Seeking a Metaphorical Umbrella

So, that little proverb about it never raining but pouring kinda sums up the last week or so.

It all started so well. We had a murder mystery planned to kick start our mini-break away and the weather was forecast to be cold but fair. All looking good.

Then the hubbies work basically blew up and I barely saw him for a week. When I did he was either a zombie or cross at something someone hadn't done and left for him.

Missy added a cracked claw into the mix with her pulled muscle (which is now almost completely better, but we're still being careful).

My sister then dropped the really bad news that her hubby was possibly being made redundant and they didnt know if he was even getting paid this month (update, he got paid, but currently we don't know if the job is safe or not)

So, I felt Missy, the hubby and I really deserved a holiday to take a break from the chaos and take a chance to get ourselves re-centred before going back out and helping support the family again. Not a lot to ask, right?

Fate deemed otherwise.

We got an early call from the Brother-in-Law who had had surgery earlier this year. He had had some stomach pains for a few days and had written them off as a pulled muscle from overdoing things. His fiancee had finally bullied him to go to hospital.

Hubby explained that it was morning rush hour, he should just get a cab as by the time we got there, it would be more than an hour to the house and probably that again to the hospital. Keep us posted.

We get down to Dumfries and stop at our first port of call, Sweetheart Abbey. It was a cold clear day and the first thing we noted was scaffolding. The hard winter had damaged the foundations so you could only walk around it and not into the property. We both quizzed each other as to wether we had seen that written anywhere (it is mentioned on the website under opening hours, but not in the main text, so we had managed to miss that).

Still, it was a nice little place to wonder about, and we explored the graveyard (Missy found no ghosts that we could see, but got very excited in the long grass - hopefully it was just mice!) and then we found our way onto a field where we could then give her a bit of a proper walk.

Next we wandered around the village of New Abbey and found the New Abbey Corn Mill which ironically ground oats, not corn. The site itself doesn't allow dogs so, after quickly discussing it with the nice gentleman in the gift shop, we managed a whistle stop tour in just over half an hour whilst Missy had her lunch and a nap in the car. It was probably the highlight of the day and we really enjoyed the old building and the water wheel. The pond is infested with an aggressive plant so the mill isn't currently working, but there was a video you could watch of it in action which was a nice alternative.

We called the day quits and, after tea and scones in a quaint little cafe, found our Airbnb. Missy instantly hit it off with the hosts dog, Willow, and we found ourselves in the most eclectic little granny flat I have ever seen. Paintings of men playing the piano hung beside sketches of naked women, copper teapots sat on the windowsill behind the bed and there were books on every topic available, from bulldogs to rubber.

There was no signal so we notified everyone that we needed to be contacted online and had an update that the BIL had gotten a bed, so we assumed that meant he was at least being looked at and wasnt sat waiting to be seen still. No worries.

Morning. There were panicked text messages from my mother in law. Missed voicemails that I was unable to achieve enough signal to receive. Hubby had the same. After much panic and trying to balance around the small house we sent the hubby out to try and find signal and see what was going on.

BIL had an abscess on his intestines, was being flushed with morphine and antibiotics. Surgery may be required. MIL was coming down the next day on the bus and didn't know where she was staying. The morning was spent researching how to get to the hospital (he'd been moved to the Western General overnight) and where she was best staying. A thirty minute bus journey from my BILs house won over the 1 hour and 40 minutes it would take from mine and she decided she was not staying at mine.

We decided to scrap our plans of going to a lighthouse as we didn't fancy the 2 hour drive anymore and had lost most of the morning. Lochmaben was scoped as our nearest castle and, whilst we knew there wasnt much of it left, we were surprised at how little remained. Again, that pesky winter had destroyed foundations and we were unable to view or wander about most of it. There were signs for a lochside walk and we decided to give it a shot. 

It started off well. There was a nice boardwalk and a bird watching hut. Then a little fairy garden.  But no signs to say how long the walk was in terms of distance. After half an hour and barely making a dent in the circumference of the loch, we finally spotted a sign - it was a two hour walk. By this point we'd run out of random conversation and small talk and I just turned to my husband.

"Do you want to go home?"

"What? No, you deserve a nice holiday."

We are both bad for that. Making ourselves miserable to make others happy. I pointed that out and was countered with a very vague shrug.

"We're just trying to kill time, neither of us are actually enjoying it. Lets go home."

He conceded and agreed it was for the best. By the time we got back to the airbnb and had the car packed (I messaged the host to explain the situation), he seemed in a much better mood. We had both agreed it was better to sit about and be anxious in the comfort of our own home than it was to be stressing about no phone signal and that something may had come up.

I cant say we were very happy about the choice, it was meant to be our holiday away together having a nice time with Missy, but at the end of the day it was only one night we lost out on, the plan having been to come back the following day originally.

Its been a weird little week. I was kinda thankful to get back to work on Thursday for the normalcy of it all if nothing else. And thats really been it. We've fitted in lots of nice local walks, but the focus has been on being on hand if we were needed.

BIL is now on oral antibiotics, and provided he keeps them down and doesn't have a seizure (I had it explained that this was the most common side effect, so they had to wait just in case) should be out in a day or two.

And that's been it. As a family unit, we're fine, its just the world around us is in chaos. It seems to calming down again, but I'm now on anxious alert mode for more trouble.

Does anyone have a sturdy umbrella I can borrow, just in case?