Hello everyone. At last I have got enough done of my dreadful backlog of jobs to have time to attend to blogs etc. So there is some catching up to be done. Easiest way to do that is to post here the general letter I sent with Christmas cards as there was no chance to write proper letters this year.

Events overtook me at the end of November. I was quite happily awaiting an op for a new knee and the surgeon had promised me I would be in his six spots before Christmas.. Then I went for a pre-op appointment and my heart, which had been behaving impeccably since having a change of tablets, decided to go wonky and start missing beats again. So I got sent for an ECG and the anaesthetist decided he wasnt happy and I got given extra pills and removed from the list as unsuitable for operation. The pills put the heart right but while I was waiting for them to relent the knee swelled up enormously and I couldnt put my foot to the ground to get to bed. Fortunately I have an emercency button and was rescued two very kind paramedics who gave me morphine and carted me off to hospital. It turned out that it had been bleeding into the joint and I spent a couple of days packed round with ice and two more evenings on morphine as it did a replay each time. My dear friend Emma, thank heavens, moved in while I was away and has beem coming daily to feed ducks and sheep , walk dogs and post my amazon books [that is what in the absence of any teaching keeps the wolf from the door]. Ive more or less recovered from it all now and am back on the list but I simply dare not set foot on the sheets of ice outside my door and my poor car is sitting under the snow. The big freeze started the first day of my week in hospital so I wouldnt dare try to start it till it thaws as it is diesel and I expect that had frozen to a jelly.

Apart from all that things are OK. I am going to publish a book of Welsh poetry, not mine but the poems written by my neighbours uncle, who was killed in 1917, is famous and out of copyright.. His nephew approves and a friend who is a native Welsh speaker is proof reading for me. Im also publishing a book of short stories for a friend of a friend, this one, unlike the friends books that I publish free as he helps technically, will probably earn me some money.

My own writing is going on all right and I have several childrens animal books out there and plans for further ones. In particular I need to do a whole lot more illustrations. That takes a lot more time than the writing.

Assuming the ice thaws -----------.

But then back came the snow and all froze again. Neither I nor my friend, with whom I was going to spend Christmas Day, could get out at all. Emma returned to her three mile daily round trip and I tried to make use of the time by doing jobs that I'd been avoiding. One of these that I made a lot of progress with was putting my Russian, French and Welsh video films onto DVD to save space. Threw away a lot that I decided were not a lot of good to anyone and gave the Russian and Welsh ones to learners of the respective languages.

I also started catching up on my accounts, but that being my most hated job, is still an ongoing project. That's what I should be doing now.

Between the necessary work I did very litle writing except in my head but I did fins an interesting diversion. One of my very good friends has Alzheimers and now cannot concentrate on anything that requires extended thinking. The other two of the trio who all live together have a hard time keeping her happy and occupied. Her one occupation that she still loves is taking her beloved dog outside for a game. So I made carefully sized photos of him and all their previous dogs and pasted them onto children's large piece jig saws. Fortunately she loves these and Mary, to whose lot it often falls to keep her amused, loves both jig saws and dogs si I am quite pleased with my new skill. It drove me mad at first, partly because concurrently I tried painting over a real size adult jigsaw with acrylics copying a favourite photo of theirs for Mary's birthday, which is Christmas Day. problem! I never realized how tough and stretchy dried acrylic was and so spent hours cutting it apart. I also did a dog one for Emma but, as I am better at dogs than people, that had fewer layers and so was not quite so infuriating. [see picture]

Now I'd better really get back to the accounts.