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A plea from my purse
Please, please shut all the shops, except the food ONLY establishments, now.
Father Christmas (aka Jack)
How can one day have caused me that much stress? I ended up not going to my Christmas do because I still had such a lot to accomplish. Thursday was planned like a military exercise -
9 am - daughter dropping Jack off. Hoover house (he likes my Dyson). Make bed and tidy bedroom (he would be confined in one room where there is not too much he can hurt himself on/break). Walk up to shops for last minute fruit and veg (he'll sleep in pushchair). If still asleep when get home do the ironing.
12.30 - Give him his lunch
1pm - Daughter back to take over
2pm - Niece with child from hell and new baby 'popping-in'. Now to me popping-in means a short visit. Obviously the dictionary she uses defines it as 'to stay an unspecified length of time'. The child from hell lived up to his name.
5pm - When they left, three hours later, I had a headache which threatened to split my skull in half and I still hadn't cooked the gammon, finished wrapping the pressies or sorted out MIL's outfit for the yuletide festivities and I was supposed to be ready to go out in an hour and a half.
Evening out cancelled = immediate reduction in blood pressure = cessation of headache Q.E.D
Christmas Day was how it should be. Visited MIL in the morning. All the family came round. Watched The Snowman with Jack on my knee, he laughed, I cried (happiness), ate too much, drank too much, played impossible game, Beat the Intro, and wallowed in the bosom of my family.
Jack and his Mummy and Daddy are now in Andorra enjoying the snow after last minute trauma involving the loss of their spending money. They really are a very disorganised couple.
I'm back at work. Social Services have made a right mess of one family, managing to alienate the family from their Health Visitor, a really caring one, and leaving me trying to dodge the fall-out so at least the family will communicate with me.
Everything else pales into insignificance though when I consider what happened in the Indian Ocean. How useless I feel when I watch and read about the devastation caused out there.
2005 approaches
This year I am going to -
Give up, well perhaps not give up, but at least cut down on the dreaded weed
Learn to relax body AND mind
Take an aromatherapy course and start offering aromatherapy to pregnant women
Continue with my pilates
Ride the bike I got for Christmas at least twice a week
Grow my hair
I have until April to do the above. In April I will reach a landmark age. At this time I will go into a deep decline when anything I still possess, hair, teeth, mental facilities will give up the ghost and leave me. This year is the first one where I have viewed my birthday as a day not to celebrate but rather to grieve the misuse and under-appreciation of my body, mind and life.
Enough of this self-indulgent pitying.
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE, see you on the other side