A Varied Old Week!

Before Christmas, I spent a lot of time making extra special Christmas tree decorations for close family and friends and the Tiger was neglected. I really want to finish this during 2013 and here it is at the beginning of 2013 on 2nd January before I re-started it.

I'm also endeavouring to take more photos of Flossie. For some reason, over the last couple of years she disappears whenever I try to take photos. I don't know if she doesn't like the flash or the sound the camera makes when you operate the zoom. Either way, I've decided that this year I must try to take photos of her as often as I can to try and make her see that the camera isn't something to be frightened of.

She's actually very photogenic, so it's worth persevering with. I will be trying to take more photos of Minstrel ....... and I think his black and white colouring makes him a different sort of challenge!

On Friday evening, Mum and I visited my brother and he is much better. It turned out that he didn't have septicaemia and the clot in his vein has gone down. Rowena did find out one piece of information; apparently, during the original operation in November, his thoracic duct was nicked! Although it was grafted, there is a slight question as to whether all these 'infection like' symptoms and the swelling round the neck wound have been caused by leakages from the thoracic duct! The doctors at Queens are trying to get more definite information from Barts but it is annoying that Queens didn't originally have this information.

And on Thursday, I wrote a letter of complaint to a hospital. Not about Paul, but about my Mum. On the 4th-5th December, she was in our local hospital to have a die test on her bladder as her routine check had shown that her bladder looked a little inflamed. This routine check is because she is in remission from bladder cancer, originally diagnosed in 2005. However, within 4 days of coming out of hospital, Mum was covered in a red rash ...... and after a visit to her doctor, she was told she had scabies! She can only have got it in hospital! She was very upset about this, especially that she might have passed it onto us. Added to which, when Paul was initially ill, and very poorly, she didn't want to visit him whilst there was any possible chance of passing it onto him. In the end, she didn't feel able to see him until the Saturday before Christmas; all very distressing. It will be interesting to see the response to my letter. Mind you, Mum had her follow-up appointment on 2nd January and thankfully she's been given the all-clear. This is such a huge relief that I can't possibly begin to describe the relief.

Then Friday ....... I spent a frustrating morning going round and round the website of HMRC to complete setting up both myself and John as self-employed. I was trying to find out how to set up the payments for Class 2 NICS ..... but they certainly make it hard to find the information you need!

And finally, I spent a lot of time on Friday investigating the best approach to take in setting up a website for John's Candle making business as The Candle Cellar. So far, I've only set up a business page on Facebook but he does need a website as well. I will try and blog about how I get on, but by the end of Friday, I was beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed by all the information I'd found :)

And after all that ...... perhaps another photo of Flossie is called for :) Unfortunately, it shows th main problem with flash; alien eyes :)