New Year
Although the party started at 6pm, and we were aiming to get there for about 7pm, we never got there till about 730pm. It was lovely just to go a few doors down the road to a party. I enjoyed my self and caught up with quite a few people. The children just disappeared and played upstairs or watched DVDs in the lounge.
I managed to stay up later than I thought and it was AJ who wanted to come home forst as he was tired so Woody, AJ and myself came home about 1130pm and AJ went to sleep. Laura and Pete were eating the chocolate and creamy puddings so came home about 15 mins later. We watched telly and took pictures of the 4 of us in bed and when it came to midnight we all held hands and wished each other a happy New Year. We couldn't manage first footing but let the old year out and the new year in, which Woody thought was very peculiar.
We did manage a sleep in the next day and had a late breakfast and then I cooked a roast dinner. I hadn't planned to cook the dinner on my own but Pete got caught up with other things.
As New Year's Day was thursday and that is a day that Pete works, in my brain it was friday so have been confused since then which day is which.
On friday, I went to Sainsbury's homeplus shop and managed to find a few bargains like some garlic infused olive oil for £1.71 - the drop in VAT has led to some very strange prices and I also bought a few 'standby' presents incase I forget birthdays etc so if you end up with a strange birthday present then you know I forgot and had to go to my special store cupboard to find something quick!!!
My swallowing is becoming a real issue now with bread and meat being a problem. It is only 3 weeks since my last taxol so it's not good. The pain in my chest has come back and is there constantly and I can feel some food getting stuck there as well. My breathing is fine which is a relief. The other thing that is getting stuck is the stairlift. It seems to go too far off at the bottom end and when I try to go back upstairs, I have to get off and then press either the remote control or the button on the chair to get it to move a few inches and then I can get back on and off we go. Although the other day, it got stuck halfway up the stairs which was a bit disconcerting and very noisy as it beeps continously if not at the top or the bottom and if you turn the power off, it just carries on beeping. I tried to ring the company but they were operating an emergency service only and I can manage the stairs but it wears me out so will try again on monday.
The children seem to have grown so much over the last 2 weeks but on checking their shoes, it was only AJ that needed new trainers. we had to get him lace ups so Woody has been trying to teach him the art of shoelace tying.
Pete took the children out on their bikes and a walk around the local country park and seemed to enjoy themselves. It was so cold they didn't stay out long.
Saturday - our friends who had moved in the summer came over to visit for an hour. It was good to catch up. I had spent some of friday night trying to download photos from my phone and camera onto the computer and then trying to burn a CD so I can get the photos printed. Somehow, I managed to get 4 copies of some photos on the CD and back to the camera so do need to sort that out. I'm very reluctant to delete any until I have a usable CD. It seemed to transfer some pictures but not all and then the other vista computer wouldn't recognise any of the CDs. I went to the local photographers and actually spent an hour there using either the memory card from my camera or the USB connection from my phone to get some photos printed. I then tried the discs and found that the kiosk could open my saved photos that must have been on the SIM card in my phone so I could get the best of them printed off and some from the camera and some of the new phone ones so am very confused by all this. Will have to wait till monday to see what the photos are like. Some of the phone ones look very pixelated. I'm sure I went to Boots and got better prints so will give the local one a try first before venturing into town and Boots.
I then spent the rest of the afternoon baking with Woody. It was not entirely successful as the buttercream separated - I've never put egg yolks and boiled sugar water in buttercream before but the swiss roll/yule log rolled up perfectly. The meringue nests refused to come off the baking tray and the chocolate chequer board biscuits' dough went too wet and so we ended up with a marbled effect biscuit. They are very tasty as all the cakes - they just don't look right!! Woody is very proud of his achievments so have taken photos so he can show his teacher of what we cooked.
Now am up to date with my blog and must go to sleep. My sleep pattern is all over the place so think it will do me good when they all go back to school to get back to a better routine. Sometimes I think I stay up late at the moment so I have a bit of peace and quiet when I'm writing and also I feel that my time is so short now that I don't want to 'waste' time by sleeping. I'm also struggling to go to sleep in the dark and keep the dimmed light on and I don't know where that fear has come from either. All in all I feel like that proverbial duck swimming against the tide.