My weather pixie thinks it's raining and, because it appears as it's about to that I did not go to watch the Swannies play today here in Canberra. That and the fact that my partner in Swandom is sick and decided it was too great a risk for her to go. Going to the footy alone isn't much fun, even when the heavens aren't steel grey and threatening.

The other half of the story is I am catching up from my DMIL's visit to pack up her china to take to Sydney and as part two of that visit, to put The Bear in the cemetery in a niche next to his grandfather. This visit was physically demanding (lots of time on my feet followed by a 3 hour drive each way) but emotionally draining. I haven't been sleeping well, probably because this event was looming over me. My right hip has been killing me, making sleep difficult. I think it's connected to the bad knee so I hope having the second knee replaced will end my torment, but in the meantime, I am sleepless and in pain. I thought I had prepared myself for the cemetery but I had to choose wording for the plaque and I lost it again. I have lost the fact that his mortal remains were here. I know he isn't in any way attached to them, but this is another tear in the connective tissue holding us together. My MIL wanted his chess set so I went diving in the the cupboards in the computer room and came up with first a huge box of his slides. They are all in labeled slots, but his handwritten guide did not match what was actually in the compartments. Since he kept everything, there are slides supposedly going back to 1961, but I couldn't find the early ones. A bright day and I'll try to sort some of them. While I'm sure they meant something to him (although he never looked at them in the 16 years we were married) I am not intending to keep his honeymoon snaps from 1971 with 57 photos of Hong Kong harbour. I eventually found the chess set, and it went north with the china and his genealogical jottings. I think the chess set came from that visit to Hong Kong.

I saw my rheumatologist this week, the new one who has replaced my old Dr B. She was only interested in my arthritis and I kept trying to tell her that the fibromyalgia pain was worse than the arthritis. No new advice except to rest periodically and not to do too much, but at the same time I should get exercise. She did write a script for "breakthrough pain" and my hip has caused me to use it once already. I haven't been knitting terribly much because my hands have hurt too much. Still working on D's socks and the ribbon shell.