The penultimate chapter of Whatever next is now up on Maddy's site.

It seems that today I've been posting stuff here for 5 years and 52 weeks - doesn't tempus simply just fugit? In that time I suppose I have posted a few things here, about ten zillion blogs, over two thousand episodes of serials and fifty odd short stories - odd being the operative phrase.

I hate to think how many hours I've spent writing for, posting on or reading stuff here but it must be thousands of hours. In return, I've received 104,149 Kudos from you, thousands of comments and made loads of friends.

I've always been a believer that much of the trouble we find ourselves in is influenced if not created by us. Okay, so I don't have much influence on the weather, the movement of celestial bodies or the government, but I do in regard to the things I do.

Sorry, my evening has been used up dealing with stupid phone calls. I'm going to bed before I brain one of the cats who are playing up as well.

The surgery went well and she seems to be more awake than I expected. My ex has been to see her and confirmed it. I hope the recovery will maintain this rapidity of rate, but at the same time accept some of this might be adrenalin.

Thank you all for your good wishes and kind thoughts, it's much appreciated. Now if only you could have a word with the man who controls the weather...

From today's Guardian, under the title, Voices of the trans community.

See what you think - will there always be prejudice? I suspect so.

So the post Christmas/New Year period is over and we all return to normal - um, not quite. My cough remains and my energy levels are still well down on my usual, possibly not helped by working silly hours.

I have spent most of the evening trying to buy something on line and I still haven't succeeded, it seems my card numbers don't upload to the site. I've tried two different computers and two cards and I am now so angry that I shall dream about how I am going to sere the eyeballs of their customer service department tomorrow morning before telling them I no longer want it unless they offer a bigger discount.

As I can't settle to write - likely to do something irrevocable to a character - I'm going to have an early night.

For my fellow addicts, here's today's.

http://www.gocomics.com/skinhorse/2012/12/26

My daughter hasn't been well for weeks, when the symptoms began to include muscle weakness and coordination problems my ex and I decided to speed up the referral to a consultant by going privately. My fears were confirmed when she received confident diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. We're still awaiting a confirmation by MRI and lumbar puncture.

So Christmas is a bit of an irrelevance this year.

Angharad.

to the families of the children killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook school in Newton, Connecticut earlier today. I can't begin to understand the pain and heart ache they must be feeling and so close to Christmas.

I just feel so sad.

Angharad

I miss this as a regular feature. Use this one to bring yourselves up to date or remind yourselves of what you're missing.

http://www.gocomics.com/skinhorse/2012/12/12

My friend Anne is here for the day, we're going out shortly to have dinner to celebrate my becoming an old codger officially - I now get free prescriptions - whoopie doo!

As we drift towards 1900, I suppose it's apposite for me to enquire as to whether my readers want me to continue the saga, assuming Erin is happy to continue filling up her servers with my nonsense.

This article is on the Guardian website and in the newspaper, the comments are interesting too, according to one commenter transsexuals just can't cope with reality - I was pleased to see they got shot down rather quickly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/18/cuban-transsexua...