Ok after talking about it for ages my mum rang and booked their cruise today, the cruise is at the end of May and we are going to Fiji and yes I said we, Tim and I are going on the cruise as well which is why I am so excited.

It has been another coldish and very wet day, this morning I had to pop out to return some items to the library and also had to go and pick up the application form for Natasha to go back on the waiting list for another Dept of Housing place. The tenancy officer for the place she gave up her the forms but she stuffed it up filling it our and had me go to get another lot of forms.

We have Leo here for the night at the moment it is just him and me here as both Tim and Natasha are at work, neither of them will be home till sometime after Leo and I have gone to bed. I also made sure Jessica gave Leo his medication before dropping him off and as such he has been good.

Tim made arrangements for an electrician to come and install the ceiling fan in Natasha’s room he said something about Thursday well that is what I heard, Tim hasn’t been too clear with me but you can bet that somehow it will be me who didn’t listen and not him who didn’t explain.

Yesterday I mentioned how I had to go back to bed after only being up for a few hours and that I slept for 2 hours, well last night as I got my night time medication I discovered that I took the night time medication in the morning, which is why I was so tired. I have 3 tablets that cause drowsiness well let’s be honest I am not drowsy I get down right tired which is why I take them at night.

I make my weeks medication up in one of those 7 days containers that have morning and night and I somehow managed to take the wrong lot.

It is my niece Temika’s 6^th birthday today, she had wanted to go camping but that didn’t happen with all this rain. I hope she had a good birthday anyway.

It’s fun day Monday, ok it’s not but it sounded good to say/write it.

This Monday I woke up to rain not drizzle not showers, not just rain but pissing down rain so no morning walk for me.

What really sucked was that after only a couple of hours I was sitting watching telly when Natasha looks at me and tells me that I should go back to bed as I look like I could fall asleep, at first I said no I would be ok but then I thought why am I forcing myself to stay awake when I could go back to bed for a nap so that is what I did. I ended up sleeping for two hours and have felt a bit more with it since I woke up the second time.

Being that it has rained pretty much all day I have not done much of anything, read a couple of dozen blogs or maybe a bit more. Now I thought I might find something to write about and what did I come up with. Nothing much that’s what.

I can tell you that on the 3^rd January 1815 France, the United Kingdom and Austria formed an alliance against Russia and Prussia, did you know that I didn’t just saying.

I can tell you that on the 3^rd of January 1496 Leonardo DaVinci unsuccessfully tested a flying a machine, did you know that, I didn’t just saying.

Also on the 3^rd January the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge began.

Lastly on the 3^rd of January 1959 Alaska became the 49^th state of the United States of America

I am home alone for a few hours till Tim gets home from work around 6ish I think, Natasha left for work around 2ish so I get a few hours to myself.

Oh what a Sunday I have had, this morning I read some blogs and then Tim said he wanted to go and check out a caravan ok it wasn’t local it was a 40 minute drive away, so we go and the van looked ok but Tim has a bit of knowledge with vans and as it was a pop top van so Tim goes over it well which is good he knew what he was looking for. He wanted to check how old the sleeve was and he said it was the original sleeve and since the van was a 1988 van that is pretty old and he said he could tell by the feel of it that it will need replacing. There were a few other things that would need to be repaired and in the end he thought it was too much work needed on it so he didn’t want to pay $6,000 for it. He also noticed that the plate of the van said 1984 but the rego papers said it was a 1988 van, have no idea what was with that.

On our way home we stopped at a few car yards to check out cars and at the third car yard I found I was unable to stand my back was aching so much, my arm was aching a lot and my balance was shot. So the next couple of car yards I stayed in the car while Tim checked out what they had, we didn’t find anything.

When I got home I was so tired that I took some pain medication and the medication for my tremor and went to bed for a nap, I slept for 2 hours then got up and sorted out the medication which I do each Sunday afternoon.

On the way home Tim says its raining ahead and in about 2 minutes we entered the rain the closer we get to home the more it rained in fact it was pissing down by the time we got home.

I would like to tell everyone that after my nap I felt better but in truth that would be a lie I work up feeling like shit still.

Speaking of feeling like shit, Natasha had been feeling pretty crook the last couple of days, I hope she feels better tomorrow as she has to work tomorrow night and every night for the rest of the week.

Hey hey it’s Saturday, and this Saturday has been a bit busy, this morning Tim wanted to go and buy another ceiling fan which we will put in Natasha & Blain’s room and it has a remote with it, it was reduced from $96 down to $59 so a good deal. I just have to find an electrician to install it that I will do either tomorrow or Monday morning.

This afternoon after getting home Tim decided to clean out the car and he said he was going to wash it buy now he is sitting on the lounge and doesn’t look like he is going to move so don’t expect it will get washed today.

Natasha cleaned the bath and shower this morning, they have not looked so clean in a bloody long time she also did all the washing and vacuum out. I will just have to go and get the clothes of the line soonish.

The other day Kathy-Lee was here and asked me to make her a toasted ham and cheese sandwich , so I am making the sandwich and she asks me if my toasted sandwich maker is broken (note I was using it) I tell her no it’s not broken why did she asked and she said because you moved the sandwich from the maker to under the grill. I then explain to her the best way to make a toasted sandwich that has cheese in it.

First you butter the bread and place it butter side down into the toasted sandwich maker and add the ham and cheese and more ham and more cheese then you add the top slice of bread butter side out and close the lid and let it cook till you can just see the cheese starting to ozz out the side of the sandwich, then you move it to under a hot grill and watch carefully till the bread is nice and brown and crunchy then you remove the sandwich place it on a bread bored (has to be wooden) leave it for a few minutes so the cheese sets and doesn’t leak out when you cut the sandwich and also doesn’t burn your mouth when you take a bite.

She didn’t know any of this so she learn something.

Another day another year, or should I say hello 2016.

I spent New Year’s Eve day shopping and the night was spent mostly sleeping. Year long gone are the days when I would stay up to see the new year in, I just can’t be bothered and unless I cam watch fireworks from my back yard I am not interested. Although have to say there has not been any fireworks in my area at all for the last few years which sucks.

Blain has gone to his father’s although I am pretty sure his dad would had worked last night, he is a security guard so he would had spent the evening with Kelli and Daemon and maybe Jessica.

Yes Jessica said she was spending the night with Kelli but she didn’t take Leo with her, I had Leo for the night well when I say the night it was only the night if night starts at 3pm. I still have Leo as I write this at around 11am I have no idea when she will be turning up to claim her son.

Natasha went out for the night with her cousin Samantha and from what I hear she had a great night out.

Leo and I were in bed by just after 8pm he likes me to lay down with him when he goes to bed, if he falls asleep quick I might get up and go back to watching telly but often by the time he is asleep I am also asleep so naturally I don’t get up if I have fallen asleep as well.

Oh yeah it is another nice day here, not too hot at the moment and it felt nice when I went for my morning walk, the last few days I have been able to go extend the distance I walk but I am so exhausted when I get home.

The medication I take to help control the tremor seems to be working yes my hand still shakes just not as much so that is good. The arm though still gets quiet sore and stiff even when I first wake up the arm may feel stiff and sore and it still doesn’t swing when I walk and it still shakes when I walk but overall the medication seems to be helping.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,000 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Hello everyone, another nice day in my part of the world, not too hot nor too cold just as I said nice. What do I have planned for today, nothing much, I have gone for my early morning walk and it was nice out walking today. I am also of course going to see my nanna, and we are taking Temika & Liarna as they want to go and see great-nanna.

I have a small pile of letters to answer, so I want to get a start on them, although my printer is low on ink and Tim is slow to give me money for ink and of course I have not been able to find a cheap genetic brand of ink for my printer, the old printer I could get ink for only $7 this one it costs $26. So at the moment I can only print in blue or red, I also can’t add photos to my letters as they don’t come out that well.

The house looks pretty clean most days now, this is due to having Natasha and Blain here, she is a neat freak and likes to clean. Although yesterday we did a couple of loads of washing and she would not let peg the clothes out on the line, why, because I don’t peg them out right, meaning I don’t peg them out how she likes. I am not allowed to vacuum either because I don’t do it right. So how do I feel about that, well if she wants to do these things that is ok with me.

In other news a family member had a car accident in the early hours of yesterday, they collided with a park car and I don’t think they were wearing a seat belt as their head hit the windscreen and also they were drunk as a skunk, what a strange saying as I don’t think skunks drink grog but you know what I mean, well I hope you know what I mean.

Because they were so drunk logic was being drowned by the grog and after the accident they thought it would be a good idea to first try and remove the licence plates and when that was too hard to do they thought screw it I will just walk/stumble to where I want to go, so when the cops turned up they thought it might be a good idea to try and hide from them cops, why because they were so damn drunk.

Thankfully the person who had the accident wasn’t seriously hurt, and after being in hospital for most of the day, including a stint in ICU they were allowed to leave, I won’t say go home because that wasn’t going to happen as they were under arrest and was taken from the hospital to the cop shop. That is all I know at this stage, we all know that drink driving is stupid but many young people may know it is stupid when they are so drunk common sense and logic get drowned by the grog.

This person is not the first member of the family to attempt to drive while drunk and I doubt they will be the last family member to attempt to drive while drunk, many people will go on about how they don’t drink and drive, I included I don’t drink and drive but I know some young people do, yes it is wrong and dangerous but for many it is just one of them many stupid things they will do.

There are very few people who can say they didn’t do really stupid things when they were young, I have done stupid things myself way back when I was younger.

Well the year is coming to an end, but it isn’t over yet so no end of year post just yet, instead I will tell you a bit about my Christmas. There was only Tim, Tasha and myself here on Christmas Eve, Blain was at his fathers and Leo wanted it to be just him and his mum Christmas morning so they were not here Christmas Eve either.

So we get up around 8ish and gave Natasha her presents and Tim and I exchanged gifts I gave Tim a gift voucher and he gave me a bunch of clothes which I had picked out and bought and bagged up, I am ok with that at least I got stuff I wanted.

Then around 8.30am Jessica and Leo turned up and we gave them their presents, I love to watch Leo open presents he gets so excited about every gift, unlike Blain who is like blah about presents it is rare to get a wow out of Blain.

Anyway after the opening of presents we packed the car ready to go to my parents place, to exchange gifts, I went over around 10ish but Tim and the girls and Leo didn’t turn up till around 11ish.

This year I had not only Tim but Tasha complaining that I spent too much money and shouldn’t be giving gifts to everyone, in fact this year I didn’t give anything to my nieces or nephews as I felt like I wasn’t allowed to do so.

Also this year I felt really sad on Christmas morning, I don’t know why, in fact to be honest I have been feeling sad a lot lately and have had many days when I just want to cry, this morning included.

There was only about a dozen of us for Christmas lunch, Kathy & Michael were in Sydney visiting his parents so didn’t see them at all Christmas Day, Kathy and Summer came over on Boxing Day to see us and I gave Summer her Christmas bag of presents along with Kathy’s.

My daughters didn’t stay and my parents place for lunch as both said they would rather be home alone, Natasha and Blain called in and picked me and Tim up and brought us home as both Tim and myself had a few drinks I even had a couple of glasses of wine which is odd for me as I am not a wine drinker.

I did get a lot of awesome presents from my family a lot of bath stuff and jewellery and clothes and such, this picture is one of my gifts that I got.

Natasha thinks my siblings and others do not appreciate me but I think she is wrong, I do feel appreciated more or less, yes there have been times when I have not felt appreciated and taken for granted.

Yesterday Kathy & Michael came over for lunch and we gave Michael his Christmas gift, and also gave Sydney-May her bag of presents she seemed to like all she was given and yes she was excited and that is always a good thing.

Tasha is off work at the moment she goes back on the 4^th and we have Blain here this week so he is getting to spend a lot of time with his mum which makes him happy as he does miss his mum a lot.

Also Jessica brought a gingerbread house for Christmas Day and everyone tried it and most of us liked it but could only eat a small about, talking about ginger made  us think of Aunty Joyce who loved her ginger.

Today is Boxing day for me, it has been a quiet day here. Tim is at work and I went over to my parents place to pick up our car. We left it there yesterday and had Natasha drive us home as both Tim and I had a few drinks.  Now I will tell you a little about Boxing Day.

Boxing Day takes place on December 26th and is only celebrated in a few countries. It was started in the UK about 800 years ago, during the Middle Ages. It was the day when the alms box, collection boxes for the poor often kept in churches, were traditionally opened so that the contents could be distributed to poor people. Some churches still open these boxes on Boxing Day.

It might have been the Romans that first brought this type of collecting box to the UK, but they used them to collect money for the betting games which they played during their winter celebrations!

In Holland, some collection boxes were made out of a rough pottery called ‘earthenware’ and were shaped like pigs. Perhaps this is where we get the term ‘Piggy Bank’!

The Christmas Carol, Good King Wenceslas, is set on Boxing Day and is about a King in the Middle Ages who brings food to a poor family.

It was also traditional that servants got the day off to celebrate Christmas with their families on Boxing Day. Before World War II, it was common for working people (such as milkmen and butchers) to travel round their delivery places and collect their Christmas box or tip. This tradition has now mostly stopped and any Christmas tips, given to people such as postal workers and newspaper delivery children, are not normally given or collected on Boxing Day.

Boxing Day has now become another public holiday in countries such as the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is also the traditional day that Pantomimes started to play. There are also often sports played on Boxing Day in the UK, especially horse racing and football matches!

The 26th December is also St. Stephen’s Day. Just to confuse things, there are two St. Stephens in history! The first St. Stephen was a very early follower of Jesus and was the first Christian Martyr (a person who dies for their religious beliefs). He was stoned to death by Jews who didn’t believe in Jesus.

The second St. Stephen was a Missionary, in Sweden, in the 800s. He loved all animals but particularly horses (perhaps why there is traditionally horse racing on boxing day). He was also a martyr and was killed by pagans in Sweden. In Germany there was a tradition that horses would be ridden around the inside of the church during the St. Stephen’s Day service!

Christmas is full of old traditions, like eating turkey on Christmas day, sending out Christmas cards, hanging tinsel around the house, but why do we do it and how did it originate? Here’s the facts.

Turkeys were first bought into Britain in 1526, before this time, for Christmas meals people used to eat geese, boars’ head and even peacocks.

Turkeys were eaten instead of cows and chickens because the farmers needed their cows more for their milk, and needed their chickens for the eggs, which back then were more expensive than they are today. So instead of killing off one of their livestock for Christmas, they’d have a turkey as it was something different and they could save their livestock to produce more milk and eggs..

Henry VIII was the first person to eat a turkey on Christmas Day, however it wasn’t until the 1950’s that the turkey was a more popular Christmas meal choice than the goose.

The good thing about Christmas Day and turkeys is that Christmas is a family time, and turkeys are family size!

87% of British people believe that Christmas would not be the same without a traditional roast turkey.

Today in the UK, we eat around 10 million turkeys every year for Christmas time.

25% of British people buy their turkeys months in advance.

A survey shows that the top three most popular ways to serve leftover Christmas turkey are: sandwiches, soups/stews or salads.