Feeling sorry for myself

Its new years eve, I feel thoroughly miserable. So far today I haven't even bothered to get dressed. My hair is just plastered to my head, I am all sweaty and expect I stink to high heaven. Nice !!.
This cold etc is really getting me down and I am feeling really pathetic today.
Mother in Law is also ill and has been sick, Hubby feeling the same as me, we are such a jolly household.
I said to my hubby yesterday, please shoot me and put me out of my misery. I just don't know what to do with myself. (isn't that a song lyric!). I hate being ill, its not in my nature, but when I am, I am such a miserable cow.
This is just to wish you all a happy NEW YEAR, don't drink too much, at least I wont be hanging tomorrow, which will be a novelty on new years day.

17.22pm
After blogging this, decided not to wallow anymore and hair is not now plastered to ones head like a grease ball, and one now smells of rose's. I love my shower.
Love to you all

News

I don't really know where to start. Apologies people for not blogging, I have and still have a very nasty cold, cough, I also ache all over. I have not felt like doing anything. I did manage to prepare, cook and serve a lovely Xmas roast before dying.
I have not been on top form, however, so my family didn't feel left out, I have given them a present, they all seem to have caught the lurgy from me. Happy Christmas!!.
My sister, despite not being due to give birth for another three weeks, gave birth on the 27th Dec 06 to a little boy (I have named DAMIEN). 6lb 13oz they are calling it Harry, (it will always be Damien to me).
Hubby also whisked me away for a few days to Stratford upon Avon. Due to feeling so ill, we both are glad to be home, which is a shame, it was a lovely hotel. We did on the first day manage a trip to Warwick castle, which I would recommend to everyone, though a bit expensive, you can quite easily spend all day there, we were not feeling very well and we were there for 3.5 hours.
As my good friend Stegbeetle says in his post, I will be bloody glad when its all over. As for the end of year festivities, the way I am still feeling a hot toddy and an early night for me. Everyone can bugger off. I expect I will recover just in time to go back to work, bloody typical.

The end of the year the telly gets all reminiscent looking back on the last 12 months, this sadly is what I find happening when I get my Christmas card list out. The people on the list, that are no longer with us, I then spare a thought for the immediate families, knowing the grief they feel as there is a hole where the family member should be.
To this end, I want to wish you all a very happy new year, and may you all keep safe.

The aftermath

My bosses let me home early from work and I did manage to get home around 3.00pm. My husband and already rang me to say he was going out for a xmas drink, this was around 1.00pm.
Hubby did not come home, so I got myself all spruced up in my party outfit and went off to dinner with the darts team. The meal was nothing special, however, we did have a really good laugh. We had a few drinks with the meal, then moved onto the next venue, where we stayed until closing, by this time I was flagging a bit, my cold getting the better of me.
I snuggled into bed, and got nice and toastie, where I stayed until 7.00am this morning, surprisingly I felt much better. I still have a cold, but sore throat gone. Have I have found the cure for sore throats? - vodka !!!

Cold versus flu

The partying and the stress of the last few days seem to have caught up with me and I have a raging sore throat and cold. This seems to be most prevalent within our office, whereas the women have colds and sore throats, the men have aching muscles and flu like systoms.
I am supposed to be going to my final christmas shindig tonight and do not feel a bit like it. A night in front of a glowing log fire wrapped up warm, snuggled up to someone seems much more attractive right now.
If I dont get time to blog again - HAPPY XMAS ALL AND HAVE A GOOD NEW YEAR,

Lucky to be alive!!

Pictures speak a thousand words. The picture you see is the wreckage that FOUR young people climbed out of and walked away from last night. Two of those young people were my stepchildren.

We spent most of last night at the hospital while they were both being checked out, thankfully one was let home last night, the other one we picked up this morning. Both have cuts and bruise no bones broken. The other two people in the car did not even end up going to hospital, bloody amazing.

My step daughter was driving not excessively fast and lost the back end, over corrected which then caught the kerb and caused the car to roll approx SIX times by all accounts. It then ended up the right way up, in the fast lane of traffic. How there are no lives lost, or serious injuries is a bloody miracle

My stepson, apparently is a bit of a hero, it was getting dark when the accident happened on a very busy stretch of dual carriage way going down hill. He apparently took complete charge afterwards, as they were all very dazed and shocked, he got everyone out of the vehicle on to the other side away from the car, then he called the police, ambulances etc, himself.

The police got the vehicle and towed it away. Today we went to see the vehicle and had to pay the towing fee, £175.00 ?? broken down to £105 removal, PLUS £60 + VAT for using a winch What's that all about ? I am in the wrong bloody business I can tell you.

In the carnage my stepdaughter lost her mobile, it was ringing but we could only surmise it must have flown out of the car in the rocking and rolling. After we left the hospital last night around midnight, the road the accident happened was so much quieter we pulled onto the grass verge crossed the busy road and rang the phone, lo behold we actually found it, hiding in the grass a bit damp but fully functioning.

This was the brightness for my stepdaughter, boy did it cheer her a lot. I said to them both, better to born lucky than rich !! ( yes i know it helps, I didn't tell them that). At least they live to fight another day. phew, what a day !!

Two Down one to Go

Hence the title, I am of course referring the obligatory christmas parties. This weekend I was lucky (or unlucky as my liver is now telling me) to attend to christmas work parties.
One was in Bristol for the whole of our company which incorporates many different parts and One for our own office in Torquay.
The Bristol party seemed to be an excuse for several people to cop off with one another, married or not. (I suppose a normal christmas party then). Me, myself, No I did not, I just ended up very very very drunk, it was a free bar, some have likened it too the walking dead. I was quite sensible though and did not, when the coach dropped us off at our hotel, go into the hotel bar and continue drinking. I somehow homed in on my room, and bed.
There were some very hung over people on the train back from Bristol, myself not being one of them, luckily!!
A couple of hours kip in the afternoon and I was ready for night number two, a more sober affair, at a very nice a la carte michelin star restaurant. Pre dinner drinks, then wine with the meal, topped up frequently, followed by apperifs, I myself managed a strawberry martini, at midnight called it a night, and went home for a lovely night sleep.
I think (hazy recollections)I took a few photos, depending on how they have come out I may well add to my blog.
One more party next Friday, then I can have a liver transplant, yeh !!!

Three weeks!!

Wow it hardly seems that long, to be honest I have been at a bit of a loss at what to put on my blog, then the longer it went on the more difficult if became. So now I have just decided to burble on a bit and hope you all wont notice.
In between sorting everyone out and work I rarely seem to have time to sit and blog.
Last weekend hubby and I took our xmas trip to see our friends in Warrington. I am really glad to see them on the other side of it, one of my friends has MS and is hardly able to talk, she is very difficult to understand and is now completely dependent on other people to wash, dress and feed her etc. So sad, to see my friend in such a state. She used to be the landlady of my local, so we had numerous good nights out, shopping trips. It really upsets me, whilst at the same time I am pleased to see her, devasting.
Other things of note, stepson, is probably going to move back in with his manipulative pyscho girlfriend.
Mother In law, is in a state about what to buy everyone for xmas, though I have now sorted her just got to wrap them all now.
Husband looks like he might lose his job after xmas, he told me yesterday. Stepdaughter is seeing a bloke 18yrs older than her, whilst that is not a problem, from what I understand he is a complete waste of space.
I think I am all ranted out now, not much of one was it, but on a happier note to finish I found this article on the internet whilst cruising about on it and thought I would republish it here for you people to think about over xmas.

The History of the Kiss
Historians really don't know much about the early history of kissing. Four Vedic Sanskrit texts, written in India around 1500 B.C., appear to describe people kissing. This doesn't mean that nobody kissed before then, and it doesn't mean that Indians were the first to kiss. Artists and writers may have just considered kissing too private to depict in art or literature.

After its first mention in writing, kissing didn't appear much in art or literature for a few hundred years. The Indian epic poem "Mahabharata" describes kissing on the lips as a sign of affection. The "Mahabharata" was passed down orally for several hundred years before being written down and standardized around 350 A.D. The Indian religious text "Vatsyayana Kamasutram," or the "Kama Sutra," also describes a variety of kisses. It was written in the 6th century A.D. Anthropologists who believe that kissing is a learned behavior theorize that the Greeks learned about it when Alexander the Great invaded India in 326 B.C.

There aren't many records of kissing in the Western world until the days of the Roman Empire. Romans used kisses to greet friends and family members. Citizens kissed their rulers' hands. And, naturally, people kissed their romantic partners. The Romans even came up with three different categories for kissing:

Osculum was a kiss on the cheek
Basium was a kiss on the lips
Savolium was a deep kiss

Kissing under the Mistletoe
Today, some people seem to spend the holiday season waiting under the mistletoe in the hopes of kissing whoever passes by. But until the 1400s, kissing under mistletoe was a big commitment. Such kisses often meant that a couple was engaged.

The Romans also started several kissing traditions that have lasted to the present day. In ancient Rome, couples became betrothed by kissing passionately in front of a group of people. This is probably one reason why modern couples kiss at the end of wedding ceremonies. Additionally, although most people today think of love letters as "sealed with a kiss," kisses were used to seal legal and business agreements. Ancient Romans also used kissing as part of political campaigns. However, several "kisses for votes" scandals in 18th century England led – in theory – to candidates kissing only the very young and very old.

The kiss at the end of a wedding probably comes from ancient Roman kissing traditions.
Kissing played a role in the early Christian Church. Christians often greeted one another with an osculum pacis, or holy kiss. According to this tradition, the holy kiss caused a transfer of spirit between the two people kissing. Most researchers believe the purpose of this kiss was to establish familial bonds between the members of the church and to strengthen the community.

Until 1528, the holy kiss was part of Catholic mass. In the 13th century, the Catholic Church substituted a pax board, which the congregation kissed instead of kissing one another. The Protestant Reformation in the 1500s removed the kiss from Protestant services entirely. The holy kiss doesn't typically play a role in modern Christian religious services, although some Christians do kiss religious symbols, including the Pope's ring.

Although few religions currently incorporate the holy kiss, kissing remains prevalent throughout Western culture. Nowadays, people kiss in many contexts and for many reasons.

But not all kisses have been happy events. Works of literature like "Romeo and Juliet" have portrayed kisses as dangerous or deadly when shared between the wrong people. Some folklorists and literary critics view vampirism as symbolic of the physical and emotional dangers that can come from kissing the wrong person.

Most cultures around the world kiss today, but many have different views about when and where kissing is appropriate. In the 1990s, several news articles reported a trend of young people kissing in public in Japan, where kissing had traditionally been viewed as a private activity.


Next time you kiss someone, you can impress your friends by telling them the Roman catergory. Savolium for me please...with chips?