I make no secret that I hate Christmas with a passion, but
actually as Christmases go, ours was a good one. Christmas Eve was quiet, ham salad and
pickles with mum in Melton followed by a game of scrabble and crap TV. Christmas Day was also gentle, Phil took
charge of the dinner and it was on the table for half past eleven which is
early even by our standards. We were all
washed up and put away by half past twelve which left the rest of the day. Didn’t
do much, Top of the Pops 2, the queen’s speech followed by another game of
scrabble and soaps in the evening.
Unfortunately not everyone had in the family had such a nice
day; I phoned my step dad in Spain and he said there had been a hurricane in La
Manga and the storm had torn apart his awning, apparently he’d been up the
whole night. I phoned my sister Louise
and both her and Mark were poorly with bronchitis. I phoned Julia who was cooking her lunch and
she was okay if a little stressed with preparations for lunch. I found out
later that it all went pair shaped as my dad was poorly and they had they had
to call out the doctor. Dad had another chest infection. Fortunately Julia knew the duty doctor and
persuaded her to give dad strong antibiotics and let him stay at home rather
than go to hospital.
We did some jobs for mum before leaving on Boxing Day and
got back to the flat around 11’ish. Just
time to unpack, do a few domestics at home before meeting Jim & Shirley for
lunch with Harriet and Billy at The Ship at Willen. Jim had booked a table and I expected the pub
to be busy but in actual fact it was as dead as a dodo. We just had a main course and a few drinks
then it was back to Jim & Shirley’s for more drinks. It was thoroughly
enjoyable Boxing Day and certainly made up for a quiet Christmas Day.
The day after Boxing Day was always going to be a duvet day
and indeed it was. We spent the day
hanging (hate that word), pizza for lunch, the remains of the chocolates and
recorded TV programmes; thoroughly naughty but very nice. I did make it to the gym the following
morning but couldn’t persuade Phil to join me.
In the afternoon I went to the city centre but couldn’t get parked so
gave it up as a bad job. In the evening
Sue had a Christmas drinks party and Steve and Jan very kindly picked us up and
gave us a lift to Sue’s. I expect the
drinks soiree to only last a few hours but it went on past midnight and we didn’t
get back home until 1pm. Met some
interesting people.
Hence Sunday was another chill out day, Phil was really
suffering. I cooked roast beef and
Harriet came round to eat with us as Billy was working on a late. I wanted to go to the gym on Monday morning
but then I remembered I had Danielle booked in to do my hair. I have gone shorter and blonder and it does
look better. If I didn’t have such sticky
out ears I’d have really short hair as it is much easier but I am not that
brave. On Monday afternoon I took my
niece, Louise to The Odeon to see ‘Walking with Dinosaurs’. It wasn’t my sort of film but my niece was a
bit depressed and at least it got her out of the house.
I made it to the gym on New Year’s Eve morning and when I
got back Phil did us some garlic, chilli spaghetti which is one of our fave
things to eat at the moment. I do enjoy
it but I worry about the carbs. We
picked up Sue & Ian and we drove to The Daventry Court Hotel where we
booked in to celebrate the New Year.
The hotel was okay, Phil had a sleep in the room but Sue, Ian and I had
a dip in the Jacuzzi. Every room in the
hotel was booked so it was very busy in the pool area. After a shower we decided to grab a cup of tea
and a sandwich in the bar. This turned
out to be a good idea because we didn’t have our first course of dinner until
half past eight.
There were two events at the hotel on NYE; one was a family
carvery and ours which was a ‘Snowball’ event.
Sue had arranged to meet two of her friends in the bar that lived
locally and met them in the bar at half past five. In reality this was a little early to start on
the wine but we couldn’t be anti-social.
The bar area was bedlam with lots of screaming kids, and I think the
hotel management messed up a little.
What they should have done it start the family carver earlier rather
than at the same time but it was no biggie.
We were served canapés (basic) and had several glasses of bubbly before
going into dinner led by a bag player.
There was also a snow machine which was a nice touch.
We had a really good evening. The food was really nice just served a little
late. I thought the band and the duo
were excellent and Sue & I spent the whole evening dancing. Everyone made it to midnight. Ian was the first to go to bed and Phil wasn’t
far behind him leaving Sue and I to carry on partying. Unfortunately when Phil got to our room his
key card wouldn’t work, he knocked on the door because for some reason he
thought I had already crashed. Ian heard
the knocking from his room opposite, he jammed his door open with an iron but
somehow the cord slipped under the door whilst he was knocking on our hotel
door and the door locked shut leaving him in the corridor in his boxers. Phil said several of the other residents came
out to see what the commotion was all about.
Anyway, Phil went to reception to get another key and found me and Sue
going back to our rooms. Luckily Sue had
her key and let Ian back in. It was 2am
by the time we all hit the sack.
Naturally nobody rose early and it was 11am by the time we
sat down to breakfast. We all had a
laugh at the key saga but agreed that aside from that, it had been a good
evening. If it hadn’t been such a foul
day we would have probably had a walk round the lake, but it was chucking it
down so we just drove home. Phil went to
bed to read his book whilst I cooked a chilli con carne and the rest of the day
was chilling and recovering from the night before.
I was awoken at half eight yesterday morning by Harriet
ringing me on the land line. Anyone that knows me well knows that although I am
a morning person, I am not human until I have had a cup of tea. Whilst on the phone to Harriet, my sister Louise
called me on my mobile. It wasn’t good
news; dad isn’t doing too well, he is now bed bound, he hasn’t eaten anything
since Christmas Eve because he can’t swallow and is now on a morphine
drip. Also he is totally incontinent and
Louise says that she is not sure he even knows who they are. But my sisters are determined that dad will not
go back into hospital. They are doing
rotas between the two of them and have been sleeping on the floor in dads flat
since last Friday. Guess it’s only a
matter of days.
I was still on the phone to Louise when the landline went
and it was Phil’s mum in tears; we’d had a call on NYD to say that her fridge
freezer had gone wrong. She called out
an emergency electrician who charged her sixty quid to change 2 fuses. The reason for the phone call yesterday was
because the freezer is still piping which I assume is due to the fact that the
freezer is still not up to temperature.
Normally I have an awful lot of patience with mum but I’m afraid a piping
freezer problem compared to my dad dying just doesn’t compare. I passed the phone to Phil who basically told
her to chill (sorry for the pun). Phil
is going to see her today and if needs be, he can order her a new fridge
freezer and we can claim for any food that has gone off on the insurance.
As with every New Year I have a long list of resolutions,
detox, diet, get a job, pay off my credit card and so the list goes on. Usually I have failed before the first week
of January is over but I am going to try harder in 2014. What with the holiday
followed by Christmas I feel all I have done is eat, drink and sit on my bottom
doing generally sod al.
2012 wasn’t such a great year for us and 2013 has been even
worse. I had high expectations for this
New Year but it has not started well. I
don’t think my dad will last much longer and I will soon have goodbye to bid. Still, mustn’t make be all doom and
gloom in my first posting of the year. I
must make a big effort to up my stakes on the positive mental attitude because
in many ways I am blessed. Happy New
Year folks, let’s hope it’s a good one for all of us.
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