December, December.

 I just found an old October blog which I didn't publish for some reason, so it's been sitting in draft. Presumably there was something else I was going to say or do but never got around to it.

I am still a bit gimpy but running about 15 miles a week, which is a whole lot better than where I was for much of the year - so I try to be grateful. My knees are swollen - or above my knees technically - which could be this or that. Having been to see my GP 2 years ago with a swollen knee I feel like there's no need to repeat that, although obviously I could be wrong. Don't you ever do this but I did take the course of Naproxen (I said earlier it was Diclofenac, but it wasn't) which my GP prescribed 2 years ago - and I think it helped my knee be less stiff, but didn't make a radical difference. I bought an expensive wrap thing which gives off near infrared light and is meant to penetrate into muscle and beyond and increase circulation and reduce inflammation and what-not. It did seem to help my calf heal as it had stayed the same for ages and then rapidly got better. The wrap thing was so expensive (I can't even remember now - like £250 or £300) that I found myself avoiding telling Peter - partly because I knew he would be snide about it but also partly out of some kind of archaic guilt. Then I remembered it was my own money and I could spend it however I wanted.

There is some research into near infra-red light and injury healing which I can't be bothered looking up. I think the story was that 'they' (the scientists of course!) were using red light to help plants grow in the space station and noticed that the astronauts skin was looking good afterwards - and looked into it and realised it did something or other. Elegantly put, I know.

I've still been going to see Steven McQuinn, and I believe in him. He is straightening me out. Thank God. I always knew someone should. I'll go back and see him in the New Year. I can't really begin to tell you what he does. I've tried already. He finds your sore bits and hurts them, and then you feel better afterwards.

Sometimes I think I have got it, like Eliza Doolittle, and I am running from my core - but it takes me 3 miles to warm up and by 5 miles I'm exhausted because I don't have any kind of a mileage base. So I'll need to be patient, which is not my strong suit.

Meanwhile we have just been to Tenerife again for 3 weeks. I had to limit what I did more than normal, which was a shame, but it was a nice time anyway. I have made you a ham-fisted slide-show because I'm generous that way. Music is Stan Getz/Astrid Gilberto "Girl from Ipanema" and I know - it might be a Portuguese - but you know, that's quite Spanishy.

Put the quality up to 720. Some of the photos from my smaller camera still look quite ropey at that.

It might be time to do a summary of the year because I may well forget to come back again until next year. It has been a funny old year and not always laugh-out-loud.

Some things have been outrageous. The outrageous thing for me this year is that Peter's lovely brother Neil has been diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease. 

He'd been having trouble with his swallowing and some trouble with his speech and had an initial diagnosis of myasthenia gravis. That's an auto-immune thing and isn't great but it can come and go and there are treatments for it. You can keep it at bay and sometimes it remits.

Motor neurone disease feels a lot more scary, and they've told him it's a terminal illness. I balk against that because they don't actually know that. It's not well understood, and sometimes it remits. So I guess you can say it's often terminal and leave it at that. It's affected his speech a lot, but he's still working because he wants to. Apparently it affects your metabolism so he's had to ramp up what he eats and limit what he does so as not to lose too much weight. He's being a star about it and tells me "it's reality" and shrugs. He's leaning into doing his music and art which he loves.

My thoughts about it are that life can fuck off with that shit.

My mum, who looked set to be leaving stage left is somehow or other still here. She had a stroke, recovered from a stroke, fell and fractured her pelvis, recovered from the fracture. It was her 97th   birthday back in April and we thought there wasn't much chance she'd make it to that - but she did - and now she could maybe make it to 98. Her take home piece about this is that she doesn't recommend living past 80 as it just gets worse from there. She doesn't suggest an alternative though.

On that happy note I'll wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy new year.