Today is the Day!

This is just a short entry this morning, as I expect to put another one on tomorrow, hopefully with some pictures of Mike's flight. This was one of those Red Letter Day presents, for his 60th Birthday last year.

It has taken a long time for him to take it because, as you may have heard, Red Letter Day went into receivership last year and it took ages for his sister to find the receipt and to get the thing validated. He finally booked it a month ago.

It's a shame for Mike, as this has been his best joke of the year. He tells people his mother knows he is scared of heights, so what did she buy him for his birthday? A flight in a light aircraft!! It always makes people laugh when he tells them but the truth is, he doesn't have a problem with flying.

He really does have a problem with heights though. I got left on my own on the Millenium Bridge, we had only just started to cross it, when he said see you on the other side and then just legged it, straight down the middle, knocking grannies and toddlers flying in his wake.

And how could I forget the trip up Worcester Cathedral Tower one Sunday morning. We had gone to meet the bell ringers, who ring from partway up the tower. We then continued to the top to hear them ringing. It was wonderful and the view was amazing. The problem was, Mike was only just starting to get his problem with heights and hadn't realised what effect the view was going to have on him BUT it was made a hundred times worse because they were ringing the bells. A full peal makes the top of the tower move by several inches. It really makes you wonder how the thing has stood up for so many centuries. The end result of the height, combined with the movement was Mike on his hands and knees crawling back to the safety of the stairs. I know this reflects very badly on us but our friends and I were hysterical with laughter.

You can see the view from the link below. Once you are there, you will find a link at the bottom of the page to an index of other panoramic views, you can have a look around the inside of our beautiful cathedral as well.

Worcester Cathedral

I'll be back later to let you know how we got on.

 

Catherine's Wedding.

 

Well, after a couple of hectic months planning and a day when the whole thing was off, Catherine and Flo finally got married.

As expected, my Mother made travelling a nightmare. I had booked the flights for all 11 of us and we were meeting up at East Midlands Airport, together with another 3 guests.

No one wanted to risk getting caught in traffic, so we all arrived at about 3.30pm and the check-in didn't open for our flight until 5pm. That wasn't a problem, time to relax, have food and drinks and catch up with family that we only see every few months.

My Mother had other ideas! "Lets go and check in now"

We can't do that Mum, we have to do it ourselves on those computers, it's very easy but they are still checking in the Prague flight, which goes before us" 

I got one of those, you don't know what you are talking about looks but I will go along with you ....for a while.

We had coffees and beers and snacks and it was now half past four.

Mum wants to go down to the check in area, so off we all trundle. Sure enough, that pesky computer is still only showing the Prague flight. But...says Mum, "we can check in now, it's only half an hour early, so it won't matter"

I explain that if it hasn't been put onto the computer yet, there is no way we can do it.

If she was a child I would say she was now becoming petulant. I am becoming red in the face, as she has been like a dripping tap for the last hour or more, going on about checking in. I am obviously such a fool that it is a wonder I have managed to do all these bookings and arrange assistance to and from the Aircraft. This is obviously what she is thinking and is expecting to find any minute that I haven't really booked anything at all.

I had to go and cool off and went outside for some fresh air, then I looked after Abi's baby, while she went out for a cigarette.

When I arrived back, the booking had just opened and Mum had made my sister deal with it, as I obviously can't be trusted. Well the luggage labels came out fine for all of us but it said it had printed the Boarding Passes, only it hadn't. She's sent Mike over to the Easijet desk, which was about 200 hundred yards away and there was a queue and my sister is jigging up and down on the spot, looking like she is about to wet herself.When Mum is getting into panic mode, it stops anyone within 20 feet from thinking clearly. Luckily I had been able to avoid the build up to this particular crisis, so still had a few brain cells firing. 

I spotted an Easijet employee a few feet away, looking into one of the other computer terminals. I told her we didn't have our Boarding Passes. She replied" Just tell them when you hand over your luggage, they will print them there for you"

Problem solved.

I won't tell you about the nonsense in the queue involving the wheelchair, a few stragglers from the Prague flight on a Stag weekend and my stepfather. They were no problem at all, it was just that they had the temerity to join the queue, in the middle of our party!! I think at that moment both my sister and I were seriously thinking of leaving her behind.

There were several other traumas but no problems at all.

We arrived in Cologne to snow. We drove to Bad Laasphe and there was more snow. It's a lovely little town partway up some mountains.

Prices were very reasonable, only 33 euros pp per night. That included breakfast, which was as much as you could eat and we had a lovely hotel room with a huge balcony. The cleanliness was amazing and the room was cleaned while we were eating breakfast. How they made the bathroom look like it had never ever been used in the time we were eating, I can't imagine. I could spend four hours on ours and it wouldn't be so clean, dry and smearfree! 

After breakfast I went with Catherine to arrange flowers on the tables at the Reception. At lunchtime we met Flo's mother and stepfather for the first time. They were both very pleasant and friendly.

The afternoon was spent getting ready and doing Catherine's hair, during which time it snowed and was still doing so on the walk round to the Rathaus. Typical Englishwoman, I had my brolly. Catherine and Flo went by car.

The words of the Registrar were all translated for us by Flo's Mum, who did a wonderful job and the advice given by the Registrar was the best 'sermon' I have ever heard at a wedding.

We walked to the Reception, as it was only a short distance. By now it was 6pm, still light but getting dusk and the lights were coming on around the town. It was truly magical.

The food was wonderful at the Reception, How they did it for the equivilant of £10 a head is a mystery. There was melon in Parma Ham, smoked salmon and other nibbley things for starters, bowls of salad, then hot food was:- Beef in tomato and herbs, fish in a mustard sauce, pork in a delicious sauce, spaghetti carbonara, spaghetti bolognese, a vegetarian pasta dish, potatoes au gratin, cauilflower au gratin and rice. Followed by Tiramasu or cherry ice cream. All of which was home made.

The plates were those large flat pizza plates and I have to say I filled mine!!! And ate it. No, not the plate!

Catherine looked beautiful, like a fairy princess and the snow just made the whole thing magical.

All too soon it was over. Catherine & Flo stayed in our hotel on their wedding night, so it was lovely to be able to have breakfast with them on Saturday morning. Then we all met up for coffee before the flight home. Except for Abi, that is, who was still drunk and threw up all day long. Thankfully they weren't flying back with us. 

Catherine went to see her doctor on Monday and had another scan, which confirmed she is carrying the girl she wanted.

Tuesday they flew to Venice and I think they will return today. She sent me a text in the week to say it was sunny and everything was OK.

I hope to have a month or two to catch up on my own life now, before I fly out again for the birth of my grandaughter.

If you would like to see some more photos, here is a link to a Wedding Blog I did.

 

http://journals.aol.co.uk/lindaggeorge/CatherineFlosWedding/

Strange Comes With Age?

I just had one of those moments where you clearly see yourself and realise that you may be slightly strange.

Mike just called upstairs to me that he had been surprised to find himself enthralled by the Curling on the Winter Olympics. Now if that isn't a barmy sport, I don't know what is. Sliding about on the ice following a polished rock, while your mates jiggle about with brushes in front of you. And we won a medal for it last time!

His comment made me think about what I was doing at that moment. I was gazing, enviously at the photo above, which is of some blue paving bricks found in Hamburg. The photo had just been emailed to me by a man I have been talking to in Germany. He found them twenty years ago, when they were digging up the pavement.

He put them in his daughter's pram, took them home and they have now gone through four house moves with him. He didn't say if his wife is still with him.

I have had a passion for blue bricks since I was a child, many of the pavements in The Black Country were paved with them. Proper blue bricks, as made by The Cakemore Brick Company, are tougher than granite and impervious to water. St Pancras Goods Station was buit with their bricks.

My interest in this particular Company is because Cakemore is where my Harper family farmed throughout the 19th Century, at the time these bricks were made.

I know it's odd but I would love to get my hands on one. But then, even odder surely to put half a dozen in your daughter's pram!

So it not just us Brits who have strange, quirky interests, obviously the Germans do too.

I have further proof of the strangeness of my daughter's chosen homeland.She and Flo were at a party at the weekend. Someone decided to take the shelves out of the fridge and attempt to fit themselves into it. They failed.

Flo, in his delightful German/American/English accent said " I cun du that." And in doing so he had to remove one shoe to enable the door to be shut. That produced great hilarity, bordering on hysteria, as his revealed sock was one of the pairs I bought him as a tree present at Christmas, black with florescent pink toes and heel. Obviously Germans don't understand Marks and Spencer style! 

Catherine said it would have been funnier if he had taken both shoes off, as his other sock was grey.

I'm very pleased to hear that Flo has a stong streak of the peculiar running through him, he should fit well into my family. With a Punk Rock Star father and my daughter as it's mother I am expecting new heights of quirkiness from their offspring. After all my daughter at the age of three took to wearing a Welsh ladies hat and rarely took it off for the next two years and then went into black and became a Goth at twelve.

Mike thought Flo wanted to get in the fridge to test the theory that the light really does go off when you shut the door, which apparently, it does.

We think we have everything sorted to get my mother and her zimmer frame to Germany for the wedding. Flo's stepfather decided to take us all one step nearer the wedding from Hell, by rupturing himself at the gym. He had an operation today. He thought, that as they said he would be in and out in one day, that meant he would be walking around tonight. Ha! Niave Bif. It's obviously the same in Germany as it is here, they have you out of the ward the moment you're concious. He's lying down feeling sorry for himself tonight.

We went to the gym today and I weighed myself. I've lost another six pounds!!!! And their scales have just been checked. I haven't been this weight for years! In fact I'm feeling so good about myself, I shall be on the lookout for a nice German toyboy next week and if he's wheeling a pram with some blue bricks in....so much the better.

I still haven't got over my mother in the hospital on Sunday, she had a couple of visitors I didn't know, as well as Wilf and the four bed room had several other visitors at the time. For a start she was on top of the bed in a fairly short nightie and kept crossing and uncrossing her legs, a la Sharon Stone. With half a leg in plaster and aged 77 this was not a good image. Then she was discussing what clothes she needed for travelling home and said she could dress herself, apart from putting her knickers on. She said, so Wilf will have to help me do that, which will make a change from him taking them off!

Well! ....I didn't know he wore her knickers anyway.

I'm hoping she behaves herself in Germany. I just know we won't get through it without one of them mentioning the war.

 

I'm Back!

I've had a bit of time off from Journal writing, as I felt it my entries were getting depressing, which was how I was feeling and as the last entry received no comments, I was obviously depressing everyone who read it. I made it Private, while I considered it's fate.

I feel a lot better now, which is just as well considering the week I've just had! More of that later.

Things that have happened since I last wrote.

My daughter had her second scan and was hoping to find out the sex of her baby. This child is obviously going to take after it's mother. Contrary. It turned it's back and refused to turn round again to reveal whether it was a boy of a girl. So we have to wait another two weeks to see if all is to be revealed.

My son went and had a little trip on his submarine, they were doing some tests. How considerate of The Royal Navy to arrange for him a short taster before they sent him away on his big trip.

 God, was that a worry. I was dreading the phone call when he got back, in case he was a mental wreck and couldn't bear the thought he was going back under for several weeks. Thankfully he said it was fine and although he knew the time would drag until he was home again, he was quite happy about it. Phew!!!

The wedding plans are going well and everyone that is going has booked their flight and a coach has been laid on at the German end. The Hotel is booked and flowers sorted. The Reception is to be in an old pub, which has a room upstairs that we are using, it has bits of old brewing equipment in it, so sounds interesting. The town they live in is Bad Laasphe, which is very rural according to my daughter.

My niece Emma has now left  sunny Wolverhampton and is on her 11 month tour of the world. She has started in Thailand and is writing a Blog, so if she can access mine, we can both keep up with what's happening.

My son's Ex girlfriend, no, not the nutter, another one, is also on her travels and is in Thailand at the moment but moves to Cambodia next week. She sent me the photos, shown here, yesterday. The wonders of the Internet! I think the first picture above is so beautiful, it looks like a photo from a travel magazine......Lucy, I never realised you were so artistic! 

My friend Catherine, who moved to Lyon just before Christmas tells me she has found herself a home now and I hope to visit her later in the year. I was a little concerned to hear they have found Bird Flu there. I read it is carried by migrating swans, so no snogging a swan Catherine!

This week has been half term and I really needed the break, as we had an OFSTED inspection just two weeks ago and that was stressful to say the least.

The week started with a visit to Mike's family. His Mum, who is 86 was looking well.

Wednesday we were being taken out to lunch by my Mum and stepfather Wilf. I'd only just got up when the phone rang. It was Wilf, to say Mum had fallen the night before, on her way out of a pub, for heavens sake, she's 77!. He insists she was sober and had only had a tomato juice. Hmmmmm!

Anyway, unlike the fall she had a couple of weeks earlier, when she JUST needed a couple of stitches in her forehead. This time she'd made a good job of it and broke her leg in 3 places. One of the fractures needed pinning, so she was having an operation the next day.

Can you imagine the distress this caused? Apart from the worry of her injuries, what about the wedding? Someone at the hospital told her she couldn't fly while she was in plaster.

I went to see her that afternoon and was relieved to see she was cheerful and only plastered  up to just below her knee. I came home with thoughts of driving her there. I checked the Eurotunnel and then the distance from Calais to Bad Laasphe its 350 miles, no more than when I drove up to see my son in Faslane last summer. And I did that with just two hours notice. I could surely do this drive when so much was at stake.

The next morning, panic mode had settled to reasoned thought. Why couldn't she fly. What happened to skiers when they broke their leg/legs. Did they all get left in The Alps for several months? I think not!

So I turned to my friend, the Internet, looked up the airlines website and found there was actually no difficulty with a lower leg plaster. As long as she was certified fit to fly. I have long thought my mother should be certified but that's another matter!

Last night came the good news. The doctor will sign her fit to fly to Germany, as it is a short flight. She was moving around well on a Zimmer frame yesterday and today she will get plastered again. They have even said that if she goes in the Tuesday before she flies, they will put a split cast on , which is bandaged together. Then if she has any problem with her leg swelling on the plane, we can remove it and put it back on later. No, not her leg, the plaster!!  

So, hopefully, all is sorted. 

I had a look at future son in laws website for his group this week and found they have now put a video on there of the tour they did in  England in November and there is a link here to the site. Go to Media and the link to the video is on that page.

http://www.acaseofgrenada.com/NEW/frameset.htm

If  anyone reading this is interested in Punk, of a German type (ie screamed, not sung) have a look. If you don't like the sound you can mute it and still have a look. Flo is the Lead Screamer, the one with black hair and a lovely smile and my daughter is the pretty blonde girl. They do look a little unkempt on some of the shots as they were living in the TourBus most of the time.

I think that brings my life up to date and will start doing my weekly Blog from now on.

If you visit, please leave a comment, as I have just taken that stupid counter off, it has just reset itself to zero again and I really can't be bothered to go through all the crap of resetting it again.So it would be nice to know if anyone stopped by.

It's a pity AOL can't be more bothered about sorting out these problems than they are with putting adverts onto the My Picture pages!!! 

 

Life Moves On.

The ear is improving but when all is quiet, it sounds like I have a washing machine on the spin cyle in there. The doctor says the infection has gone and I just have to wait for the tubes to clear.

The last few days have been emotional turmoil.

Daughter is worried about upsetting her future German mother in law who would like them to wait for Flo's brother to return from duty in the army in Afghanistan before gettting married. As he doesn't expect to be back until late March, then the earliest they could marry is the first Friday in April, by which time she would be nearly seven months pregnant. Catherine does not want to look like a beached whale on her wedding photos AND if they wait for Sebastian to come back then they really should wait for her own brother Simon to return from duty on his submarine, which will not be until the middle of April, or thereabouts, she doesn't feel it would be fair to wait for one and not the other. I have to agree with her point of view but I would much rather have both the boys there. I must remember it is her wedding day and she must be able to feel as good as possible. I know she would rather have them both there if she could.

Thursday, we got THE CALL. These days you only get two days notice when OFSTED are coming in to assess you. If you don't have anything to do with the teaching profession this will mean nothing to you but just think, major surgery without anaesthetic and you will be somewhere near.

I think today went alright but tomorrow is my day for taking a class, on my own, for computer studies. I'm taking a pack of Tena Lady with me, just in case. You have to live with this report for about four years. Please don't let me be the one that cocks up!

I spoke to my son last night, for the last time for nearly three months. He is to be living below the sea for all that time. When he comes home, apparently, he will look like a maggot, having been so deprived of daylight. I can't bear the thought of him being shut away for so long and missing his sister's wedding. 

My stepfather was 80 today and we had a surprise party for him yesterday. It was a lovely party, with 100 guests. If I get to that age and have that many friends, I will be very surprised, so it would be a surprise party for me.

One of the guests was a Black Country comedian, Tommy Munden. He said he had bought his wife a hamster fur coat for Christmas, trouble was, he took her to Birmingham at the weekend and they went on the big wheel......he couldn't get her off!

He recommend Viagra for Wilf and Mum to put the zest back into their sex life. Wilf said 'Can you get it over the counter?' Tommy said'Yes. If you take two!'   

One of the chickens escaped through the fence on Thursday afternoon and we couldn't find her. I thought she was dead, that something had eaten her. I spent hours out with a torch looking for her. The next morning we were out at the crack of day. I was calling 'Where's my girl', which usually brings her running and sure enough, there she was next door. I hopped over the fence and brought her home. It was so sweet, as I held her she stretched her neck over my shoulder and snuggled into my neck, as if she was saying 'It's so good to be home'. I really am daft when it comes to my animals.

Harper Dog has to go to the vet tomorrow, he has developed a worrying cough and I have just discovered a large, soft lump in his neck. He's thirteen. I haven't told Simon about Fliss yet, I don't want him to come home and find half the pets have gone. What sort of a negligent Mother would that make me, on his first trip under the sea?

 

It's Life Jim But Not As We Know It.

I've spent the last two weeks feeling as if someone took a carrot, stuck it in my ear and then rammed it home with the aid of a few hefty whacks from a baseball bat. If ever you have the chance to avoid an infected Eustachion Tube, then I recommend you do so.

I've taken to having three hour naps in the afternoon so that I can continue working in the mornings. Alcohol tastes vile (can there be a worse punishment) and after a course of run of the mill antibiotics, I am now on a course of orange and grey nuclear warheads.

I am going through the motions of life but don't seem to be here. Mike has gone out in the afternoons to do various shopping and household errands as I don't seem aware of what needs doing and I don't seem to notice he went out.

Worst of all, I took mum to meet a cousin today, she is the lady I mentioned previously who had an article published in a local paper about her visit to our mutual great uncle's grave in France. He died in WW1. On the way home from meeting her I used the F word !!!!!. In front of my Mother.

We had a lovely time looking at photos but after two hours I was getting tired and in need of my afternooon nap. As I was driving Mum home we came to a large traffic roundabout with three lanes around it. As we approached it three cars were coming from the right, only one seemed to be coming very fast and it then accelerated in clouds of black smoke and a huge roar. I expected it to be going straight on at that speed but no, it skidded round the roundabout and went three quarter's of the way round, most of it on two wheels. I have never seen anything like it outside of the movies. I fully expected  it to overturn in front of us and was so startled that a word not to be used in front of my mother popped out. I'm sure it was because I was tired and not feeling well.

Thankfully Mum was so frightened by what we saw that she didn't seems to notice, which was just as well as I was fully expecting a sharp slap across my bad ear.

Which made me think, at what age do we stop being scared of our mothers? At 52 I still have to temper any difference of opinion with Mum, for fear of a telling off.

Mike has the same problem. He's 60 and his mother is 86. For his 60th birthday she bought him a half hour flight in a light aircraft, despite knowing the he has been terrified of heights all his life. Yet he daren't tell her he doesn't want to go in case he gets a sharp backhander.

No doubt  on the day he finally plucks up courage to go on his flight, she will be there, spitting in her hankie and wiping imaginary dirt from his face.

Is it something peculiar to our generation, that we live in fear of our mothers but also our children? I'm always doing what I think my mother would like and at the same time what my children tell me to do.

When will it be my turn? When do I get to be top of the food chain? Is life like this for everyone, or is it just me that constantly rides the guilt train to nowhere? Trying to please everyone and consequently pleasing no one, certainly not yourself.

My Mother is a funny woman, she's quite clever but there is a faulty connection somewhere and often comes out with the wrong word. A sort of modern day Mrs Malaprop.

I may have aleady recounted the tale of my sister's singing lesson and being patted on the scrotum. But you are not allowed to question what she said, even when it was blatantly incorrect and has people falling about laughing. Yet things I say, which I know to be correct have to be disputed and I am made to feel a silly little girl.

Could someone please tell me at what age, in my Mother's eyes, I become an adult?

 

 

 

 

Catching Up and Finding I have Tourette's!

The New Year started off well enough but quickly took a down turn.

I woke up last Saturday to find that overnight I had started an ear and sinus infection. This now seems to have grown into a whole head infection and I have virtually lost the hearing in my left ear.

Monday morning saw me at the GP Surgery. As, in their infinite wisdom, Saturday Emergency Surgery has been stopped, Monday's Duty Surgery was a sight to behold.

You have to go at 10.30 and take a number and wait. At 10.30 the morning appointments hadn't  finished, so those people were still clogging up the waiting room and there were 60 people for the Duty GP's. I honestly thought I must now be living in a Third World Country. There wasn't enough room to accomodate everyone, so a number had to stand out in the garden.

As I had arrived at 10.15 I had managed to get a seat and a young man sat next to me. He then started to tell me about his life. He was an attractive young man, who obviously had problems. His clothes were rags and his trainers were falling to bits, with no toes.

I felt so sorry for him as his tale of physical and sexual abuse unfolded. His self harming, the bites he'd taken out of his hand were something you wanted to not look at but somehow your eyes kept being drawn there.

I was feeling dreadful before, (in fact so bad, Mike had driven me to the Surgery and when he saw the crowd he said he'd go home and do some housework and come back later with a packed lunch, that wasn't far from the truth) but two hours with this young man was more than I, in my temperature ridden, weak state should have had to endure. When I felt I could stand no more, I said I was feeling a bit dizzy and needed some fresh air. Bless him, he was so concerned he insisted on coming with me to make sure I was alright. He was such a nice lad and I gave him as much advice as I could but WHY in this day and age, in a so called civilised society, are children allowed to be dragged up in this way?

The only bright spot was his girlfriend, whom he told me was the first person in his life to show him love, turned up looking for him. She'd brought his jacket, in case he was cold and as they sat holding hands and cuddling, he looked so lit up and happy that it brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes

I would love to think they may find a happy future but I'm not hopeful.   

When I came out at 12.30 I was less than impressed and feeling even worse than when I had arrived. The rest of the day was spent in bed.

Wednesday started as usual with Fliss, my bathroom cat, in her usual place besides the bath. She was purring and warbling as always. By mid afternoon she had lost the ability to walk. Fliss was quite elderly, in fact probably about 15 and had been getting thinner over the last year or so. I guessed it was kidney failure, which the vet confirmed.

We could have tried blood tests and an injection, which we tried with another cat who died five years ago. It only prolonged his life by a couple of weeks and I wouldn't say they were quality time.

This time I made the decision, that to me was the kindest. To have Fliss put to sleep there and then. Another part of this decision was because she had taken, lately, to standing in the middle of the road and not moving when cars came round the bend. Luckily because of the way our road is, cars are normally going slowly and have so far managed to stop but I just didn't want to take the risks.

She was lying peacfully on the table and died, while I was stroking her, in just a few seconds.

Sorry this has got off to such a miserable start but I can't make things up, can I?

The two photos of Fliss were taken the night before she died. The close up was testing out the Macro setting on my new camera, she was sitting alongside me and I literally had the camera a couple of inches from her face, I'm quite pleased with the result. The other picture was taken minutes earlier, when she was making up her mind whose settee she wanted to sit onDaddy, or Mummy. She chose me, hence the close up.

The other picture was taken a few days ago, we went on one of our 'Unsuitable for Heavy Vehicles' trips. This is when we go to a chosen place but not on the main roads, not even the B roads but those little white ones that have no name or number on the map.

We went to Tenbury Wells for tea and toasted teacakes. On the way there we stopped at the 12thC church of Rochford and met some friendly sheep just outside the churchyard, who seemed to want their photo taken, so I obliged. There is a grave in this churchyard for a Fanny Adams, which made us laugh. Couldn't help wondering whether she had been sweet or not. This particular route will be wonderful in about a month as most of the lanes are full of wild snowdrops.

I must be getting better because today I had the energy to have an attack of Tourette's. I'm sure I am un undiagnosed sufferer. My language is appalling when I get really stressed, or as happened today, something really annoys me.

In fact I was so concerned about this mornings attack I looked up the syptoms on the web and I think I am a mild sufferer, which explains a lot about the way things have gone in my life.

What started this morning's attack? Well I'll tell you....Gordon Effing Brown!

I was listening, quite happily to the news, in bed with my  cup of coffee, when the newsreader told me that Gordon Brown is suggesting that we drop Remembrance Day and have a British Day instead. Well he can jolly well contend with me first because as far as I'm concerned he can stick his effing British Day up his effing @!s*. How dare he? If he wants a British Day put it on another date and make it a Bank Holiday and we can all do something special, apart from all the people who still have to work bank holidays of course. Just leave Remembrance Day alone, that day is to remember the sacrfice made by so many and not to be cheapened by some political publicity stunt.

Oh well! There we go, what a bright happy start to my Journal for this year. I can only hope life and myinfected head improve and I shall try to think positively, after all I have a wedding and grandchild to look forward. Things can only get better...can't they?

PS Later news suggests Gordon Brown meant a different day, so hopefully the first report was incorrrect.

AND

I forgot.

HAPPY NEW YEAR to you all and thanks for the kind wishes I have already received today. XXX