holiday happenings

Wisconsin was very relaxing. Just after we arrived, Sarah's goserelin started working properly (reducing testosterone rather than increasing it) so she was my lovely cuddly happy favourite person in the world again.

I didn't manage to learn to waterski though - I tried quite a few times, and once I did get up on my feet and ski for a couple of metres before losing my balance, but I couldn't repeat it as I wasn't sure what I'd done differently to all the times the boat just pulled me into the water face first. I've never been good at physical co-ordination though, as at school I did the typical geek thing of being bottom of the class in PE lessons. It's not that I'm particularly unfit, just slow at learning what my muscles are meant to be doing at any time. But I had a good time photographing the others skiing and falling in as well.

The heatwave in the UK while we were away has had a bad effect on the bonsai tree my mother gave me a few years ago. We had a friend drop in and do some watering, but despite this it has gone brown and crinkly although it's still alive. I'm really hoping it pulls through as my mother would do her nut if it died - I think she said it was about twenty years old. Mind you, it's not like I asked her to buy it for me. I designed our garden myself (it's a new house, so it came with a plain piece of lawn, which we got rid of) and my mother knew that I chose only drought-resistant and low-maintenance plants which needed no regular watering and could be left alone for a few weeks in the summer. Bonsai trees are quite the opposite. Next time we go away, assuming it lives, I'll put it in a bucket of water.

I am so proud of Sarah these days, because she seems to have progressed to being a woman just like any other. I told her yesterday "If you have a sex change, I'll leave you - I wouldn't be able to cope with you turning into a boy" ;-) It seems so natural for her to be female. I wish she could have her surgery now so that the process could be finished and forgotten about all the sooner, but tis not to be.