222

I've been tagged with this easy little meme by the eminently employable Shaz. Essentially all you need to do is raid Wikipedia for information pertaining to your birth date - enter your day and month of birth into the search feature on the left of their main page. Then add this list, chop the top person off (apologies to Last Minute Lyn) and insinuate your blog's name on the bottom. Then list 3 events, 2 births and 1 holiday that happen/ed on your birthdate. Finally tag 5 other people.

Useless piece of information for you, on a non leap year my birthday is day number 222.

Are We There Yet??
Sarge Charlie
Comedy Plus
Us Danes
Medication Time

Three Events:

1. 1519 - Ferdinand Magellan's five ships set sail from Seville to circumnavigate the globe. They had to turn back after reaching Bermuda because Seaman Staines remembered that he'd left the gas on and Roger the Cabin Boy was suffering from severe piles.

2. 1990 - The Magellan space probe reaches Venus. Apparently upon resuming their voyage they took a wrong turn and instead of circumnavigating the globe they shot off into space.

3. 2006 - Scotland Yard disrupts major terrorist plot to destroy aircraft travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States. Wankers.

Two Births:

1. 1489 - Jacob Sturm von Sturmeck, German statesman and reformer (d. 1553)

2. 1939 - Kate O'Mara, British actress

One Holiday:
Independence Day in Ecuador -- Movement began in Quito in 1809. Independence not achieved till May 1822.

The lucky tagees are:

Bob T Bear Esq
Echomouse
Amy
Ruth
Leanne

Boots of a feather flock together

Not a whole lot going on, on the thinking blogger front but the footwear is conspiring to take over the world.

Cogito ergo blog

Goodness me, I've been nominated for a Thinking Blogger Award - thank you Ruth, I'm right chuffed! As I can't think of anything else to say I'll just get on with naming my nominees to carry the torch forward:

Zoe - Dear Zoe was the first person to ever find me on the blogosphere or at least the first to say hello. She's a thinker with a capital T, I'm sure she won't mind me saying that some of her writing goes right over my head but I like to visit her site anyway because she makes me think (and she often posts stuff that appeals to the latent geek in me).

Glamourpuss - What can I say about Chez Glamour? It does what it says on the tin. Puss writes about her life as the glamourous-pole-dance-instructor-about-town, her highly entertaining memoirs are delivered in a razor sharp, distinctly cerebral fashion.

Goth - No-one could accuse our lad of posting any old tat on his blog. It's definitely a blog for thinkers, why I often sit and think, 'Goth, what the hell are you smoking?' :-)

DQ - Between you and me, I think DQ thinks too much sometimes but then again she is a drama queen and she's had an unsettling few months. Que sera sera honey - everything will all work out for the best.

Claire - Claire's 3 Beautiful Things concept is a lovely thing to behold, no rants, no tears, just serenity. It takes some thought in this day and age to carry that off and she does it err, beautifully.

Postcards from the hedge

Blimey! She's like the No. 27 bus, you don't see one for ages and then 6 come along all at once!

Sorry Clam fans (Clam, thanks Glam) I've been a busy bee but hopefully this pile of posts should make up for it - yup look further than this entry and you'll find several more.

I had today off - happy 4th of July to our colonial friends - which gave me the chance to catch up. I did procrastinate though, tidied the house, washed the net curtains, scrubbed the kitchen floor, I would have worked through my paperwork intray too (ugh) but there was a cat asleep in it and I didn't want to disturb him. So there we have it. I'm all caught up - in blogland that is.

I'll list the highlights and you can follow links to your heart's delight.

I've told you about the building work, my health news, something frivolous, my forthcoming birthday party and you even get some close encounters of the furred kind. Enjoy!

All creatures ... and a few plants

Some pictures for y'all. They're a bit small, click on them for a larger image.

My lovely fuchsias:



Even more impressive when seen from below!



I planted sugar snap peas this year and they all germinated giving me about 12 plants which I put in pots due to the building work going on. For the last 3 weeks we've been getting pods from them regularly which are yummy to eat raw. I've also got a few straggly strawberry plants in a window box which yield about 2 ripe fruits every couple of days.




I also planted round carrots in a trough. They're doing really well although I need to thin them out - I haven't go the heart to do that though.



Tumbling tomatoes in hanging baskets. Flowering beautifully and I saw some fruit set this morning.



Bullrushes in the pond ... not planted intentionally, they're far too big for a small pond! If you look in the background you'll see a heap of ballast, I have to climb on this to water and harvest my strawberries!



Site Foreman, Dougal, is puzzled by the arrival of part of the lunar landing module at the building site.



And finally, Cami looking cute in a rare patch of sunlight

Stayin' alive

It's been raining too much for building so we at Calamity Towers are occupying ourselves by preparing for my impending 40th birthday party. I'm unabashed in telling you that I have called it by the rather pretentious name of The Glitter Ball. It's taking place in a village hall, ha ha, The Glitter Ball.

It's a 70's theme fancy dress party and I'm going as Wonder Woman. That is to say Wonder Woman of the 21st Century (I know, I'm cheating ... it's my party!), the one where she's post marriage, post childbirth, pre menopausal. She no longer wears the star spangled girdle instead she wears boots with good arch support, control top tights and a cape to conceal those batwing triceps.

Capt Scarlet is going as himself. Pictures to follow after the event.

We're also having a barbecue and I'm doing the food. My next door neighbour will be in charge of the grill (which we don't have yet). I've never even thrown a small backyard BBQ before so it remains to be seen how I'll manage with 100+ people. Fingers and toes crossed everyone!

A shed too far

As promised many moons ago I shall give you the story of the building work going on in my back garden.


About 10 years ago Captain Scarlet built this workshop, with a greenhouse attached for me to play in.

At the same time we laid a new patio. I say at the same time but in truth the patio took several months to lay because Capt S handmade every single slab. Yup, 1 to 2 slabs a day cast from a mould made by our next door neighbour. Sigh. They were handmade because he wanted to shape them to go round the edge of our very curvy pond and because I had curvy flower beds that needed edging.


I hand painted every single slab in an attempt to make them look like worn old bricks rather than new grey concrete. Yuh huh. To be fair the colour looks brighter in the photo than in reality.

The Cap'n had been toying with building a new workshop for himself ever since he took himself off to a bricklaying evening class and then got a little practice by building a 36ft x 6ft (in places) garden wall.

Oh by the way, I mixed and poured the concrete for the foundations which were nearly 3ft deep.

Over time the old workshop and greenhouse were rotting and falling to pieces while he hummed and hahed about building something. The incident with the greenhouse roof forced the issue somewhat, so we decided to demolish and build.

Coping with the disruption while it goes on is pretty much what has been keeping me away from the keyboard lately. Plus I'm the builder's mate - mix this, dig that. I've moved about 7 tonnes of bricks which were stored in someone's garden and infested with spiders. I was VERY brave I can tell you. The puzzling thing was that bricks have a recess on the top for the mortar - it's called a frog dont'cha know - and I would find snails inside the frogs where there was clearly not enough room for the the pesky varmints to get inside.

I've moved about 10 tons of sand and ballast from the front of the house to the back. I've made all the concrete for the footings and the floor. I've been busy!

I only have a small garden, maybe 40ft wide by 36ft long. The new building itself occupies nearly a quarter of that space, we have a pond in the middle of the garden so the non-planted area has been taken up by the spoil heap from the foundations plus the materials for the building. I barely have room to walk round some of the piles of stuff but I've been determined to preserve everything living.

It should have been been finished by now but unfortunately the wet weather we've had lately has put paid to all that. Here's where we're up to so far. The bit to left is my new greenhouse. And yes I stacked every one of those bricks onto little pallets from big pallets so we could get them round the back! I need a massage just thinking about it.

Lion in a den of Daniels

A couple of weeks ago I had my first transplant clinic appointment which was traumatic to say the least. I had to sit in the middle of the room surrounded by medical professionals on all sides where I had to undergo an assessment of my fitness for transplant. To cut a very long story short I'm still not on the list, despite the fact that I'm fit and healthy and that I have the rare AB blood group which goes with almost any tissue type. I am considered too fat for transplant.

I had to endure a virtual interrogation of my lifestyle. I tried valiantly to defend myself but I ended up in tears. I have had huge issues with my weight in the past - I was a normal sized kid with normal appetites until Type 1 diabetes struck me when I was 11. From that point on, in rebellion of the strict diabetic diet, I became a compulsive eater.

I almost gave my poor Mum a nervous breakdown because I would steal food from the cupboard and replace it at a later time. It was bizarre stuff too like Steak & Kidney pudding, dry porridge oats, Oxo cubes, basically anything I could get my hands on. I became an expert at knowing where in town I could buy certain brands of food. I would even have to steal money from my parents to buy the food to put back in the cupboard.

I wasn't hugely obese then despite the extra food, being tall you can get a way with a lot of extra poundage, but as I got into my early teens I became more aware of my body image. I discovered that by not taking my insulin I could lose weight. It has essentially the same effect as Atkins, it is why I plead with people not to do Atkins.

Your body's preferred energy source is carbohydrate, sugar basically - doesn't matter what kind, white & crystalline, brown & wholesome, your body doesn't care because it all gets broken down into monosaccharides which pass easily through into your bloodstream and then insulin unlocks the energy. If there's no insulin then your body can't use the sugar so it passes out into your urine.

But the body still needs energy to function so it releases chemicals called ketones which break down stored energy ... fat ... into a usable product. Trouble is these ketones aren't good for you on a sustained basis, they do all kinds of nasty things to your internal organs, especially your kidneys.

Anyway I regularly omitted to take my insulin in order to lose weight. Naturally I made myself ill by doing so and was in and out of hospital to be restabilised. It's essentially why I have kidney disease now. I killed 'em off with stupidity.

But there's more, I experimented with purging - using laxatives, diuretics and vomiting. It used to send my diabetes out of kilter too quickly to have any effect. I must be the only bulimic never to lose any weight.

At one point I was exercising like mad - I would do the full Jane Fonda Workout before going to work, walk briskly for an hour at lunchtime and then come home and cycle 20 miles on my exercise bike. I got extremely fit but I never got any thinner than a UK size 16.

I got so depressed and aggravated with myself for not being able to control this one tiny aspect of my life that once I even overdosed on insulin in an attmept to end it all. I couldn't even see that through properly - I confessed to Mum what I'd done and I was packed off to hospital again.

I've been to Weight Watchers, I've done Slimfast but to no avail. A few years ago I was referred for Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for another reason but the CBT helped me get my whole life into perspective. I swore I would never diet again because it makes me feel worthless and all that guilt if I eat something I'm not supposed t,o is so damaging.

I have finally learned not to punish myself for not being perfect, I'm happier in my own skin than I've ever been. I can actually sometimes think of myself as reasonably attractive, nice hair, good skin, pretty eyes. What's more inmportant is that I know it's what's inside that matters, how you live your life not what you look like.

The transplant team want me to go into that dark place again. I'm afraid.