A Very Mixed Christmas

 Well Christmas is over and done with, and we've arrived at the New Year celebrations. Christmas was a very mixed bag for us.

Christmas Eve was a really lovely day. It's always my favourite day of Christmas. I spent the day preparing for Christmas with the Christmas music channel on the telly and the NORAD Santa Tracker on my Ipad to see where Santa was going. In the evening we watched the Nightmare Before Christmas animated film, which is a bit of a Christmas Eve tradition, the Gone Fishing Christmas Special, which featured Cornwall this year, and a very spooky Christmas Ghost Story written by Mark Gatiss. Being an ex choir boy, I also watched the Carols From Kings which was lovely.  It was a really lovely day. 

Christmas Day is always a bit hectic with Christmas Dinner to prepare and the presents to open. We started the day with present opening. I got a few items of clothing (sadly all drab), a few books and some music cds. Then we had planned to do a Zoom call with family. But we found we had no internet coming into the house. It was down for the whole of the day, so a quick round of phone calls had to suffice. Christmas dinner was very nice and then it was finally time to relax in front of the telly for the evening, drinking Snowballs. We watched Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special, The Morecombe & Wise 1975 Christmas show, which is a fave of mine, because it features Diana Rigg, and Christmas Bake Off. All in all, a nice day. Typically, the internet came back on at 11pm. 

Boxing Day is my second favourite day of Christmas, after Christmas Eve. It's much more relaxed than Christmas Day, and I can relax and enjoy my presents. The main meal was a Bubble & Squeak made with the previous day's leftover veg, and cold turkey and gammon with piccalilli.  Delicious. I started on my bottle of Dows Christmas Port, and also had a Disarono Velvet on the rocks. In the evening we watched The Masked Singer Christmas Special. It was a lovely day.

And so Christmas was done and we moved into the in-between days that have become known as Twixtmas in recent years.  And unfortunately Twixtmas hasn't been good to us. On Saturday afternoon my Wife had a fall trying to get into her rise/recliner chair. Fortunately she wasn't hurt, but it's always stressful, and an effort to get her up. She went back to bed for the rest of the day, so it was a bit of a miserable day.

On the Sunday, my Wife had an issue when her legs became numb as she sat in the shower. It meant she couldn't get off of the shower chair and I had to manoeuvre the hoist into a tight shower room to rescue her and take her to the bed. It was incredibly difficult and stressful for us both. As soon as she got back on the bed, her legs got their feeling back and she was ok.  We had a lovely meal of assorted cheeses and biscuits. And then my Wife needed to go back to bed for the night. So I spent the evening alone again. 

On Monday morning my Wife had further problems with getting to the bathroom from the bed. We got it resolved ok, but the stress of the last few days triggered my migraines and I had one on Monday, and a really bad one on Tuesday. 

As I write this on New Year's Eve,  I'm feeling a little tired and groggy after yesterday's migraine and not being able to sleep properly last night. I spent the night worrying about today,  because it was shower day for my Wife again. Thankfully my worries didn't come to pass, and it was all ok. 

Tonight's plan is to see the New Year in watching Jools Holland's annual New Year's Hootananny on the telly in the bedroom. 

I'll write a short New Year post tomorrow. 

Deeanna 💋 💋 💋 

🎄🎄 MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄🎄

       

Wishing all of my friends, followers and viewers

🎄🎄🎄 MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄 🎄🎄

May you have a joyful and peaceful Christmas.

Thank you all for looking in on my little blog.

                               Deeanna 

                                💋💋💋

Solstice Musings

My monthly round up round up is a little earlier than normal, because Christmas itself is so busy and I want to focus on that in a different post.

Sunday 21st December, sees the Winter Solstice, when the days reach their shortest. So it seems appropriate to time my post to coincide with it.

I find that the Winter Solstice is a very spiritual time for me. I feel a connection to the world and nature. I enjoy the cold and the clear nights when the beautiful stars are filling the heavens. I love to look at the night sky, and the stars are wonderful at this time of year, with the beautiful Pleides star cluster and the wonderful constellation of Orion dominating the Southern sky. And there are four planets on view this Winter. The very bright Jupiter, and then Saturn are easy to see, and a pair of binoculars will reveal Uranus and Neptune. I feel a sense of renewal and optimism for the coming year. I like to burn a small Yule Log to celebrate the occasion and to herald in the start of Christmas. 

So what's been happening this December. Well it's been a mixed bag. I was still struggling with a hoarse voice and a cough at the start of the month, but it's slowly improving. I have had a couple of fibromyalgia flare ups, but nothing too bad.

The Christmas decorations are up and it's looking lovely and festive at the moment. I love putting the decorations up, although I definitely don't enjoy having to climb up into the loft to bring them down. But once they are up I begin to get excited for Christmas. 

My Christmas presents for Deeanna this year, are a new wig, which is a long white style with dark roots, which I'm going to use for cosplay next year. And I've bought some Liz Earle Cleanse And Polish which I love to use to clean my face in the morning and refresh my skin.

On the dressing front it's been a bittersweet experience for me so far this month. I have only had one opportunity to dress so far this month. And it was a wonderful time but it was blighted by an unfortunate event. 

For various different reasons, my visit to my friend, Veronica Page, kept being postponed, so it was actually just over a year since we had met up, which is way too long. She's my best friend and I have really missed her. So I was really happy when we finally had a firm date in the diary and all of the stars were aligned, and my visit could take place. 

All my preparation for the visit went well and I headed to Veronica's house full of anticipation for a lovely day with my friends. We had decided to dress in Christmas sparkles in the morning and leather in the afternoon. 

I arrived just after 10am and we were soon sat chatting away. Veronica and her wife, Mrs Page both looked very lovely in their outfits. We spent a lovely morning chatting and taking photos.

 Soon it was time for lunch, and Mrs Page had prepared a lovely cold buffet for us to enjoy. It had been a really lovely morning and lunch. We had just finished lunch and were about to go and dress in our outfits for the afternoon, when my mobile phone rang. Instantly I sensed that my day at Veronica's was going to be coming to a premature end. 

Sure enough it was my Wife on the phone, who had somehow managed to have a fall. It's unusual for her to have a fall where she did, and she has been fairly stable in the last few weeks and had assured me that I would be ok to leave her at home while I went out for the day. But sadly it wasn't the case. 

We had discussed bringing in respite carers to cover for when I need a caring free day doing my own thing, but my Wife was burying her head in the sand and insisting things were ok as they are. Now she knows that they aren't and we need to make different arrangements when I'm going out. Not going out and doing my own thing is not an option. That would literally kill me. So this event has been a wake up call for us both. 

I was very down about my curtailed visit to my friends, but hopefully we can make up for it next year, in a way that is worry free for me and my Wife. 

At least we had a lovely morning together and a lovely lunch. So that's what I'm taking comfort from.

I had hoped to have another short dressing session before Christmas. If I can manage something on Monday or Tuesday, then I will, but I'm not counting on it, with all of the preparations for Christmas taking place. If that doesn't happen then I will possibly have an opportunity during that period that has become known as Twixtmas. The week between Christmas and New Year. 

So that's my December so far. I'll be making a short Christmas post later this week, so watch out for that. 

Lots of love 

Deeanna 💋💋💋

Nasty November

 

I have my friend and fellow blogger, Sue Richmond to thank for providing a title for this round up of November.  She mentioned in a comment on a post, that it's Nasty November when all the bugs come out to play. And it's been quite a Nasty November for me. But not all bad. I did manage to dress a little. It's interesting that I tend to view a month as a positive or negative one,  by whether I got to dress or not. 

So why was November nasty? Well for the latter half of October, I had a slightly hoarse voice. It wasn't too bad, but it didn't clear itself up. I think the body usually deals with minor ailments within 3 weeks, and if it hasn't done so in that period, then it's time to get it checked out. So early in November, I made an appointment with the surgery. A medical practitioner diagnosed viral pharyngitis, which is basically your common or garden sore throat. I was given a throat spray to alleviate the symptoms. It didn't work and my condition deteriorated to the point of being very hoarse. It also destabilised my asthma. So back to the surgery and a GP sent me for a chest x-ray and full blood tests. This was worrying. Thankfully they have come back clear, so it's not cancer ir anything like that.  But what the problem is, isn't clear. It could be a side effect of the statins I started at the end of September. Or it could be irritation of the larynx caused by indigestion and acid reflux.  It's still a problem, but I'm off statins for now, and I'm due start medication to alleviate my indigestion problems. And it is getting slowly better. So hopefully it will be better soon.

This illness did scupper some of my plans for November.  And it wasn't just my illness that affected my plans. Nasty November was living up to its name.

I had planned to visit my friend Veronica Page and her wife early in the month. But Mrs Page had a bad cold, so that visit was postponed until December. 

I had plans to dress and go out to a local town later in the month. But I felt too unwell to go out in the cold weather we were having. So another plan scuppered. 

So with feeling ill, and it's associated worries, and scuppered plans, I think Nasty November deserves it's title this year.

I am beginning to feel a little better so hopefully December will be magic again, to quote Kate Bush.

One thing that my recent illnesses have brought home to me, is that I need to make a committed effort to get myself fit and lose weight in 2026. 

But November did prove quite fruitful on the dressing front, even if my plans were radically altered. 

Early in the month I had the chance to try out my new long blonde wig. It was just a cheap one from Amazon, to get an idea if long blonde hair suited me. It does. The wig looks lovely, although it does shed it's hairs quite badly. So I will look for a quality one in the same style.  I wore my black pleather dress and teamed it with my red cashmere cardigan, which I think looked very effective. I was pleased with the whole look.

Later in the month, I managed to find time to have another dressing session and I wore a couple of different outfits. First was my pink knitted twinset which gave me a more demure look. I took a few photos of myself reading one of my vintage home shopping catalogues, which turned out well. 

I love this prim and proper look. It's a nice everyday look. I teamed the twinset with my long velvet skirt, which is a lovely combination. 

The next change of outfit saw me donning my animal print knitted dress, which is a favourite of mine. I think it looks great with my short blonde wig.

So my November has been very up and down,  but despite not feeling great, I'm relieved that my test results indicate that there's nothing life threatening on the horizon. And although my plans never came to fruition, I did manage to have some nice dressing time.

My plans for December are obviously dominated by Christmas. But I'm hoping to get some dressing in. And hopefully having my postponed trip  to visit Veronica. It was going to happen on the 4th December, but I have deferred it for a week to give me some more recovery time. So hopefully it will take place on the 11th of the month. 

Have a great end to the year, everyone. 

Dee

💋💋💋