Tuesday 4th February, 2014                    1930

Yesterday was a miserable wet and cold day and one on which the only time other than “walkies” I ventured out was a waste of time as the supermarket had closed early.

Today was worse. No rain, just a cold wind but I woke up to find that after months of being left alone by it, arthritis had returned with a vengeance in my ankle and I couldn’t walk. I did sense it returning before I went to sleep and probably should have popped a pill to ward it off but I didn’t and I paid for it this morning.

It was particularly annoying because I wanted to get the living room floor swept, scrubbed and mopped. It is a disgrace at present due to cats puking and spreading sawdust from the litter tray then wandering around spreading it while I was away. I should have done it yesterday but I was too tired.

So after a painful hobble to the spare room to locate anti-inflammatories I took one and waited an hour but nothing happened. So I took two strong analgesics which eased it slightly but left me feeling nauseous - I wasn’t happy as this took away any inclination I may have had to do some things on the laptop for work instead of the cleaning. I couldn’t even do my laundry because hanging it up to dry means getting up on a chair as the hanging bars were installed too high. At least in the old place there was a handle to lower and raise them.

Thankfully a couple of hours ago things became tolerable and hopefully tomorrow it will be a memory. To make sure I will certainly take another tablet before I turn in.

Thursday 6th                         1630

Yesterday’s forecast dry day turned out to be another cold and wet and miserable day so once again I stayed home.

Last night I stayed up far too late, drank far too much and only woke up at eleven this morning. As soon as I turned my phone on a text arrived sent hours before asking me if I was free for lunch. At 1215. No way was I going to even feel slightly human until 1230 so I agreed to twelve thirty, had a shower and some hairs of the dog before being picked up. Sadly yet again I never thought to take my camera for we went to a barbecue restaurant and there were five adults and two toddlers in the group. I never ate much - I rarely do - but it was fun. The adults were the owner of the school I was Santa for and his wife plus another teacher from another school and her husband. Her husband is a major in the army and by coincidence he is in charge of the military freshman training for our university. If I am still here after the summer I may well see him when the next freshmen go through their paces if he doesn’t drive a desk.

Anyway, as they have been so kind and generous to me I have now agreed to “volunteer” for a couple of hours once a month. Despite my saying I really wasn’t cut out for teaching kids I was told all that was required was to get them to play act some simple scripts from a book. That I can do, especially with help from a Chinese teacher.

So we are set for more rain for days on end now with sleet on the cards tomorrow. I may however bus it to town, today is the last day of the week’s national celebration so even if I go late afternoon I should be able to get a bus back in the evening. We start back a week Monday - that will be both a wrench and a relief - and I still have 78 exam topics to dream up for the inspection plus the 14 activities to last the term, of which the latter I have two which will require an hour or so in Lottemart before we return and the others I have no idea!