Christmas Eve

When you are spending Christmas Day on your own and you have to tell people when they ask you it reminded me of the reaction some people have to a death - they don't know what to say to you!  I know now why my mother used to fib about what she was doing over Christmas.  It happens over and over again, that people just expect you to "be doing something over Christmas".  Well I am not.  I am sure there must be many of us who "are not" and are perfectly happy with the situation.   I also will not be giving any presents nor receiving any.  And that is ok too.  My brothers don't exchange presents and announced this to me some years ago so I stopped too and that is just about it for me as far as presents ever went after Mum died and later my ex left.  

Now the only things I do are neighbourly and concern the people who live around me and who help each other during the year.  My neighbour Sue is coming round on Boxing Day with a Christmas cake that she has baked for me and we are having sherry together.  We arranged this the other day.  My neighbour David is cat sitting for some friends in Suffolk so he has been round and had a chat and now disappeared until next week.  (David also looks after my cats when I go away). 

Chris and John across the road have been round and on the phone because they are worried about me being alone on Christmas Day but are now reassured that I will be ok following a further phone call from Chris yesterday.  The are going to the next village to be with their daughter.   John muttered that he would rather be home than in a house with 10 people and a lot of noise.  He is 86. 

So now that I have convinced everybody I will be ok we can all relax!

Yesterday felt more like Christmas Eve than today does.  I have put the bin out and the binmen's Christmas Box so that is the job done for today. Hopefully I will see the postman to give him his. 

 I didn't get out for any milk yesterday so am still heading for porridge with water for the next few days unless I get into a supermarket today.  I only drink Soya milk and it is not so easy to get in the villages.  Yesterday I got to the bakery and got rolls and mince pies but abandoned Waitrose visit because I could see that the roads were jammed and the car park jammed so carried on round the roundabout and came home.  So I didn't get a paper either.

Last night I tried  again with The Great Flood  but still could not get into it at all and a woman carrying a child too heavy for her through a flood up a block of flats and turning down help from a man who offered to carry him for her does not make good viewing panting away (even in Korean with subtitles).  It was unpleasant and went on for too long with the huffing and puffing in the water and all the stairs going up and all I wanted to shout was for God's sake give the child to the man.  Then she appeared to be having to give the child up for some experiment (it is a scifi movie) and next I see her back in a flooded flat about to, yes you guessed it, pick him up again, and I was totally lost and done for.  I turned over.

I then went to bed and started one of the books that I picked up from the charity shop yesterday when I went to the bakery.

This morning is bright and good for a day of exercises, relaxation, more exercises and who knows, I might even get into Waitrose.  My friend Christine is ringing me tonight for some normality after a day at the 'hospice'  where her husband is on end of life and in a home  (hospital full and hospice full so he has been shipped out to a home which is being paid for by NHS under scheme where if NHS can't care for you then they have to pay to put you in a home) where the staff are good but the facilities terrible and she has whats app'd me to say can she ring me tonight for some normality.  Christine is also childless and lovely and on her own, apart from the hospice visits which have been going on for weeks while husband has morphine pumped into him.

That's it for now.