I had some suggestions about Ray's eating and I thought I'd do something about them. I always used to keep little frozen meals but had run out of them. Today was a cooler day, an ideal day to make casseroles so I planned a couple taking a couple of hours to cook. No1 went well, not a problem, minced pork and vegetables, three portions,neatly packed away.

No 2 was on, beef and onions cut up small, but it somehow didn't smell right. Couldn't work it out so kept it cooking. Now I always add vegetable stock that I make myself so I had added one box to each casserole instead of using bought stock. Didn't realise my mistake until I took the beef casserole out. I had put in lemon juice instead of vegetable stock!! I did manage to rescue it by draining, adding new stock and recooking it for a while, but it is not my favourite new recipe. Just to be on the safe side I also cooked up some chicken and portioned that out for Ray, I'll use the beef as a winter filler.

I did cook him a hot breakfast this morning too, maybe as it is a fairly hot summer he is losing his appetite by the end of the day. It is worth changing things around a bit to get him to eat a little more, and keep his weight steady. One of the workers from Mum's Hostel told me that tomato skin is something else that people with swallowing difficulties can choke on so I have to peel stoned fruit, peaches and nectarines we eat a lot of, be careful with grapes, avoid nuts, and now peel tomatoes. Meal times seem to get more and more complicated as days go by.

I keep worrying about the small things in life. I used to be a big picture person and now I only see the minutae. It is like seeing life through a microscope. Little things that I never worried about before loom large, a cough becomes a fever , a fever becomes lung disease. A thud becomes a fall, a fall becomes a broken hip. Everythng that happens tends to become exaggerated in my mind especially late at night.

Somehow I have to rise all above this and get my sense of humour back. Maybe it got lost in the same place some people lost their Christmas spirit.