Well I guess a lot's happened, aand fortunately in some cases not happened in the last one month and five days.
On the serious front The Cat's Mother's Mother has been in hospital for a serious operation from which she is happily recovering quickly. It was planned and she and Mr Cat's Mother's Mother had known it was coming for a couple of months, but sensibly told us only on Boxing Day. That was thoughtful as it meant that the Christmas celebrations had gone ahead without any worries. Speaking of which Christmas was terrific...a large gathering at home, and the new kitchen proved its value as we cooked turkey and all the trimmings and tidied away with no problems.
Out in Cyprus, Grandad in Cyprus has been facing the challenges of getting the Cypriot version of the NHS to deal with what has turned out to be a serious heart issue. Hopefully he will be operated on in the next two-three weeks, but I suspect it may take a little more pushing. Apart from the worry that this sort of thing brings (for everyone involved, let alone the patient), there is the added dimension of distance...hard to know when to drop everything and travel there when there is immense uncertainty over timing. It has left my brother and I more worried than ever....we cannot simply go there, and find that in fact it would be more sensible to have delayed. But on the other hand, that doesn't stop us fretting. Fortunately we can fret together over the phone.
The Boy's nanny (i.e. the lovely lady who looked after him when he was younger) is suffering from cancer, but putting a brave face on it. She's not old at all, and has a heart of gold, so it seems completely unfair. We popped over to see her just before Christmas and hopefully cheered her along.
On lighter notes, the Madonna concert we saw was the weakest of theree gigs we did in December. best was the Mumfords, and a close second was the Stereophonics. Both were fun, exciting, musical, involving and done with passion. Both rekindled my interest in their music, which I guess is the whole idea.
Happily The Boy was home for Christmas, for the first time in three years. He arrived home from Edinburgh on the 17th, flew off to Norway on the 18th, before returning again on the 23rd to help eith the Christmas preparations. It was an absolute delight to have both him and The Cat home together, and the success of Christmas was in no small part due to their presence. Of course, he didn't stay long...shipping off to Kitzbuhel on the 27th to resume his part-time ski-instructing. There is such a big secret about his time in Kitzbuhel this year that I can't tell, other than to say that he must be unbelievably well thought of by his employers to have been asked to do what he did. Proud Dad is a massive, massive, massive understatement.
And into the New Year...2016 looks like being an exciting year on the work front, a happy year on the home front and a challenging one on the health front.
