The eyepatch rules

Rules have been much on my mind in the last couple of weeks. Well, maybe not so much rules as the mores that we grow up with even realising we have them.

This has been on my mind because I'm wearing an eye patch 70% of the time, also a woolly hat to keep my poor scalp warm in the freezey cold. It's quite a sight, I can tell you. Eye patch goes on first, then hat, then specs. Then my piece de resistance - a buff worn around my neck so I can pull it up overcky up to my nose like vintage Smiffy from the Bash Street Kids. (He's changed his look these days, not nearly so good)

Anyway, back to the rules.

There I am, tucked into my pit on the sofa in the back room, blankie over my legs, beautifully accessorised cat on my lap and matching cushion under my head, when someone knocks at the door. Bloody buggery. Throw blankie and cat to the floor, furniture surf my way to the door. Get there and stop. Something in my head says "it's very rude to answer the door with a hat on. It's even WORSE to answer it wearing a hat and an eye patch, with specs perched on the end of your nose".

Now where the hell did that internal rule come from?

I have some I can completely understand - it's not done to eat in the street, for example. No idea who told me that, possibly a grandparent, but it has stuck with me and, unless it's a total emergency, I still won't eat in the street.

But who the hell would have told me it's not polite to answer the door wearing a woolly hat, an eye patch and specs on top?

Who would have had the imagination to a) think of me in the future  regularly wearing such an eye accessory and b) think it not the done thing to wear it when greeting visitors?

Things about food I didn't know when I started cancer treatment

1) I can open a packet of three Reese's peanut butter cups, eat half of one and put the second half back in the packet.

2) I can leave the open packet of Reese's peanut butter cups on the table in full view of my seat on the sofa for, let's calculate, three weeks and two days and not eat them.

3) I can look at a pork pie and not want to eat it.

4) I  can open the last packet of cheese and onion crisps, eat two, then give it someone else.

5) I can have trapped wind so badly that I have to ask my husband to wind me. He does so willingly, but won't put me over his shoulder to do it. No wonder babies cry.

A ne'er seen before phenomenon

What is that?

No really, what is that?

I peer down to look closer but still can't quite believe what I am seeing. I find my specs (leaving wet footprints on the landing in the process), set them on my nose and try again.

Oh. My. God.

It is! It is! My tummy is not obscuring the view. My tummy has shrunk to the extent that I can actually see my pubic hair if I look down. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it certainly is to me.

I've been trying to remember when I last saw them just by looking down and I'm pretty certain that it's never - my tummy was well rounded enough as a young teenager that when my pubes grew they were obscured already - so I've never actually viewed them from above, as it were. It's pubes a-gogo here at Villa DW.

So I am really quite happy today ;)