So this is Christmas

Well, it has been an interesting Christmas, and far from 'usual'. We began Christmas Eve with a call at 4:47 am to hear that C had gone into hospital A&E with suspected meningitis. She had been sick for a couple of days with bad headaches with violent vomiting but had been given Panadol and told to call again if things got worse. Well they did, and she has been in the backless gown since then. She's had the works - Spinal Tap, CAT scan (no cats found fortunately), blood tests, torso X-Ray, etc. J has been understandably upset given the distance. Fortunately there are plenty of people to look after C: O and his family and Bruce in particular to all of whom we are grateful. The good thing is that in this day of cellphones and email, it was easy to keep in touch - almost as easy as being there, but not quite. J toyed with flying home but Heathrow was fogged in so the gods were against it.

That same day we had another drama outside the building as a man drowned in the harbour - probable suicide. A chap saw him in the water and spoke to him, but he just dived under and never came back up. It reminds us that Christmas is not a great time for many.

It turns out that with mother-in-law B in hospital with a broken leg and father-in-law G visiting for lunch there were three of J's family in on Christmas day. Later I discovered that Dad and M had also been in hospital on Christmas day because M had pulled a muscle playing tennis. That made five! Actually the most amazing thing about Dad's story was that he had been playing tennis - the first sport I'd known him to partake in for what must be 25 years! M is good for him, no doubt at all. They reminded everyone that they would be getting married in April, so it is a shame I am so far away. Sorry Dad and M.

We had a quiet Chrissy. We had splurged on goodies at the supermarket and so had whatever we liked to eat during the day. It was an anti-Christmas Dinner, but pretty relaxed all the same. I rang the family but of course everyone was late so I only got to speak to Steve and Mum. NOONE RANG ME BACK EITHER BUT I'M NOT BITTER. I do realise that phones are a more recent invention in New Zealand and that my family is particularly backward in using them. And heck, what do we have to talk about?

Boxing Day saw another visit to M & T, my friend from work. It was a pleasant evening again. They are both ardent Terry Pratchett fans, and have a large collection of DiscWorld stuff, including a very nice model of the [casts around memory for name of place but finds nothing - Open? Magic? In fact finds very little at all which is frightening] University. (J saves me - the Hidden University.)

It was back to work again today, for me at least. Not much going on, but I have to go since I get no holiday pay as a temp. I spent some of the day writing a letter warning the (nice) landlord that the bastard elctricity company had sent him to the debt collectors. We have been fighting them since moving in and they are a useless bunch. They aren't even our provider so if we hadn't liked the landlord we'd have told them to go screw themselves. The thing is we've told them several times it is our bill, but the value is wrong, and yet still they send it to the landlord and for the same amount. If you pay L232 for 7 months there is no way the other month can be L98! Eejits.

So aside from all this we're OK. We're past the solstice so it will get lighter and brighter from now on. It was even reasonably mild today.

Oh yes, I remember the other thing. C flies in on the 17th (assuming she is well enough) and guess what day the airport workers have decided to strike - yes, of course. And for 48 hours too. We are told that C and O will get as far as Frankfurt then Lufthansa will arrange something if the strike is still on. Ironically one option is to fly them into Bristol, but we've booked to be in London! I guess we'll deal with whatever arises. At least they'll be close.