Deirdre Geraghty

I am not a Christian but I still really enjoy the Christmas period. On the News last night they were talking about changing the football world cup over to Christmas. I, like many others, do not watch the football and spend much of the Christmas watching those old crappy films but still wouldn’t like football on the television at that time. Although I do not know how football fans would feel about it.

I went to the Craft group at the Silver Road Community Centre yesterday. We are making ‘twig trees’ which we hope to have ready for the next Craft Fayre in time for Easter. We have covered tin cans with patterned paper and are currently wrapping foam eggs with the same. Then we are going to decorate the trees with eggs and chicks and rabbits etc.

I sat up in bed last night, television on, and both of my beautiful ragdoll cats Molly and Lily fast asleep on my bed and I thought it doesn’t get much better than this. I suppose that means I am easy to please but when you have been in the depths of despair then it doesn’t take much.

I am watching Andrew Marr  at the moment which I enjoy and then The Big Questions is on which is usually quite good. Sunday Politics this week has been replaced by a property programme and football. With the general election coming up l wonder why they made such a decision. I must also try to get my brother on Skype as I kept losing the connection yesterday. I love weekends!

I spoke to Claire at the agency and asked her if we could talk about my new cleaner. She has been doing extra jobs like descaling the kettle which was very nice of her but she wasn’t doing all the basic jobs and, to be honest, l am a little scared of her. But Wednesday l found my voice and asked her if she had done things. After she had gone l went to get the dirty v shaped pillowcase which had blood on it and it was still on the bed. And the clean one was crumpled up with the things for washing. I don’t know if she changed the fitted sheet either. Somebody new is coming next time. Phew!

One of my sisters phoned me last evening. She moved to Galway with her daughters many years ago. She was talking about the fact that Ireland is mostly agricultural and the fact that each year she would see the farmers in the field opposite getting together to help each other bring in the hay. It was the first time she had told me about it and, as she commented later, it did remind me of my dad.

I had a busy day yesterday. I had two deliveries of food in the morning and in the afternoon my chiropodist came and also my cleaner. I did have ingrown toenails a few years back so they are difficult to trim. I had a tickle in my throat which made it difficult to talk and my nose run and then this morning I have a really sore throat. Ugh!

I was going to the Wellbeing service yesterday – l had never been before. I was going to be assessed to see if they can help me with my anxiety problem. My friends Mary and Dick are on leave and they were going to drop me off there and then run me home later. Unfortunately, the person l was going to see called in sick so it was postponed until another time. Oh well!

I had things on my mind but still dropped off to sleep watching the TV in bed. Not for very long though as I wanted to pee. I spent the rest of the night going over things in my mind – things l have already done and things l have yet to do. Then in the early hours l went back to watching TV. At 4.00 l had a bath and washed my hair and at 5.00 l had breakfast. Now I am going to get on my exercise bike before getting up and dressed a little later. What a night!

They are saying on the News this morning about the fact that if you smoke skunk you are 3 times more likely to have a psychotic breakdown. I have been in hospital twice for psychotic breakdown and both times they gave me a grilling about smoking cannabis when it was only ‘Moroccan’ a fairly mild resin. I have never even tried skunk and was going through a very stressful time of my life – to be honest I was heartbroken but they gave me a really bad time about my relatively small amount of cannabis smoking which, on a weekday, was after a late dinner.