Bottoms up !!!

Poor Phil hasn’t been very well these last few days.  He started complaining on Thursday but I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t take much notice of him.  Phil is always sniffing and snuffling and to be honest, his appetite hasn’t been affected but he had a bad night on Thursday and on Friday morning I could tell that he wasn’t right.  He had a sore throat and a cold and it was obvious that he wasn’t exaggerating.  Poor love, I’m sure he could have done with staying in bed but that simply wasn’t an option because Joe & Trevor were due at 8am to finish off the stairs.  

They were doing the top part of the stairs and I really didn’t fancy being stuck in the flat or climbing up a ladder to get access, so I grabbed my gym bag and headed for DW.  I had a really good workout, still felt a bit sluggish but it was a hundred times better than the day before.  I did ASDA then went to Sue’s for a cuppa.  I phoned Phil before leaving Sue’s and he said it was okay to get back into the flat.

I had nothing of substance in the fridge so we walked to The Gifford for lunch.  When we got back Joe & Trevor were just finishing off.  They had made good progress in the rain and the stairs look great, I am really pleased we decided to change them.  We’ve still got a lot of work to do to make them perfect but to do this we need a few days of good weather.  This is definitely a project for the New Year.

Phil was really suffering with his cold so stayed on the sofa for much of Saturday.  I went to the gym in the morning first thing and got stuck into the domestics once I got home.  Actually, I had a really productive day.  I cleaned the flat, cooked homemade tomato soup, made a big pot of chicken chilli men and got through a whole pile of ironing.   I felt very pleased with myself.

On Saturday night we met up with my sisters Louise & Julia, brother-in-law Mark, my nephew Jack and his girlfriend Emily.  They were in MK shopping for the day and were staying at the Holiday Inn in the city centre.  I wasn’t too sure if Phil was well enough to go out but he said he was, so we met them in the bar at the hotel at 7pm.  It was nice to see my Suffolk family, just a bit of a shame that Harriet couldn’t come along.  We had a couple of drinks and then went to Red Hot Chilli for the buffet.  It was a fun evening; I just wish Phil wasn’t suffering with his cold.

Fortunately, Phil was feeling much better yesterday and we slept in until 9am which is a rarity in this household.  I was feeling slightly jaded, which surprised me, because I didn’t think I’d had too much red wine; consequently it was a lazy morning and I didn’t make it to the gym.   Although Phil was feeling better, he still wasn’t himself so I fed him Lemsips and we stayed in the flat all day watching movies.

This is going to be my last posting on this blog.  I was going to let Phil have the last word on The Naked Bloggers 2012 but then I realised that I hadn’t mentioned that I would be closing off.  We normally close off at the end of year and upload to Blog2Print.  We pays our money on-line and a couple of weeks into the new year our hard back blog book arrives from America; it’s expensive but well worth it when we get to read our blog in print.  It may sound pretty self-indulgent, and perhaps it is, but it’s a momentum of the year, recording good times and bad and something to reflect upon when we are old and grey.

In this, my last posting of 2012, I am not going to dissect the year because Phil has already done that, but what I will say is that hasn’t been a great year for us.  We haven’t had experienced any major catastrophes or had health issues, but like any couple, we have had our problems.  Mum and dads move was stressful both for them and us; Aunt Daphne not surviving her operation was sad and the whole dreadful business with her estate is just awful and on-going.   We have had friends and family that have lost their jobs all with elderly parents with failing health but I suppose the biggest sadness for me, aside from my real dad’s diagnosis with dementia, has been Sue being diagnosed with carcinoid along with an ovarian tumour damaging her heart values.  

I don’t want to make Sue out to be a saint, because saint she aint, but it’s very hard to see someone you care about, go through so much pain.  I have never known anybody have so much shit or bad luck bestowed upon them and get through it.  But get through it she has, with laughter, red wine, of course some tears but most of all with dignity.  Of course she still has a couple of obstacles to overcome, namely open heart surgery in the New Year but she will get this through this operation and come out the other side, better and stronger and hopefully happier than she ever was.  God forbid me, this girl can party and if I can’t keep up with her now, god knows with new heart valves, how will I ever cope in 2013???

All that is left to be said my blog readers, is ‘HAPPY NEW YEAR’.  Let us just hope that it is a good one for all of us.

Cheers my friends, bottoms up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!