It’s been one of those weeks.  What is it with these stomach bugs?  Why do they have to be so strong and knock out the entire family one by one?  Why is there nothing yet in our modern medicine defenses that can take one of these bugs and pummel into the ground before it strikes an entire household? 

It started off last week with the youngest member of the family.  He probably caught it the same way all small kids do – sharing who-knows-what with his friends at school whilst on this treasure hunt they all went on together!  The bug took him out of school for a few days, and then we returned to some semblance of normality (once all the additional laundry that this bug created was taken care of) for all of two days before it was my turn.  Within a day my partner was also down with it – we probably caught it from our adored youngest child, one of us from cleaning him up, and the other from cleaning his bedding and clothes!  We were just pulling ourselves together and enjoying the first decent night’s sleep without stomach cramps in a few days when we heard it strike our firstborn.  Not as heroic, or independent, as his younger brother, the bug turned firstborn into a drama queen for 24 hours until it ran out of steam – or became bored with our son’s desperate attempts to convince us he was dying from this bug that had already passed through the rest of us without permanent damage. 

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Today everyone is more or less healthy again, and as there’s no more humans in the house, hopefully the stomach bug will have packed its bags and left to make another home a misery for a week or so.  Unless of course it realizes that it missed the cat and comes back to create a little bit more worry and mess! 

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So Kevin Keegan’s taking over as Newcastle United Football Club in a return to the footie club that needs the “it” factor that he brings to it.  Newcastle loves “Wor Kev”.  Sure Alan Shearer is a contender for management, he’s surely earned his right to wear a manager’s shirt rather than a player’s shirt, but he’s still a rookie and untested in the management field for a major club.  It’s going to be interesting to see what happens next – Shearer is being quoted in the media as being amicable to working alongside Kevin Keegan, if Keegan were to ask him, but politics would suggest that this may be a recipe for disaster with Shearer’s younger opinions getting in the way of Keegan’s more management experienced demands. 

If there was a way that these two could work things however and work together to build the team, then the support that the area, and of course the enthusiastic “Toon Army” fans, would be tremendous.  The love affair that the local area had with both of these ex NUFC players is long standing, and it’s going to be interesting to see how this lifts the morale not only of the players, but also the city that loves its footie almost as much as its beer!

On a more positive note.Josie has completely re-designed the overseas investment property for sale part

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The NHS turns sixty this year and so the battle resumes for the political meddling that has become so common in Britain's cherished health service.  While everyone in the country, myself included fully appreciates the system, there is something deeply unsatisfying about how the whole set up carries on.

Maybe it is the fallacy of the trust system, the post code lottery that has now passed into everyday lexicon.  Or maybe it is the queues in the Casualty departments up and down the country, especially now that winter is upon us.  Or maybe its to due with lack of funds for cancer research, whilst the BACD crys for changes in legislation go unheard. Or maybe it is the fact that avoidable diseases are still prevalent due to simple procedures in hygiene not being followed.

There is also something in the amount of money that every taxpayer stumps up in terms of National Insurance, something that was increased a few years ago yet there has been no real improvements that have been visible to the voting public.  Something to remember on its 60th birthday, for all politicians out there.On a positive note.Pat has redesigned the microdermabrasion london pages

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