Ok I will

 Thank you so much for all your lovely comments.  HH - no, not disrespectful at all, please don't worry.  Sue - your comment about Mum coming back to whack me with her Watchtower mag did make me laugh - and it would have made Mum laugh too, in fact it's just the sort of thing she would say.  Pumpkin, welcome and thank you for commenting.  As you may have gathered, I don't follow Mum's faith but, as Mum was baptised when I was around 8 or 9 and we were thus brought up with her faith, I have always been respectful of her beliefs.  Mum had the most wonderful friends in her congregation who were very supportive to her and remained good friends right to the end, lots of them visited her in hospital during her last weeks - some of them from her old congregation in London came up to where she lived in the Midlands for her memorial service at the Kingdom Hall, and one who we'd known since childhood (her mother and my mother were great friends) even came over from her new home in Paris to attend.

I've decided to take everyone's advice and decorate my tree.  I'll do it on Saturday, the 4th - that's my lovely aunt Sylvia's birthday, she would have been 75 this year.  Sylvia absolutely adored Christmas, she was like a big kid about it, her front garden and the front of her house had the most lights and decorations of anybody's in her street.  You could hardly see the ceiling and walls of her lounge for the amount of Christmas decorations she put up, and she had an enormous tree.  She loved it, it gave her such pleasure, although she did it as much for her youngest son - he has Downs syndrome, he loved it too.  So I shall make it a tradition to put up my tree and decorations on the 4th every December - although mine will be minimalist!

My best friend has invited us to spend Christmas Day with their family again, as they do most years.  I've accepted, of course, they make us so welcome and we have a lovely time there.

I continue to be mostly pain-free, although do have the odd twinge or stab of pain and a bit of a wobbly leg when I've been standing in the kitchen baking or doing veg prep for a while.  With a rest and my electric heated back pad though, it soon wears off.  I had a phone consultation on Tuesday with the orthopaedic assessment team (referral by my GP), the nice therapist said as I was now getting on so well and having good care and treatment from my GP and osteopath, she felt she didn't need to see me right now.  She said, however, if anything changes or I get a lot of pain again, I can ring her direct rather than having to go through the GP and she'll see me then.  So that's good to know I have backup if needed.  I'm seeing my osteopath again next Monday, I don't know how many more treatments I'll need, not many I should think.

This morning I have 2 birthday cards to make.  This afternoon I'm going to have a go on my exercise bike, now husband has finally got round to altering the handlebars for me (my osteopath's suggestion).

It's vegetarian day, so I'm having avocado and cottage cheese on a slice of sourdough toast for lunch (husband will have cheese and tomatoes on toast, he doesn't like avocado).  For dinner I'm doing green veggies in a pesto sauce, with a little wholewheat pasta and grilled tomatoes on the side.