Mum continues to improve. She is now able to get out of the hospital bed and with the use of a Zimmer frame walk to the ward toilet. It is an effort but her determination to get better motivates her. The latest update is that she will be able to go home Wednesday. She will need help and fortunately Jamie will be there. Failing that Grace will be there. When the shit hits the fan my beautiful family, with all the crap they have had to face in recent years, are as tight and united as the best families are.




I will be so glad when Mum goes home. The trouble with being in hospital is that you exist whilst there in a sort of vacuum. Conversations are hard as she hasn’t been able to gather any news apart from what’s going on in her immediate vicinity.


Since the unfortunate business with Dave and the anon 1 and anon 2 comments, I have changed this ‘journal’ into the ‘blog’ it really is. I had been writing it as a daily diary and dairies are by their nature revealing. Honesty is fine but not if it gives the wrong impression to those who mean nothing to me. My family mean everything. They are what keep me going as other relationships fail. My reason for being so forthright here about my marriage when I am anything but when met in the flesh, is because I hoped, prayed, in some reverse wishful thinking way, that by being so candid should things improve then I could say, with pride and pleasure “see, forty years on and WE are back.” Sadly, it’s not going to happen.


Michael misunderstood my request for him to produce the EB cover. He said he is able to hit the (now) March schedule but with all four books! LOL. I don’t want all four from him just the one. He is happy with that. I had forgotten he does this sort of thing for a living and although no more gifted than Dave is probably more used to working this way.


I now need to get back to Jase and give him a proper brief. He seems very ‘up’ for it. I still need to see if he is able to produce the inner illustrations. That is very much a ‘Mac Monkey’s’ role. Trouble is Dave had done such a splendid job with those that it will be hard to follow. Still, Jase, like Michael, produces book covers for a living so again is used to working with prickly old sods like me! Obviously, the deadline for publishing to Kindle has moved but then again I had already said it might to Dave. This sounds odd as I had started to (foolishly) panic about the looming Feb deadline but it was always on the cards this might happen, that is might have to be pushed back to March. Ironic that Dave and I should fall out over something we had agreed to in the first place. Que sera.

I spent yesterday morning cutting up tree limbs into logs. This from the time when Jimbob and I dropped the bloody branch through next doors fence panel! I enjoyed the exercise even though it was hard work. I think I may have the beginnings of Arthritis as my shoulders really hurt when I had finished. This is not the first time this has happened. Still, there are far worse things to worry about. My right foot always hurts whenever I go for long walks. I just pop some pain killers and hey presto! I will have to do some more next week as there is still one unholy mess in the garden.

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all words and art are copyright © of Russell 'C.J' Duffy. For another side of CJ go here: sOMeThiNg For tHE wEeKeND, SiR?