Three for the Water Pistol.

My lovely Grandson has been to the WaterPistol again - Hospital to you and me. Actually he can say Hospital now, but WaterPistol makes it sound much more fun. The reason he's been is to have those gorgeous little ears checked - and his Teacher was right, he has a lot of fluid tucked away in there which is damaging his hearing. The Consultant thinks he should have gromits - and though Daughter was dreading hearing that, I think she knows it will help him. As I've mentioned before, she had three lots of gromits between the ages of 6 and 18, and in the end her hearing was (and is) fine. So let's hope it will do the trick for Grandson. I can't bear the thought that he will have to have an anaesthetic, but there's no alternative.

No. 2 for the WaterPistol was Daughter, who had to go last Tuesday to have another biopsy procedure for more pre-cancerous cells. These showed up in her Smear Test a year ago, for which she had a Colposcopy, and have now reappeared. I'm worried about this, of course, but she is taking it in her stride. And at least they are on to it quickly (within two weeks of her test). They have taken samples from three areas apparently, and she will have the results in about two weeks. In the meantime it's the same routine: no lifting, no sex and no-one smoking around her, and she has to rest. I had Grandson here for the weekend so that she could take it easy, and she did look better when she came to collect him yesterday. Of course she is working more or less full time now, so resting isn't quite as easy as it was last year. She does finish work early on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, so I'm hoping that will be enough.

No 3 is my Sister, who is having investigations into some white stuff which has appeared under her skin near the joints of her fingers. Strange, but these white "strings" (they may be called nodules) sort of move under the surface - not while you're looking apparently- and aren't painful all the time, but can be when they are very close to the joints. They could be precursors to rheumatism or arthritis, She is waiting for the results of blood tests too. All in all, that's plenty to be going on with, I feel.

On a more cheerful note, Christmas is coming! It looks as if we will have all the usual suspects here again this year - Son and maybe a few of his friends, plus Daughter, Grandson and the Boyfriend. Plus anyone else who fancies turning up - I like to have lots of people around to help eat all the food and drink all the drink. I haven't started Christmas Shopping yet - that joy is yet to come, but I did go into John Lewis in Oxford Street last week (I went up to have lunch with Son and tea with Sister) and their Christmas stuff does look very tempting.I expect I'll go back again when I've written my Christmas List.

Like India Knight, who writes in the Sunday Times, I've been avoiding the news and the papers for a week now because I can't bear to hear or read about poor little Baby P. I feel I should be apologizing for all humanity that tragedies like these should happen at all. That little innocent didn't have a life, or any love, in his all-too-brief existence. Nor did he have a chance in this procedure-ridden society. Why someone didn't just walk into that house and remove him, I simply can't understand. Those who killed that little boy will surely go to Hell - if there is such a place. I'm not religious at all, but in this instance I sincerely hope that there is a Hell. Perhaps the most frightening statistic that came out of this was that, on average, two children are killed every week by their parents, family or step-parents. This is too horrible for me to contemplate. WHY? HOW? Is there no way we can protect these children? Save the Children? the NSPCC?
Children in Need? It's obviously not about money - just look at the amazing amount raised last week by Terry Wogan and the Children in Need Appeal. But WHY can't it prevent this terrible, terrible situation? I don't have the answers. But I carry the guilt - as we all must to some degree. Surely there must be something we can do to save our children?