The picture above this one was created from this photograph:
Doing this sort of thing with pictures is a happy and absorbing hobby for me, and I started it by accident. I'm glad I did, because it has given me a lot of pleasure over the past few years. Best of all, when my illness confines me to bed, I can do things with pictures on my laptop as the effects of the relapse start waning.
Caelyn and Nigel
Caelyn's baby must have been lying on a nerve because her left leg went from under her and she fell. Nigel has banned her from going outside in the ice and snow.
My mother picked Wendy up at 10am and took her to Kids Planet. Wendy was so upset to have to leave the place at 2pm that she had a tantrum. She will be back in nursery school tomorrow. She loves it there, and Caelyn loves having a bit of peace to rest or catch up with housework or to read a book. She should enjoy this phase of pregnancy because after the new baby arrives she will be busy even when Wendy is at school, and that busy-ness will last for several years until the new baby is ready to go to Nursery school. Having a child is a 24 hour a day job, which is why mothers of young children get tired.
Nigel is having nasty tummy troubles again and had to go to the after hours GP service at the hospital last night. Seadoc said that the condition was not sufficiently severe to warrant immediate hospital admission but Nigel has to see his GP because he needs further tests. You can see he isn't well as his face is very pale and he looks tired and unwell. Get well soon, Nigel dear. He went to college yesterday because his attendance hasn't been good due to health problems, and if he misses too much, the college won't allow him to write qualifying exams.
The reason he is studying is to plug a hole in his CV. He was fired from his last job because of sickness absence and he couldn't get another job until he had seen a Consultant and had his medical problems under control, but the waiting list to see the Consultant was almost a year, and that was for 'Urgent' cases. If you are unemployed because of health problems, you won't be able to get a job until the problems are resolved. Nigel realised this, which is why he has been studying. He hopes that his health issues will be under control by the time he qualifies so that he can get a good job. He worked consistently for years until he fell ill, and when he was working, he paid his taxes and his National Insurance monies. It is hardly his fault that gastrointestinal provision in this area is so poor. Nigel is doing what he can, but for the situation to come right, other people or organisations need to do what they ought to do, because Nigel is in an impossible situation through no fault of his own.
And the people who love him hate to see his pinched pale and pain filled face. He used to ask his GP about his Consultant appointment but it took so long that he became disheartened and eventually stopped asking. Perhaps the GP thought that when he stopped complaining that the matter had spontaneously resolved itself. Also, he changed GPs when the family moved so perhaps the referral is in File 13 somewhere. I'm going to start nagging now because this ridiculous situation has gone on quite long enough already.
Michelle
A while ago, Michelle asked her employer if she could do more day shifts and less 24hr sleepover shifts, and it was agreed that her new shift pattern would start from 5 January. It has started, and Michelle is pleased even though she will earn a lot less money. Money isn't everything though, and I'm glad she hasn't allowed money to be the deciding factor as she makes choices about her well being and lifestyle.
She is finishing off her NVQ and she has asked me to type it for her. If my typing school teacher could only see me now! I failed typing with the lowest possible mark of 0 to 19%! My fingers just wouldn't hit the keys in order and I was told that I was welcome to study other subjects during typing classes because the teacher and I both knew I wasn't going to pass. The condition was that I had to promise not to take a secretarial job!
My abysmal typing was the reason I was terrified of computers. I thought if I couldn't operate an old manual Olivetti, which was a simple machine, there was no way I could learn computing which was much more complicated. In 2003, I bought a computer for the kids' school work, and they tried to teach me to use it. I kept having to ask for help and they used to say "Come on, Mum, you can't be that thick. You're putting it on to wind us up". I took myself off to an Adult Education computing class and now my computer skills are better than theirs, and they ask me how to do things now.
When I learned to write, it was with a fat pencil. After a few years, we were taught to write with those wooden pens with nibs that had to be dipped into an inkwell and mopped up with blotting paper. The class Monitor would go round each morning and fill the inkwells with Stephens blue/black ink. It had such a distinctive smell and with the smell of chalk it made a typical 'school smell'. Later on we were allowed to use fountain pens but ballpoint pens were banned throughout my school career as it was thought they 'ruined your handwriting'. To get from inkwells to using a computer is major progress, isn't it?
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