Last Tuesday (26th August) we headed back to Yorkshire for the night as Pete was having some medication delivered and, until our registration with the local GP here in Newcastleton is completed and his treatment has been transferred, the team at Airedale Hospital are continuing this. The new medication is apparently so expensive that it has to be delivered directly to the person at their home address… Pete looked it up and, if the Net is accurate, it costs about £35 a tablet – he takes four of them a day!

It’s quite handy still having the Yorkshire house for now but I hope the sale goes through soon so we can settle in the Scottish Borders properly and get everything in place here… that said, of course we will miss our lovely neighbours Paul and Katie – Katie more than Paul obviously – LOL! Hope that made you laugh Katie 🤣

So, being in Yorkshire on Wednesday (27th August), whilst Pete waited in for his medication to be delivered and took the opportunity to tidy the garden, I headed off to the dentist as I have been suffering from aching gums and it was worrying me… Three X-rays later and a thorough check up, she could find no immediate issues although, I apparently have a couple of teeth that are dying & might be causing me the pain. Her advice was to leave it as it is for now unless the pain becomes unbearable, then I might need a root canal / cap or extraction – neither of which I fancy! Ho hum…

I wasn’t in the dentist long and, as I was in Silsden, decided to pop up and see Mum before we headed back up the road to Scotland.

Mum was ok, half asleep again… she seems very tired when I see her these days but staff say she sleeps well and do not appear overly concerned about her. As I had to wake her up, she was a bit confused for a bit but soon came around. I needed to pop to the loo and left my phone, car keys & some Scottish tablet (of the fudgy kind) on a chair next to her – when I came back, she had her hand firmly over my items, guarding them and, for at least 30 seconds, she would not believe they were mine… it was as if, for the first time & the briefest of moments, she did not recognise me at all 😔 – telling me in a firm voice “No – these are not yours”!

Fortunately, I managed to distract her by getting hold of the packet of tablet and telling her I had bought her it as a present – once she had a gob full of tablet, she was absolutely fine! Amazing what a sugary treat can achieve! The episode made me a bit sad even though I know it’s inevitable she will forget who I am at some point… not sure how long away that might be ☹️

I didn’t stay long with Mum, maybe half hour, as I had to get back to Yorkshire House, pick Pete up, pack the car up & then head off to the chiropractor before heading back up the road to Scotland. As we were nearer Leeds when we set out on the final part of our journey back, we decided to head up the A1 to Scotch Corner (called so because it’s the point where routes diverge for traffic from the south of England, heading to either Eastern Scotland (towards Edinburgh) or western Scotland (towards Glasgow)), and then the A66 to Penrith and up the M6. It meant we could stop for lunch at Mainsgill Farm Shop on the A66 – famous for its camels(!) – which is a lot bigger these days than we remembered it being. If you are ever in the area, I would recommend the sandwiches and the cake which was a huge slab of a thing! It’s also a lot nicer than Tebay Services on the M6 which can get absolutely rammed! Both have equally lovely views though! 😊

Since our return to Scotland, we’ve been doing bits and bobs around the house, visiting Hawick a couple of times where, on one occasion, we had a lovely walk around the park (Wilton Lodge) which is very nice – here’s some pics…

Sitting watching TV one night, Pete was looking through his Facebook having signed up for the Copshaw Holm (the other name for Newcastleton) facebook group page, when he noticed that one of the dentists in Hawick was taking on NHS patients. Having heard how difficult it can be for people to find an NHS dentist anywhere in the UK, we completed the online request to be considered straight away… we didn’t expect to get a phone call the following day offering us an appointment last Saturday (30th) that’s for sure but that’s what happened and so, come Saturday, I went for my 2nd dental appointment in a week! It was good because the new dentist (a lovely lady from Croatia who trained here in Scotland and ended up staying) confirmed what the Yorkshire dentist had said earlier in the week but, this time, I was able to discus and arrange the ongoing treatment I need – hurray! Pete was also able to discuss his diagnosis alongside any work he might need in future too – double hurray! Of course, ever since we went and got future treatment booked in, my aching gums have stopped aching which is typical!! 🤣

Saturday was also the day of the Holm Show – the village’s own agricultural show which has been running since 1893! It was only a little show compared to something like the annual show in Otley, but had all the usual stuff including horses, sheep, competitions, tractor shaped bouncy castles, beer tent, food, dog show & races, craft tent, etc. As we had to get to Hawick for the dentist, we went and took a look round the show early morning and then headed back for another look around when we got back from town & just as it started to rain! Fortunately, the downpour held off until we were nearly back home again… how nice to be able to walk to a country show from our door, down the river and it only takes 5-minutes! Maybe this is something we can get more involved with in future years when we are a bit more settled into village life…

On Sunday, we did more house stuff and then watched rugby & cricket on the telly which was all good. Having had some info through from the village “resilience” group the other week, we had signed up to receive flood alerts from SEPA (the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency) and got our first flood alert through for the Scottish Borders on Sunday night, which was strangely exciting! I guess it demonstrates the system works… the alert mentioned potential flooding in the Scottish Borders due to the forecast for heavy, prolonged rain – we had a couple of very heavy downpours but it was not what we would have called “prolonged”… that said, I guess we still need to be vigilant if we are downstream from where the rain is falling in a prolonged fashion! The all-clear alert arrived on Monday morning, after which we had more what we definitely would call prolonged downpours! In fact, until this afternoon (it’s now Tuesday), it seemed to be raining every time Pete ventured out into the garden, but we’ve had no subsequent alerts through!

Today, we have done one of our bi-weekly shops and took the opportunity to go to a garden centre and buy a shed for the garden – all very nice indeed. Pete also took a walk over to the health centre to get the dates for our new patient appointments as we hadn’t heard anything. Apparently, they had the dates in front of them when he walked in and were just about to call us! On the way back, as his time in the health centre was short, he decided to walk down the river to see the impact of yesterday’s rain and met our neighbour, Ian, who moved into the house opposite ours with his partner Tracy, three months ago… Ian used to work in flood defence, and says there’s nothing for us to worry about! Let’s hope he’s right!!

So, that’s all our news this week… no dates for Pete’s treatment yet but think we should hear about this soon – fingers crossed! 🤞