12 December

Well I’ve spent the whole day thinking of Christmas, in a constructive way rather than just feeling sorry for myself. I have quite a nice Chris Tomlin album which I’ve been playing on and off since yesterday. It’s a mix of traditional carols and new songs, all with a contemporary arrangement, and it’s my source of inspiration for a performance song I have to play next Sunday. I remember accidently playing the album on my MP3 player, as I sat on Deal pier in the summer, and it was quite engaging then. So for a couple of hours this afternoon I sorted out music and made sure I could actually play a dozen carols such as Away in Manger and Hark the Herald, with limited access to a music copy. It’s quite a few years since I needed to play most of them and I don’t want a lot of fuss if we play outdoors at night. I’m not quite there yet, but I will be, though the weather forecast looks most uninviting at the end of the week. At least we have a 30 minute slot booked into a residential care home so that’ll work. But I love preparing and playing music and it’s a good distraction at the moment, whatever.

And I spent the morning with my eldest daughter and her husband as they helped me with Christmas present shopping at our local Outlet Store. Present buying was not totally successful although I’m nearly there anyway. But I did manage to buy myself new clothes and that is very much part of my short term plan. I need to reinvent myself in some way and creating some sort of new image is part of it. Maybe the clothes I’ve been buying these last six months are not that much different in style from what I’ve always worn, but Jane has obviously not seen any of them. And until recently I cannot recall ever going clothes shopping for myself without Jane; she basically always gave a nod of approval or a shake of the head with everything I wore. Then again I often did the same for her, though not so much of the shaking of my head. But that means that just about everything more than 6 months old that I own has a memory of Jane wrapped into it. That’s why I need some new stuff. My life is different for sure in so many ways.

And I cannot afford to allow myself to get upset again, at least for a while. Yesterday was seriously sad, with the very predictable result that today I feel very poorly. It’ll pass. But my daughter and husband had invited me out to their favourite Chinese for lunch and because I felt so weak and dizzy with M.E. I had to give it a miss. That was frustrating as I like Chinese and I enjoy their company. I’ll get better one day… that’s got to be part of the plan.

Jeremiah 29:11 ‘For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.’ (NLT)