Bluehook's Diary

I started doing this diary in June. If you haven't been following have a look at the Cast of Characters which gives a quick low down on the essential day to day characters who are mentioned here...it will make more sense if you do.

Another trip to the prosthetics clinic in Swansea today but the appointment wasn't until 1.30 pm so at least I had a bit of time to get stuff done before I went out. The horses must have been hungry today, they were waiting by the fence when I went out and called to me to hurry up. I had to climb the hay stack and throw down some bales from the top and one of them seemed especially heavy so I chose that one to open up for them. They are developing patterns already when I come up to the fence with barrow, Princess immediately leans over and starts snatching at the hay while Nelly waits in the field and makes a charge at me with her ears back when I come in with the first bundle. Twenty minutes before I was due to go out the coal yard rang to say that the driver was on his way to us but couldn't find us and was outside the post office in Llwyn-y-Groes. This seemed odd because there isn't a post office in Llwyn-y-Groes but she gave me the number of the phone box he was standing outside and I phoned there and managed to establish that he was actually in Llanfair and gave him directions on how to get here. I knew he'd arrive just before I wanted to leave and block me in so I went out and backed up my car so that I could get out. Sure enough he arrived and I felt a bit sorry for him, normally they do these deliveries in twos or threes but he was on his own and had 40 sacks of coal to unload, I would have helped but I only had time to write a cheque and then go.

The drive down, through Carmarthen was worse than usual, an accident happened in a stretch of road that was single lane because of roadworks and held things up quite a while, the rain was switching on and off faster than I could keep up with and there was lots of muddy spray coming off the roads. Despite all this I was only ten minutes late, and there was actually a space in the ALAC car park for once. The latest new socket seemed to be a good fit, tight but I could get it on without talcum powder and long enough. The problem came when the socket was put into the rest of the arm and I realised that the weight was crushing the end of one of the bones in a not very pleasant manner. I tried to pick up a chair just to see what it felt like and didn't get anywhere, far too painful. I couldn't understand it at first, the previous socket had been at least as tight and hadn't done this. Then I remembered that the previous socket had been cut in half and the end remade with foam. Decision time again..... try it and see or let it be cut in half again. I went for the latter option. In the meantime one of the sensors had somehow got screwed up, probably what with all the disconnecting and reconnecting and would operate in rotate mode but not in open/close mode. That then had to be fixed as well and this was all taking rather a long time. I read a magazine, I ate sandwiches, I nearly finished my book but it did eventually arrive, fixed, and more comfortable. The sun was starting to go by this stage and I was beginning to feel sleepy.

I had a hard time driving home, first of all I wanted to go to sleep but I was also distracted by a gorgeous pink and blue sunset and that's not a safe combination on the motorway. I got off the motorway before Carmarthen and headed up the back roads, stopping for petrol at Crosshands. Somehow in the space of time it took me to fill up the tank it had gone from being sunset time to being dark time. The road wasn't as quiet as normal, I suppose it was that time of evening when people are leaving work, not exactly a rush hour but a bit of a 'busier-than-normal' hour. The worst actually is intermittent oncoming traffic, none is good, constant you just get used but when you have to flick the brights on and off all the time, sometimes going round hairy bends, it gets a little wearing, I suppose that's why we were designed with two hands. I decided to do the 'over the top' route even though it was dark and I wouldn't see the view, thinking it would be nice and fast in the dark. It wasn't, it was thick fog, and I should have know because there had been patchy little clouds of low valley fog all the rest of the way and obviously there was going to be proper fog all the way up there, but I didn't think. I was ever so glad to get home and felt like I just wanted to sleep but dinner had already been served because Lauren's School Carol Concert was on and mine was shrivelling in the raeburn. I couldn't face it straight away and sat and had a coffee with Irene and tried to wake up. We were meant to be having a house meeting tonight so that we could talk about what we will do in the event of a Y2K techno meltdown but almost half the household being out at the carols precluded this. Instead I found myself explaining it to Hansi, who seems unconcerned and thinks she can just buy a million bags of crisps.


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