Just a short blog today.

Joined a health club last week. I’ve used the gym twice this week, and been for a bit of a swim once. Possibly going to go to the gym again tomorrow morning, and see if I can persuade Hales to come for a swim with me on Sunday.

I have also started doing Yoga again this morning, something I have been planning to do for ages and finally got round to sorting it! It was a bit harder than I thought it would be, but I guess I should have expected it really as I haven’t done any for just over a year!

Feeling quite happy that I am getting myself back to trying to stay as healthy as possible. I have noticed a difference this year in my overall fitness, so it is definitely about time I got myself back on track.

I know that I won’t be able to make things hugely better with my MS, but if I can just manage to slow it down slightly then that must be a good thing.

The MS might think it is getting the better of me, I don’t think it realises I’m a Burton from Yorkshire! It’s not in my DNA to give in and let it win. I will fight it tooth and nail to the end!

Yes I get days where it feels as if I am losing ground quicker than I would like. But these are just passing moments that I recover from very quickly. It’s not long before I am back up and fighting, it will take more than MS can possibly throw at me to keep me down!

If I can possibly pass anything on to anybody suffering from any illness out there it will be to never give up. Don’t let things get you down for more than a passing moment. Life is way too short for that. You are only going to get one go at this thing called life, so make the most of it.

Anyway, enough random rubbish for today. Time to get this published for now.

Rob

P.S. I am trying to get an idea of how many people are following my blogs. Please comment if you are, even if it’s just a smiley face or thumbs up!

So we had left the UK, to try to start a new life in Cyprus. I had managed to find us a nice little 2 bed villa near the coast, with its own swimming pool!

 

We both thought the place was brilliant. Had never dreamed of living somewhere so nice, life definitely seemed to be going well right then!

Unfortunately we hit a slight bump within 10 days of getting there! The sale of our house in the UK fell through, with less than 2 weeks till we should have had completion.

We didn’t know what to do. Did we get flights back to the UK and just start again over there? Or see what we could do to stay in Cyprus?

We decided to try to stay in Cyprus and see what we could sort out from there. We rang the estate agents and put the house back on the market straight away.

Hales managed to persuade the company she was working for over the internet to let her get back to work immediately. She had planned on having at least a month off to get settled before starting.

The next problem was that the villa didn’t have connection to phone lines, the road was unfinished and phone lines don’t get laid till after the road and footpaths are done in Cyprus.

We were going to use some of the money from the sale of our house to pay to have satellite internet fitted, but obviously couldn’t afford that now. My friend Emil who lived in Nicosia offered a solution that saved the day and ultimately kept us in Cyprus!

He offered to let us stay at his place in Nicosia during the week and use his internet. On the weekends he would drive us back to the villa and then collect us on the Monday morning. Absolutely saved our start to life in Cyprus, couldn’t have asked for a better friend right then!

Got a call the next day to say that our house had resold already, just had to wait 2 to 3 months for it to go through. Fingers were super crossed hoping it went through ok this time!

So that’s how our life in Cyprus started. Staying with Emil during the week so Hales could work, and spending weekends at the villa. I even managed to get some part time work in Nicosia, delivering pizzas on a little moped. Didn’t pay much but was good fun and gave us a little bit of spending money!

Think I’ll stop for today and continue this next time

Rob

Not done a blog for a few days. No particular reason why, it just didn’t happen.

Joined a health club last week, it’s not very far from home and reasonably cheap. Had an induction with a personal trainer on Tuesday, he gave me a small routine to do in the gym to get me started.

I do 10 minutes on a treadmill, some of it with small incline. I then do 2 sets of 10 halfpress ups, basically press ups leaning on a bench rather than straight on the floor.

Then 2 sets of 10 bicep curls on one of the weights machines. Followed by 2 lots of holding plank for 30 seconds. Then 2 sets of 10 on weight machine doing chest press.

Thinking of doing the gym Mon, wed and Friday. And going swimming Tues and Thurs. Might go for a swim or gym session over the weekend if I feel up for it. Possibly take Hales with me if I go swimming.

Also looking to get started back with doing yoga, just waiting for a yoga teacher to get back to me about starting 1 to 1 sessions.

I have noticed this year that my MS is getting worse, but I am determined to slow it down as much as I can. I’m not going to make it any better but I’m fairly sure that if I try really hard I can slow the progress.

Just a short blog today, but I’ll try to get back to the story of Hales and me in the next blog.

Rob

So I packed up and moved down south. I don’t think I had much stuff, couple of bags of clothes and a few small boxes of personnel items.

The first few weeks I was staying with people, a few nights in a B&B and I think I even had a week stating at the YMCA! Managed to rent a room in a shared house eventually, flats and apartments were just too expensive to rent.

Life was obviously quite good at that time. Roof over my head, finally had a job and with the love of my life! Things got even better when I asked Hales to marry me and she said yes! 😁💑💖

We eventually moved in together, actually in the shared house. So we started life together living in 1 room in the shared house! Wasn’t exactly the start I would have chosen for us, but we were happy and deeply in love.

The happiest day of my life happened on the 20th August 1994, we got married!

The first year of being married was pretty good. Yes we still lived in the shared house, but we were both working and very happily married. For our first anniversary we went on a coach trip to Paris, not a bad place to celebrate our first year being married!

Unfortunately thing were soon to take an unexpected life changing occurance! In the December 4 months after our anniversary, I started getting the first symptoms of MS. Obviously to start with we had no idea that’s what it was. The first 8 months of 1996 I had numerous test and scans, until finally being told in the August that I had Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis!

Life for both of us changed from that day. Apart from the 2 initial attacks and 2 other relapses I wasn’t too bad in the first year. I was still able to work full time, and most of the time it was hard for people to see any real problems that I had.

For the next 11 years we carried on as normal, I just had regular check ups at the hospital every 6 months. Luckily it didn’t impact our lives very much, and I managed to hide any small problems I had. If you knew me back then, most people couldn’t really tell I had anything wrong with me.

In 2004 we went on holiday to Cyprus for our 10th wedding anniversary. I had a really good friend who lived there, and I had already visited him to go Scuba diving. At the time it didn’t even cross my mind about moving there to live!

In 2006 we had managed to get ourselves in quite a bit of debt, and the house we had bought was looking likely to end up being repossessed. Rather than let that happen we decided to sell the house first. We talked about what we would do next, stay in the UK and rent somewhere or just try something new and move to Cyprus!

Cyprus won. So in 2007 we had sold most of our belongings and we had a buyer lined up for the house. With only a few weeks left till completion we left the UK for a new life in Cyprus.

To be continued

Rob

So we started a bit of a long distance relationship, I was living in Hull and Hales was living near Ipswich. We started writing to each other, yes it was proper letters in the days before emails and stuff!

It was quite lucky that at that time my dad was in a relationship with Hales mother, so he was visiting Ipswich fairly regularly.  I think he was also doing western shows in the Ipswich area as well at the time. It meant I got chance to travel down to Ipswich fairly soon after Hales had visited Hull.

I think the first visit I was staying at my cousins and borrowed a push bike to travel across to see Hales. I  can’t really remember much more about the trip, my memory is not great nowadays.

I know we definitely started writing to each other regularly and I remember going to a phone box near my flat quite a bit to ring Hales.

I’m not sure how long dad was seeing Hales mother, but at some point the relationship ended as I don’t remember visiting many times with dad. I do remember hitch-hiking to Ipswich and back a few times so I could spend time with Hales.

At some point Hales must have come to Hull to visit as I have pictures of us together in Hull.

I remember visiting Hales quite a bit in that first year. I fell deeper and deeper in love with her, I  knew that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her fairly early in the relationship.

I do remember that early in the relationship I really believed that I was punching above my weight, and that Hales would probably find someone better than me. I was an unemployed ex squaddie from Hull, I really didnt think I was good enough to have found someone as good and beautiful as Hales! Luckily I was totally wrong and our relationship just got stronger and stronger.

I think I was down visiting Hales for a week early in 1993, I can’t remember if it was her Uncle or Dad that told me of somebody they knew looking for staff at a new parcel delivery firm. I went for an interview and I  got a job there straight away! I actually started work there the next day and spent the last 3 days of my visit working.

I went back to Hull at the weekend packed up a few things in my flat and moved to Ipswich.  I remember just telling my dad to get rid of all my furniture, gave him the keys and asked him to hand them back to the council!

I know it wasn’t much of a life that I was living in Hull, but I didn’t think twice of giving it all up just for a chance of a life with Hales!

I  will continue this story next time

Rob

Hales won’t like this blog much because I’m going to talk about her,

I’ve got my Gran to thank for Hales really. Gran was visiting my Aunt and cousins near Ipswich, Hales got talking to her while she was there. Gran mentioned that I was in the army and at the time it was during the gulf war so I was in Saudi Arabia. She asked Hales if she wanted to write to me, luckily for me Hales agreed to.

I have to admit that at the time I had letters from a couple of other girls who had sent random letters to guys serving in the war. I think one of the newspapers had posted a story asking for penpals for the forces in the gulf war.

I did write a few more letters to Hales than anybody else, at the time mostly because Gran had organised it. When the war was over and I returned to the UK we kind of stopped corresponding. I was serving my last few months in the army, and I think Hales was busy at school with exams and stuff.

The next year I found out that she would be travelling up to visit Gran, with my cousin I think. At the time I was living in Hull and decided to try to get to Grans to finally get to meet Hales.

I didn’t have any transport and didn’t fancy using public transport so decided to go on my push bike. I think it was about a 20 mile ride each way, at the time that seemed not too bad.So I travelled over at the weekend that I knew they were at Grans.

It was bit of a ride and I was definitely glad when I made it to Grans. Hales and the others were busy having lunch when I got there, so I didn’t get much of a chance to meet her straight away.

We didn’t get much chance to really talk at the time, too many others there. Luckily they all had plans to travel into Hull to visit family, I managed to get my dad to give me a lift back to Hull with them all. Put my bike on dad’s roof rack and travelled back to Hull.

I managed to get chance to speak briefly while they were at my sister’s. I remember asking Hales if she had a boyfriend and if I stood any chance with her. There was just something about her that made me realise I wanted to see more of her. Yes, it was love at first sight!

They ended up travelling to my flat for a look round. While the others sat in the living room chatting, I managed to sit in my bedroom and have a better chat. I think I must have actually asked her out, it was certainly from then I classed her as my girlfriend!

I will continue this story next time.

Rob

Today is 4 months since we left Cyprus to start again in the UK! It definitely feels like we have been back a lot longer, Cyprus feels like a distant memory already! It’s been quite a hectic 4 months, trying to start from scratch again. We are just about totally sorted and settled now though.

This week seems to have been quite a tough week for some reason. I’ve had more achy days than normal this week, doesn’t usually take all week to recover. Just how it is though, not going to worry about it too much.

Had a good meeting with the MS nurse earlier in the week. Advised a change in the medication I’ve been taking for bladder problems, so we’ll see how the new ones work out next week. Gave me a load of information on Secondary Progressive MS and other stuff that might be helpful.

Apart from being quite achy this week I’ve not been too bad. My bladder is still not great but I’m managing to cope with it not too badly. I do tend to drink less if I am going out at all, probably shouldn’t but it’s my way of trying to deal with it.

Rob

 

Still quite achy today so I decided to have a rest day and not do anything to push myself. Fairly sure I will be ok tomorrow and get things done I’ve put off the last few days.

Have to remember nowadays that my body doesn’t recover overnight and I usually need a couple of days rest. My MS is continually developing and changing so I am having to readjust my thinking frequently. Nothing is the same all the time, adapt and overcome!

Finally got to see the MS nurse at the hospital the other day. Gave me some really helpful information and is writing to my gp to adjust the tablets I’m on to some that work better with MS. Also going to refer me to a Neuro physio, who will be able to advise me on some good exercises to help me.

I know I can’t stop my MS, it is gradually getting worse. All I can really do is to try to slow it down as much as I can, and obviously keep everything crossed for a miracle cure lol.

I’m not really too concerned about it, it is what it is! Just a case of taking each day as it comes, and staying as positive as possible. Worrying won’t do any good, it will only cause stress and that will definitely make things worse.

I’m going to try to look back through my old blogs and see if I need to enhance on any of them to give more info. It would also be good if people could give me feedback on parts they enjoyed and if there is anything they would like to hear more of.

Going forwards I guess some days all I will be saying is how I am feeling each day. Unless I find some other rubbish to write about. There probably is more I can write about my life, so there probably will be more waffling!

Rob

I was going to leave my blog today because I’m not having s brilliant day. I think it’s a combination of a not great day and possibly overdoing things yesterday.

I did 12 minutes on the treadmill and only stopped because I couldn’t manage any more. I should have stopped a lot earlier and not pushed quite so much. Fairly normal for me to push too much, but I need to start taking it a bit easier if I want to be ok the next day!

I need to build up slowly before I really push so hard, it’s been a few months since I’ve been doing regular exercise. So I will limit how much I do for awhile until I build my strength back up.

I’ve been quite achy today and when I was trying to do some stuff in the kitchen earlier, I  was very wobbly and my legs didnt want to work right.

Tomorrow is another day though and I’m sure I will feel better.

Just a short blog today, will hopefully get more of a blog tomorrow.

Rob

So we had pretty much gotten rid of everything we had acquired over our 10 years living in Cyprus. It wasn’t a great deal of stuff, but some of it we had had all the time living over there. We booked our 2 cats into a friends cattery, and arranged for her to sort flights and vets etc for us in exchange for our car.

We sorted through all our clothes and managed to get it down to just 3 suitcases to take with us. All the rest (8 bin bags) we left with our friend as a donation to her charity, Famagusta Cat Care Project. It meant she had to sort through them all but we were fairly sure there would be several items that could be sold on to make a little bit of money. There were a few other odd things we hadn’t sold that we gave her as well.

We also sorted through all our bedding and towels etc, and gave them to another friend to use for dogs in a local dog pound. It was a little bit sad to see everything go but we knew it was the right time to make the move.

The flights were booked and everything else sorted, so on the morning of leaving we took one last photo of us both in Cyprus.

 

So we flew to the UK with everything we had left packed in 3 suitcases! Picked up the hire car we had booked for the first week and drove to the B&B we were staying in for the first 4 night’s being back. On the 2nd day back we went and signed the paperwork and collected the keys for our new home we were renting.

 

So we finally got to have a look ourselves at the place, and we were definitely not disappointed.  Nice and quiet and secluded just on the outskirts of the village, perfect for us. From then on to be known as *The Burty Manor UK*

I can’t remember where it started but whatever place we decided to call home has been known as Burty Manor, even though it’s not really our home only rented. We have always treat a property we rent as our home and looked after it as if it was ours. That’s probably why we have never had any problems when handing back any of the places we have rented in the past.

Next came the slightly daunting task of furnishing the new place, it’s certainly a lot harder to find fully furnished rentals in the UK than it was in Cyprus! We obviously had Hales redundancy for that, but it wasn’t a huge amount so we knew it was going to be on a bit of a budget!

Anyway that’s enough for today, to be continued!

Rob