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1 January 2013
Well, the best thing that can be said about 2012 is that it is over.

I have learned over the years that my day, week or month can start at any time, particularly when I am struggling, but there is something significant about the end of the year to which I have to succumb, probably something to do with the short days and also this winter, the continuously grey and damp days.

Our Christmas celebrations were naturally somewhat muted and indeed cut short by the fact that OH passed on to me a wonderful gift of a flu-type cold. This meant that I was not able to sing at the Midnight Mass at church although I did manage the previous evening to sing at the Nine Lessons which is a service I always love and was possibly not the most sensible move as I was doing the hot and cold thing - and that lasted until yesterday when I just began to feel that I might just manage to see in the New Year!

Phone calls and texts from friends and family kept us going very well and then we had a visit from our lovely grand-daughter (and of course her parents who are very necessary) which gave us both a lift and she was just adorable and seemed to find the cardboard boxes much more tasty than anything else.

Back to normal tomorrow and hopefully the Council will come to inspect the security gates which someone tried to break down in broad daylight on Christmas Eve - just what we needed of course!

15 January 2013

Well, the actuality of the window-fitting was not as bad as expected although there will be some outside clearing up to do once the weather improves (if ever). We have used the same company for the last ten years and they tend to keep their fitters so at least I was comfortable with who was doing the job. However, the mess that was left behind is going to take some days to put right.

The floor in the kitchen/diner is laminated tiles and usually extremely easy to keep clean. However, one of the fitters said that he had mopped the floor for me which I thought was quite sweet at the time. That was until I discovered that he had used a filthy cloth which spread more dust and grit than was there in the first place. Despite me showing them where the Dyson was stored they chose not to use it first so all the dust from plaster, grout and mortar has been swished around the floor and I am finding it impossible to clean.

I have a wonderful steam mop which I only need to use once a week usually but two goings-over with that and then two manual mops have not seen a great deal of improvement - I have no idea how on earth I am going to restore the tiles to their former glory. Perhaps a new floor?

1 February 2013

Well, it would seem the council have not quite got their act together as the chap who is supposed to monitor the land-slide and ensure that any variations are recorded turned up yesterday to ask if anyone had been to drill bore-holes on the heap.

He was quite astonished when I said that there was never an intention to disturb the rubble and that the bore-holes were to be drilled "off-site" as it were so another example of right hand and left hand not knowing what was going on. To be fair the drillers were outside company chaps but as the chap inspecting has to drive some 25 miles to my home I thought it wasteful of both time and resources!

I discovered on Wednesday that my land-line would not work and registered a fault with BT who sent a text to say that this would be fixed by 5 pm on . . . MONDAY! They diverted calls to my mobile eventually but I could not dial out.

Today, a BT Engineer turns up unannounced with a beanie, glasses, stubble and a woeful face just as I was leaving for lunch with a friend (I know, ladies who lunch!) and says "It will only take two minutes". Twenty minutes later I am on my way. Two and a half hours later I am home and he is still there! "It's OK", he says "my van needed tidying out"!

Still I do have a working phone although his lugubrious "can't guarantee it" does not give me hope for the future!

15 March 2013
I sometimes wonder if the Almighty has set impossible standards for me to attain as this month has not been any better in terms of difficult situations than the first two of this year. There are folk close to me who have health difficulties - not the least OH who has had this dreadful cough which I am told is adult whooping cough and it has laid him low despite his best efforts to be brave. To hear him coughing for two to three minutes at a time without being able to help has to be quite dreadful and he is so calm about it all whilst I am in bits!

On Monday this week I managed to do what OH did a couple of years ago and miss the bottom couple of stairs completely, ending up in an undignified heap on the thankfully plush rug in the hall. I was quite OK although I did mentally say " what a wally" (or words to that effect) but got up and carried on.

On Tuesday I was quite well and had slept without discomfort, went out to lunch with a friend and shopped at Sainsburys. Then, almost 24 hours to the time, I began to stiffen and hurt (Oh, it did hurt!) to the extent that I had to rest. I hate resting.

On Wednesday I looked after myself, foregoing my lunchtime Fellowship meeting which is so important to me and staying indoors keeping warm.

On Thursday I had an appointment with the Nurse Practitioner at my GP surgery to check on the progress of the lung infection which has been ongoing for several weeks. After being told that my infection was cleared but I was still inflamed, although in the airways rather than lungs which was quite comforting, I was then lectured on the perils of not taking care on the stairs! This lovely slip of a girl who was all of 12 simply said of my headache and various symptoms - "you have whiplash". Well, you could have knocked me down fairly easily at that point and she then explained how easily this had happened. I haven't even got a bruise to show for it!!

24 March 2013
Well the Wedding Anniversary was lovely despite our best efforts at going out for lunch being thwarted by snow!

The wind has been an enormous problem up here and caused this:-

which was a little bit scary but I think it will fall back on the path not on my car in the drive below - at least I hope so!

Talking of cars, when OH was faffing about in the drive yesterday after braving the weather for a bit of shopping I wondered what was going on (me warm in the house of course!). White-faced he told me that despite the car being in first gear and the hand brake firmly engaged, when he locked the car it then started to move back down the drive. No wonder he was white-faced! The drive is just a sheet of ice and not improved today. I hate snow!

19 February 2013

So, another loss to hit the Songsinger household - this magnificent creature had to be put to sleep tonight, eighteen years and eight months into his life. It was certainly a good life and he was certainly a character. You always knew when Robinson was in need of something although for the first ten years of his life he was almost completely silent - indeed I did not know he had a voice as I knew him when he was four years old.

When I had to give up work in 2003 he became my daily companion - sometimes surly, always feisty and quite prepared to leave evidence of his dislike of being left home alone! Then, aged around twelve, he discovered he had a voice and began to use it to great effect. It was not a nice sound, being a cross between a rusty gate and a Siamese cat and it became louder and louder as he got older.

Over the last couple of weeks he really had lost the will to live and I was glad that this afternoon he came for a sit on my knee and a cuddle and I was not so busy that I could not give him that time. He liked me to hold his paw and rub it gently and if I stopped or tried to take my hand away he opened his rather vicious claws (a good half-inch long) very gently to let me know that he was not ready for me to let go.

OH was very brave taking him to the vet himself as I knew that was something I could not face. He had a good, long life and was loved - what more could anyone ask?

29 January 2013
The Council need to drill boreholes so that they know what is beneath our garden and our neighbours'.

The snow was awful; I absolutely hate it as it stops me carrying on with life as although main roads are always cleared well, we are completely unable to get to them and I certainly don't want to risk a fall which could incapacitate me for some time. I know that is is beautiful and it certainly made the land-slide look very pretty!

The men arrived to do the drilling an hour late (trouble on the M6) and I am amused to see that there are four of them, all in high-viz jackets, hard hats and work boots and the obligatory horrible orange and white fences to guard against anyone falling into the hole - which will measure approximately one foot across at best. One is also doing the time-honoured statutory requirement of leaning on a fence, watching.

These would be extremely important safety measures were it not for the fact that all this is taking place in my drive-way where I do not routinely expect pedestrians in great numbers. All for Health and Safety of course.

13 January 2013

In typical Songsinger fashion I have chosen to have the damaged window in our kitchen/diner replaced tomorrow and, of course, snow is not only forecast but is actually falling at present. The prospect of freezing cold, wind and snow blowing through the house is not attractive, neither is having to remove the security gates to allow access for the workmen.

I have discovered over the last few difficult months that what my GP told me is turning out to be true - the anticipation of events such as birthdays and Christmas is much worse than the actuality and I am attempting to apply this maxim to tomorrow's events. As the window folk are coming to us from even higher up in the High Peak there is every chance that the job may not get done so all my fretting today will have been in vain so I had better stop.

For part of my Christmas gift, OH bought me three 1000 piece jig-saws which have kept me entertained when either the weather has been too bad to get out or I have not really felt up to doing much and I have so enjoyed doing them. I am on the last one at present and just at the stage when I am considering that rogue pieces have invaded from other puzzles because there is absolutely nowhere to put them in this one!

5 April 2013
My good friend A who used to live across the road from us has a lovely daughter who got engaged at Christmas 2011. Since then plans have been afoot for THE wedding and I was privileged to be included in those plans.

After Si's death, A made sure that each Thursday we went out to lunch, shopped, planned and bought stuff for the wedding and I am eternally grateful to her for her love and concern throughout this time and the lovely, joyful focus which it gave to my life and I was thrilled when she asked if I would do a couple of readings during the civil ceremony.

Although the non-existent Spring has been harsh, the day dawned really bright and with sunshine so all was well. The occasion went off splendidly and the bride looked stunning - just like a princess. The only problem was that OH had, having been coughing since mid-January, a couple of really horrible spasms of coughing and we were forced to leave before the evening event as he was just not up to it.

2 April 2013
In November 2011 my son was so excited that he had saved up and bought an online game called Skyrim on the day of it's release. He always loved RPGs or Role Playing Games and had all the series of Elder Scrolls, of which this was the latest.

When I went to see him he showed me the game, the graphics were beautiful and we both thought the music accompanying the various scenarios in the game was absolutely brilliant. To that end, we did some research and discovered that the soundtrack was only available directly from the composer in the USA. So, I ordered a copy which took some considerable time to arrive but it was well worth the wait.

Si would have been thrilled that last night this lovely music reached number 4 in the Classic FM's Hall of Fame - that of the top 300 pieces of classical music voted for by the listeners. The purists are not thrilled about this saying that music accompanying a video game cannot be "classical" but it is performed by "proper" symphony orchestras and is the modern equivalent of film music - and who would argue that the Lord of the Rings sound-track was not classical music? And as an additional insult to them, the number 3 was also from a game!

I like to think he was up there sitting on a cloud listening and approving with that lovely smile on his face.

26 March 2013

So yesterday was OH's father's 93rd birthday but I doubt that he was at all aware of that as he has deteriorated significantly in the last year.

I managed to dig out my car today, sweeping several inches of snow from it as it has thawed slightly and I did manage church choir practice. However, one of the older choristers suffered what is believed to be a stroke and I ended up on the hotline on my mobile to the 999 operator. Thankfully I think all will be sorted out OK but I don't need any more shocks like that thank you! When I told the operator (who was in Lancashire and needed the post code - who knows the post-code of their church? I do now!) that the vicar had just arrived there was a little silence and I could have sworn there was a smile in her voice when she said "oh, good!". Nothing ever seems straightforward in my life.

Oh has now got a Ventolin inhaler and steroids and has to go for a chest X-ray so at least things are being taken seriously.