We still have our Christmas decorations up, because it isn't Twelfth Night until tomorrow. Not that we are superstitious - I mean, we don't believe this stuff, or anything - but there's no point in asking for trouble. Next year maybe we'll rethink this; Christmas decorations after the New Year start to get a bit sad and depressing, but for the time being there they are, and there they stay. Until tomorrow.
With that in mind, I am now going to try to put a positive spin on 2011. No, stop laughing, I'm serious here. I reckon it can be done. As follows:
- My brother did not kill himself when he fell out of a loft trap at the very start of the year. He landed on the newel post, cracked several ribs, and generally did himself a lot of damage, but - and this is the crucial point - he did not die. For which I, for one, am devoutly thankful.
- My credit card got skimmed, again early in January (some time later Lush discovered there was a hole in their online security. Honestly. Hacking Lush, that's a bit like kicking a big-eyed puppy), but the NatWest bank got straight on it and I didn't lose any money.
- My job moved from the heart of Oxford out into the bleak and hideously ugly wilds of Cowley, turning the commute into the next-best thing to an impossibility, but I was able to get a lift in with a colleague - which also meant getting to spend some time with her; fraternisation in the office, especially between those of us left after last year's takeover, is frowned on. As for the ugliness, which I'm really not kidding about, I burst into tears the first time I saw the new site? I just learned not to look.
- Penny, who both Judy and I are very fond of, was in a serious car accident early in the year and could very easily have been killed. Thank god for seat belts and airbags. As it was, she was very bruised and shaken, and in hospital for several days. To add insult to injury, we didn't find out about this until after she was home, because it didn't occur to her husband to let anybody know. Honestly. Men!
- Diana Wynne Jones died of Fucking Cancer in March, but at least we have her legacy to remember her by.
- Um. I knackered my back in April and was in bed for a week because I couldn't move, let alone walk. This was a Bad Thing, because it impacted on my sick leave. Positive spin, positive spin ... Well, I did finally get up again? Oh, how I hate back pain!
- (Whisper it) I kind of enjoyed the Royal wedding. I know, I know, spare me the lecture!
- Redundancies at my company in May, and me - and also Nairne and Rebecca, fellow-survivors of the Great Takeover - on the at-risk list. The good news? They decided, god knows why, to keep me - thus ensuring that I had a salary for a couple of months after I got sick (it would have been more, but I'd already had a lot of sick leave - see above re bad back, for one), and received SSP up until December. Rebecca and Nairne weren't so lucky, although Rebecca managed to be appointed to a different - lower paid, natch - role in the company. Losing Nairne meant losing a good friend, and also losing that all-important lift into work. Judy drove me in for a while, as by this point I was already so ill with Mystery Breathlessness that I wouldn't have been able to cope with the two buses/two hours commute, but not long after the whole getting-to-work thing became rather a moot point. But let's not get ahead of ourselves, because ...
- Speaking of Judy, her job had disappeared, and she spent a miserable few months in her office feeling unwanted and with nothing to do. The redeployment process failed miserably at finding her another role; but, it turned out, she was eligible for a lump sum and a pension, so things aren't as desperate as they might have been. Not good, I'm not saying that, but it could have been a lot worse. I don't know whether we'll be able to keep the house - even if we pay off the mortgage, we still have to pay the bills, and this is a big house to heat, probably too big for us - but, to judge by all the malarkey we went through when we moved from Thornton Heath, this is the house we're meant to have, so we may as well stay put until the Goddess tells us otherwise.
- I applied for a bunch of jobs and didn't get interviews. I did get one interview, at Oriel College, but never stood a chance. And, again, this is a good thing, because I don't think I'd've been eligible for sick pay in a new job.
- My doctor or, actually, a tiny wee locum who I think was too scared to take any chances, finally sent me for a chest X-ray to see if there was anything to account for the shortness of breath I'd been suffering from for most of the year (my own doctor had been trying to treat it with antibiotics, bless her), it turned up a pleural effusion, and thereby hangs a tale.
- Clarence Clemons died. See DWJ above re 'legacy'. But the E-Street Band will never be the same again, that's for sure, and there's no getting around that.
- The pleural effusion led to a drain which led to a CT scan which led to a hushed and wary consultant telling me that the test results had shown cancer cells. Huh. Okay. I got cancer. Here's the good bit: I didn't die. Win!
- Being too sick to work did at least mean that I didn't need to commute into Cowley any more ...
- Judy finished her thesis, presented her viva, and shall henceforward be known as Doctor. Hurrah!!
- The BoyCat started weeing in untoward places again (the last time he did this was just after my mother died, the year before. He picks his moments, that Boy). Boo! What we refer to as sensible biscuits seems to have cleared it up, but we watch him warily nonetheless.
- I continued to have cancer and, more worryingly because it caused more problems, breathing difficulties. I also continued not to die. The Churchill hospital did their best, admittedly their very slow best, to fix things. It seems to be working. Still not dead!
- My brother wrestled the company dealing with my mother's probate into submission so that they coughed up a portion of her estate in the form of a nice, big cheque - big enough to live on for the next couple of years, if need be. I hope that need isn't, but, in the meantime, it's a cushion so that I don't have to worry about not just dying but dying in the bloody gutter.
- I joined MacLand and met many lovely people.
- The lovely people I already knew rose to the occasion magnificently and have been nothing but kindness and generosity.
- Judy scored tickets to Bruce Springsteen in June, which means that I have to get better. Not that I wasn't already planning to, but now it's imperative.
- Right at the end of the year our friend Lynn, whose job vanished a few years ago and who has been battling redeployment and short-term placements ever since, went for a one-year placement and got it.
- Christmas was lovely.
- Absolutely and positively still not dead. So ner to you, Crabby!
... and that was 2011.
Which I would never have survived without Judy, who has been tirelessly supportive and ferried me back and forth to hospital, visited every day I was stuck in there, put up with having a bald, sick person moping about the house, bought me lots of spoons and choklit, and generally been wonderful. And my brother, who's been visiting from Bristol almost every week, bringing with him not only pressies but also pre-prepared vegetables for Christmas dinner to save us some time and effort. And my sister, who visited all the way from Penzance, even though I couldn't do much except lie on the sofa at her, and who has sent cancer hats and felt crabs for sticking pins into. And my sister-in-law, who has Been There and Done That, cancer-wise, knows what it's like, and who, I am very glad to say, is also Not Dead. And Penny, knitter of blankets ... and oh, so many others.
You see? It wasn't so bad after all.
I really don't want ever to have to do it again, though.
