under another sun

So an unexpected day at home as mum was not well with a sudden onset of cystitis. So instead Lorraine and I spent it cheerily doing small things to the house, although this business necessitated bending my thumbnail back and it filling with blood while on a ladder. Other than that I emerged unscathed and we got quite a bit done. Although at one point I had to step aside and let Lorraine and Beth heft something due to my back. Rather unmanning to watch the womenfolk hard at work.  Luckily, however, my back pain has retreated enough for me to sleep, which is rapidly improving life. The constant pain and minimal sleep I've had since the beginning of the year are not a winning combination. My flying start to the year has been rescheduled for February. Lorraine and I then took a turn about the park looking at plants and smelling the first flowers.Home after our walk, pausing at Choice Cuts to buy two little feta and spinach pies (weirdly mixed with minty peas however, which was in eve...

Last day before real life starts again. Unable to sleep, got up 2.30 and spent an hour or more in the kitchen drinking chamomile tea with an icepack on my back. Back to bed and fell asleep some time after 4. Spent the day explaining to Lorraine and Beth how much pain I was in (a great deal) much to their delight. We took down the Christmas decorations, always a slightly melancholy moment, but then found and ate the Finnish chocolate Laura and Derek sent us that had fallen down the side of the sofa. An unusual treat, full of ginger flavour and dried fruit. Also we hung a few more paintings about the place, making it seem increasingly homey. Lorraine buzzing about purposefully before the work starts again. Chatted with Janet, and will pop in to see her and Ken tomorrow on the way to another back appointment. Watched Last Tango in Halifax , which is beautifully acted and written. And so the festivities drew to a close. The diet starts tomorrow, and Betty says she is stopping smoking...

Up early for a Saturday. Beautiful day, feeling cheerful as I sauntered around the corner to buy some bread for breakfast. We dropped Beth off to the school for her Saturday job, before she returned to London, and then we walked down to the seafront. A cloudless, cool blue day and the seafront in Hove (Actually) covered in pebbles driven up by high tides and storms, and the line of benches were half buried in stones. Lots of people walking about, and even at noon casting long winter shadows. Dozens of little Lowry dogs running among people too. Lorraine and I chatted about our plans for the year, caught up in the sunny and optimistic feel to the day.  We sat on one of the groynes with the sun warming our faces, an angler or two wrapped up agains the cold. More taken aback as a hardy middle aged couple went for a swim. The water looked unutterably freezing but the skinny man who danced down the pebbles in just his speedos and then swam for ten minutes seemed completely unfazed. ...