Brother and Nephew

My brother Paul and his son Nicolas arrived from South Africa on Saturday. Paul is going back on Friday, while Nicolas, 19yrs, will join a tour group to visit Europe.

They caught the Underground from Heathrow and got off at Westminster to see the London Eye, then they got a train to Tonbridge to stay at Sean's house. I stayed over on Friday night and the dog barked at the newspaper boy early and neither of us could go back to sleep after that. My mother arrived at about 10h30 then went to pick them up from the station at 12h00. Not too long afterwards, Caelyn, Nigel, Wendy, Richard and Michelle arrived and we had a family reunion and meal. It was a very Autumnal evening - chilly with fallen leaves blowing around. They all left after supper so Mum, Sean, Paul, Nicolas and I went to bed.

I had a bad night. When there is too much noise, it sets my ME off again. I felt like my brain was in meltdown and quickly reached the point where I could understand very little of the conversation. As often happens after events like that, I woke myself up in the night by vomiting. Yuck!! It is the worst way to wake up! I really hate it. I'm obviously sleeping too deeply to realise that I am nauseous, hence the vomiting strikes without warning.

The next day was Remembrance Day. We travelled up to Oxford where Paul, Nicolas, Josie, Sean, Sean's nephew Patrick and I had lunch at the Randolph Hotel. It was excellent; a fine example of good, wholesome plain English cooking. After that, Sean's nephew took Sean, Paul and Nicolas on a tour of New College. When we said goodbye, Josie, Paul and Nicolas went to Bicester where they saw Bernard then to Milton Keynes where they saw cousin Barbara.

I've had a day in bed to try to recover. I've only been up for 15 min at a time then dizziness, pain and nausea sends me back to bed. I have managed to do some studying in bed so the day wasn't a total write off. Richard very kindly did a bit of shopping for me, bless him, even though he was tired after work.

I am trying to upload a video to post, and I'm planning to put some photos on here too after I have edited them. Patience! I am told that Paul and Nic enjoyed themselves and I hope that is true.