So, there I was, on a roll after getting the last two chapters of What Milsy Did out in a reasonable time. I'm heading off into the next, crucial chapter, and with about 5,500 words written, a never-ending and seemingly random series of unexpected happenings has derailed me almost completely.

First, my aged mother, who is 89, is in the first stages of dementia. She has had some falls, though fortunately nothing has been broken - yet. My aged father, 86 and with his own problems, is struggling to look after her. Did I mention they live a 2-hour drive away? Makes it difficult for everyone to go there to help. My sister lives 3.5 hours away but has more free time than I do so has been managing the situation. Local Social Services are also involved and the care they have is certainly good enough.

I can't ignore them, even though we aren't as close as some families are. We're the kind of family that just spreads itself as wide as possible and that's fine with me. I know some don't understand how we can live like that but I'm guessing that's just normal variation in human behaviour. If everybody stuck together we'd have no explorers and there would be no humans in the Americas.

Second, I'm still on steroids after my problems which began in 2013. I'm now reduced to the level where they should stop interfering with the normal levels of things the body produces: adrenaline and cortisol. Unfortunately, what I didn't know is that prolonged use of these particular steroids actually shuts down the adrenal glands: this is known as Adrenal Insufficiency. The glands actually atrophy with disuse. That means that, until they recover I don't get much adrenaline or cortisol, which potentially can be very dangerous, the body relies on those hormones to regulate the body in times of stress and so on. It also means that I can become very fatigued at short notice. My brain can also become fuzzy for hours at a time. Fun!

Next, I have had a long-standing "outstanding" job to upgrade my firewall. There have been some problems and I wanted to put the latest version on there to help solve some of them. So... halfway through the upgrade, already delayed for six weeks, I start getting errors. Putting it down to a bad image I try again... and again. No joy. Two days later, I realise that the SSD has gone bad. It does have a manufacture date of 2012 so, as one of the earlier products of that type, might be expected to have expired from old age. Sigh. Steal an SSD from another box and try again.

Then there's a whole day reconfiguring the firewall and the network inside the house. You'd think it would be simple, how many computers do three people need? Well, aside from the firewall I have three other servers, seven workstations, two switches, a babycam and a printer. There are also assorted tablets and phones that connect as guest. Oh, and a Set Top Box that needs its own subnet. I had three subnets before, now I have nine, all fed through a switch using VLANs. Setting that lot up was interesting, especially the several times I cut myself off accidentally by changing IP address in the wrong order...

So, a week after the last disk failure I discover that another one has gone, this time an almost-new server HDD in a media server. Fortunately I had a spare drive I could use, though it meant moving the server to a different box to get it all to fit. The retailers I bought the disk from were very prompt and exchanged it in a week with no questions asked. These disks have a 5-year warranty and it was only 3 months old. Still, it was a day's work I didn't need.

Other than that? The usual, I suppose. Hospital visits, household chores and looking after grandchildren contribute to lack of time and energy. I'm just surprised that all the above can conspire to prevent me doing more than a bit of light editing at the moment. I haven't actively given up writing; it is that everything is really out to stop me for now. Maybe after Christmas... I need to find time and not let things slide. Its easy to do that and the time whistles past at a frightening rate when you're not looking.

I'm not whinging. I'm trying to explain why chapters aren't appearing as often as I would wish. I have no intention of giving up and there are many more tales to tell, I have no doubt. I need to perhaps organise myself a little better but as we all know, stuff can come at you from all directions and sometimes there is nothing that can be done but to get on with whatever needs doing.

Penny