u/Strangelybutnot

I have the chance of an allotment.

I've been waiting since 2023, and just got to look at one last night.

It's very small, and also very dark because its surrounded by trees; its very overgrown, but the pattern of the beds is such that everything feels cramped. It is quite claustrophic, surrounded by proper trees, no possibility of felling or anything. It's very surrounded :)

It also has two huge tractor tyres in it. I checked the regs and it says absolutely no tyres are allowed and it will be treated as fly tipping to gave them on your plot. There's no way I could move them, they're massive. There is a 'patio' which is just flags on uneven ground, they all just rock, it would need to come out.

They don't allow burning, so stuff would need taking to the tip regularly.

I also love it. It has a secret garden feel, and an established apple tree, strawberries and there are even some spuds in among the overgrowth.

My husband isn't keen, my son is very keen, and we'd want it to be a familly thing, but husband is worried about a 15 minute walk there, in the pissing rain, 15 back and the house (tiny terrace) being permanently full of wet clothes. He envisaged something more open, somewhere to work and then sit out, and he's not feeling it.

Logically, it should, I suppose, be a 'no'. And the whole thing terrifies me. But ahhhh... its so....I want it. Or do I just want an allotment, and this is an allotment?

What do you think? Is claustrophobic and dark insurmountable?

I am 51.

In December I started HRT. I was still having periods regularly but was offered it because of my age.

I took oestrogen and progesterone, the progesterone cycling. Vaginal oestrigen also.

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After starting, I had very very heavy and painful periods, very low mood and crashing fatigue and an increase in joint and tendon pain.

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After 4 months, my NP recommended moving to continuous micronised progesterone and oestrogen patch: 100mg progesterone daily, Evorel 50 patch.

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I've had very low mood, very painful tendinitis, and now excruciating boob pain. Like, we all get tenderness, but I can't sleep, and they're so hard and painful - like breastfeeding but worse.

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NP wants to increase my oestrogen to 75mg patch, but I keep reading that I should be decreasing with these symptoms, and I did, instead decide to taper off. Reduced now to evorel 25, but everything is still so sore after a week.

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I know you're not doctors. But so much advice is contradictory - any ideas at all which way the cat should jump?