I can hardly believe that it’s almost five months since I posted on here. It’s been one thing after another in the intervening months, good and bad, so here’s the potted summary …

My last post was done in China, where I’d been spending a tortuous six weeks on an unavoidable trip as it included wifey’s daughter’s wedding. Even I couldn’t get out of that. Then, soon after arriving back in the UK at the beginning of November I spent the next ten weeks with an awful chest infection. Looking now at the timing and the surrounding symptoms I have to think to myself “Was it an early dose of Covid-19 that I’d picked up on the plane on the way home?”. Who knows?

Cutting a long story very short, in the middle of November I got the keys to a lovely little “sheltered” bungalow and moved out from wifey’s place. To be fair to her she has been an enormous help to me in setting it up. I still go and take her in to work in the mornings, often give her a lift home at night, and give her “Chewsdays” which is her day off work so that she can get down town easily, get her weekly shopping etc., and our relationship seems to have improved a lot because the “pressure” if off of us. She can have a perfectly spotless home while I have my own private space where I can be as much of a girl as I want to be, all the time!

Anyway as the year turned and I got more comfortable in the bungalow I started to feel mentally, if not physically, brighter and began doing more to help my friend Michelle run our local transgender support group, and that became almost a full time job in the end. I have been getting out much more as “Me”, and the change in my overall outlook on life has been such a relief.

But now I’m going down with a cold and given my age and the fact that I’m in a higher risk group, (and taking on board the recommendation from my ever-caring nephew John), I’m self-isolating for a couple of weeks or so. Wifey has helped provide some of the immediate essentials from her place of work and I got the rest of the shopping in after dropping her off at work this morning.

The door is locked and, other than a quick dash to the bank on Monday to pay a cheque in, that’s me for the next couple of weeks. Maybe longer.

When I run out of food it’ll be door deliveries, assuming the world is still operational by then, and I’m staying put until I feel fully fit again and this crazy situation retreats. I have all the paint and wallpaper I need to do the remaining decorating in the bungalow, and now I’ll have the time to actually use it.

Please, now, help out the older folk in your area and those who can’t get about themselves but, most importantly, take extra care of yourself.

Love and digital hugs to everyone.