Sunday 21st December

Well I'm not going to write anything about Mum, because it's all personal kind of stuff. We're still all coming to terms with it, and trying to cope with the very idea of Christmas which frankly feels odd. We're having it at home, in Mum's home that is, the last time we'll have a 'family' home to have things like Christmas in. Anytime after this, it's going to be celebrating at a specific family member's home, rather than the family home, so it's sort of momentous and incredibly sad. Yet I'm determined not to get swept away by all this, life is for living and I think also Mum would get very upset if she thought we couldn't cope with this. After all, she spent so much of her life trying to bring us up to cope with anything life might throw at us, and ok, the big test thing is here - now we are all truly adults, we have no parents left and it leaves you feeling quite strange. I feel stupidly small, for all that I'm fifty years old.
Anyhow, just to throw something else into the mix, this year, fate has seen fit to give me - yep, you guessed it, a winter bug. Not the vomiting variety, no ho, I almost feel I could cope with that. No, it's the other variety, which means I've not been able to get out of the house for any time, or distance since about three weeks ago. Or at least that's what it feels like. Every one's Christmas presents have been grabbed off a shelf in Sainsbury's in a flying visit - either that, or off a website of some kind (happily everything has arrived!) and I have stuff from the doctor to use in extremis. So come either later on Tuesday, or Weds, my sister and I are going to go do the Xmas shopping - the food shopping that is, at a nice local supermarket with facilities! Now I know you're all out there, shaking your heads at that appalling thought - I'm intending to buy food and cook it whilst suffering from this? Well yes. I've spoken to the Doctor. I've checked it all out. I have the largest quantity of germ destroying hand sprays, cleaners and wipes that you can imagine. I've also been assured that whatever bug it is that I've got, it's of low infectivity. And my family are all healthy adults. So I feel it's safe to pick up stuff that's wrapped in plastic, boxed etc, and if I can't cook it, then I'm sure that we'll come to some sort of arrangement. And the one blessing of all this is that I can still eat, in fact I actually think if I couldn't I'd be in the local hospital by now. I've been very careful to keep myself hydrated, over the past couple of weeks barely a moment has gone past without my having a cup of something to hand - and whoever it was at Birt and Tangs who came up with their Ginger tea bags, thanks. I've really enjoyed them over the past while! Ginger tea, Blackberry and Nettle tea, ordinary tea - what a wonderful thing tea is. Yay, lets here it for tea...