Ray came onto chat this afternoon( Wednesday night New York time) Thursday noon onwards here. I did some of the typing though he used the shift key and some of the time it was what I was thinking that went into the replies and sometimes he had some imput. I don't know whether it is possible for others to work out which one of us is talking, eh Gary? But anyway we stayed on for about an hour and communicated to the few who came in and out. Of course if you were watching the Grammies instead of coming to chat what can I say? WHERE WERE YOU???? Just thanks to all those who were there.

I think Ray finds line by line thinking, which is what he uses when he is reading his Readers Digests doesn't work on chat. So if anyone has any clues that will help him decide what to say when he has three lines to read and the subject changes just help me out here.

I have decided that Thursday will be the van's day off, that means that I will not take it anywhere, basically we will stay home and do what needs to be done here. Since our doctor ordered that we go somewhere every day as a antidote to Ray becoming depressed we have been somewhere most days even if it is just down to get vegetables at the fruit and vegetable stall about half mile down the road. So it is good for the van to have its own day off.

Our son is away for two days a week now as he is minder for Tori Wednesday afternoons and also sees her home from school on Thursdays. This gives us a couple of nights a week when he is not here ( he sometimes stays with friends on Saturday nights) and I could easily get used to walking from the bathroom to the bedroom naked. It is not something I think about all the time but it is something that feels as if I don't have to worry what someone else thinks of me or wants me to do all the time, a kind of personal freedom thing for mothers who have retired from mothering.

While I was out yesterday I had a phone call from the 'social worker' who is ONE DAY going to get me some respite care. Again I have tried all day to contact her, but as usual she either isn't in or has decided to put me into the too hard basket again. Delay, delay, delay is the name of the game we play.

After we had been on chat for just over an hour Ray said he had had enough. He finds in it hard as I said to scan the feed line by line and work out what each person is saying and if that applies to him. I know it will be easier as he gets more practice. As we got up to set the table etc for lunch he actually called me "love", something he hasn't done for long time. So maybe the closeness of sitting side-by-side had somehow inspired a glimpse of that affection he once articulate for me. Who knows?

As the song says: "Little things mean a lot."