Infrequent

Right, I've been away for a while again. It's no good, I'll just have to be more structured or I'll end up missing large chunks of my life, floating away with no record.

There's way too much to say so I'll just stick to the high level stuff.

Auntie Betty
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My Great Aunt Betty died last week and was buried yesterday, she was in her eighties. She was my maternal Grandmother's sister and they lived next-door-but-one to each other in a suburb of Liverpool. My parents went up for the funeral.

Her husband, Uncle Bert, died a few years ago. He and my Grandfather were army friends. They were both from South Wales originally but had lived in Merseyside since the war.

My Grandad died of lung cancer when I was only nine. He was the first dead person I ever saw.

Anyway, my Grandma is now practically alone in Merseyside. There are some cousins of mine still up there but her children have all moved away. My mother lives on the edge of SE London/Kent and her brother recently took a long term contract in Abu Dhabi.

My mum has been trying to get Grandma to move down for a while now. She's modified the house so everything she needs is on the ground floor and there is enough room too but Grandma has always wanted to stay at her own house. Perhaps she'll change her mind now that her sister has gone.

Shock
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I'd been home from work last Wednesday when my wife came running out of the kid's playroom scratching like mad. She'd been tidying up some jigsaws when a rash appeared all over her.

Her lips and fingers really looked swollen and her skin was covered in bumos like nettle rash.

She took some piriton then jumped in the shower to ease the itching. I went to see her two minutes later and got her out of the shower. She said she felt a bit 'funny' and then slumped to the floor.

She was barely conscious and couldn't really hold a conversation. There isn't much space in the downstairs shower room so I tried to get her to stand and help her to the front room. Then she went limp and I lowered her to the ground. She'd passed out.

I dragged her to the front room and put her on the sofa before calling the emergency services. I also called next-door-but-one and asked Debbie to sit with the kids whilst we went to hospital. The kids were all asleep thankfully. I left my mum's number with Debbie and she cam down to take over.

The ambulance arrived in about 10 minutes and I followed behind in the car. Eventually, we got home about 2am. My wife had had an allergic reaction to something unknown and gone into a form of anaphylatic shock.

She went to see the GP the following afternoon and now has to carry an epi-pen around in case it happens again. Epi-pens have a dose of adrenaline in them to bring the sufferer out of the shock.

So quite a scary night really, not elast because I was home early that night. If it had been the day before she'd have been on her own and <GULP> who nows what might have happened?

Still at least I might have the chance of stabbing her in the thigh with an epi-pen one day ;) and I now know how difficult moving a body is. I don't know how murderers manage it without being spotted.