Beanfeast

Thank you for the replies, it's not easy dealing with anxiety. Just taking one day at a time.

Not sure if this is the place to come really. My family and I have had a tough time over the past 6 months, and I'm now struggling to carry on as normal without constantly worrying something else is going to go wrong. Late last year I was made redundant, I managed to get another job but the hours are very unsocial and make family life hard. I'm constantly on the lookout for a better job but it's not easy. Then, before Xmas I became ill with an ear infection, causing me to have dizzy spells and have to take time off work. Just before the New Year my wife had what we thought was a stroke, lost the ability in one side of her face etc. This REALLY scared me, though she is now pretty much recovered back to normal the doctors haven't really come to a conclusion other than to say it was a 'neural syndrome', after having an MRI I'm hoping not having heard anything is a good thing. Then my dizziness came back, whilst not as bad it has been, it was in the background bothering me every now and again. Recently it seems to have disappeared... fingers crossed! A month or so later, both my in-laws ended up in hospital - one with pneumonia, the other with flu. One of them became very confused and the situation became extremely difficult for a while, though now it's slowly returning to normal this is a new situation we now have to manage and provide more care for. From this my wife then developed pneumonia herself, had a very high temperature and ended up in hospital, she's slowly recovering but it's taken weeks. You'd think we'd had enough by now, but no - in the past few weeks my 10yr old daughter then got gastric flu and ended up in hospital, a few days later I developed a stomach bug and had to spend 2 days in bed getting over it. I haven't yet mentioned the 2 car crashes my wife had during this time, a close friend dying suddenly of sepsis, and all the while I'm attempting to cope with working unsocial hours, make a good impression at work so they'll keep me on, and care for my family and support them. So it's hardly a surprise I'm/we're struggling. I'm constantly worried every cough I hear, every itch I notice, every text or phone call I get will lead to more bad news. I can just about manage to ignore the stress and anxiety and push it into the background telling myself it'll be alright, but it's not easy. I'm hardly expecting anyone to have been in a similar situation, but if anyone has any hints or tips about managing the stress and anxiety I'd be most grateful.

Thanks for all the replies, and all the details you've given Andy1976, much appreciated! I wouldn't want to take a friend with us, at that age it's a very long way from home and I think they're still a bit too young. I wouldn't want my daughter going with friends, it's just too far away if anything went wrong. As for the cost, ouch! I was hoping it wouldn't be more than about £5k for the 3 of us. And having not been there before I'm a bit scared of getting everything separately in case something goes wrong. My next step would be visiting a travel agents and see what price they come up with, though I'm expecting that to be high anyway at least it's something to work with.

Hi, I'm planning on possibly doing a trip of a lifetime next year to Disney Land, Florida with my wife and 10 yr old (by then) daughter. Has anyone been in the last year or 2 and have any advice on how to do it? Would we be better purchasing everything in advance (inc food, tickets etc) and staying on location in a resort hotel? Also, what with taking an only child she'll be relying on us to entertain and share rides and everything with. Has anyone else done this with an only child and how did you find it?

Hi, sorry I only just noticed I've had a response to this. It's for my wife really more than myself, though we both obviously need help together on it. She is finding her tolerance to certain foods is affecting her, i.e bread, wraps, potatoes among other things. It's ok using Google for these things and trying to look for answers that way, but it's much harder figuring how to fit this all into a very busy lifestyle along with a daughter who only likes eating certain things too (like most kids!). So, it's that kind of help I'm after - managing a lifestyle alongside trying to work out what dietary changes are needed, and fitting it all together.

Hi I'm looking for a Health Coach for help with lifestyle/food/health etc. I've tried searching online and whilst I've come across courses for becoming a Health Coach, I can't find anyone who actually IS one in or around Chesterfield/Sheffield. Anyone know one, or can recommend a Health Coach please?

Thanks for the help all, I would need a laptop rather than a tablet. I need to remote access servers, other PC's etc, run programs, move files etc, etc. I've been doing more digging round and think the power is manageable, albeit at a cost. The spare leisure battery with an inverter sounds like a better option at the moment, especially as that will always be useful for the caravan in the future.

Next summer I'm going away in my caravan to a festival for 4 days, 2-3 of those days I need to have a laptop and mobile in use - possibly all day for at least 2 of those days. There will be no electric hook up, only the leisure battery in the caravan, and the car won't be very accessible for any of this time. It isn't a new laptop so the battery, whilst in reasonable condition, certainly won't last a full day. The leisure battery is also getting on and probably won't last more than 2 days if I'm using it constantly to charge the laptop. So any ideas how I'd keep the laptop charged up? So far, I've thought of solar panels - but working out the best ones to get is complicated, not to mention expensive! I'd either buy it to charge the leisure battery, or charge the laptop directly somehow. otherwise I'd buy a 2nd leisure battery, or 2nd laptop battery and take them fully charged. I'm just not sure even that would provide enough power - perhaps a 2nd leisure battery might be enough. Any thoughts and advice welcome!

I've got seasons 1-6 on box set from last Xmas, managed to watch up to about season 3 but now the new season has started I'm all confused what to watch! So I'm watching the new stuff instead, thankfully with my Sky Freesat we get the Fox channel. I find the Talking Dead boring, I'd rather just watch the series without it. Episode 1 was really gruesome, at one point I even thought it was getting a bit much and considered turning it off but I'm glad I didn't. Ep 2 and 3 did start getting a little samey and I think it's getting a bit over the top now with all the 'bad guys' - I'm sure there must have been some good groups who got together too! I'd like to see the main characters get together again and do another journey, like to the coast and needing to take boats out etc. Just to spin another perspective and gain some new experiences of that kind of world to live in.

Hi, I wouldn't use it on lawns - there's stones, twigs and stuff in it - it'd just be too lumpy. Better to use it on borders.

I've recently been digging out my garden borders and until now been moving the soil from one side of the garden to another to keep it out of the way! I've now got excess soil I'm planning on bagging up in rubble bags over the next 2 weekends and getting rid of, maybe to the tip - but thought I'd ask first if either anyone wants it? Or if you have any ideas of anything else I could do with it? I'm located in Dronfield, the soil is by no means composting quality you'd get from shops, but good for general border use...

Thanks for the tips, I must say having looked at the Sony Z3 specs it is very appealing - especially the ability to take photo's underwater, take a larger than most micro SD card and quality of photo's.

I currently have an iPhone 5c and will be able to upgrade soon, I refuse to pay the extortionate prices new phones come with but am also thinking of moving away from the iPhone arena. I use the iCloud calendar a LOT to sync with an iPad at home and a few other iPhone owners, but I gather I should be able to still sync this with an android phone by using an app anyway - can any of you confirm that? The reason I am beginning to really dislike my iPhone is the photo storage issue. It doesn't hold a great deal of photo's (8GB), so I use iCloud - but this means older photo's then show up blurred and I have to wait for them to download again before viewing them. On top of this I and several friends have had issues saving photo's and videos to home computers to back them up. It's just not an easy, simple process. It would be far more ideal to have a phone with an SD card that can then be removed and fitted directly into the PC - or I'm pretty sure Android phones are more easily accessed via computer anyway. Due to this, the options open to me with EE are the Samsung Galaxy A3, Nexus 5X, Sony Xperia M4 or Z3, or the HTC Desire 626... Does anyone have experience of these and can tell me which might be best? I'm leaning towards the Samsung as they seem to have a very good reputation for photo and video quality. Thanks!

If you go to the hospital surely you get them free though? Otherwise I've always used Connevans, they are quick to send out and offer a decent price - http://www.connevans.co.uk/viewPage.do?id=index

Thanks for the tips Mouserat, it's a difficult one to get quite right but I'll give that a go.