I took my temperature with one of those feverscan strips which you put on the forehead. I am so cold and clammy it registered no temperature at all, even though I gave it double time. Fortunately I still have a pulse or I’d be seriously worried!

The washing machine broke down on the 3^rd. It didn’t just stop it shrieked, rattled, sounded like shattering glass and then bilged smoke, setting off the fire alarm. The dog’s howling added to the general pandemonium.

I got flu on the 4^th.

After a wretched night I awoke to find one of the Heek’s Christmas treat bones had seriously disagreed with him and he had deposited piles of puke at intervals in the hall and lounge, including the couch. Trying to clear this with a raging temperature, a rattling chest, throbbing head and dizziness took most of the morning. Then I collapsed and spent two days in bed.

I have been TRYING to dispute a completely OTT parking fine with Brighton Borough Council for being 12 minutes overdue after my parking ticket expired. In the process of trying to reason with robots, and the grounds for appeal not allowing for human error (such as mislaying my car, which is how it happened) the penalty for not paying without delay (even though I was trying to  fight it)  increased the fine to £60 and then to £90. Despite being determined to fight to the death, as penalising people for protesting seems completely immoral I finally gave in, in a sickness fuelled depressed moment and threats of bailiffs etc. Now I hate myself for being feeble and so want revenge!

I was due to start a new job on the 7^th, but due to said flu and barely being able to cross a room without passing out I might have to postpone it.

I’m not normally superstitious or fearful, but all this in the first week? The January blues, you don’t get them, January gives them to you.

BT and certain other companies seem to think that they can do what they like. This happened to me too so I cancelled my direct debit and paid the bill when it came. One day i went to use the phone and was put through to an automated message telling me my service was limited as I had not paid the last bill.

I had paid my bill, but trying to phone through to a human when the automated message kept kicking in was murder. Obviously my internet connection was also mucked up so I couldn’t email or go on to their website, another piece of useless advice from the voice of the robot.

Finally when I did get through and told them that I had not received a bill but as there was a postal strike they might have taken this into account before being so high handed. I was spitting nails as I rely on my phone for incoming business.

They did apologise and restored it within the day but I told them they had no right to withdraw a service without any prior warning - it could cause huge misery if they did it to somebody old or vulnerable.

I could go on seethe seethe.. but i think i’ll just trawl the net and find a better, less autocratic call provider.

I saw a post entitled 10 Things I Hate About You (England) and I agree with it all, especially the bit about the NHS. I live just outside Eastbourne. Months of campaigns to stop the reduction of the maternity unit have just failed. Emergency labours will now be rushed to Hastings….half an hour away on a good day.
Another for your list….nobody listens anymore. What the majority of the people want does not count. We are turning into a dictatorship.

My only New Years resolution (only I call it action because resolution is always something in your head rather than something carried out) is to stop going to shops.  I’m going to shop monthly online and get all the basics delivered. Order an organic local box each week and find a milkman. If I need clothes i’ll buy shoes and undies from catalogues. The only shops i’ll go to are charity shops or boot fairs for clothes. I dont want to look back on my life and find I spent any more time than necessary in great ugly concrete, earth munching, consumer creating, greed encouraging, empires when I could be looking at the sea, standing in fields full of buttercups, writing a book, composing a song…who knows?
The milk and organic box may be more expensive but I’ll save by avoiding the distractions of displays, sales and bargains and the most precious thing of all, time!

Too many grottos, fetes and stores have a Saggy Santa in a cheap costume with a beard that looks like somebody has stuck on a piece of cotton wool

When my children were young enough to believe in him I knew they wouldn’t be fooled by these fake Santas and always told them that the real one was busy in Lapland and these were just helpers, standing in for him while he got the gifts made and the reindeer ready for their epic journey.

Still a sub standard Santa takes away some of the Christmas magic. Those wishing to work as Santa over the Christmas season should have a special Santa license which can only be obtained by passing the following criteria.

• Rosy cheeks.
• Pleasantly plump and cuddly with a round fat belly.
• A real white beard and moustache or a realistic one that suits the wearers face.
• Twinkly eyes.
• Laughter lines (showing a cheerful nature.)
• A deep resounding ‘ho ho ho.’

Costumes provided by the management should be thick, and cosy and NOT cheap
brushed nylon efforts.

Instant failure will result, and working Santas will lose their license for the following:-

• Stinking of alcohol or tobacco.
• Moaning or acting moody or miserable in any way.
• A mouth that habitually turns downwards.
• Thin or lanky body.
• Reedy or weedy voice.
• Bony lap.
• Half hearted ‘ho ho ho.’

The problem with politics today - Gordon Brown, Mr Bean and the Emporer’s New Clothes..we need a big enough voice so that everyone wakes up and realises what is gong onl….a complete and utter comedy of errors.

I received a card from the Post office saying that I had to pay a £1.24 postage charge. I duly bought stamps and sent the card off wondering what kind of package it was and who had forgotten to pay. It was a card from an old colleague who had omitted a 24p second class stamp with a £1 handling fee added on.

One pound, to tick a box on a card and post it with the rest of my mail and then to repost the original letter?

Later I stopped at a chip shop for a portion of chips (sudden craving for a chip butty) but only had a twenty pound note. The shop owner did not have enough change so gave me the chips on the house.

After quietly seething and trying not to, about the post office, the gesture really cheered me up.

It’s not the money but the attitude behind it that makes the difference. Restaurants who cheerfully serve jugs of iced water versus others that insist you buy their overpriced bottled water. Taxi drivers who wait, late at night, to ensure lone females enter their premises safely, versus those that zoom off the moment her stilettos’ hit the pavement. Banks and credit card companies that charge exorbitant overdraft or late payment fees versus…… banks and credit companies that charged exorbitant fees but who have had to pay an enormous amount back to customers who have claimed the charges unlawful, but who continue to make the charges…versus those that realize it is time to revise their charges.

I’m going to invent some charges of my own.

• Wasted time charge, whenever I  wait  for a tradesman or delivery for three times as long as promised.
• Queuing charge, whenever I have to queue up for longer than ten minutes.
• Rude staff charge, when I don’t get served because they are chatting about who got off with who the night before.
• Wasting civilian’s time charge, when the police do not respond to a call within a reasonable time.
• Phone rage compensation for every automated, ‘press this button,’ ‘held in queue’ message, every operator I cannot understand and every cold calling sales call that comes through.

We don’t have the best reputation for cooking but we certainly have an obsession with food.

Every time I turn the TV on there is somebody cooking, demonstrating cookery, teaching somebody else to cook, competing in cookery competitions or celebrity chefs promoting supermarkets.

We have wide chefs, country cooks, open air chefs, la-de-da cooks, bad mouthed chefs and sexy cooks. They all have unlimited funds and time with which to produce their amazingly original recipes which look so easy to accomplish in theory and are almost impossible to attain in practice.

Gordon Ramsay would get a following without food, just by doing his ranting and swearing routine. For Nigella, any accessory would work as well as food for her to ooze and drool over, while Jamie O is so enthusiastic people would be hanging on his every word if he was chucking black beetles into lightly fried cowpats.

Supermarkets now offer ‘ideas cookery cards,’ in case we’ve shoved random products in our trolleys with no idea as to how we might cook and serve them.

Meanwhile the country is heaving with sub standard food served in the pubs, restaurants and fast food joints that need the advice from these chefs and never take it. Still everybody is obviously buying food from them and going home to eat it while watching a superchef programme, so maybe watching good food compensates a bit for eating crap food. Who knows?

I went to the supermarket this morning and was shocked to find that there is a national food shortage.
Appearances are deceptive because the shelves, freezers and refrigerators seem to be heaving with delights especially created for the Christmas period, such as the ‘Extra Special’ ranges, birds within birds or liver pate with cranberry and orange.

Obviously they have been laden with the last of the food because hoards of people are squashed into every aisle, piling their trolleys up so that they survive the forthcoming famine.

People who currently roll in to the stores well insulated with extra flesh, against the winter frosts are stocking up to ensure that they will be one of the survivors.

Exactly when the stocks will run out, is slightly unclear but from the heaving rush of people it cannot be far away.

Not only are people stocking up with foods but they are elbowing others out of the way to grasp bargains that have ten pence knocked off.

Manic Christmas music is played continuously on an endless loop which is designed to calm people down but which in actual fact adds to the general panic.

Drivers who have filled their cars with provisions try to escape as fast as possible before they get waylaid and mugged by the starving. This is leading to frequent cases of car park rage.

Still it will soon be Christmas and the season of goodwill!