You may remember that Santa left me 1 and a 1/2 tons of wet wood instead of a sexy woman or even a nice bottle of whisky. Amazingly wet wood burns, but you need to mix some dry wood with it to get it up to temperature.

Unfortunately, while I was carrying this wonderful wet wood into my house, I managed to get a wood splinter stuck deep into my finger. I tried the usual home remedies, such as sucking my finger, swearing under my breath and cursing the man who delivered the wet wood, all to no avail.

What I really wanted was a sexy nurse to nurse me back to health, splinter or no splinter.

Preferably not nurse Ratched.

My nurse arrived in the form of a friend from Turin who was coming over to drink some wine and eat my special shepherds pie. Armed with a safety pin, I couldn’t find a needle! She started open finger surgery. I closed my eyes and kept them closed even after she laughed at me. I am not very good at pain.

First she used a set of tweezers to try and find the offending splinter, I opened my eyes long enough to take this photo. The splinter was very deep so she attacked it with the safety pin.

Miss Irish, cause she is Irish, managed to dig out the dastardly splinter and post op, we drank several bottles of wine to kill the pain and trauma of the operation.

To finish, I have bought some gardening gloves to protect my fingers while I handle this wet wood that Santa left me, I need to try to pack away my Christmas lights so they are not tangled should there be a Christmas next year and I wish you all a Happy New Year.