I'm going to have to be quick with this as I decided to install a family safety filter on our computer this morning. I seem to have installed all sorts of things but I'm not sure I've installed a family safety filter & it's taken hours to not manage to install a family safety filter so my eyes are tired.
Actually I can't think what's happened recently except I got really upset because I said I was going home to rest after the housegroup & someone said 'How lovely to be able to go home & rest!' Then I thought it's really silly to get upset as they just don't understand.
One of the daughters of the lady who braved the storm won the Christmas card competition. J got the hump because he wanted the prize but he didn't stand a chance of winning because he didn't enter in the end. This was probably just as well as it was awkward with P being a judge & anyway even though he rubbed it out you could still see the dagger.
I bit into an orange the other day & my tooth disintegrated. I had an appointment at 9.15 today at the dentist. I got up nice & early & so did J so we were all ready to drop him at school at 8.50 so I could get to dentist on time. As we were going out of the door I reached for the car keys. Not there!!! In P's pocket!!! What can I say? Becky came & took J to school (late) but dentist had to be rearranged for Wednesday which is a nuisance as there are 2 wires sticking out of my tooth & poking into my tongue which is getting sore.
Ok, I'm a Christian, I'll forgive him. I might just kick him a bit though.

The village Unity Committee (ie the 3 churches together) is running a children's Christmas card competition for which P is one of judges. On Sunday night the weather was totally wild - almost gale force wind & heavy rain. Suddenly some headlights appeared in our drive. I opened the door &, having braved the storm & our potholes a woman from church stood on the doorstep holding two competition entries: 'The kids will kill me if I don't get this in on time!'
What most of the entrants don't seem to grasp, which does seem to be a bit of a no-brainer to me is that if you are entering a church Christmas card competition you probably stand more chance if you have some reference to the birth of Jesus on it somewhere.
What I've been trying to get through to J is that:
a) While it is an original idea it is highly unlikely that in the corner of the stable there was a pile of presents & a Christmas tree.
b) It is also highly unlikely that, while standing in front of the manger, one of the shepherds carried out the ritual sacrifice of a lamb.

Went to village Remembrance Service on Sunday. Not sure whether to go as P doing sound system & I had to hang around for 2 hours altogether & it was cold! Glad I did though as J was in parade with other cubs & scouts etc & he was chosen to help lay wreath. Good job I got his hair cut!

Bathroom update:

• We have got a door!!! ( We just won't mention the position of the light switch in relation to the door).
  

Update on birthday:

• Dad & brother both phoned up. They remembered! Dad sent me a lovely decoupage card which his stepdaughter had made. The only problem with decoupage cards which we discovered when P's brother sent them to him, J & his Dad (whose birthdays are within a few days of each other) is that you have to pay more than standard postage cos they're so thick. The person sending them usually doesn't realise this. Anyway it was very nice.
• Some time we are going to go away for a weekend for my birthday, possibly to Shropshire but would rather leave it until I'm feeling a bit better & weather better cos it's wet & miserable right now although the Autumn colours are beautiful.
  

J ended up being out or busy Mon, Tues , Weds & Thurs so still had to do some homework Fri morning which wouldn't have been so bad if he hadn't woken up late. He realised he had more homework than he thought & it was all writing. He got in a real strop about it which made us late. We are supposed to pick Tim up from the Village Hall on Fridays as both he & J go to "Gym Trail" at 8.45, this is a sort of activity thing at school for children with co-ordination problems or some sort of learning difficulty. We arrived at 8.44 & there was no sign of Tim so assumed he'd gone on, I dropped J off & was driving home when I saw Tim walking from Village Hall - they were even later than us. I picked him up & took him to school. As I parked I said 'Watch out there's a car coming' quite casually as J is very careful about opening the door, the next thing I knew Tim had swung it wide open so other driver had to slam brakes on, he then calmly walked across in front of car! It's an interesting thought as to who would be liable if car had hit our door - would it be us or Tim's family? Probably if a child's in your car your're responsible for his behaviour, I'd better watch out in future.

I then went to doctor as my eyes are still being troublesome. He looked at my eyes through magnifying glass & told me to look at him. His face just looked so funny magnified I couldn't stop laughing. Anyway he said I've got 'dry eyes' which means my eyes aren't making enough tears so I might have to put eye drops in my eyes several times a day for the rest of my life. The only thing is I hate putting things in my eyes. Still there are worse medical conditions to have.
After school took J to town to get his hair cut. I let him say how he wants it done now & he's so funny about it, it didn't look too bad afterwards, just a little bit long. On the way there I almost did something terrible - I nearly ran into a guide dog with my scooter. It doesn't get much worse does it? They're talking about introducing driving tests for scooter drivers, perhaps they should. Anyway I missed it, that's the main thing.
I let J go ahead to 'Game' while I looked in a couple of shops. When I got to 'Game' J was playing on the xbox360 with another boy, they both had red hair, red sweaters & grey trousers, the only thing was J was 6 inches taller.
J then went for a foot long subway & went home & ate pasta for dinner. Where does he put it all?

Update on recent events:

• Meal out at pub very nice
• Bonfire night went well. Fire huge but sadly caravans didn't burn down. Children seemed to enjoy running round in long grass waving glow sticks & screaming as much as watching fireworks.
• On Thursday P & I went to unveiling of memorial bench for colleague of his I mentioned before who died in his 40s. This was some distance away in a nature reserve in Cambridgeshire. There was a long walk down to the bench but the ranger took us in his Land Rover. The bench was in a beautiful spot overlooking a lake & afterwards there was a nice lunch & we chatted to his family who were very friendly. But it's just all so sad.

Yesterday got off to a hectic start. J had come into our bed in middle of night after a nightmare. From that point on none of us got much sleep as there was a lot of tossing, turning & pulling bedclothes off other people. Basically he's just too huge for our bed now. But we all must have fallen asleep at some point because at ten to eight we woke up! Ten to eight! Help! Still, somehow after a mad rush J & I got to school on time although he was eating his cereal in the car.

Weather was a bit horrible - that sort of very fine miserable drizzle so what I decided to do was go shopping. We went to Hobbycraft in local town cos I've never been there & I bought some wool & a crochet hook as that's what old ladies do, sit & crochet. Then we went to large shopping centre. P was very patient which makes up for battlements & dungeons (see previous post). He wanted to buy me a watch but we couldn't find one I liked, my wrist is quite small so large designs swamp it. We got some nice chocolates though from Hotel Chocolat.
Today feel quite tired so have been lazing around mostly. J is on a school trip to Imperial War Museum to see Exhibition about Children in World War 2. Perhaps it'll make him grateful, perhaps he'll just eat his dinner wthout complaining. Perhaps he'll be grateful he's got so many toys & games. Perhaps...
Tonight the three of us are going to the pub next door for a meal which should be good. Hope P isn't stopped for pushing a wheelchair under the influence of alcohol on the way back.
Tomorrow the firework party of the century is happening & it's happening round ours, well ok we're having a few fireworks & Tim & Adam & their families & probably the people next door are coming round & bringing some fireworks & some food & we'll have a huge bonfire & bake some potatoes & it'll be fun! P's bonfires can get seriously scary so watch this space!

Woke up in a bad mood today. Gettng ready for church felt like trying to run uphill through mud. I kept saying to myself that the minor tribulations of my life - wrenched neck taking off nightdress,water not really hot enough, couldn't find makeup, didn't know what to wear, skirt I then decided to wear found festering at bottom of laundry basket, boots won't stay up cos of lack of calf muscles, I wish I wasn't so fat, all cereal bowls in dishwasher, why couldn't P have put the Yellow Pages away instead of leaving it on the chair & why is it that however hard I work to create clear spaces on the worktop someone just puts something on it straight away & why does J have to make so much fuss whenever I ask him to wash...really on the scale of human suffering & when you think of what people are going through in the Congo it's all nothing.
Headed off to church with bowl of grapes (for church lunch) on my lap. P drove more carefully than last time we were transporting a bowl of grapes when he braked suddenly & there were grapes everywhere. I think some of them were a bit gritty when people came to eat them.

Church lunch was good - baked potatoes, only problem was that Adam doesn't like baked potatoes. Somehow I ended up eating 2 lots of chocolate pie & a cupcake. They gave me some flowers which was nice.
J really nagging us to have fireworks on Weds, we'll see.

We went to Norwich on Friday. It was a sunny day although a bit cold. Norwich is a fascinating city with lots of interesting & unusual little shops. I would have liked to go round the shops a bit more but P & J weren't all that keen. We went to the castle museum & P & J went up onto the battlements & down to the dungeons while I sat in the cafe for 1 1/2 hours. I couldn't really get through to them that that wasn't 100% fun for me & if I do that for them they should then be prepared to spend the same amount of time going round clothes shops with me. But where they wanted to head next was the model shop. This is one of the really frustrating things about the wheelchair, if I could walk I could just leave them at the museum, say 'see you in 2 hours' & head off to the mall. Really what I need is to get a little scooter to take with us on days out but they're quite expensive & I keep thinking it's not worth it as I'll be better soon. Perhaps when we sell Dorothy's house I'll get one.
On the way home we stopped off at a pub & had something to eat. I had cod & chips which was really nice but I keep thinking now I'm getting older I shouldn't be eating food like that, or perhaps just occasionally. On one table near us a woman was chatting on her mobile phone while the man ate in silence. On the other table near us the man was chatting while the woman ate in silence. This is obviously what passes for 'going out to dinner together' these days. I then remembered I needed to ask Becky to mind J Saturday night but I decided to text instead. What did we do before mobiles?
Yesterday night we went to a 40th birthday for one of P's colleagues. I can really clearly remember her 30th party, we brought baby J along & he kept dribbling over people. It was a really good party although the music was a bit loud (I am getting old!). One thing that was a bit sad though was that a good friend of hers, who was a larger than life character & would definitely have been there, died suddenly aged 43 earlier this year. There was a sort of gap where he would have been.
I'm just thinking how old I'll be when she has her 50th. I can't say I'll probably have a walking stick then cos I've already got one. Perhaps I won't have one by then. Perhaps I'll be dancing the night away.