on with our own thing, in the same house rather than separately, but there has also been homesickness for Holland on New Year's Eve - it just isn't the same in Britain. It was great picking up the children this afternoon after 5 days without them, but it also meant saying goodbye to B. and a return to our normal routine again.
Isn't it odd how sometimes you can feel happy and sad at the same time.