Bored with Christmas now.....It is raining. Wish I was in France.

My new year resolution is to be more cheerful.

Family coming to dinner tomorrow night and staying over, in dad's room. I have prepared room with expensive air freshener and my White House bedlinen but it still looks dingy. I wonder how M. will feel about redecorating. Our belongings - clothes, books, pictures and furniture will have been in store for nearly a year which just goes to show that you can live without things but it is not very nice. I think we will have to make decisions soon as to what we are going to do, we can't keep on paying storage but we have too much to fit into this little house.

My new year resolution is to be more cheerful

My new year resolution is to be more cheerful

My new year resolution is to be more cheerful

Write this 100 times and I might remember it!

Happy New Year

Today we varied the traditional Christmas Fayre by having beef. I pootled through the cooking with a couple of a variations on the veggies. Instead of mashed swede and carrot combined with a dollop of butter and sprinkle of black pepper, I mashed the swede with butter and horseradish sauce. Delicious. The roasted parsnips were accompanied by batons of carrots all sloshed in honey, olive oil and whole grain mustard and then cooked in the hot oven. They weren't quite cooked enough but timing was always my problem with cooking. Pudding was to be banoffee pie, a family favourite. Having had a bad accident with the tins of condensed milk exploding in the past I was greatly relieved to find the caramel ready made and just as good. It only needed to be put together. Unfortunately, (there is always one of them in our house when I am cooking) I forgot that we had no means of whipping the cream. I fetched my son into the kitchen to hand beat it.

That lasted all of 5 seconds before he went off in search of a better means that didn't involve manual labour. If I didn't know before that my son was his father's progeny - I do now. He came back with my husbands electric drill and inserted a fork into the bit before switching the power on. It worked. The drill however was ruined. A minor detail compared to not having banoffee pie. Usually it is the men in my household who make off with my kitchen knives etc. and use them for the wrong purpose now I have got my own back. The pie was delicious except that I hadn't quite cooked the pastry base.

We went to the respite place to see dad on Christmas morning. All was well, except someone else had dad's shirt on. It's a very distinctive shirt - black with great stripes. Not many old men wear black shirts; it reflects dad's teddy boy past! It was a bit tight on the old guy. One of the carers dressed up in an ill fitting santa suit and then proceeded to do a hoola hoop routine in front of everyone! Bizaare. Then all the residents were served schooners of dry sherry. Dad downed his in one go. We left as he fell asleep.

I have been told off for not keeping my blog going. There is plenty to say but it is not all about Dad.

We are all ready for Christmas, loads of food but nothing to eat. The fridge is full up and bursting at the seams with the freezer just as bad. Prescribed menus leave nothing to spontaneity (sic).

Anyway, it is sausage and chips tonight and bags of sweets. I Bought 7 bags of sweets yesterday to put out in festive bowls to be dipped in, as and when. The as and when took place last night and five of the bags disappeared. Today I replenished.

Two of us are going to visit Dad tomorrow and the other two are going to visit the other dad then we will all mass in Brighton for an agenda packed day. Secret Santa clues still to be written which is a bit difficult as two of our lot don't know the premises very well. I am basing my clues on nursery rhymes such as: incy wincy spider climbed up the spout...etc. Spout meaning teapot which is where my first clue will be found!

Thursday came and went still no news of funding. No surprise there then. It snowed big time

5/6 inches and everywhere came to a standstill. We got stuck out and had to abandon car and walk home in a blizzard. This does not feel good. Sharp pieces of glass flinging into your face.

Managed to get into Brighton even though there were no buses or trains to see Chicago at the dome.

Theatre was sold out but only third full. Freezing cold but drove home. Lift dropped me at bottom of hill and I walked the rest. Quite worn out with all the excitement.

We took a spare pair of glasses over to dad as the respite centre still hadn't found his glasses.

As we walked into the communal sitting room dad was being taken off to change his trousers!

We sat and waited. The lightbulb lady did not look quite so immaculate but her clothes were very smart and I was quite mesmerised by her gentility. She wanted to know what day it was as her birthday was coming up (tomorrow). As we waited I pulled the spare pair of glasses out to clean them. M. said "Are you sure they're his?" I looked at them. I don't think they are his either.

They had the wrong type of lense. Oh dear.

He came in and sat down next to us but clearly he hadn't been changed into clean trousers because he smelled.

Shavers and light bulbs

We took new clothes and shaver over to dad and he did look a little more respectable. He had been moved upstairs to the bigger unit. The other residents were quite chatty, one of the ladies was flirting with him, bless. A fragile looking lady, beautifully dressed with exquisite skin was very distressed to only have one light in her room. The bulb had gone in the other. She approached everyone who came near to tell them about it and what should she do. She hadn't got a torch either. The staff kept telling her that the maintenance man would come and mend it soon. That wasn't satisfactory and she really needed it done now. She was so genteel and well spoken, her hair was immaculate. I enquired how long it would take to replace the missing bulb and alleviate the poor woman of her distress and everyone else's at having to listen to this tale of woe, repeatedly.

I was told that the staff were not allowed to change bulbs, they had to call in an outside contractor!

The world or ESCC has gone mad. The new Philips shaver didn't fit the socket!