Poor P really not well, he's spent most of day so far asleep on sofa. I think it's some type of fluey cold. Seemed to pick up a bit at lunchtime but back asleep now, poor thing.
As I've been sitting here with him I've been staring at curtains which he put up recently, they do make the room much cosier but there's something just not right. I've realised the rail is too far above the window, about 6 inches too far in act. I just mentioned it to P & he said 'I put it that height so the curtain touched the floor.' Not sure he's totally got the knack of curtain hanging.
Rib a bit better today, have got one of those chemical heat packs against it which seems to help. Went to coffee morning which was good, Becky was there & also another friend Joanne who gave me a Christmas present.
Having a bit of a crisis re church at the moment. I just wrote out the problem & deleted it because it seemed like washing dirty laundry in public & I don't know who reads this. For all I know the chief person concerned could end up reading it.
A lot of it is that I feel people just don't understand my illness & how much I need help. In the past I've had a lot of help but it's all sort of fizzled out & I feel like people have just given up on me. I try not to mind but sometimes it all just sort of bubbles up to the surface which is how I've got into argument with 'chief person concerned' who thinks I'm making a fuss about nothing when really what I'm making a fuss about isn't the issue, what is the issue is that I feel I need help.

Pain still bad but not as bad as yesterday & managed to sleep last night. P had arranged mountain of pillows &cushions so I could be more upright in bed. His cough seems a bit better as well. Got him to bring me porridge in bed this morning so I could take Ibuprofen then. It seems to take a couple of hours to work so the pain had eased a bit by the time I left for school. Bit of a panic this morning as couldn't find J's shoes or tie. In the end concluded he must have left them at school after basketball club yesterday. Just had to send him in tie-less & in trainers. Hope they are at school as he has a carol service at the church today. Parents who help in some way are invited including P as he's a governor. I think they should invite me on the basis that I would help if I could.
J had no clean shirts left at all so felt I'd better do some washing but real struggle to hang it up. It's really difficult at the moment as I can't lift with my left hand so that means 2 journeys rather than 1 to carry things across the room which is hard on my feet. I was thinking I can't ask anyone at church to help me because they're so busy with Christmas then I thought there's a certain irony in there somewhere.
P has just come home feeling rough so I take it back, he's not better.

Pain in rib is seriously bad! Couldn't sleep at all last night as couldn't get comfortable + husband coughing! I'm not unsympathetic but what I keep thinking is I don't want to catch it. Cracked rib + cough doesn't sound like good combination. Got back from school this morning closed eyes & woke up at 12.00!
Dad was meant to be coming for visit today but in view of my rib, P's lurgy & Dad having injured his ankle he's postponed it until after Christmas. What a healthy family we are!
I don't know if I mentioned that Dad had a load of tests on his heart & it was ok, so that's good!
Think we'll have to give cubs' carol singing through the village a miss. J won't be disappointed as he doesn't want to go. This is his last cubs event as 2 weeks ago we got told he's leaving & he's pretty cut up about it as he thought he'd got another term. He says he doesn't want to go up to scouts, not sure why but it's his decision. He also wants to give up basketball as 'it's all full of girls now' which is a bit of a shame as it's good exercise (& an hour off for me!).
I'm off to take some more painkillers.

Something bad has happened to me. I mentioned a few weeks ago I'd broken a tooth. Eventually I got round to going to the dentist & it was horrendous, the dentist spent nearly an hour working on it at the end of which she said 'That might work.' But it still didn't feel right so last Friday I went back to get it ground down some more. I parked the car & reached round to get the insurance form from the back seat. Somehow I overbalanced & hit my side on the edge of the driver's seat. There was a definite 'klunk' in my chest. That klunk was my rib cracking. A cracked rib is seriously painful. The doctor says there's nothing I can do except take painkillers & avoid activities that hurt it so I'm lying around doped up & feeling sleepy. What I was hoping to be doing this week was tidying up a bit as my Dad's coming to visit on Monday plus I need to get ready for Christmas. Help!

On Weds mornings I normally go to a coffee morning at church. This year the couple who run it suggested we all go out for a Christmas lunch which we did on Weds. It was really good, P came too so he could help transport elderly people. We had a really nice lunch, P & Becky had salmon, I had turkey. It's still a marvel to me that I can eat roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding etc with no bad effects. It's only 3 years since eating all that sort of stuff would make me really ill. I was in quite a lot of pain from rib but still had good time. One lady from church had knitted everyone a snowman with a Ferrero Rocher chocolate inside. I brought mine home for J who was thrilled with it. Had some difficulty getting one disabled man in & out of taxi but in the end P bodily picked him up & lifted him out which worked fine.
In the evening we went to J's carol concert. It was in the Anglican church & sadly where we were sitting we couldn't see J at all, or most of the other children either. We could see the orchestra though which was quite interesting. There wasn't anything like the drama of last year's performance when one little girl in the front row was violently sick. The whole evening was very good & the orchestra's performance of 'The Snowman' was really quite moving. Even when the hand chimers lost the plot in 'Silent Night' & ground to a halt they were still very sweet, standing there looking at each other & their teacher helplessly. Anyway what was really good was that J said his words really loudly & clearly. Even from our place at the side of the church we could hear every word. I'm so proud of him.

To update you on what happened with psychologist. We took J to her house Friday before last & she spent 2 hours putting him through tests while we went to Sainsburys which is nearby. (I got a complete shock when we went there because I didn't know it's been completely revamped & it's hardly recognisable. They've got an upstairs now with a nice cafe & a large clothes section. The only problem was that a large part of the car park is covered but where are the disabled spaces? Out in the rain!)
Anyway we went back & had a long talk with her & she was really nice. What she said was quite a shock though. She thinks J's problems are due to a form of Attention Deficit Disorder (not the hyperactive kind) and the main way to deal with it is though technology - using the computer & voice recognition programs & in exams he should be given extra time. She also said that his intelligence level is in the gifted range & in some of the tests he scored the maximum possible. It was noticeable that his working memory score was considerably lower than the others & probably accounts for his problems learning his times tables & that he doesn't always remember what he's been told. I didn't know that ADD could cause problems with writing but apparently it can.
I think she was the first professional who's ever completely believed us when we talked about J's problems ( & she never mentioned the words 'only child') but it's a bit daunting to think this is something he's could have to live with for rest of his life. I don't really know that much about it so I'm going to have to start doing some research. When we took J back into school his headmaster said that we could have a meeting with him & J's teacher to discuss way forward which is encouraging.
J has a few lines to say at school carol concert today. I told him to put words in his pocket just in case his mind goes blank. This happened at cubs concert last year. He & some of the others had written a play between them but when J came to say his part he couldn't remember it & stood there opening & closing his mouth helplessly. The trouble was none of the grown-ups knew the words so we couldn't help him & if the other cubs knew them they didn't say. Eventually it came back to him - huge sigh of relief all round.

Hi it's me back online again!
Our family safety filter is really efficient. It works by not letting you into the computer at all!
Actually it only took a couple of days to sort out & we can now get straight in about 1 in 4 times. The other reasons I haven't been on my blog recently are:

1) Got locked out of blog & couldn't remember password & hadn't got mental energy to go through process of changing it as suffering from general tiredness, lethargy & feeling like not doing anything at all.
2) Eyes been bad but now a lot better.
3) Up to neck in J's exams.

Perhaps I should just get over writing about the exams now because it's quite a painful subject, in fact it's very painful. So ok, J was doing 2 exams one for grammar schools & one for technology college. The scenario I expected was that J would come out of first saying it was really hard but sail though second. What happened was he came out of first really cheerful & saying it was lot easier than he expected ( I don't think that's any guarantee he's done well though). In previous years they've had comprehensions from the classics such as Thomas Hardy but in his paper they had a piece about latitude & longitude which was right up his street. Anyway over last week or so we've all 3 come to conclusion that school we really want him to get into is Technology College. On Saturday he did exam & came out almost in tears saying it had gone really badly. He has real problem filling in multiple choice answer sheets & we hadn't realised that that's what it was going to be. Therefore he hadn't managed to answer 16 of questions even though he knew answers. I asked teacher about format of exam when we went round & I'm sure he said it was circling the answers, of course he didn't realise relevance to J. I've been going on real guilt trip as I wish I'd found out more about it in advance & phoned up when we got psychologist's report & asked for extra time for him. The thing is I'm still trying to get used to fact he's got a learning difficulty & get my head round it all. I phoned up school yesterday & they said if I put it all in writing they would consider it. Probably if they're not prepared to be understanding about it it wouldn't have been right school for him anyway. Anyway I put phone down then burst into tears then sat down & composed letter & put psychologist's report in with it & sent J into post office with it after school. So that's that, all I can do now & I'm just going to have to make real effort to trust God that he will get into whichever school is right for him. 3 months until we find out!