There goes the New Year

Thanks to his new daily intake of Fortisip, everything went very well for my husband over Christmas and New Year - well, New Year's Day, anyway. He felt so much better that he got a bit over-confident, and on 2 January he decided to bend over and pick up something from the floor. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it - but he is not supposed to do any such thing, he's supposed to use his grabber instead. Sure enough, he started to topple forwards, managed to right himself, but overdid it and fell backwards instead, crashing full-length onto the floor. In the process he strained his sacroiliac (?) ligament. It will heal, but slowly, and in the meantime it hurts, a lot. So instead of building his strength up a bit with walks during these nice fine days, he's been too sore to move much at all, poor man. "I was only trying to help" he said. "Please don't" I replied, through gritted teeth.

Oh well, at least he has the Christmas books to read - Kate Grenville's The Lieutenant (see Book of the Week) and Marilynne Robinson's Home; Jenny Bornholdt's The Rocky Shore (it's usually Harvey who reads poetry, not me, but this is brilliant); Obama's Dreams of My Father; and David Veart's First Catch Your Weka (charming and beautifully designed social history of New Zealand cooking, seen through recipe books). Plus we got lent the DVDs of Lost in Austen, which half my friends loved and the other half loathed. Just as well, as the summer flush of TV movies seems to be over. The one we liked most (apart from Ballet Shoes) was - gulp - Wallis and Grommit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit. Where was Grommit when Harvey needed him?