That's hot ...

While surfing the blogsphere the other day I came across a link on someone's site (I apologize, I can't remember which one) that took me to a site where you could uncover your 'bloglebrity' status. I was gratified to note that mine isn't the lowest, I love my select band of loyal readers with the exquisite taste to stick it out where the pickin's are really slim and I think I would have a panic attack if I had to entertain hundreds of people every day.




Here's the blurb

Groupings Explained:
The Low Authority Group [D-List Bloggers]
(3-9 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
The average blog age (the number of days that the blog has been in existence) is about 228 days, which shows a real commitment to blogging. However, bloggers of this type average only 12 posts per month, meaning that their posting habits are generally dedicated but infrequent.

The Middle Authority Group [C-List Bloggers]
(10-99 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
This contrasts somewhat with the second group, which enjoys an average age not much older than the first at 260 days and which posts 50% more frequently than the first. There is a clear correlation between posting volume and Technorati authority ranking.

The High Authority Group [B-List Bloggers]
(100-499 blogs linking in the last 6 months)
The third group represents a decided shift in blog age while not blogging much more frequently than the last. In keeping with the theme of the maturation of the blogosphere, it seems evident that many of these bloggers were previously in category two and have grown in authority organically over time. In other words, sheer dedication pays off over time.

The Very High Authority Group [A-List Bloggers]
(500 or more blogs linking in the last 6 months)
In the final group we see what might be considered the blogging elite. This group, which represents more than 4,000 blogs, exhibits a radical shift in post frequency as well as blog age. Bloggers of this type have been at it longer – a year and a half on average – and post nearly twice a day, an increase in posting volume of over 100% from the previous group. Many of the blogs in this category, in fact, are about as old as Technorati and we’ve grown up together. Some of these are full-fledge professional enterprises that post many, many times per day and behave increasingly like our friends in the mainstream media. As has been widely reported, the impact of these bloggers on our cultures and democracies is increasingly dramatic.

Entre nous

I should have blogged about this months ago when it happened but as you know I haven’t written much of anything in the last few weeks so I never got round to it . I was also concerned that Captain Scarlet might read it as it is a confessional of a sort but it transpires that he doesn’t bother to tune in to read about my exploits anymore - I suppose having a ringside seat is enough for him.

This tale takes place on Tuesday 20th March, 2 days after my apocalyptic post regarding my son’s birthday. His birthday sucked the life out of me for several days, compounded by dialysis treatment not going too well and coming home to a pamphlet sent by the hospital asking me if I, as a diabetic, was considering having a baby in the future because if I was there were “complications associated with pregnancy and diabetes”. Hmmm no shit Sherlock.

As I was driving back from dialysis on the Tuesday morning I made up my mind that I was going to buy some cigarettes. I haven’t smoked for a long time but some internal demon convinced me that to start again today would soothe my frazzled nerves. So I made quick pitstop to Tesco.

Unfortunately, I neglected to buy anything to light the smokes with thinking I would use the matches that we have knocking around at home to use for candles, barbecues, etc. D’oh. The matches weren’t in the drawer where they’re usually kept. No problem I thought - they must be in the garage so I unlocked the back door (think Fort Knox and you might be close) and then the back door of the garage. It was pissing down with rain at the time and I was drenched before even setting foot in there.

I had quick search in all the hidey holes, being mindful of crack assassin spiders waiting to jump out to kill me. Nothing. Right. Down to the workshop at the bottom of the garden to have a look. A quick look around there but nothing.

Bollocks. Back to the house for another frantic scrabble through drawers and cupboards. Out to the garage again. Nope. Down to the workshop again, desire for a secret stinky fag building to fever pitch. A closer inspection of the workshop including drawers this time - fuck the crack assassin spiders. Still nothing.

I squelched back to the house fuming and almost at the point of ringing Captain Scarlet to demand that he reveals the location of the matches. Fortunately my logic bus hadn’t blown out yet and I stopped short of dialing.

I considered lighting from my ceramic hob but wasn’t sure if it would work and I didn’t want to make a mess that I would have to explain. And so it dawned on me to use the cigarette lighter in the car. This presented its own set of problems - namely I didn’t want to stink out the car with cigarette smoke which would take some creative explaining and I didn’t want the neighbours to see me smoking in case they mentioned it to the Cap‘n.

I decided to light up, run through the house and out to the back since the rain had ceased. Everything went smoothly until I set foot outside when the heavens opened up again and it started to rain cats and dogs, I think it was even hailing taxis. I sloshed over to the greenhouse which is attached to the workshop, opened the door and stood inside in the dry finally sucking down that nicotine and benzene. Aahhhh.

Suddenly a gust of wind ripped off half the roof of the greenhouse. The side I was standing under. Fucking brilliant! I looked to the heavens expecting to see God pointing his index finger and booming “YOU!! I DID EVERYTHING I COULD TO STOP YOU FROM LIGHTING THAT STUPID LITTLE CANCER STICK!!!” but all I could see was grey skies and dots of rain hurtling down towards me. All I could hear was the wind howling and a gentle sizzle as my cigarette went out. And maybe some satisfied laughter too.

Camiknickers

To my immense relief Cami was found today - in a neighbour's garage. The funny thing is that this was one of the garages that was actually opened for me on Thursday night when we realised she was missing and I started canvassing the neighbours. Most of the people I asked didn't bother opening up for me (b'stards) but this guy was only too happy to help.

When he went in there to start up the car today he saw a cat, wasn't sure where she went so he shut the garage up again and came to get me.

She was holed up behind a load of junk and took some coaxing to come out so I was worried she was ill or injured. She was simply terrified and wouldn't come out until the guy and his wife left me to it. She must have been so frightened that each time the door was opened instead of bolting for freedom she hid.

She spent the rest of the day on the bed snuggled in a nest of clean undies which were waiting to be sorted ... bless her, I didn't have the heart to disturb her.

Happy, happy CJ!!

Cami come home

One of my cats has been missing for 2 days so I'm too distraught to write anything even slightly amusing today. I feel like an idiot, grieving over a lost cat but she's my family.

When my previous pair of cats died within 6 months of each other at the ripe old age of 17 it took me literally years to talk about them without weeping - they helped me through the loss of my son so they were more than mere pets, they were my surrogate children. This is going to put me back a long way if she doesn't turn up soon.

What a burden for a pair of furry little airheads to carry.

Listen to the voice of Buddha

I christened my left big toe Phil Oakey today. Not you understand because it's being getting any love action of course, it's because somehow during a freak accident with the toenail clippers I managed to cut it so one side is a good quarter of an inch lower than the other side. I'm really bummed over this as I have a really hot pink nail polish that looks terrific on toenails. Maybe I should plant a story in Heat! magazine that wonky toenails are de rigeur in WAGland.

Anyway it was a fitting end to a week that started with me committing a quadruple murder (I really must find out how to add sound effects to this page, in my head the Deadwood Saloon's tinny pianny that plays when I'm here just stopped playing when I wrote that). Muhrrdah!

I arrived at the dialysis unit last Saturday to discover that a guy who I shall refer to as Private Joe Walker after the spiv in Dad's Army, had acquired 30 live lobsters and was selling them - 3 for a tenner. I hummed & hahed for a couple of hours before deciding that I would buy some. I've never tried lobster as it's always been too expensive so this seemed like a good opportunity.

Anyway Pvt Walker was finished before me so he bagged up the lobsters and one of the nurses stowed them in my car for me.

All the way home there was an agitated rustling coming from the back seat and when I arrived home I discovered that he'd given me 4 of the little blighters. Or should I say big blighters. Big lively blighters.

Gulp! I don't think I'll be able to go through with this!

I gave myself a stern talking to and decided that I wouldn't jump in the car again and drive off to Cromer to set them free - dammit I was going to cook them. All the same I felt so sorry for those cute little chaps - Claude, Klaus, Claudette & Claudia - I decided that while the water was boiling I would make them comfortable in a big bucket of rain water that was in the back garden. I even added some salt and played some Benjamin Britten to try and make them feel at home.

Apparently that was the worst thing I could have done for them (the rainwater not the Britten); it hastened their demise so I was spared the horror of lowering wriggling creatures into scalding water while bawling my eyes out and screeching "I'M SOOOO SOOORRRY!!!!" as each one went in.

I will never be the same again, I didn't think I had the capacity to deliberately kill something. Now I know I do ...

Trade test transmission

Stay tuned, normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Meanwhile I've become a murdress and there's what looks like a lunar landing module in the back garden.

To the point

I just realised that my 100th post came and went unnoticed, I've also remembered that I haven't done a medical update for some time - this is Medication Time after all.

The big news is that I've been getting dialysed through needles in my arm a lot more often than through the catheter in my chest. This is great for me as it means I'm that much closer to getting the wretched catheter out of my chest. Once that happens and the hole heals up I can go swimming again or even go away on a beach holiday!

It also means that I don't need to have more surgery to create a different fistula - the one created in January appears to be going very well although the blood vessels are still small and deep, but with more needling they will eventually grow and come closer to the surface. It's a Catch 22 situation - you need to get the needles in to make the vessels grow, yet the vessels are too small for a needle.

Apologies to the squeamish, but ... tough shit. If I have to deal with this then so do you. Ooh I could crush a grape I feel that assertive.

Vindicated

Yup. Now there's documentary proof that Captain Scarlet's birthday treat is bad for my health. Ptooey!

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070509/thl-us-heatlh-cancer-0b0437e.html

7 Random Things

I've been tagged by my dear cyber pal Shaz (does that count as a random thing?)

1. I used to work in a public library. Great place apart from the fusty old WI crowd who also worked there who looked down their noses at me.

2. I handpainted every single paving slab in my garden. I sought the services of an osteopath soon after.

3. I've never seen Dirty Dancing and have no desire to do so.

4. My most cherished ambition next to seeing the Earth from space or to drive a double decker bus at Silverstone is to be a published (read paid) writer.

5. I adore Tommy Lee Jones and Ed Harris. You can keep Brad Pitt.

6. I have a Teach Yourself Conversational Klingon book and the technical specifications manual of the USS Enterprise (the starship not the aircraft carrier).

7. I've already made my will and bought my burial plot.


I hereby tag, ummm, I haven't sown my cyber oats as far as some so it looks like it will be ... DQ and Kai

They're he-ere!

I found myself with an extra half hour on my hands this morning so rather than blog about the construction project ie the garden, which will take too much time (sorry Shaz - maybe later today), I will tell you about the odd goings on in my kitchen at night.

About a week ago just after midnight, I woke to find that I was having a hypo - low blood sugar - so I staggered downstairs to have something to eat to bring my blood sugar back up. As I sat at the table sleepily dunking biscuits in a glass of milk, one of Captain Scarlet's watches started to beep. He keeps at least 3 digital watches on top of the microwave at any one time so I had to paw through them to find the right one to shut it off. When I told him about it in the morning he was adamant that he hadn't set the alarm.

A couple of days later I was again sitting at the kitchen table, this time testing my blood sugar before going to bed at about 10:30. Another watch started alarming, a different one this time. Again I asked Capt S if he had set the alarm and again he said no.

On Friday night Capt S walked into the kitchen and a completely different watch started to alarm. I'd made a point of checking that all the watches were set not to alarm yet it happened again! WTF is going on? Do we have a poltergeist? It's all very spooky.

Ground rules

I wish to apologise to my faithful band of readers who log in daily to see what I've written only to discover that I haven't written a bloody thing. Sorry.

I have a life that precludes regular dispatches on the old blogarama thing. In fact I have gone to such lengths as to draw up a plan for every waking hour to assist with the management of said busy, but ultimately dull life. Unfortunately I drew up this plan in winter and the slot I reserved for blogging fell between 5.50 pm and 6.30 pm which now the weather has been brilliant and the evenings longer, I have pinched for gardening.

I feel most at peace with myself when I'm pottering around in the garden. That's not to say that I have a great garden because I don't. Actually it's like a bomb site at the moment because Captain Scarlet has ripped out his old wooden workshop with my greenhouse attached and is in the process of digging the footings for a new improved brick workshop and brick-base greenhouse.

But I digress. Gardens, plants, wildlife - I love it out there. I'm actually considering starting a Royal Horticultural Society course in Garden Design and then I will work towards a Diploma in Horticulture.

Now I just need to work that into the schedule somehow, something's gotta give - will it be the exercise slot or the weekend blogging spot ... hmmm, tough choice.

Rebel yell(ow)

Gardeners of a delicate disposition should turn away now. Go on, toddle off to your potting shed.

I love dandelions. I love their shaggy yellow heads which are the harbingers of spring, I love the leaves which give the plant its name - dents de lion ... lion's teeth, and I love the fluffy pom-pom seed heads most of all. As a child I launched countless thousands of tiny parachutes towards unsuspecting neighbourhood lawns as I counted off the time.

Did you know you can make an ersatz coffee from the roots?

I know I'm a disgrace to my green-fingered sisterhood, I should hate dandelions, eradicate them, wrench them wriggling and screaming from between the genetically modified delicate specimens that we choose to put in the garden.

But I don't. I'm doing my bit for conservation, I'm saving the planet one weed at a time.

Meep meep

Can I have a big round of applause for Staff Nurse Spill Me, one of my nurses who ran the London Marathon for the first time - she finished in 5 hours 57 minutes. She's an absolute star, one of my favourites; she's only been training since Christmas but has never really run much prior to this and was running to raise money for MacMillan Nurses and for the dialysis unit.

Knights of the Road

Definitely not Knights Who Say Ni, but some jolly nice ambulance driver chaps and I believe some chapesses who are raising money for the Richard House Trust - the children's hospice in London.

Read more about the mission on Tom Reynolds' blog here or click on this widget (keep your fingers crossed that it works as this is my first time with a widget - yes I truly am a widget virgin). Oh yes and please spread the word.

Size matters

I now have an official fluid restriction of 800 mls (or just over a pint and a half) per day because quite frankly I don't pee very much these days. This allowance includes drinks and fluid found in foods such as fruit, rice, pasta, yoghurt, etc. A bit stingy isn't it and needless to say almost impossible to stick to whilst maintaining some kind of quality of life, so I tend to aim for it but overshoot by about 50%.

One of the tricks I have found useful is to use smaller cups and glasses - sounds obvious but psychologically a full small cup is more satisfying that half a large cup - not to mention more accurate. So to that end I have commenced a quest for dinky cups that hold no more than 150 mls, preferably less.

I have some glasses that are 100 ml or to put it into some kind of perspective, 20 teaspoons full. I've had them for years and countless times they been on the verge of being chucked out but saved such ignominy due to the fact that they were given to me by my Granny which curiously enough is also the reason for them potentially being thrown out in the first place. Hmmm, my life is full of such conundrums (or is that conundra?).

Another little trick I discovered is to suck ice chips. Not being in possession of an ice-chip maker I armed myself with an icecube tray and a hammer at work and if I'm feeling thirsty I will pop out a couple of ice cubes, smash them to pieces and scoop them into one of said tiny glasses just to ensure that I'm not having too much. Sucking 100 mls of ice is almost as satisfyig as chugging 500 mls of water. Almost.

On a related note I have lost 3 kgs or almost half a stone. I've given up that dratted Xenical so it's all down to me not some stupid drug that gives you diahorrea. I'm so frustrated because I'm losing weight from my boobs, ribs and waist but not my hips or thighs. My trousers droop down over my hips but I can't get into a smaller size yet.

Oh yes size matters, on so many levels it matters.

Jane's addiction

I'm on a high. There's white powder everywhere - all over my trousers, all over the laptop. There was a hole in the bottom of the packet. I'm going to go over everything with a clean bag in the vacuum cleaner to retrieve what I've lost.

Later though, I need to delay the gratification for a while otherwise I'll be wanting my fixes more often.

They've started selling it in Budgen's in the next town over. Tesco despite their desire to rule the world haven't yet figured out how lucrative the local market can be.

The cashier looked askance at me when I paid for my precious - 5 packets all in one go. I found myself having to justify myself to her, "It's for the kids" I stuttered, "it's half-term" - she nodded knowingly, thinking "Suuure, it's for the kids".

I haven't got any kids.

That was 3 days ago and I've just had my last pack. I've broken out in a sweat just thinking about not having any. I don't know what I will do, it's ages until we go over there again!

I'm going mad! I know I shouldn't be having the stuff but I can't help myself. The yellow tubes, the licorice straw, the white fizzy yumminess of Bassett's Sherbet Fountains just keeps calling my name "... Jane ... Jane ... Jane"

Re-entry in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ...

Cooee - I'm back in the blogosphere. I'd like to say that I've been quiet 'cos I had a kidney transplant but the truth is I've been floating around in another dimension - you know the one I mean, the one where you have to go to work, the one where Dull Stuff Happens.

Unfortunately in that dimension fathers-in-law fall off ladders and have heart attacks, internet connections fail, work and hospital treatments absorb all the hours in the day, Easter eggs have to be hand delivered to distant relatives.

It's a scary place and I'd much rather be in the company of pole dancers, drama queens, goths, Dane lovers and geekettes.

My email server appears to have found a worm hole and gone off on its own little adventure somewhere - I can neither send nor receive anything and am stuck with a Yahoo account, for which no-one appears to have been able to decipher the address.

Now you know what's been happening. Sort of.

Feed me Seymour!

The weekend before last was spent planting seeds. It's an annual event for me, even if the seeds germinate they are doomed to an early death in my excuse for a garden, but I get a kick out of it all the same. The fact that a 10 foot tall sunflower can grow from such a tiny seed just blows my mind.

This year's contenders for East Anglian Roulette, chosen primarily due to the poorness of my sandy soil and therefore standing a fighting chance of survival, are:

Red sunflowers
Yellow dwarf sunflowers
Garlic chives
Red Basil
Lime Basil
Nasturtiums in 4 varieties
Tomatoes
French Tarragon
Catmint
Lemon Balm

The shoots started to appear at the end of last week on some of the trays and when I saw that the nasturtiums and sunflowers which normally have sturdy shoots like beansprouts, were sending up spindly, thin, red-stemmed shoots I concluded that something was amiss.

My seed compost was contaminated! A pox on you Mr Innes and your demon seed!

I have no idea what I'm growing but I'm assured by an expert that at least it isn't cannabis. I shall keep them going just for the sake of curiosity but I sincerely hope that I'm not going to be eaten out of house and home by a bunch of Audreys.

Prince of Toads

The good Cap'n and I have tried for many years to get a population of toads and frogs living in our garden. The fact that my mother-in-law is so terrified of them that she can only refer to them as "those hoppy things" has absolutely nothing to do with it m'lud. Captain Scarlet just likes them and I want them to keep the slug population to a minimum.

A good few years ago when we first had a garden pond, we would spend many hours searching woodland ponds trying to acquire some spawn, often precariously slithering down the bank in danger of going in. We once managed to snag a pair of toads in coitus. They must have been practising tantric toad sex because we drove 10 miles home to bring them back to the pond and they didn't even seem to notice, "Did the Earth move for you darling?"

It soon became apparent why toads lay eggs in such huge numbers, the game of Toad Survivor is a tough one. To begin with our first pond had a sitting tenant - a large, belligerent looking koi carp who was rather partial to tadpoles and we would despair at watching him trawl round the pond sucking up the tadpoles and smacking his fat, pouty lips with delight.

We decided to have 2 ponds, one for fish, one for wildlife. The 2 ponds were however connected by a little waterfall made of Welsh slate - the top pond was for the fish, the bottom one for the toads & frogs. Despite our best filtering efforts we discovered that the tiny toads that had survived trial by fish were ending up in the top pond. In order to get there they actually had to travel about 15 feet along a pipe which led to a mini pumping station (so positioned because of the power supply) which pumped water through an unltraviolet filter (to keep algae at bay) and then back 15 feet into the top pond. This must have been quite an adventure for them ... but at least they got a tan on the way.

The saddest discovery was when we saw on the stone edging of the pond which got very hot in the summer sun, several tiny flattened toad bodies looking for all the world like fossils in the stone - we think they hopped out of the pond and got stuck to the hot stone.

Despite all this I am happy to announce that we still have at least one toad in the garden. I heard him calling for a mate tonight - if you don't know what that sounds like imagine the sounds of crepe soled shoes on a shiny floor. I'm chuffed to bits and can't wait to tell my mother-in-law that we might be having tadpoles soon.

Back in the saddle

I'd like to thank everyone for their kind emails and comments following my last post. I'm fine now, thank you - I don't often wallow in self-pity but when I do I tend to go for it in a big way. This gets everything out of my system and I bounce back like a weeble.

I've been tagged by DQ with this delightful 3 Things meme (which Clare should be an expert at by now).

Three Things That Scare Me:
1. Spiders - 8 legs, 8 eyes, mostly hairy - what else can I say?
2. A kidney & pancreas transplant - being cut from breastbone to hip. There go my abs of steel.
3. Politicians.

Three People Who Make Me Laugh:
1. My husband
2. Aardman Animations (a collection of people I know, but I don’t care, their films rule)
3. My cyber friend Dizzy Liz

Three Things I Love:
1. My husband
2. My cats
3. The written word

Three Things I Hate:
1. Coffee
2. Cleaning the shower
3. Poor manners

Three Things I Don't Understand:
1. Myself
2. HTML (but I’m working on it)
3. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle


Three Things On My Desk:
1. A beanie baby dragon wearing a pair of slippers (Old Navy keyrings)
2. 2 clementines
3. A big pile of blue folders (23 performance reports close out on the 15th April which mean they’ve just arrived to be reviewed)

Three Things I'm Doing Right Now:
1. Errrr, helloooo, this meme
2. Ploughing through the big pile of blue folders
3. Wondering what the hell I can do to make a living from home instead of being here.

Three Things I Want To Do Before I Die:
1. Publish a novel or two or three or four
2. Drop my BMI so I can get on the transplant list
3. Drive on a skid pan

Three Things I Can Do:
1. Make a mess
2. Make yummy Yorkshire Pud
3. Make beautiful greetings cards

Three Things I Can't Do:
1. Knit
2. Whistle
3. Keep houseplants alive

Three Things I Think You Should Listen To:
1. Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of The Worlds
2. Baz Luhrman - Sunscreen
3. The elderly - hardly anyone gives them the time of day yet they have such great stories to tell.

Three Things You Should Never Listen To:
1. Your inner gremlin who says you can’t do it
2. Your iPod at full volume - you only have one set of ear drums in this life
3. People talking about you

Three Things I'd Like To Learn:
1. Russian - I know a few words but it is such a beautiful, lyrical language
2. To paint in watercolours
3. Photography

Three Favourite Foods:
1. Funnel cake/freshly cooked doughnuts
2. Sundried Tomatoes in olive oil
3. Roast potatoes with rosemary

Three Shows I Watched As A Kid:
1. Battle of the Planets
2. The Clangers
3. Blue Peter

Three Wonderful People to Inflict My Meme On:
Shaz
Clare
Mrs Woman

Henry's Day

It is a cruel twist of fate that Mother's Day this year falls on 18th March which should have been my son's 14th birthday. Note the "should" in that last sentence, Henry died when he was almost 4 months old. His death left an enormous wound in my heart which never quite heals, instead it gets torn open again every time his birthday rolls around; this year it had to fall on Mothering Sunday.

Henry was born at 26 weeks gestation by emergency caesarian after a rollercoaster ride of a pregnancy - this week we're going to terminate, no we'll try for another week, this week we're going to terminate ...

He weighed just 1 lb 10 oz and had been given a 50/50 chance of survival. It was 3 whole days before I was allowed out of intensive care to see him in his own little intensive care unit. I could barely take in what I saw before I passed out. Some mother I turned out to be.

The following day was Mother's Day. Next to my bed was a card from him - it contained a Polaroid picture of him and his hand prints. Later I got another card and some flowers. Clever little lad was my boy, especially considering he was intubated on a respirator and had just undergone surgery for a collapsed lung the night before.

The day before he died we were preparing to bring him home from hospital. We'd just bought his pram and his cot - I hadn't allowed myself to buy anything when I was pregnant, but I started buying things and then he died. What's wrong with this picture? Did I tempt fate?

Early one morning we got a call from the hospital saying we had to come at once, they wouldn't say why. In my heart I knew that he was gone. He was 15 weeks old.

The only time I got to see him without tubes or tape on his face was when he was dead. My sweet boy. When I can't sleep I imagine him lying sleeping on my chest and it calms me.

That day was a a blur but 2 things stick in my mind - I saw a herd of deer in a field in the early morning mist. They were startled to see anyone out so early. I sometimes see deer on my drive to the dialysis unit and the memory stabs me in the heart.

It was still early in the morning when we drove home and we ran over a hare. It's the only time I've ever seen a hare and I have the image of its huge paws zig-zagging along in front of the car until we caught it. I screamed. Does everything we touch have to die?

My kidney failure was diagnosed when I was 7 weeks pregnant. The doctors like to say that it was the pregnancy itself that prompted my kidneys to fail but the truth of the matter is that I'd been symptomatic for over 2 years before, and despite repeated visits to doctors no-one put everything together until it was too late.

The simple fact is that Henry saved my life. If I hadn't fallen pregnant no-one would have known how dangerously high my blood pressure was and I would probably have had a stroke and died. Another irony for you.

I have to wonder what I fucked up so badly in a previous life to be given this one.

Cutting room flaw

Happy Red Nose Day everyone. At last Shaggy Blog Stories has been published so everyone should hightail it over to www.lulu.com with their flexible friends at the ready. It'll be money well spent 'cos I'm not in it. Run along now, I have a shattered ego to nurse.

The Princess and the Pea

A few years ago my mother decided to move out of the bedroom she shared with my Dad, and move in to the spare room instead. Her decision wasn’t due to marital problems, merely down to a matter of comfort – she felt she couldn’t get in and out of their double bed anymore.

The guest bed in the spare room proved to be uncomfortable so they went out and selected a replacement. When the new bed was delivered Mum was adamant that the shop had sent the wrong one so it was sent back and replaced. A few months go by and Mum starts to complain that the bed is uncomfortable again. A replacement was sought again, delivered, installed, slept in and duly condemned.

This pattern went on for almost a year – something like 5 beds were bought in one year. My parents are both pensioners so can ill afford to throw their money around but my Dad’s world revolves around my Mum, and he was willing to do anything to make her happy. He attempted some modifications – removing buttons, adding padding, adding springs, boards, planks, anything he could possibly think of. Eventually they ended up with one of those space-age foam mattresses and at last she seems reasonably settled. That is until she decided that she wanted a new chair.

We went through the whole saga again with the chair. Supposedly the wrong one kept being delivered, one particular attempt got replaced twice at considerable extra cost but the search for a comfortable seat continued. I have one of the cast offs in my living room – doesn’t match my living room but rather than throw out a perfectly good chair I took it in. My Dad now sits on another of the rejects. Mum finally accepted one chair but most of the time chooses to sit on the settee from the old suite.

My Mum has always been difficult to please so I didn’t really give it a lot of thought – I just thought that’s Mum all over. Every Christmas I have endeavored to buy her something that makes her say “Oh that’s wonderful, just what I wanted!” but every year I’m crushed by the disappointment as she primly announces "thank you". She didn’t even unwrap her Christmas presents from me last year. And I have since heard through my Dad that every single item I spent ages choosing was unsuitable in some way.

What we didn’t realise was that the bed and chair saga were part of her developing dementia due probably to Parkinson’s Disease, and in the space of about 6 months my Mum has gone from being a tad daffy to barely recognizing the people around her.

She often thinks my Dad is her mother. She asks if her father (who died 60 years ago when she was just 16) is in the other room and she cries and has tantrums every time my Dad breaks it to her that her Dad is dead, it’s as though we have killed him off.

She either calls me by my sister’s name (my sister died nearly 30 years ago in a motorcycle accident) or she thinks I’m one of her friends. Sometimes she thinks my brother and I are dead and she has to get ready for our funeral. She behaves like a child.

Mum had a brain scan recently – Dad was perversely hopeful that she had a brain tumour, his reasoning being that the doctors can do something about a brain tumour. As it turns out her brain is actually shrinking and parts are being starved of oxygen because the Parkinson’s is hardening the blood vessels. She will be given some drugs usually given to Alzheimer’s patients.

None of it is her fault of course and we don’t blame her for anything but when you have everything you do thrown back in your face as not good enough it gets a little old. It is an awful situation and I worry constantly about my Dad’s state of mind. I find it stressful visiting because I don’t know what to say to the woman who should know me better than anyone, the woman who shuffles off to her bedroom because I’m a frightening stranger. My Dad lives with it day in day out.

I get upset because I’m having a shitty time with my illnesses and it should be my Mum giving me a hug and making a fuss of me. I’m sorry this has been a bit of a self-indulgent ramble today.

Comic Relief

Here's a great idea - go over to Troubled Diva and help with the mission to assemble blog stories and publish in a book in just 7 days! The book will be called Shaggy Blog Stories. It's all in a good cause and you'll get some publicity for your site too - a double whammy.

Go on, what are you waiting for, an engraved invitation?

Hubble dubble

Captain Scarlet loves it when I'm on a diet. Our tastes in food aren't compatible at the best of times but when I'm trying to cook low fat meals he turns his nose up at them and I end up cooking him something like egg & chips. He thinks he's died and gone to heaven which has a certain irony given the food he's eating but he has nary a worry about his heart or his waistline. All this from a man who thinks butter, cheese, oil, fat on meat, etc are poison. The awkward git.

Tonight I found myself with several pints of milk lurking in the fridge, normally in that situation I would make myself a macaroni cheese but since Xenical and cheese don't mix I decided to try and make a milk-based low fat sauce instead. I was thinking something along the lines of Alfredo but t'internet kept coming up with recipes containing cream and parmesan cheese so I took things into my own hands.

I should state for the record that I am NOT a cook in any way shape or form. Do not try any of my recipes without written approval from your doctor and always have a large bowl handy. Oh and those purists who sneer at the use of purees and dried herbs can just kiss my curvaceous British arse.

I had some fat-free creme fraiche in the fridge so I thought I would mix that with some milk, bring it to the boil add some garlic puree, black pepper and some dried parsley - boom, Alfredo's your uncle, right?

Wrong. Creme fraiche and milk curdles when brought to a gentle simmer. It was like grey cottage cheese and I promptly dumped it in the sink. I had plenty more milk to play with.

Next, I began on more familiar ground by mixing some cornflour with a little milk until I had a smooth paste and then added the rest of the milk. In my more carefree days I would have made a roux with some butter and plain flour but there's a kidney and a pancreas out there with my name on it and I need to get on the list so I can get to them.

I brought the milk up to the boil to allow the mixture to thicken slightly and then I added about an inch of garlic puree, some salt and black pepper, about a dessertspoon of dried parsely.

I tasted it and it needed something. Flavour I think, but all I had left in my arsenal was some sun-dried tomato puree and a few oddments of herbs.

I added the tomato puree, still missing something. After rooting around in my little used spice rack I happened upon tarragon. Ahhhh my second favourite herb after rosemary, what the heck I'll bung in some of that, I thought. So I added about a dessertspoon of the the tarragon and took a spoonful of the sauce to taste it.

Can I have a drumroll please?!

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr tish!

Scrumptious!! Just add pasta for a truly unauthentic Italian meal. I'm trying to figure out what to call this little concoction of mine. Any ideas?

Wuthering slights

You know you've Arrived in blogland when you land a £70,000 book deal. It's something that most of us, if we're honest, secretly aspire to. I expect most of us who do aspire to such things didn't expect to be discoverd within the first few months of writing but that's exactly what happened to Wife in The North.

What hasn't crossed our starstruck minds, I am sure, is that we would be parodied for our efforts and successes. Whilst following links from some of Wifey's commenters, I discovered that her writing is being parodied on another blog set up to be almost identical to hers. I confess that I found Strife in The North to be rather amusing and certainly quite clever but it is one of those things that make me go hmmm.

Eat sour grapes much?

Pail Rider

Take a memo Miss Funnyfanny:

Even if you cheat and take your last Xenical at lunchtime, if you decide to have sweet & sour pork balls for supper, even if you are only having it with plain boiled rice, always carry a bucket somewhere on your person. Failure to comply will have dire consequences the following morning.

Yours truly,
The Management

iChoons

There's a first time for everything and it's Drama Queen who finally broke my duck and tagged me. Spanish Goth started it, Shaz jumped on the bandwagon, I pitched a fit at being left out and now the rest, as they say, is history.

This is apparently how it goes.

Take your iPod, you have to switch it to random and list (truthfully) the first ten songs + artists. If you don't have an iPod (like me) you will probably have to use your iMagination instead.

Answers on your blogs please and then you have to TAG another 5 peeps - let the fun begin. And that's an order.

My list (sans iPod) goes as follows:

1. Shine by Take That (playing on Radio 2 during my drive home)
2. Gangsters by Specials AKA (as above - you know you're getting old when they start playing Specials AKA on Radio 2, Terry Wogan was playing some Clash the other morning, but I digress)
3. Night Fever by the Bee Gees (from the album Saturday Night Fever; The Original Soundtrack - on the boom box at home)
4. If I Can't Have You by Yvonne Elliman (SNF-OST)
5. Disco Inferno by The Trammps (SNF -OST ... are we starting to notice a pattern here?)
6. Strict Machine by Goldfrapp from the album Black Cherry
7. Suspect Device by Stiff Little Fingers from the album Inflammable Material
8. Hung Up by Madonna from the album Confessions on a Dancefloor
9. Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum from a 70's compilation
10. Pretty Fly for a White Guy by the Offspring from an air guitar compilation

Now then, as most of my known blogonauts are already taking part in this, the only others that I've had contact with are Zoe, Sonnjea and the owner of There's Life Jim who I only know as Mr Man's Wife (although I refer to her on my blogroll as as Mrs Woman as believe she at least deserves her own identity). I hope you guys don't mind too much - I need to look like I have some friends out there.

The importance of being Kipling

A handbag (a hyandbag??) is a girl's best friend. I personally favour Kipling bags, they're not to everyone's taste I know, some of them can be downright ugly and I do find the stuffed monkey keyrings somewhat annoying but mostly they suit me and my requirements. They're rugged, roomy and not at all poncey like some designer bags and the fact that mine, black to suit my normal mood, is called Morrisey is a bonus.

I did a quick inventory today and this is what I came up with:

2 pens - you can never find a pen when you need one
1 pencil - in case the pens run out
2 pad of Post It notes - a must. A folded note also doubles as dental floss but those paper cuts are a bitch
1 RAF ID card
1 USAF ID card - see if you can figure that one out
1 mobile phone - which never rings, perhaps I should give the number here 09052 302301. Call me!
1 purse - absolutely crammed with moolah (NOT!)
3 surgical dressings
1 tape measure - in case I need to take any inside leg measurements
1 comb - so I can tidy up before offering the above service
1 lipgloss - ditto
1 perfume atomiser - sigh, ditto, I think it has Prada inside but I've rinsed and refilled it so often with different scents that it's taken on its own unique fragrance, Essence of Pussmuk as my Dad would say.
1 tourniquet - extremely useful object, perhaps I should do a 101-things-you-can-do-with-a-tourniquet post
1 pair of binoculars - handy for when something interesting passes the office window, the last cool sighting was an An-124 in this 'ere livery.
1 pair of ear plugs (see above)
1 USB 1Gb flash drive - floppy is such a bad look
1 Red Dwarf novel - I hate being caught with smeg-all to read when I'm waiting for something or someone
1 small drum of toxic waste - yup, you read that right, toxic waste. You can buy it at Woollies, I'm not sharing mine with anyone

So what's in yours?

Beachcombing

Apologies for the dearth of posts lately, I've been lazy, miserable and uninspired this last week. I started on Xenical, the weight loss wonder drug, last Saturday and have experienced a few problems but I've lost at least a pound so hurrah!

We went to Great Yarmouth today, the Blackpool of the East Anglian coast and had a stroll along the beach. I've mentioned before that I like to pick up stones and shells washed up along the shore, but just lately my interest has been taken by sea glass - tiny chunks of glass worn smooth by the action of the sea. I netted quite a haul today including 2 interesting pieces of safety glass that had the reinforcement wires running through them.

I also came across a couple of pieces of thin, white china. I like to fancy that they came from the Titanic and have been washed all this way by Poseidon and his nereids in order to bring them home. They're slightly off course as they've missed Liverpool completely but I like the thought anyway.

Brave New World

How things change. I just received the rejection notification for the job I applied for a couple of weeks ago - Freelance Features Writer for the local paper - by email. Surprisingly I'm not dejected by it, I'm rather amused ... email hah! I last applied for a different job at the turn of the last century when they send the thanks, but no thanks letters through the post. So quaint!

Shake, rattle 'n' roll

My doctor wonders why I always resist having new drugs added to my collection. He thinks it's because I believe my body is a temple, frankly it's because I lack the kitchen space. I have a whole kitchen drawer given over to storing the blessed things, that's not to mention the drawer next my bed for the nighttime drugs or the salad drawer in the fridge full of stuff that requires refrigeration.


Every morning whilst assembling my assortment of medical miracles I have a scene from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert go through my head. It's the one where Bernadette and Mitzy are sitting having breakfast at a picnic table in the middle of the Australian outback. Something of a surreal scene anyway but then you see what's in Bernadette's bowl - it's full of pills and she's coyly downing them one by one.

Finally it has happened to me ...

The Red Planet

No-one would have believed in the early years of the 21st century that Martian affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No-one could have dreamed we were being scrutinized, as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water.


Interesting tidbit from BBC news http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6363243.stm

A wink and a curtsey to H.G. Wells and Jeff Wayne

Driving miss crazy

What is it with motorists today? Are they hungover on cheap pink champagne? Overcome by the fumes of a googoplex of red roses? High on serotonin and feeling invincible after scoffing all those chocolates?

I have had so much bad car karma today it's unbelievable. Maybe that should read good car karma as I'm still here tapping away to tell you about it. I've been cut up on roundabouts, overtaken on bends, had motorized cherry pickers pull out in front of me at the cheek rippling speed of 3 mph and then stop dead leaving me stranded blocking a roundabout.

The dialysis unit is tacked on the back of the main hospital and is accessible down a little side road which forms a T junction with the main access road down the side of the hospital. People park down the entire length of this road which makes it rather narrow - they park there as the main car parks are run by people with wooden legs and patches over their eyes clonking about going "Arrrrgh!" all the time ... but that's the NHS for you you might get free treatment but you're gonna need a private nose job after paying through it for all the parking.

Anyway whenever I come out of the dialysis access road I always pause behind the first parked car on the main road to allow anyone coming up the road to come through. Today there was a Bedford-type van coming up and there definitely wasn't room for both of us to pass so discretion being the better part of valour I let him come up.

He indicated right to come into the little road that I had just left and stopped effectively blocking me in. Never mind a wave of thanks or anything, his mate in the passenger seat started jabbing his finger in the direction of their turn - ug ug ug ug ug ug jab jab jab jab - he evidently thought they didn't have enough room to get through but for smeg's sake they were driving a Bedford van not the frickin' QE2. Duuuuuhhh until you move I can't get out you twat.

Ooooh ripe Anglo Saxon expletives!!

Whole lotta love

I'm rather proud of the fact that my husband doesn't buy into Hallmark Day, I mean Valentine's Day. I'm rather glad that he won't be coming home tonight looking sheepish and clutching a manky bunch of roses from the garage down the road - just because he felt he had to.

He shows his affection for me in other more practical ways throughout the year. Getting up early to defrost my car, for example, when I have to leave the house an hour before he does or warming my gloves on the radiator on a frosty morning mean far more to me than a heart shaped box of chocolates.

Putting my cynicism to one side I wish you all a Happy Valentine's Day - love to all.

A little stiff

Viagra goes on sale over the counter at Boots tomorrow - 50 quid is a little hard er, to swallow.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6351171.stm

A star is born

For all his newly acquired Dougalphiles out there (and I swore to myself that this wasn't going to be a cat blog) here's the boy and his sister on their first night home.



Getting hairier (the cats that is, not the hired help)



Relaxing on the slave's pillow



Well it does say Cat on the box

Space cadet

Dougal, call sign 'Fluffbomb', sits comfortably on his bed of CJ's unmentionables but no matter how hard he concentrates he just can't make sense of the words in this book.

Food for thought

They look after us really well at the dialysis unit, we're fed and watered regularly throughout the treatment starting with tea & toast for breakfast, tea & biscuits at 10am and then sandwiches just before we leave.

Apparently some of our sandwiches have been disappearing somewhere between the kitchen and the unit, one of the theories postulated is that the porters might be pinching them and selling them (a jokey theory, not an actual accusation I should add for fear of being sued by an angry porter!).

Just imagine, a thriving black market for NHS sandwiches - who'd'a thunk it?

The Laminator

He arrived in a blinding ball of light, naked and beautiful. He turned and saw me open mouthed in astonishment, he strode down the hall towards me giving me the chance to admire him in his birthday suit which was tailored to perfection, hugging his every curve and muscle.

“Come with me if you want to live in a home free of dust mites and fleas burrowing into your carpets” he said

“Oh you’ve come to fit the new floor in the cloakroom?” I gasped

“Affirmative”

He is The Laminator

He was bad to the bone “Er, you might want to put some pants on unless you want your John Connor getting caught in the snap ‘n’ click joints” I said helpfully, half hoping that he would stay just as he was. He thought that over for a moment and said ominously “I’ll be back”.

A few moments later he returned carrying his arsenal of Homebase antiqued oak laminate boards. He looked so dangerous in his leather trousers and his black Ray Bans and dangerous he was as he blundered about in the windowless room whilst wearing sunglasses.

“Stick around” he grinned at me. “Wrong movie" I replied, "but OK I’ll just go and put the kettle on shall I?”

I barricaded myself in the kitchen and hunkered down at the kitchen table with my Cyberdyne laptop and a mug of PG Tips – I wanted to run a virus scan, my Skynet ISP was letting through far too much malicious logic for my liking.

In the next room I could hear a colossal battle going on as The Laminator fought with corners and pedestals and pipes, the rise and fall of the machines’ motors as they clashed with medium density fibreboard.

Eventually there was silence then a dusty figure burst through door, it was done, the Laminator had once more prevailed. He smiled a toothy grin and gave me a thumbs up as he retreated back down the hall “Hasta la vista, baby”

Pistils at dawn

I need to have a word with the man in charge of the weather. What are you thinking? Giving us warm weather in January and now ultra cold conditions?!

While I was out doing my rounds yesterday I spotted a daisy blooming in the grass, the laurels have bundles of new growth pushing up and my pieris has bright red new shoots on it. The temperature here this morning was -6C - all those poor plants lulled into a false sense of spring are going to have their little botanical nuts frozen off.

It's just not cricket.

The pursuit of happiness

As I hinted yesterday, I went back to work this week. I don't know why I bothered really because apart from a couple of hundred emails of the look, raise your eyebrows in disbelief and delete variety, I had nothing to do all day.

You see the Captain, in my absence, is homesteading. For those unfamilar with the term it essentially means that she's trying to takeover. I now have half as much to do as I had before she joined us.

I'm fairly sure she thinks she's doing me a favour but she is not. I had all my programs running smoothly, I knew percisely where every document was, my tracking records were immaculate. Now I'm sharing my tracker with her and my information has holes in it. It's all gone to heck in a handbasket. Blimey I'm talking like her now. I even said at the KFC tonight, "I'll have that to go please" rather than saying "takeaway". Puhlease!!!

I'm very unhappy working on the base, apart from the boredom, the prospects and the diabolical pay I feel quite vulnerable in today's political climate and I've developed a pressing need to put some distance between myself and George Dubbya's band of merrie men

So what to do? It's time for me to spread my wings and follow my dreams. I'm considering applying for another job away from the base, away from the MOD. It would take a minor miracle for me to actually get it but Captain Marvel (who by the way is unhappy with his moniker and henceforth wishes to be referred to as Captain Scarlet) believes in me so it's time I started believing in myself.

Today has been cancelled due to lack of interest

I'm going back to work today. Ugh.

Smells like teen spirit

I need to enlist the help of all you ladies (any guys reading can consider themselves honorary ladies only without all the monthly hormone surges and all that goes with them).

You may recall from my previous post that I absolutely loathe the scent of musk. Well, by a strange coincidence, upon my return from the dialysis unit today I discovered on my doorstep a little gift box of Body Shop Musk. By a process of elimination I have concluded that it must have been left there by sister-in-law F because my mother-in-law is far too cheap to get me something like that just for being poorly, besides she brought me 2 perfectly good jigsaws from the charity shop last week, and SIL M gave me an identical gift box for Christmas.

I am at the point where I feel I really need to say something. For one thing these kind and very sweet girls are wasting their money buying me something that's going to end up down the charity shop. For another I'm fed up with my Christmas presents ending up down the charity shop.

A few years ago I confided to SIL F that I hated the smell of musk. At this point she hadn't ever bought me any, it was her mother who was the main culprit buying me Jovan Musk all the time. I fully expected word to get back to MIL if not the other SIL. Well MIL seemed to stop buying it for me but I ended up with musk from both SILs for Christmas.

One year I took a set back to the Body Shop for exchange but the assistant said it wasn't worth anything because they hadn't had that particular gift set in for a couple of years. So to add insult to injury I'm obviously getting my SIL's cast-offs because she doesn't like it either!

So, what do I do, say something or smile sweetly and quietly flog it off on Ebay?

The 39 steps

Due to the fact that I've been a recluse for the last 2 weeks or so, I have very little to write about so I thought I'd do a 39 Things About Me list - one for each birthday. I know these things are incredibly narcissist but can't you say that about all us bloggers?

1. I played the clarinet at school. One of the great regrets of my life is that I flogged mine to pay for driving lessons.
2. I bought my first house when I was 18.
3. My favourite fragrance is Van Cleef by Van Cleef and Arpels.
4. My least favourite fragrance is musk. One whiff makes me want to heave yet each Christmas my mother-in-law or one of my sisters-in-law will buy me some despite me having actually told one of my SILs that I hate it!!
5. I'm pretty good at improvisation (like what they do on Whose Line Is It Anyway?)
6. I used to be a lifeguard.
7. My favourite food is funnel cake. Freshly cooked doughnuts will do instead at a pinch.
8. I hate coffee.
9. I paid off the mortgage on my third house 2 years ago.
10. Although I love cats, every knick-knack, calendar, picture, card, mug does not have to be cat themed.
11. I'm fascinated by plants and trees but I'm a terrible gardener.
12. My best physical feature must be my eyelashes. They're very long and dark - I'm frequently asked if they're real.
13. I grew up in a house with the number 13. Never did me any harm, ahem.
14. My favourite flowers are sunflowers and lilies. Roses in my opinion are overrated.
15. I've had 12 surgical operations.
16. I consistently score highly on internet IQ tests, according to them with my IQ I must be a genius but of course I take that with a pinch of salt.
17. My other nickname is Maverick. I haven't got a clue why.
18. My favourite alcoholic drink is vodka, freshly squeezed lime juice and slimline tonic, all preferably frozen until slushy. My favourite soft drink is actually sparkling spring water.
19. I have a poster signed by all the boys at Orange County Choppers.
20. I collect russian dolls and camels. My favourite doll is only about 3.5 inches high but she has 9 others inside her with the smallest being the size of a coffee bean.
21. I can speak a little Polish, Russian, and German. I used to be very good at French at school but I've never had the opportunity to use it since.
22. I have an odd ornament on my book shelf - it's an upper engine mounting bolt from an F-15E engine.
23. The first place I ever visited outside the UK was New Zealand. We flew in a Boeing 767 and had to refuel 3 times before we got there. It took almost 36 hours and almost put me off air travel for life.
24. I've been to the US of A 7 times, twice to California, 5 times to Florida.
25. My favourite colour is purple but I've learned that it looks terrible on me and on my walls.
26. My favourite authors are Patricia Cornwell and Thomas Harris.
27. My favourite movie is Space Cowboys.
28. I've had 17 jobs - the longest time with one employer is 7 years, the shortest is 4 hours.
29. My favourite album of all time has to be Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of The Worlds.
30. I almost met Richard Branson once, it was after the worst Virgin flight we'd ever had (lads behind us were beyond intoxicated and were still being given booze)and Mr Branson had been on the same flight. He scurried off (and I mean scurried) as we were trying to catch him to complain.
31. I hate watching sport and listening to people discussing it.
32. I've 'flown' in Boeing 747 and F-15 training simulators.
33. I've fed blue mau-mau on frozen peas.
34. I was in the school choir.
35. Whenever I visit the beach I have to come home with either pebbles or seashells or holy of holies, sea glass - pieces of glass worn smooth by the sea.
36. Whenever I have boiled eggs I have to puncture the empty shells to stop the witches sailing away in them.
37. I've wrestled an alligator. OK so it was only about 10" long and it wasn't really wrestling ...
38. I passed my driving test first time.
39. I rebuilt and restored a 1973 VW Beetle (not ALL by myself of course)

Today I will be mostly choosing the cactus

Just a quick cut and paste jobbie today rather than a lengthy discourse on things close to my heart ie me. Despite the fact that I chose this picture because I love sunsets and saguaro cacti, I think this actually sums me up quite accurately.

Your Personality Profile

You are funky, outdoorsy, and down to earth. While you may not be a total hippie... You're definitely one of the most free spirited people around. You are very impulsive - every day is a new adventure. However, you do put some thought behind all your actions. Still, you do tend to shock and offend people from time to time!

http://www.blogthings.com/worldsshortestpersonalitytest/">The World's Shortest Personality Test

The code seems to be cracked (ha ha) and takes you to a different page, here's the cypher (good job I test these things innit?):

http://www.blogthings.com/worldsshortestpersonalitytest/

Sad Dragon

I had my first unsupervised outing since my surgery today. I took a walk down to visit the giant who is holding the high street of our small town in a full-nelson and squeezing the life out of it ... Tesco in other words. It's only a 10 minute walk so I wrapped up well and headed off.

I only needed a couple of things, basically I only went out to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. I was queuing at the cigarette kiosk because it was quicker than going through the main tills, I looked over at the papers and was horrified to see on the front page of the local paper a news story about someone from my squadron. He's been jailed for 2 years.

I can't remember how long ago it was but I know the investigations have been running for some time, this man was involved in a car accident which left 2 people dead. It was a head on collision, from what little I know about it, he was overtaking another car when he smashed into a car coming in the opposite direction. I don't believe this was reckless driving but more a serious error in judgement by a man unfamilar with our roads while driving a lefthand drive vehicle - he had his own family in the car with him at the time and his wife was seriously injured.

I feel desperately sorry for the loss of a mother and her daughter. Nothing can mitigate that loss and I'm not sure sending a decent man to jail for 2 years balances the books.

Discuss?

PS Sad Dragon because my squadron is called the Green Dragons. Although a lot of them piss me off from time to time I am fiercely loyal to them and consider myself the Dragon Den Mother.

Worshipping at the Temple of 3BT

I promised Clare a couple of months ago that I would try harder with the 3BT concept, so here goes.

1. My house is tidy because my parents-in-law have threatened to visit. MIL does not subscribe to my housework doctrine of clean enough to be healthy, untidy enough to be happy. She hoovers every day, cleans her oven every week and I suspect that she even polishes her apples. I cleared up the clutter but didn't manage to vacuum as the vacuum cleaner was upstairs and I can't manage it down the stairs one-handed. They just had to sit in squalor.

2. My parents -in-law arrived an hour later than they said they would.

3. My parents-in-law leaving.

Book Report - Ugly

I just finished reading Ugly by Constance Briscoe. Once I picked it up I literally couldn't put it down, not so much because it was enjoyable but because it certainly was compelling. It makes for very distressing reading at times but there are occasions when I found myself smiling, even some of the unsavoury moments have a hint of comic absurdness so I just couldn't help myself.

Here's a link to a Sunday Times interview with the author which details some of the highlights of the book http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1985687_1,00.html . The interview is worth a read if nothing else.

Borborygmi 'n' blues

It has been my experience that following any surgery there follows a period of depression. I'm on that slippery slope now, I'm feeling bored and miserable. Physically I feel much better than I did last week but I'm still not able to use my right hand properly yet. I'm looking forward to a proper meal, not only am I unable to cook but I have difficulty managing cutlery, to which the sofa if it could talk would attest, so I've been eating a lot of sandwiches. Bleh.

You may be wondering about the borborygmi, cool word isn't it? I think it's a word that Word Imp over at Word Imperfect might be interested in. It's quite onomatopoeic too. In my belly right now it sounds like there's a giant in there yelling :

Boooooorrrrrboooorrrrryyyyygggggmmuuuuuusssssss!!!!!!

That's right - things have started working again. I've had many weeks where there has been no tangible activity, not even a bottom burp, other than the occasional diamond studded rabbit pellet.

Unh huh, thank you very much.

On being held at needle point

When I arrived at dialysis last night there were sharp intakes of breath and much oohing and aahing all round as the nurses looked at my arm. It is a bit of a spectacle I have to admit. The back of my hand looks as though I've been dip dyed with my knuckles being darkest and the colours graduating through blue, purple and green up towards my wrist.

The hairy side of my arm is a revolting jaundiced yellow. The underside is multiple shades of purple and working back down to my palm, well that's actually quite pretty and rather like marble with the usual healthy flesh colour being shot through with pink and blue.

Of course at the centre of it all is the wound itself which is surrounded by vivid pinky-red skin because it it most definitely infected. Sister Mac said I needed to peel off the Dermabond myself so it could be swabbed.

Another sharp intake of breath but it's hard to refuse when someone's waving a 1 & a half inch large bore needle at you.

So peel it off I did and I nearly passed out in the process. Imagine trying to peel off sunburnt skin when it's about 2mm thick and stuck down with superglue. I'm seeing stars just writing about it.

A little later I was supposed to start an infusion of intravenous antibiotic. It was being administered by Nurse Blusher who was being assessed on the task by Sister Mac. Sister Mac whispered to me that I had to refuse to have the drug as a test for Nurse Blusher. I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it but remember Sister Mac is the one with the large bore needles, so I agreed.

Nurse Blusher went through her strict routine step by step and when it came to the point where she had to ask me if I agreed to receiving the drug, I just launched in to my spiel of having thought about things and really I'm already taking 2 oral antibiotics I didn't really want to take the IV one as well especially as it is so urotoxic (kills off the kidneys), blah blah blah.

The poor girl just went red (hence her code name) and asked me if I was joking. I managed to keep a straight face and kept up the charade with some input from Sister Mac until she went through the protocol that she was being tested on.

Fortunately she passed and Sister Mac said I deserved an Oscar. Who says you can't have fun when you're ill?

Puss 'n' boots

I treated myself to a new pair of boots a couple of weeks ago, Dougal thought the box was tailor made for him.

Sealed with a twist

I'm now 4 days post-op and the swelling and bruising is improving slowly. My hand is no longer the size of a small boxing glove and is now merely a subtle shade of zombie-skin grey. I can type a little better, previously I had to employ the hunt-and-peck method with the index finger on my right hand but now I'm almost back to my lightning fast touch typing speed.

The wound on my wrist however is infected. It's livid (not to mention slightly annoyed) and very sore. I rather freaked out my GP when I went to see her yesterday to ask for some antibiotics, she was worried that I was developing gangrene due to the funny colour of my hand but thankfully we established that it was just bruising.

The interesting thing about this op is that it wasn't dressed with anything afterwards. Instead they sealed it with something called Dermabond which is a clear glaze that sets hard over the incision site protecting it from contamination. It also saves you from having to pfaff around with dressings (which is great for me because the adhesives really irritate my skin) and allows you to take a shower. Supposedly it peels off after a week or so.

In this instance it appears to have sealed in an infection. Just for once it isn't my dodgy aftercare that's done it, more worryingly I could have got it from the surgeon or theatre. Even if I had the bacteria on my skin to begin with I was practically hosed down in antiseptic before the surgery began. However it happened, now I have it it'll be a bugger to get rid of. Diabetics are human sized petri dishes for bacteria to thrive on.

I expect to have the Dermabond removed this afternoon at dialysis because I need to swabbed in order to establish what kind of infection is going on. I'm not looking forward to that as I strongly suspect it will be painful.

Incisive wit

Picture this: you're lying there on the narrow surgical table, draped and prepped for surgery. Your arm, out of sight behind the drapes, is flooded with local anaesthetic (which incidentally hurts like !*$& as it goes in) , the theatre assistants are surfing Match.com and soft music is playing in the background.

Feeling a little anxious you desperately search for something to focus on other than what's going on on the other side of the drapes. Your mind tunes in to what's actually playing in the CD player.

Ooh goody, a collection from the 70's ... Roberta Flack and Killing Me Softly ... The 3 Degrees and When Will I See You Again? ... Boston with More Than A Feeling ... Blue Oyster Cult and Don't Fear The Reaper ...

Eeeeek!!

Count Fistula; The Reawakening

Tomorrow morning I go in for more surgery, on my right wrist this time. Hopefully this fistula will be a success. I'm worried that a. it's not going to work just like the one in my left wrist and b. it will bugger up my hand.

Nothing much more to say. Keep your fingers crossed, let's hope I'm still able to do that myself after tomorrow :-).

Taking the piss

Until last week I was an Ebay virgin, never had an account, never bid on anything, never sold anything. Cap'n Marvel opened an account in 2005 but had never used it himself either. I decided to go on Ebay to search for a boardgame from my childhood - Take The Brain (Zoe I hope this little farce brings a smile to your sad lips). I apologise for the profanity but I'm a tad miffed.

It all started at Christmas., bored with TV I started a jigsaw one night and really enjoyed the peaceful time in the kitchen, Cap'n M joined me after a while and we just spent a pleasant evening working and chatting together. I wanted to do another one but didn't have any in stock so we started playing our meagre collection of boardgames instead.

Finding games that just 2 people can play is a bit of a trial. There's Scrabble of course but I'm completely pants at it and always get royally thrashed by the Cap'n which I find annoying because here I am a relatively articulate, well-read, bloggist with a huge vocabulary while he buys newspapers only for the cartoons and has never willingly read a book that has a bigger word to picture ratio in it.

We have a lovely set of wooden board games like Ludo, draughts, chess, snakes & ladders but I wanted something a bit more fun and started to reminisce about Take The Brain which I used to play for hours with my brother. To be fair it's quite similar to chess but the pieces have more wacky names like Ninnies and Numskulls making it more appealing. I've wanted this game again for years but had given it up for dead long ago, my parents must have given away our games before I left home - little did they know they were sitting on a goldmine.

Anyhoo the Cap'n suggested I do a search on the the internet which had never occurred to me (I know, duhhhhh which way did he go George ...) and lo and behold there were 3 or 4 for sale on Ebay! I went for the one with the lowest bid and longest time left because it looked to be the one in best condition.

For about 2 days I was the highest bidder and was pretty chuffed to be getting it even if £8 was a little steep for a 36-year old boardgame.

And then a bunch of complete wankers came along and suddenly the price shot up to £30!

Little did I know that I was engaged in a battle of wits with a bunch of twats who I envision to look like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons and we're fighting for what is evidently the Holy Grail of boardgames.

To make things more interesting someone also posted that they were selling another Take The Brain for the buy it now price of £34.99. I was torn, the buy it now copy was quite tatty - and 35 quid - but I could end the suspense.

I really wanted to get the better game (nothing like a bit of competition to sharpen your desires - kerrang, I've fallen into the Ebay trap) so I decided to wait until the last minute so I could get my final bid in. I had until about 6:50 pm on Saturday, if I could get the winning bid submitted at the very last moment, Take The Brain would be mine!! Unfortunately we usually go out to do our food shopping on Saturdays at about 6pm so I couldn't see my plan through - instead I took a gamble that normal people aren't sitting in front of a computer screen at that time on a Saturday night so I plugged in my final max bid of, wait for it, £40!

Boy was I ever wrong.

As soon as we got back I rushed to my laptop to find that the other bidder had beat me by 1 penny! That fucker, within a minute of my final bid, had started plugging in figure after figure until he revealed what my final bid had been. In less than a minute he beat me by a lousy penny. To add insult to injury the buy it now version had also been snapped up. Grrrrrr!

If anyone has this game please let me know - I'll make it worth your while :-)

Bingo Fuel

I’ve had to concede defeat and give in to the fact that I’ve gained weight over Christmas and the New Year. Of course for most people that’s nothing exceptional but as I am trying desperately to lose weight in order to be activated on the transplant list it is something of a blow.

I dropped my "dry weight" a couple of weeks ago and ever since I’ve been struggling to take off the extra fluid that computer thinks that I’ve gained between sessions. On 2nd January the computer reckoned that I had gained 4½ kilos which equates to 4½ litres of fluid – to put things into perspective that’s almost 8 pints. Not only did I not drink that much fluid over the weekend but I still have enough kidney function to pee a little bit therefore making me able expel some of what I take in the way nature intended.

Needless to say losing 8 pints of fluid in 3½ hours to restore me to my dry weight is hard going. Consequently I’ve been restricting my fluid intake more and more in order to keep up and it’s making me ill and miserable. Amongst other things this has had a catastrophic effect on my bowel, my poor fluid starved body is sucking out the moisture of the umm, number 2’s, making it impossible for them to pass through.

Ergo I must have gained good old fashioned lard.

I don’t deserve to be as heavy as I am. It’s not like I eat crap all day long, I never have. OK I have a few glasses of wine and a packet of crisps every couple of days, I’m not a saint for crying out loud but what I survive on and still not lose weight is ridiculous.

It drives me nuts when I read those sappy success stories in the Sunday papers of people who suddenly have an epiphany over their weight and by simply cutting out fish & chips, pies, chocolate, curries and pints of beer and eating a healthy diet instead they lose 8 stone – if it was that effin’ simple I’d be giving Posh Spice a run for her money by now, I've been on a low calorie, low fat, low sugar diet since I was 11 years old!

My next step now is medication. I’m going to be taking a drug called Xenical which prevents the body from absorbing fat. Instead the fats within your food just pass through your system undigested so if you have too much ie more than 3-5% you run the risk of such delights as oily diarrhoea or even anal leakage. Niiiice.

You call this progress

Has anyone else experienced difficulty in accessing blogs with a blogspot.com address lately? Since I switched over to the new version of Blogger I have extreme difficulty connecting to them, including my own site!

While I was sleeping

Woohooo! The site meter tripped over to 1000 today ... I was in fact the 1000th visitor myself. Thanks for pushing up that counter with me - it gives an old girl an awful lot of satisfaction.

Break in transmission

Happy New Year everyone!

It's funny how things go sometimes, I had 2 weeks off work and thought that I would have ooooooodles of time for writing, customising, etc. The reality, obviously as I haven't been anywhere near this blog for over 2 weeks, was very different. Forgive the essay version of the recap but I shall try to keep it as snappy as possible.

Monday 18 Dec - The Gas Man Cometh

I spent day 1 of my precious leave cleaning like a woman possessed. The gas man was coming to service the boiler and central heating system at noon and as I don't do housework as often as I should, this was probably a good thing because it forced me to tidy up. He arrived promptly, was here for approximately 32 minutes and left £45 richer. Nice work if you can get it. He didn't even comment on how shiny everything was.

I spent the afternoon attempting to make gingerbread. I was following an American recipe that I found online, I was lucky enough to have been given some American measures for cups, etc. which was fortunate as my kitchen scales have gone kaput, however you know what everyone says, everything's bigger in America and that applies to recipes too. The dry ingredients were far too much for my puny little Masterchef so I had t0 halve everything as best I could. Half of the dough made about 30 gingerbread men & gingerbread trees, which I promptly overbaked into rock hard little table decorations.

Tuesday 19 Dec - Essex Girls go round the outside

Tuesday morning was spent as usual at the dialysis unit. After treatment I spent a few hours Christmas shopping trying to bag the final perfect gifts for the parents-who-have-everything. I think I managed to find the very last parking space in all of Christendom and was acutely aware whilst walking back to the car with my bulky first purchase, of other motorists cruising along behind me like great white sharks prowling the shallows. It felt rather good to load the boot of the car and walk off back in the direction of the town leaving the parking predators fuming behind me.

When finished I drove home and crashed in the recliner for 20 minutes before being whisked away by the good Cap'n to visit his brother and his family in Essex, an hour & a half''s drive from where we live. I love these relations to bits but it is always a bit of a trial as they are so different from us country bumpkins in Suffolk, I always feel so square in their presence as they are so damn trendy and I am so damn not.

The house is always filled with smoke and they have an enormous German Shepherd who insists on greeting visitors personally with a paw on each shoulder and looking them squarely in the eye. He's soft as muck but due to his sheer size he can do some damage (particularly to chest catheters) if you don't have your wits about you.

We drove home at about 9pm as we both needed to be up early in the morning.

Wednesday 20 Dec - Promoting a good image

I still can't believe that I agreed to attend the Lt's promotion to Captain at 08:00 am on a day when I was on leave. Somehow I managed to drag myself out of bed to arrive early for the 2 minute ceremony which was followed by a breakfast most of which I can't currently eat.

I arrived home at about 10:00 and set about wrapping presents. This is the part of Christmas I dread the most because I can't wrap for toffee ... I I I I said that I I I I can't rap for to-o-o-o-ffee, mo fo.

Anyway 4 hours, several rolls of sellotape and 2 dozen yards of curling ribbon later I stopped for lunch and then I remembered that I had to get some small gifts and sweets for the kids who might turn up for the staff Christmas luncheon on Friday. We have a Secret Santa gift exchange and I like to do a little raffle-type game so any kids who turn up get something to unwrap too. Ain't I sweet.

I set off into town and bought a dozen suitable little things and brought them home for another marathon wrapping session.

After that I decorated the previously mentioned jawbreakers, I mean gingerbread.

Thursday 21 Dec - It's worse than that, he's dead Jim

Dialysis as usual. On the way back I pulled up to some traffic lights which were on red. A car pulled up behind me and as is my custom I examined the occupants in my rear view mirror.

I was intrigued by the passenger as it looked like he was fast asleep, head back on the back of the seat. With my second look I concluded that he didn't look very healthy at all, in fact Omigodddd! He's dead!!

With a further look (the lights take a long time to change) I realised that he was in fact a shop mannequin but I have to say I'm baffled by why he might need to be driven around in a Mini-Metro.

I then had to make a quick stop off to work again to drop off the kids' parcels and the Secret Santa stuff so no-one would see me arrive with them the next day and thus give away who gave those gifts.

In the afternoon I had an appointment to talk to my GP about my mother. The Parkinsons is affecting her brain and giving her some kind of dementia. She thinks that her parents still live at home and that all her own kids have died. It's all very upsetting and I needed to talk to someone about it. Dear old doc was great and instantly made room on her schedule to see my parents together in the New Year

Friday 22 Dec - How not to be a domestic goddess

I couldn't sleep Friday morning so I was up around 4 am, just in time for the milkman to deliver my long awaited orgasmal box. Pfft is all can say. Any orgasm derived from that measly collection would definitely have been faked. It contained:

a tiny bag of Brussels sprouts
4 parnsips, each about the size of my thumb
2 apples
2 carrots
2 potatoes
a vacuum pack of beetroot
2 satsumas
2 tiny onions

I was somewhat perplexed by what exactly I was supposed to do with such a minute quantity of stuff. Size matters to a girl no matter what they tell you.

And so, on to the the piece de resistance of my "relaxing" week before Christmas. I blew up my hob with 3 days to go until Christmas.

I was following a Nigella Lawson recipe for cola baked ham. It's very simple, you simmer your joint of gammon in cola for a couple of hours and then you bake it in a very hot oven for a few minutes with a few extra ingredients until you have a succulent crisp coated joint.

I was actually cooking 2 joints as I couldn't find one big enough to feed 25 hungry Americans. I had turned up the heat ever so slightly on one of the pans and then left the kitchen for a couple of minutes to make a fuss of Dougal in the living room. I heard a muted pop and went back in to the kitchen to investigate.

The Real Thing was oozing in a thin syrpy puddle all over the hob and the work top but the pans had stopped simmering - yup not only can you melt teeth and clean your toilets with it but you can also short electrical circuits and totally mess up hobs with it.

I had to finish the ham by casseroling it in the oven and then baking it off.

Fortunately it turned out to be the best ham anyone has ever tasted. Certainly the most expensive.

I'm not going to cover the week after Christmas as it was extremely boring but tiring with not much time being spent at home. I apologise if I've kept you in suspenders for such a long time, I'll try and make it up to you this year.