Better

And she's back in the room. A bit. I hope you had a stonker of a Christmas and New Year. As you may have noted, I was absent for a good proportion of it. It wasn't Covid, it wasn't even flu. I think technically, it was a cold but a Gold Medal level cold. We had a nice time in the end. FOW1 came home for a few days and FOW2 was forced to move back in for a while because her house boiler packed in. Obviously, because it was the week before Christmas, no one was available to look at it until January 7th. So, four adults, in an apartment made for two. That was interesting. Actually, we did ok. We are all quite easygoing (read tired) so we all rubbed along ok. The kids took the restrictions on their freedoms quite well (What time do you think you will be back?) and we dealt equally well with having piles of clothes everywhere. All the while, all of us taking into account the fact that this was only temporary. 

Also, Aged Parent managed to add to the gaiety by succumbing to a chest infection that meant that she needed to be admitted to hospital on Christmas Day for intravenous antibiotics. Her care home staff were complete heroes and looked after her for the 48 HOURS it took to get her admitted to the hospital. If the ambulance had come for her after the initial assessment, she would probably have been in an ambulance on the car park for those 48 hours. Hurrah for the Tories and their assertions that the NHS is safe with them. 

If you cast your mind back through this increasingly complicated tale of woe, you will remember that I was sick all through this carry-on. So, when I took a call from a nice doctor in A and E, his first statement, when he heard my voice, was that he didn't want me anywhere near. They understandably have enough on their plates without me Typhoid Marying all over A and E. The doctor was a bit of a doom merchant. He informed me that she was quite ill and weakening every time she had a chest infection which meant that, eventually, one illness would be her last illness. (Surely, you could say that about all of us?). Anyway, as you can see from the photo above, she is now happily ensconced back in her home, being waited on hand and foot after a recovery that has startled the doctors. We are not fools. We know that things are only going in one direction. But, for now, she is happy to spend her days shouting at carers, eating toast and pretending she recognised FOW2 when she visited with us. 

Us.     Do you remember who this is?

AP.      Of course, I do. Thank you so much for coming.(Delivered in the manner of a Salford-born Queen Mother).

Other than that, we are ok I think. Are you doing any resolutions? I don't usually because I think they are annoying. Who needs that kind of pressure when it's dark and raining (again)? Has it been raining a lot where you are? It is permanently grey here. However, I have things that I should do and I want to do them. Books I want to read, people I want to see, films I want to watch. Also, my body has reached the stage where, if I abuse it, it doesn't react well. I'm not talking about heroin and three bottles of whisky a day. More like not enough fibre and plonking myself down like Jabba The Hutt for fifteen hours a day. The fact is that some improvement is necessary and, although it is admirable that Instagram encourages me to luurve and accept myself more, I am aware that I may well have overdone the self acceptance. I have to be realistic. I saw something that said I should be eating 50 different plant foods a week to have a healthy biome. (I thought a biome was something you grew tomatoes under. Apparently, it's more about my guts.) 50! Different things. Not going to happen. For one thing I lack the necessary imagination  and also, my mental tolerance for chickpeas is quite low. Is it me or do they smell funny? 

So I am thinking more about getting myself together more. No targets, no specific thing to achieve. Just lots of small decisions every day. Being thoughtful around my time. I had a pastor once who told us that time was like a daily cheque from a cheque book that could only be paid once. (Actually, I used to work in a bank and a cheque can be presented quite a few times but I am just being petty). 

I'm always a bit jumpy when people go on about developing gratitude, filling in those books they buy from the Internet. I'm sure it's an excellent thing to do. I'm just quite shy about writing that kind of thing down. However, I think using time well, filling your head with decent things and deciding that not being able to fasten my pants is unacceptable is also a kind of gratitude that I would like to try and do a bit more. 

People have thoughtful words for the year which they adopt as something to live by. I have decided that mine will be "Instead of individual resolutions, why not try getting your life a bit more together generally." Which is unweidy and a bit flabby but I think that it suits me.

Have a great week and Happy New Year.