Our daughter came home from school with the news that two girls in her class have both been confirmed as having swine flu. My husband had already rung me to say that the local paper was carrying a story that the school had girls with the virus. It is the only school in the area as far as we know. But the treatment has changed, no longer are schools shut to contain the spread. So the girls are not getting an extra couple of weeks off for the summer holidays. The only way that the school will be shut is if too many staff get it and then there are not enough staff to run the school.

We have already got a cold going around the family. Everyone has runny noses. Some have headaches, some sore throats, some achy joints. All of us have more than one thing, but then joint pain is nothing new to me or our daughter.

Today though I have had a lot of problems with my hands and wrists hurting. One little finger is noticeably bigger than the other by the middle knuckle. I have assumed that the change from hot dry weather to cool and wet is causing my arthritis to play up. I have ulcers in my mouth, that will be the lupus playing up. Then there is a lovely lump on my inner elbow where the blood was taken yesterday.

For the next few days I have nothing planned, apart from food needing to be bought. Our daughter is making a cheesecake on Friday so I must get the ingredients tomorrow. Might get my husband to help me so that we can fill up the freezer. He can do all the lifting and carrying, I will chose and pay.

I have spent some time this evening looking at what course I am going to do next. I need to ring the university in the morning as there is a course that I could do but it starts this month. If I do that one and pass it and assuming I have passed the one I finished in May then I will have my degree in January. Then one more course and by the end of next year I could have an honours degree. What I will do after that I don’t know. Whilst it is hard work studying when you feel bad, it does give me something else to focus on. I will have to see what I can do after that.