Santa's present

Nice Santa....thank you Santa....you brought me a sore throat and a streaming cold for Christmas. Yes on Christmas Day too! Boxing Day was the worst - I couldn't talk because my throat was just too painful and I felt really miserable. I didn't have the energy to play with my niece and nephew - hopefully I will feel better on Sunday when I see them again. I haven't had a cold for a whole year - why do they always wait until Christmas to attack? Anyway, we had John and Maria from over the road round yesterday (27th) and thankfully my throat was a lot better but now I'm streaming with germs.

I shouldn't complain really; there are far worse things that can happen. My friend Paula's mum had a heart attack just before Christmas - what a dreadful thing to happen. My prayers are with her.

Anyway, it was nice to spend Christmas as usual with family and I did receive some lovely gifts too, including the 125th anniversary Spurs shirt, 6 DVDs, vouchers, photo albums, 3 books, candles, clock with built in sunshine bulb, Spurs t-shirt, and 24 pairs of socks!

The 28th was a rest day. I spent a few hours putting our Sicily photos into one of the albums I received for Christmas. John and I then watched one of his DVD presents: Die Hard 4.0. What a slow and boring film... No, just kidding! It was not stop action with Bruce Willis kicking everybody's ass as usual. Good stuff! We then started watching Liar Liar on TV but then we had a power cut. The first one lasted about 10 seconds, the second and third were a few minutes and then the fourth was the long one. Luckily we had heaps of candles around the house and it all looked very cosy and festive. Maria came over to boil some water to make a cup of tea as she had guests over. I met our new next door neighbour (another Paula) in the darkness - she had just come home to find the power off and wanted to know how long it had been. She decided to go back to her boyfriend's. Hopefully, we'll get better acquainted in daylight!

I didn't go to Chris and Sandy's for New Year's Eve as I still felt really rough. I now have an awful dry tickly cough which is draining my energy. I saw the new year in with the TV and watched the fireworks over London - what a spectacular sight it was too! On New Year's Day, John invited Chris and Sandy and their kids along for lunch. Paul and his girls were in tow as well so had a house full for the afternoon - hope no-one caught my germs.

Today is the 2nd January and I still have the lurg. I've been coughing and spluttering for eight days now. I didn't go back to work today - I feel pretty rough at home so no doubt I'd feel ten times worse in the office. I'll see how I feel tomorrow...

We've been without email and the internet for 5 days now, hence no blogs. Seemed a bit of a coincident that it happened since the power cut and the same thing has occurred over the road at John and Maria's who are also with blue yonder. Their automated messages seemed to indicate nothing was amiss yet when John (our neighbour) rang them, they said there were some problems which they were dealing with. However, John rang them today and they confirmed nothing was wrong and went through some processes with John over the phone. Seems there is a problem with our router and will need to buy another one. Don't ask me - I've no idea what that means. But at least we now have access up on the pc in the loftroom.