Oh damn, still in this dream.

Having to type one handed as my left wrist appears to have packed up, and all movement hurts. This is not part of normal flu. Carpal Tunnel? Gout? Gawd knows. Dad is much the same - stable though slightly confused. Dammit. Will see doc sometime soon. Dammit. Flu still knocking me over as well. Bugger.

Dad moved onto orally administered morphine sulphate last night. Unlike me, he didn't have a wild youth, and so has been pretty unprepared for the effects. Lots of confusion, poor thing. His birthday's still the target, and some truly dedicated nurses from St Christopher's Hospice are helping out. This is a good thing as I am going down with flu. (Well, someone's got to do the shopping and be the interface with the outside world, and therefore exposed to all and sundry. We have tried to avoid letting anyone through the door who might be remotely contagious.)
Mike & Alexis come down on Fri night.
Nurse recommends I take paracetamol. Will oblige if only to keep peace.

A couple of things.
First, Dad yo-yo's betwixt and between, but the good days seem to be more since Monday, when all the drugs excepting allopurinol were stopped. Perhaps his system can recover enough to have a reasonable last couple of months, and we may yet get him to Christmas in comfort. Excepting, of course, any infection whatsoever, which will kill him.
Second... because it has come to my attention that folk known to me socially may be reading this blog I have decided to change the names of all mentioned herein excepting my immediate family. Anyone appearing in this will obviously be identifiable to themselves and to others with whom I am intimate, but such will not be as easy for those specifically unacquainted with me. Apologies, my dears, if I have offended against privacy: I do beg your pardons.
This 'keeping a journal' is an odd thing. Is it merely showing off? Catharsis of confession? Public therapy? I will come back to this later.
Perhaps some explanation is due.

By nature I am an Aesthete & a Dandy. I would be in all things, especially mind, prettier than I am, and quicker to take offense. By all rights I should have been dead at thirty, carved by a younger, fiercer blade, and wept over by my mistresses; a string of debts and tradesmen's pregnant daughters my only legacy to the world.
However, I was born in 1961 in Wimbledon and there's not much chance of playing Cyrano in SW18.
It's round about now that I should be claiming a sickly tubercular childhood: so I will, even if it's not true. All the other requisites are present: various schools, some religious, some secular; the discovery of rock 'n' roll and guitar; year Zero as Johnny Rotten and co swore live on prewatershed TV, just as I was growing my hair really long (and which I didn't let go of until too late).
But this is, I hear you say, par for the course.
I didn't say it was original, merely true: it is easy for me to combine arrogance and an understanding of my place because, in spite of all my efforts, I am only the sixth most interesting person I know. Of the other five: one is mad; one achieves his place with a combination of intelligence, history, and rank; two are women, and the last is a man of many attributes (aka 'The Hermit of Petworth').
So despite everything, I know my limitations. I've done everything I really ever wanted excepting parenting - and I'm getting too old (read selfish) to contemplate that now.

I would rather that people think than otherwise, and think well.