2021 starts here

Is it really 12 days since I last blogged? Let's see if I can remember what's happened so far this year. First of all - par for the course - the gas engineer never showed on Hogmanay. We got a message to say he's been held up at an emergency job, but he did turn up on New Year's Day - partly to our surprise. He soon fixed the radiator which wasn't faulty after all - all that was wrong was that there was another valve on the opposite side of the radiator that had been closed. Who knew? Not me anyway - it must have been the previous engineer that did it unknown to me. Hogmanay was a long session for us. First of all we had our usual Zoom call with Barry, Dawn and Helen, which traditionally involves a G & T for starters followed by wine. Dawn showed us another photo of Avery leaving their apartment block:

Then, at 11pm, we Zoomed again - this time with Anne/Leslie and Colin/Johanne, the couples we normally see the bells in with. More wine, of course, then Prosecco at midnight. We finally got to bed about 2 am - not ridiculous, but much later than normal. We both felt just a touch seedy on New Year's Day, but that didn't stop us from enjoying our traditional steak pie dinner - lovely. With Ne'erday falling on a Friday, the weekend passed as it usually does - lots of football on TV, Sunday papers, roll and bacon for lunch, so it was Monday before we were active again when we went for a walk along the river. Despite the cold and frozen surfaces, the outward part was easy enough on the tracks. On the way back, however, we were mostly on tarmac and that was pretty treacherous in places. The Government announcements of further restrictions had been widely forecast and I had acted accordingly, ordering a 1,000 piece jigsaw to keep us busy during lockdown. It arrived on the 12th day when we were taking our decorations down - all except the external lights on the balcony, which Jo insisted should stay there to cheer everyone up. During our Zoom call on the 7th, Helen mentioned a couple of clever photos Barry had taken:

Look carefully at the reflections in the bauble and the drips. Dawn also showed us DJ's new home:

By now, I was suffering from a new back pain. I had consulted our GP last year about sharp pains I was getting in my upper right back - near the shoulder blade. He thought it was probably spurs on the spine that grow with age and nip away at the nerves when you move in certain directions. He offered me some pain medication and suggested I take up Pilates, which Jo and I have been doing regularly ever since. Whilst that had abated, a new pain near my right hip had now emerged and, despite spending hours on Google, I couldn't find anything that matched the symptoms, until our weekly Zoom call with Lucy on Sunday when she instantly suggested it was probably my sacroiliac (S.I.) joint. As soon as I started reading about it, it seemed to me that this was almost certainly the cause of the pain I was experiencing. If you - like me - didn't know where your SI joint was, this may help:

You Tube is very good at instructional videos, so this is what I'm now working on - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNTwuBUtG24. The issue is not yet fully resolved but, at last, I am getting some relief from the pain - thank goodness. Ironically, it seems that it's been the Pilates that has brought this particular problem on, so I'm taking some time out from it for the time being, which means that Jo's doing it on her own now. I was out for a couple of shortish walks at the weekend but it's been too icy the last couple of days and I don't want to risk it just now. I think that's it for now.