The end of the year and new beginnings

The last day of the year, and emails from Jana and Joan, who sent this picture from Ontario of Toby and Dick walking in the snow, having cleared a pathway through it first.















It was very frosty today, and we stocked up with shopping before the snow comes. Mas also filled the car with petrol as the price is due to rise tomorrow. After this Mas began to cough more, and feel rather worse; both of us were feeling tired too. Despite that we stayed up till midnight and watched the firework display on TV, and local people were also setting off fireworks.

January 1st 2010!
A bright cold day, and a holiday. We stayed home all day as Mas had been coughing all night, and both of us still felt tired. To add to this Mason's keyboard stopped working, and we spent a long time charging up batteries without success, then the TV got stuck on one channel and the video and CD player would not work. Somehow it seems as if the programming needs to be reset.

January 2nd
We awoke to a thick frost, Mason feeling very under the weather with an incapacitating cough. I walked to Edgware and bought some batteries for his keyboard, and magically it worked again. Pete called while I was out. Having randomly pushed all the buttons on the three necessary TV remote controls the TV worked again until bedtime when it again gave up the ghost. Toby phoned during the evening which was cheering; they are back in Toronto again.

Swine Flu and Halloween followed by rainbows

Yesterday was our day to go to St.Albans, but when we phoned Robert we found out that poor Tania has got Swine Flu. I decided it was safest not to meet with Robert as my immunity may be a little low. In any case I was feeling a bit under the weather and did not think the drive would make me feel better, so I decided to take it easy all day.

Later Mas and I got some shopping at Stanmore, and stocked up on Halloween treats. We only had two groups of children visit, the younger ones being watched by their parents at a safe distance. Sadly people are afraid for the safety of their children. Later, people started letting off fireworks, and this will probably go on for weeks now, but is not very comfortable for the animals.

This morning the sun was shining while we had breakfast. This time of the year the sun is so low that it shines through the Chrystal ball, that Toby bought in Portugal, which hangs in our window. This causes an array of small rainbows, that look like exotic tropical fish, to cover walls and ceiling. As they move slightly it gives Salty endless fun chasing them and trying to catch them.

I had a nice email from Therrie giving me all the interesting news from Basle, and did a bit more pinning and sewing. For someone who does not like sewing I seem to do lots of it.