BASKETTCASE

Day 2, Cycle 7.  Well, Cycle 6 was a bit strange.  I didn't get the anticapated horrible day on Day 5,  but then didn't really get an upsurge after that, so I really only had one normal day, which was last Tuesday once I had started my protective steroids.  Wednesday wasn't too bad, with little cold sensitivity or tingling initially, but it started yesterday.  I have given myself a quiet day today and 'finished' the 'When Grandma was Little' book.  I don't expect it really is finished as I always find I need to make adjustments for the printing phase.  I don't really understand much about desk-top publishing, I have just been learning as I go along, finding out what I need to know with great difficulty because I haven't started from the beginning.  I need Joe to come home for at least a week!

My little Nativity book is in Green Pastures, and is selling, quite slowly at the moment, but still a couple of months till Christmas.  It's good to have these little projects to work on while I am of necessity less active.  I am managing to keep up with the washing and drying, and iron as little as possible.  Until this last cycle I also had a surge of energy and organisational ability at the end of each three weeks, but I am running out of steam.  I still have overgrown courgettes needing to be made into jam or pickle, two pairs of trousers to turn up and a whole range of diabetic-friendly recipes to try out.  I don't think I have recorded here that Dave is now diabetic.  He has given up sugar in drinks, cut down on alcohol, and learned to like brown bread, but still gets the munchies.  Admittedly he is eating plenty of fruit - I have never thrown so little mouldy stuff away - but I am looking into natural sugar products like Sweet Freedom, which has a whole range of recipes on the internet said to be low GL as wll as reduced sucrose.  I haven't been given any idea how severe Dave's diabetes is, or even whether it is any more than borderline, but the Diabetes UK guidelines are pretty relaxed and I am hopeful we can do it with dietary changes and not too much deprivation.  He has lost weight anyway, so he is getting somewhere.

We are enjoying our conservatory since we got it tidied for the Macmillan Coffee morning.  Having the heating on helps, and it is nice to escape from the chaos of the kitchen for our evening meal.  We had breakfast in there every day with Sheila and Bob, while it was still sunny in the mornings, and quite often take our lunch in there.  Our North facing kitchen is so dark almost all through the day - worse since the annexe cut out the morning sun- so we are glad to have the conservatory which is still bright even on dull days.  I also paint in there, and with the craft c upboard and the shelves for the boys' paper and pens and Prits it only takes a minute to put eveything away at mealtimes.  We have moved the chaise longue from the living room as it was doing Dave's back no good.  He now has an electric recliner - on his wish-list for a long time - and the conservatory has a day-bed for snoozing on warm afternoons.

Just to finish, one of the pictures from the new book: