Tuesday Gathering

I attended my little support group again today. There were more of us today having been joined by two women who are normally regular attendees. The talk again was very loose and I began to understand that there is no fixed format to the meetings, it's basically a free-for-all. The topics today consisted of Christmas, relatives and what it would be like to be homeless at this time of the year. There was also a fuss made about the date of the final meeting before Christmas and when the first meeting should be in the new year. This took a while to agree and for diaries to be synchronised. Such fun.
I was certainly more comfortable today, I think I've managed to gain the confidence of the group and I feel I can contribute to discussions. Two of those in the group explained that they live with their mothers who themselves have their own health issues to contend with. It struck me how difficult it must be for them and that in comparison, I really do have it very easy.
We spoke also about children and how this time of year is so magical to them. They were interested to know about my son and how we were planning to spend Christmas. It was nice to talk with people who really seemed interested in what I had to say and I explained that next weekend, we're taking him to see Santa at Sherringham. It'll be a real treat for him, and for me...

I have just completed one of the worst tasks of the year - extracting the decorations from the loft. While I was up there, I did discover (after nearly 9 years) that we don't actually have any lagging on the roof. I'm pretty sure there should be some and may go some way to explaining why there is an arctic blast when I open the door to the loft. We've decided to put the tree and decorations up tomorrow. Little man is determined he wants to help so we'll leave the tree until after school.

I collected our son from school this afternoon. One of the mum's is particularly friendly and we talked about open fires and whether we preferred coal to wood. She told me her shed is full of coal at the moment, which filled me with envy as we have none and can't afford to buy any. Instead, we make logs from recycling newspapers and magazines. They burn very well but don't last particularly long.