Update

I am still alive, just haven't got round to any blogging lately. Quite a lot has happened recently & I probably can't remember everything. Just a few things that come to mind:

• My brother came for a visit with our Christmas presents & we cooked Christmas dinner & had crackers. It's hard to get the right atmosphere in March though!
• J has been off school sick again, his head of year is being very nice about it but says we have to get a doctor's certificate every time he's off now in case the Welfare Officer questions his absences. I wish it would just stop happening.
• P's dad is still improving, in quite a lot of pain but walking a bit further every day.
• My dad has been ill with something called Polymyalgia Rheumatica which makes him ache all over but he's responding well to treatment.
• Tim, who's J's friend & Becky's son got into local grammar school (one which J loathed). She spent several thousand pounds on having him tutored so it's good that he got in. He's over the moon. She's worried about whether he'll cope with all the work, especially as he's given up doing homework at primary school.
• We went to a quiz night on Saturday & our team won! This wasn't thanks to me. I'm getting quite concerned about my general lack of knowledge & have decided I'm going to learn 3 new facts a day. Even if I did think Helsinki was the capital of Sweden I was the only one to know the name of the heroine of Northanger Abbey. I thought everybody knew that.
• We got a desk for J's bedroom from our local freecycle. Now he's suddenly interested in sorting out his room.
  
• Yesterday I was invited to a birthday lunch for someone from church at a quite posh hotel. The main course was a little bit disappointing to be honest. It was honeyed swede & butternut hotpot. It came in a nice little pot but little was the operative word & it did remind me a bit of babyfood I used to make for J. The dessert though was wonderful - the most amazing chocolate mousse I've ever eaten. It had a giant wedge of mint chocolate with real mint & also a dark chocolate cornflake crisp with it. I'll post a photo some time.
• It's ever so cold here today.