LAZY AVIE

It seems like an age since my last blog. I have sat down to write on numerous occasions only to fall asleep at the key board, not a practice I would recommend!

The problem has been partly due to the amount of pain relief I am obliged to take these days.

For several months after my knee replacement last march I was obliged to resort to massive amounts of the stuff, then just when the pain of surgery began to subside a rapid worsening of the arthritis in my wrists and thumb joints necessitated the use of Morphine.

This combined with my other tablets made it almost impossible to remain awake when seated and the house reverberated to the sound of heavy snoring…..from some every unlikely places, I even managed to fall asleep on the loo!

Two weeks ago in desperation I saw my G.P. and he recommended collagen injections and this has transformed my life. The sound of stertorous snoring has ceased and I am myself again….almost!

During the summer much has been done to the garden and parts of the house overgrown shrubberies have been tamed and awful curtains replaced with more tasteful ones. The fire in the drawing room has been fixed and now we are snuggled up and ready for winter.

I now have a really good gardener to do the rough work but I still find it odd to see someone else working in my garden and would much prefer to do the work myself.

In two weeks time we shall attend the Annual Village Pumpkin Feste and we have a very creditable entry of our own. I very much doubt if it is the largest in the village but I do hope to win the prize for the prettiest pumpkin, it really is a beauty.

Beans and tomatoes have been plentiful as have salads and we have plenty of winter vegetables such as leeks, kale and cabbages to come.

Our dessert apples won first prize at the Local Garden Show and we had several second prizes for other fruit and veg. So as you see things are getting slowly back to normal at last.

It has been a wonderful year in many ways, living once more in the countryside is wonderful and I still can't believe we are really here, nor shall I ever be able to thank my dear son for making all of this possible.

During the year his books have been selling very well and he now has a very large fan base. He still gets nervous before every book launch but that is the toll every writer pays for the pleasure of doing the job he loves.

I hope now to be able to write at least a couple of times a week in future to record the joys and woes of our ordinary lives, we shall see.