I have been having a very torrid time recently, all to do with my health. As you will all know I love Susan to bits, but she has this spooky knack of predicting trouble and especially trouble that concerns me.
Well over the weekend we decided that we would try and get the garden into shape, Sue normally does the work and I spend my time doing the little things that she allows me to do. Well when Sue was in the front sweeping the drive and weeding around the garage and paths I thought it would be a jolly wheeze to take the brown bin for the garden waste along the passage between the garage and the house so that when we mowed the back lawns it would be there for us. Well folks you guessed it I managed to drop the bloody thing onto my shin, the right one, the bad one, the one that the doctors have been warning me about, the one that’s now very inflamed and has the beginning of ulcers and is an oozing open wound.
"S H One T" don't you just hate it when they are always right. To follow that up I came indoors and after Nurse Susan had cleaned and dressed the wound I decided to bend over in the front room and pick up the times from the floor to read it, yep, your right again out flat as the Americans would say "right on my fanny". I now have black bruising over my back and across my right arm. I am in so much pain when I move, sit, stand, and walk you will not believe how smug Susan looks whan I moan out in pain, you blokes will know, that look she can give you that lets you know how really "P",ed she is.
I am now in the dog house and doing punishments all week, sit there, stand there, stop doing that, time for bath, time for bed, next time you will listen to me, its for your own good.
I am not sure what is “P”ing me off more the pain I am in or the ministrations of Nurse (I am always right) Susan.
Don’t get me wrong I loves her to a million bits and if asked I would fall on my sword for her any time. I just want to have a normal day or two doing the normal chores all of you husbands out there do. There is nothing more humiliating than watching your wife cleaning your new car, with all the neighbours watching thinking “look at that lazy sod”.

My son Del died a year ago on the 5th of June, today I have had to come to terms with his death. It has been so very hard for me and Susan, yet she seems to handle it better. We kept ourselves busy today , well Sue was busy and I as my health dictates was supervising.

I kept it together until I was sitting on the bench looking at the fence that needs painting (or should I say weather proofing). This is exactly the type of job Del would have done for me. Last year just before he died we had the chat about coming up to us on Sundays, we would have cooked lunch and he would have painted the fence, furniture and two rooms inside. But then he was gone, its made really worse with the Euro 2008 football. i have a smashing Electric Powered Vehicle  (EPV) One of the reasons I was allowed it was because it would have given me the independence to go down to him on my own. Now all I use it for is the shopping and trips to the village.

I don’t know how often we have been told that things will get better with time. That is simply not the case. I feel worse tonight because I know what I am missing. Its not until you lose a loved one like that, especially a child of yours, that you begin to understand the real meaning of that magnificent word FAMILY.

I pray and know that you are in the hands of God my Son as precious as you were for us we know that God will help you to understand the extent of our loss, I miss you more now than I did before, may God keep you safe until we meet again.

Amen.