Well the first day of 2024, so no more 2023 which was an annus horribilis indeed (if that is how you spell it, certainly my spell checker doesn’t think so). It would, of course be foolish to think all our health problems will end with a new year. New start? No, more like setting ourselves up for failure you might say.
To avoid this and stay ahead of the game, Mrs Summerhouse has got Covid and with her rheumatoid arthritis and serious drugs (Methotrexate / Folic Acid / steroids) this becomes a bit more worrying. Fair enough I suppose, she probably thinks it’s time she had a bit of the, what we will call for now, limelight.
All I have to put up against this attempt of hers to steal my thunder is continued peeing problems, diabetes and various infections requiring anti-biotics. I have to admit that there’s nothing new about my list, so maybe the New Year will treat me with more kindness (and throw in Mrs Summerhouse’s good health as a kind of bonus). Does this sound selfish? I hope not, she deserves any good fortune that comes her way.
So that’s where we are right now. Christmas went well enough. True ‘Attic club’ didn’t happen but Christmas Eve ghost story or rather DVD, did. Food was eaten and drink was drunk. The children were well-represented, enhanced even, with the presence of number one son, all the way from Australia, and he’s a boy who can be relied on to add a certain je ne sais quois to any gathering. This time it was, fittingly, a form of flu, maybe Australian or maybe closer to home. Anyway he’s back home now, safe and well we hope.
As for the New Year well I haven’t made any New Year resolutions for a while or even set any new goals, achievable or otherwise. And with the newspapers going for the don’t set any resolutions but learn to live with or even love, what you have, may be I’m, at long last, in fashion.
I’ve written quite a few times about returning to normality. This specifically would be related to writing this blog, playing music and working on this year’s grapes harvest. I’m just about keeping my literary head above water with a blog every two or three weeks but as for playing music well I despair. I need some tiny steps back to the role that music played in my life but as of the time of writing I don’t know what they are. The vineyard, well we will see.
I’ll end this blog on a note of normality that does exist, namely books as Christmas presents, quite a few of them and a small sample in the picture above. I don’t envy the poor sods who have to sort out all these books we own (about 3,000) when I do shuffle off this mortal coil. My daughter reinforced this concern by asking me to provide her with an inventory of the valuable ones for when I do, as she gracefully put it, cack it.
Happy days, so happy new year to you all and to us and the family