Goodbye 2017 - we hardly knew ye! I cannot wrap my head around how quickly 2017 sped by. Still, it was a productive year, all in. We got a lot done this year physically and mentally. Paul and I both stuck to our resolutions for the most part. His health is improving now we've really established his proper diet; his Asperger's is easier to manage as we've worked out what/how/when. My arm-shoulder-collarbone has healed to the point I can actually roll over onto that side and not scream. The cat has settled into being a completely inside cat - finally. Good thing, though, there have been some rather gruesome cat murders in the news and knowing he's safely tucked up inside is nice. We've organised the kitchen and doing a monthly 'Big Shop' means we rarely have to pop down the shops for anything more than salad greens and the once a week lottery ticket. HEY! Can't win if you don't play!

Christmas was lovely (yes, I finally did manage to get the lights on the tree). Paul talked me into a halogen oven I'm not especially keen on but we now have all the accessories and cooking books to make using the damn thing unavoidable. Who knows, I may grow to like it. I doubt it but Paul's over the moon to have the stupid thing. I wanted a wall oven fitted, and a slimline dishwasher - both would have plumped up the resale value of this house - all that halogen oven does is take up valuable kitchen real estate, if you ask me!

Still, our 2017 marital resolution, in case you've not guessed it, was to make the final push to become organised, and to do so in a way accommodating our ageing selves. And we've done that. 

Slowly - but surely - we're preparing to move house. Going through (for him) decades of accumulated 'stuff' with an Aspie is never pleasant so I leave him to get on with it on his own. As recently as two or so years ago, leaving him to get on with it meant procrastination. Oh alright, it meant futility. My un-Baldrick like cunning plan (meaning his were insane and mine actually make sense - and produce results) of relentlessly showing him houses online and in drive-by jaunts is working - he's motivated now and that helps keep him chewing away at what in fairness isn't really any sort of mountain of junque, er, guy stuff.

The main thing now is finishing up some decorating (painting) and calling in an estate agent. To avoid being on a chain, we're hoping to sell the house and if need be (nothing to buy we're happy with) we'll rent for a bit until we find the right house - something level, something in a pleasant villagey feeling neighbourhood where I don't have narrow riser concrete steps to negotiate to get to the umbrella dryer in the back garden. Somewhere I can walk straight out the front door to the shops and bus stands without negotiating yet another set of narrow riser concrete steps and where the streets and pavements are level - ok, our town isn't San Francisco but it's still quite hilly and I haven't been able to manage inclines since a childhood bout with rheumatic fever. I'm ok on level ground but forget all about inclines (hills) - my heart can't cope. Plain and simple.

I got my bus pass - I'm not keen these days on getting out and about on my own but it's lovely I can. Right now the main obstacle to using that free travel card is...we live on a steep(ish) hill. The walk DOWN to the bus stand is fine for me, no worries. It's getting back up from the stand I can't manage. I feel trapped. A house move would solve that if we can find something level on a level villagey setting. Near a bus stand. With a wall oven, and a slimline dishwasher!