Positive Stuff For A Change! (Well almost) in Scottish Meanderings

I had such a wonderful day yesterday, experiencing a window which lasted almost the whole day. A window is where the symptoms abate a little, allowing you a glimpse of your old self and letting you do relatively ‘normal’ things and enjoy them. Sometimes it only lasts an hour, sometimes a few hours, sometimes a whole day if you're lucky.

The flu finally started to disappear on Christmas Eve and I was able to get down most of my Christmas dinner on Christmas Day although in hindsight, I wished I’d told Nikki to just have the meal at her house and then come to mine afterwards for a couple of hours. She ended up staying for 4 hours and it was just too much for me in my present state. I was trying to do the dishes as we went along and ended up doing 3 loads by the time the meal finished which knackered me in itself then Lily accidentally knocked over my glass of orange juice and it went EVERYWHERE - down her, all over the table, the chair, and the floor! The meal was almost ready at that point so I had to rush to try and clean it up properly so that we weren’t sticking to the place all afternoon and the effort of that just about finished me off.

Then after we’d opened presents and did a bit of yapping, Nikki went off upstairs to give Willow some loving. She shut the bedroom door and next thing I heard her on the phone - this must have been about fourish. I was really starting to flag by that time and had to let the girls watch a Wallace and Gromit DVD and then go on my iPad because I basically had no energy to play with them. An hour and a half later the yapping from upstairs was still going on so I (literally) crawled up the stairs and asked who she was speaking to.

“Tracey” she replies.

Tracey is her best friend whom SHE SEES EVERY DAY, HAD SEEN THAT MORNING AND WHO WAS COMING ROUND THAT EVENING WHEN THEY GOT HOME!

I was furious.

I didn’t say anything but she got the message and they left not long after that - after which I had another load of dishes to do, clear up the mess, cart a heavy table and chair upstairs and sweep and wash the floors downstairs because the sticky orange juice appeared to have set up camp for the duration! By the time I sat down to a sandwich at half past 6 I hardly had the energy to eat it.

It was disappointing. Just a little bit of love and compassion could have changed that picture entirely and made the day much more enjoyable.

Yesterday made up for it though.

Ian (oldest brother) and his wife, Margaret, were due to come through on Saturday but had really bad coughs so delayed leaving by a day to see if they might be a bit better on Sunday. They weren’t so ended up travelling on Christmas Day itself but had to pop into my sister’s in Inverness with presents first which meant they were pretty late in arriving here. They were staying with their son, Craig, in his flat. Their daughter, Catriona, also stays in Aberdeen and had their first grandchild, Matt, back in March.

They were going back home this morning so only had the 2 full days here but, despite that, Ian came round on Boxing Day and took me for a short walk just to get me out. He didn’t stay long because he didn’t want to pass on his cough to me and I was paying for all the activity on Christmas Day and feeling rotten so yesterday he came back over at lunchtime and took me to a small shop about 10 minutes away where a UPS parcel had been taken after they’d tried to deliver it 2 weeks ago and got no answer. They got no answer because it was 8.50 p.m. at night and I had no idea they delivered that late. I was also in bed but could have kicked myself when I saw the UPS card sitting on the mat later on! And of course it was so frustrating not to be able to just get in the car and go to the shop (one of their pick up locations) and get it myself.

Once we’d done that he took me to a river path nearby where we had another short walk then he left to go and take Craig to work and also pick up Margaret to take her across to Catriona’s. He asked if I wanted to go as well so I said to text me when he was going and I’d see how I was feeling at the time. As it turned out, I was a bit ragged by then but decided to give it a go so we made a plan that he’d check how I was feeling half an hour after we got there and if I wanted he’d take me home then.

But I was fine! I was sooooo pleased because every time I’ve seen Matt I’ve felt pretty rotten and haven’t enjoyed holding him because I’ve been really shaky. He’s also quite clingy to Catriona and Mike so tends not to be too happy when he’s given to anyone else but he was absolutely fine with me - helped by the fact he’s at a really cute stage, smiling at everything and totally engrossed by anything anyone says. His favourite song is 'Horsey Horsey Don't You Stop' guaranteed to get a smile at any point so I just kept singing that.

Isn't it funny how there's usually one song a baby latches onto? I've actually forgotten which one Nikki used to love although I remember every time Mum sang 'Daisy Daisy' to her she was absolutely mesmerised and that was actually Lilah's favourite song as well, guaranteed to bring a smile to her face or to stop a tantrum mid-flow! Lily's was one I made up for her called 'Ten Little Fingers' and used to sing every time I rocked her to sleep - worked without fail!

Anyway here's the Gifford family complete with devoted dogs Tara & Amber who were in their lives for some considerable time before Matt appeared but who have shown absolutely no jealousy at all. And Matt isn't the slightest bit phased by their barking of which there's quite a lot - we think it's probably because he would have got used to it all in the womb!


So that was nice and I ended up staying for an hour before Ian took me home and in fact it was 8 p.m. before I began to feel a bit frayed at the edges which is a bit of a record so far. Normally I’m struggling to keep going until half past 7 when I shut the cats in downstairs for the night and get into my jammies 😀

And Ian - bless him - after dropping me off he appeared half an hour later with a huge bag of rock salt which he’d gone and bought me because we’d had more snow overnight and he knew that would mean I’d be stuck inside today unable to go for a walk because the cul de sac I’m in and my own path ALWAYS becomes really icy making me a bit wary of slipping.

The only thing is I’m not sure what to practically do with it because it’s really heavy so I can’t easily shift it about - certainly can’t lift it - and I’m thinking if I open it I can use the garden trowel or something like that to spread it on the path but then I’m going to have to store it somewhere somehow and be able to seal it and I could barely drag it through to a cupboard in the kitchen as it was. I’m thinking it might be easier to just wait for the snow to disappear by itself - the forecast makes no mention of any more thank God - but if any of you have any bright suggestions as to any way round the problem I'm all ears!

And as if that wasn’t enough Ian texted me this morning wondering if I needed any shopping because he’d forgotten to ask me yesterday! As it happens I do but I’m going to try and do an online shop if I can because they were planning to leave at 11 to get as much driving in the daylight as they could so I didn’t want to delay that - especially with the weather the way it was. They live in the west of Scotland and have a lot of long, windy back roads in fairly hilly country to navigate to get home so it was best they get on the road as early as poss.


The parcel we picked up was a little present I bought for myself after the wonderful diarist, Edna Million, told me about her fabulous Logitech ‘keys-to-go’ keyboard which she’d bought for her iPad. I realised I was pretty much using my iPad all the time now and it was doing everything my desktop pc did plus I could watch anything on it which I would watch on my TV. I’d got used to the keyboard but realised I was a bit tensed up when I was using it because of the whole touch-sensitive thing and if I could use a ‘normal’ keyboard it would be far easier.

I didn’t like laptop-like keyboards though - again because of how easy it was to inadvertently touch keys you hadn’t planned to touch so while having a look at the Logitech website, I came across the K480 one. It has a docket-like thing into which you can insert your iPad and also your iPhone if you so desire and can be used with 3 devices all at the same time. For obvious reasons, I find the phone keyboard even worse to type on - there’s the same ‘tensing’ goes on - so this really appealed to me. I spent some time on YouTube looking at reviews and couldn’t really see anything negative about it - at £40 it seemed money well spent - and now that I’ve used it for a day I’m happy to report it is!

What’s even better is I can keep it on the keyboard all the time. It works sitting on a table:


Or on my bed when I’m watching a film or something:


And even on the little CD stand I took from Mam’s flat thinking I'd never find a use for it and on which the iPad sat perfectly overnight when it was charging:


('Scuse my grubby carpet).

It even works with my desktop and I’m seriously considering getting another one to use with it as the one I have is kind of ‘sticky’ and was just a cheapie one I bought in ASDA.

The only down side is the on/off button is underneath the keyboard so I have to remember to take the iPad off before I switch the keyboard off - either that or stick something on the button so that I can locate it easily without turning the keyboard upside down (as I did this afternoon flinging the iPad with a thud onto the floor - luckily a carpeted floor).

I rounded off the lovely day last night by watching Call The Midwife’s Christmas Special on BBC - a perfect ending to a near-perfect day. It did have me brushing away tears at one point though as a baby is born prematurely and looks to be stillborn and that awful few minutes when the parents and the midwife waited for that first cry reminded me of when Lily was born. Nikki and I had that same horrible wait which was probably only a minute or two but seemed to last forever, only wanting to hear that beautiful first wail which signifies that all is well.

I clearly remember the worried faces of all the nursing staff and the anxious glances at the clock as the seconds ticked past - there must have been lots of noise because the place seemed full of people but we could hear nothing because the one noise we wanted to hear wasn’t happening.

And then it did.

Joyous sound. 😊