Now that Christmas is over, and the wrapping paper dumped in the waste bin (let’s hope it has been put for recycling!!) the question arises, as we return to work ‘What did you get for Christmas?’

There will be many, within our community who have not benefited much from Christmas, the homeless, the disadvantaged (if I am allowed to use that word), those living alone and friendless.  We continue to feel that malnourishment is something that happens in other countries, but there are thousands, if not millions, within our own environment who are

Only a few more days to the great day itself, Christmas festivities are already in full swing as office parties and friends gather together for their annual Christmas bash.

Already I have been to one or two such celebrations, and really enjoyed both the company and the food.  I have not been living in Exeter very long, so I do not know many of the places to eat, but through my membership of the Business League, I visited what I would like to call a Gastro-pub, called Oddfellows where I found the food to be of a very high standard, so will certainly write it down in my little book of places to remember, and visit it again in the not too distant future.

Just coming up to Christmas and what a depressing few days I could have had, if I had listened to all of the news about dementia. At the end of January, I shall be entering the 76^th year of my life, but according to statistics I could be sitting in a nursing home, without much dignity and not really knowing or caring what day of the week it is.

I wonder if many of you watched the programme on BBC2 on Tuesday 8^th December, at 9 p.m. ‘Can Gerry Robinson Fix Care Homes? If that did not make you rush immediately to your latest financial statement, or even to the cupboard to make sure you still had plenty of phytonutrients to feed into your body to stop the rot – then you were not taking the programme very seriously.

A friend of mine has recently developed cataracts in both eyes and has been told by the hospital that these need to be operated on.  She is not only nervous about the operation, but is extremely worried that as she lives on her own, she might have difficulty coping with life after the operation for a short while.  Although following so much of my advice through latter years, she has not been as vigilant with preventive medicine as I would have liked her to be, so I am left wondering whether the talk I listened to recently would have saved her from distress.