Meeting my grandfather

 Well, it's been almost two weeks since I met my real grandfather. We arranged to meet in a Tesco cafe, as that was the nearest place to him, and we discovered he doesn't have a car. It was almost two weeks ago now, on the 2nd of April that me, my mum and dad went to meet him. He also brought his sister with him, who is my great auntie. She said to my mum that she could tell my grandfather was her dad, she said she saw the similarity instantly! It's been something I haven't noticed myself, but when I have showed other people his photo on my mobile, they do see a resemblance between them!

A few days before meeting up, I actually called him, to introduce myself, and tell him how I found him, which started with purchasing his birth certificate last summer, and eventually ended with putting an advert on the Missing You. Several people on that website contacted me with information, and pretty much all of them proved right. Two of them sent me his address, which turned out to be the correct address in Stockton, only a few miles from Middlesbrough.

I didn't know what to expect from the meeting itself, I remember we were walking towards the cafe, and a man with grey hair and glasses stood up, with him a woman with short brown hair (his sister), he recognised us instantly because my mum told him she was a Muslim, and would be covered up. We all had a nice long chat, for over an hour, and a cup of tea. Next we are hoping to set something up so he can meet the rest of his grandchildren. I wonder if he will be surprised to hear that one of them is married already? Probably a good thing my brother hasn't had his wedding party yet, that will be a good occasion for my grandfather to attend!

Unbearable pain!

 I currently have an ear infection, for about a week now. Well it started in my right ear, but over the weekend it spread to my left ear. I have antibiotics to take orally, antibiotic drops that go right into my ears, paracetamol and codeine. I am always in pain though, once the painkillers wear off, but I'm only allowed four doses every 24 hours, so sometimes I have to sit and suffer, since night-time is worse so I always keep my last dose for then. Codeine has been really good though, it works pretty fast, I take one codeine with two paracetamol. Plus now both my ears are swollen, so I can't really hear very well. I won't be able to do my volunteer work this week, which is annoying. I was driving over the weekend, but I couldn't do it today. Even then I couldn't hear the engine properly and had to change gears by looking at the speedometer. Well at least I got out for a little bit!

I must also say about my weirdly vivid dreams during this time. One of the side-effects you can get from codeine is hallucinations. Only mine haven't happened during the day when I take them, it's only at night! So I'll wake up crying out in pain, but there's something weird too. Last night there seemed to be loads of plastic around me, and I remember waving my arms around, trying to push it away, and crying at the same time because of the pain of my ear. It was very strange indeed! The other day was bits of fabric or something, and I didn't want them near me, I can barely remember that one though. Luckily I never woke anyone up in our house, despite the fact that I felt like I was being really loud!

Oh, and I met my grandfather for the first time the other day. Maybe I'll do a full post about it once I feel better. I'm just really sleepy at the moment, as my ear pain doesn't let me sleep for long, so I'm always tired!