Normal service has been resumed! Thanks to gnimaerd for helping me cope with the photoshop madness that went on here. I am hoping to get an actual new layout up soon.

Worst cramps known to womankind this weekend. According to Mum, it's from Granny P I have inherited this pain as she had terrible period pains too. Still I beat them down with pain pills and hot water bottle. I soldiered through my first carol services. It was amazing, candles everywhere and a very awesome powerful choir. I did get mad when students kept telling me what went wrong during the first service though - we had severe technical hitches. According to Anthony, I looked like I wanted to garrott someone. The thought crossed my mind. But then he took my home and rubbed my feet and watched Top Gear with me :)

Awesome Christmas super short video - Doctor Who BBC Christmas ident. I want a ride like that!

I have bought sparkly pretties for the Braithwaite girls, three lovely necklaces, and a nice earring and necklace set for Baby Mel. I was going to wrap them up last night but then I run out of sticky tape. So I listened to 'Rumours of Angels', the best Christmas music arc ever, and wrote my Christmas cards. I've already sent off the ones that need to be posted. Hope they get to those of you I have addresses for!!

Cousin Anna's wedding this weekend, yay! I get to share a hotel room with Ali and spend time with my family and see my favourite cousin, Harriet. We're sitting at the same table at the reception, woohoo. The mission shall be to keep Dad calm and make him realise that there is no pressure on him. I am up for the task. Mum deserves to enjoy herself!

So the good news is that Granny P didn't actually have a stroke. It was something like it though cos her face went lopsided and she couldn't move her left arm. The doctors haven't said what it was, but she has been admitted into the neurological department. Mum, Dad and Ali have all been to see her. Ali burst into tears in the hallway after her visit. I think I'd find it just as hard. Apparantly Granny had a good night last night and is doing well. Hopefully there will be clarity on her condition and how to clear up her constipation proper and get her eating again.

Jane, my landlady, has been a rock through this. She spends a great deal of her life stressing out over the antics of her daughters and her husband ineffectual backup as a fellow parent, but she went through something very similar with her mother a couple of years ago and had a nice long chat with me yesterday as I ate my dinner. She didn't have to, she was busy, but she sat down and chatted, asking questions and listening. I feel very lucky to have her in my life. Thanks for all good thoughts and prayers guys, I have truly appreciated them. Please keep them coming :)

Assorted Braithwaites are bemused by my sheep. It's the cuddly one Anthony's Mum and stepdad Lee gave me for Christmas. It's rather large and very cuddlesome and tonight I took it into the kitchen with me during an ad break in NCIS to keep me company while I got myself some snacky crackers. Alice spluttered and then stole him to compare his size to one of our cats, Barty, who was not pleased to have a sheep thrust upon him. Sophie couldn't work out why I was given a sheep in the first place, neither could Jane. I think they chalked it up to my rather unique personality. I took him back off Alice before she forgot to do so (I lose a lot of Doctor Who Magazines that way), tucked him under my arm, and headed back to my room, plate of crackers in hand. The sheep is very good company, he and Froggy - my beanbag frog, that's just a nickname too, his actual name's rather long - are very easy to talk to when I'm watching exciting television. Anthony talks to them too when he's here, I am glad to influence him :)

It's been one of those days when I really feel like I've accomplished a lot, which seems kinda smug and arrogant, so I'm settling for feeling a warm glow in my belly instead. I did a ridiculous amount of shopping this morning (almost all Christmas gifts bought and a card sent to a special someone in America), changed my sheets and washed my dirty ones, scrubbed my window sills clean of black mold, cleaned the windows, and finally scrubbed the egg off the window (outside) that some bugger threw there on Halloween - not cool, people! There's something about physical labour that really invigorates me - like I always feel better after cleaning my room, it's metaphorical somehow. Like cleaning some part of yourself out too.

Tonight, we journey to see Hannah perform as Nancy in Oliver! The production's being put on by her amateur dramatic group in a real theatre and she's so excited about it. Steve and Jane had flowers delivered here for her first night and Alice B made a cake and iced it with an image of Hannah in pink and green. It's all very special, Sophie's come back from uni for it. It's gonna be a real family outing. Must remember my camera.

I am once again grateful to femalephenom for the exceptional Christmas mix CD she sent me several years ago and which every year is a joy to listen to. I have no clue who some of the artists are but it has 'Fairytale of New York' (best Christmas song ever) and other true delights, every one a gem. Thanks love, I am forever grateful. Your taste is impeccable, lets chat again sometime soon please!

So I have begun some Christmas shopping as I have three families to buy for - my own, Anthony's, and the family I live with. I've been planning for a while and yesterday ordered a CD of awesome Christmas music called Rumours of Angels for my Mum (she's had the cassette tape of it for years, I figure it's time for an upgrade), Schott's Almanac 2009 for my Dad, and This is Spinal Tap on DVD for Si. I'm gonna buy Disney's Sleeping Beauty for Ali, it was all she watched when she was younger. The girls here will get pashmina scarf things (it was jewellery last year), crystalised ginger for Jane and chocolates for Steve (to share with his engineering monkeys should he wish to). Mum and Lee (Anthony's mum and stepdad) will get chocolates and wine and I am stumped as to what to get for Mel, Anthony's sister. That will take further investigation.

Ah working on the Christmas rota for church tech as well. Three people want to join the team *happy dance* which is awesome, though they will need training of course which means I've still gotta stretch my poor current team to work for all the Christmas services and the list of that is never ending. Gotta keep the faith.

What a packed weekend. Exciting though because two of my friends got baptised in the sea yesterday - one of them was the youngest of the girls I live with, Alice (confusing cos that's also my sister's name) who's around 14 yrds old. So we spent much of Saturday cleaning the house and then Sunday morning getting tons of food ready for the lunch party in honour of her baptism. Loads of people came, the kids were put outside in the garden in a tent so that there was room inside for the adults. The weather was really bad but by the time we got to the beach there was a strong wind and sunshine. We got smiled on. So we sang some songs (looking like the most stereotypical group of Christians ever since our vicar Graham was playing his acoustic guitar lol), heard a reading and then the people got dunked lol. There were five people in all getting baptised and it was my first experience of seeing a baptism done outdoors and in the sea. It's a sort of magical experience cos it's kinda like how baptisms were originally done in the Bible in places like the River Jordan. My friend Gen was done first, she wore a wetsuit under her clothes because the water was freezing, and then Alice went. Loads of her friends turned out to support her, it was really lovely. I'm really glad I got to be part of it cos even though I'm not her blood relative, I feel like an unofficial sister. Then we all shared flasks of tea and packets of biscuits and huddled around in the cold wind for a while before heading home. It was a really nice day where I felt really connected to my church community, this really warm feeling, and I got to be part of an important part of my friends' lives. A good day.

Eeek! I do not like being alone at night! The family's gone away to Devon, leaving me here with the cats. I find sleep hard enough, riddled with insomnia and disturbing thoughts left over from years of nightmares, but add to that a creaking house and the certainty that no one else is around except me and there's trouble. Last night I managed ok, it just takes me tons more time to actually get to sleep which is always annoying and frustrating and then I start thinking about the mechanics of it like 'how do we get to sleep? What actually happens?' which prolongs the whole process lol. It's a real catch-22. Thankfully I'm spending an evening out tonight and watching Wrestlemania with Rob on Wednesday night (my last night here before I head off to see my parentals and siblings over Easter) so I won't be totally alone. The cats are great anyway, very good company and seem to be aware of how freaked out I get - Barty spends a lot of time in my room curled up on my Nirvana jacket, a cat with excellent music taste. I really should grow out of this ridiculous fear of being alone at night, I might have to start keeping one of the kitchen knives by my bed again, just in case.