Saddle Up

Here in the rural hinterland of East Anglia, there are plenty of things you see everyday - tractors towing trailers laden with carrots & sugar beet, suicidal pheasants, F-15 fighter jets using 88,000lbs of thrust to get off the ground, even Asian mini-deer called Muntjacs who were introduced by some local landowner with a sense of humour, sometime last century.

But something you don't see everyday is gentlemen trundling down the pavement on invalid scooters wearing spaghetti ties and ten gallon hats. Yup bet your bottom dollar cowpokes, I saw one today. Yeeeehaawww!

Tray Bong

I've been told that the French refer to us Rosbifs as a nation of shopkeepers. I've never really been sure what that is supposed to mean except that it is derogatory. Well all I can say is it takes one to know one.

Last Saturday, Twisted Pines was the latest small market town to succumb to the curious spectacle of the traveling French Market. I had visited one when it came to a neighbouring town and I wasn't overly impressed but as the only alternative was laundry or paperwork I walked down to take a gander.

I had a Tony Bliar-type vision (cue heavenly choir and Vaseline smeared lens) of the Brits and the French trading side by side, working together on the free common market, each bringing trade to the other. However, clearly anticipating French embargo and tension between the natives and the visitors, the local council shrewdly set aside one of the car parks in town for the market instead.

Malheureusement it was a dozen stalls at the most selling goods that ranged from cheap Chinese-made belts to cheap Chinese-made straw baskets. Qu'elle deception! And this country just isn't ready for cured sausages, we like 'em plump and pink not turdlike! There was a stall that sold nothing but garlic - but zut alors £7 for 500g is too beaucoup de l'argent even for the likes of spendthrift gastronomes like myself.

My only hope of consolation for this blatant ripping off of the unsuspecting British public, is that the French traders had to buy petrol before driving home.

A Little Alliteration, Part 1

Dilbert Dilks the devilishly debonair Dane, along with his dame, the desirably delectable Dora and their delightfully dippy daughter Dinah, were doing their darnedest to dodge the deviously diabolical dilemma that was destroying their diverse Delicious Dildo Deliveries To Your Door service in deepest darkest Dorchester.

Determined to deliver only the dandiest dildos, they disdained to pay their dues and descended into the direst debt causing them to deliver the deeds of their dear domicile to the dastardly debt-collector, Desmond. Dear oh dear what a debacle, what will they do?

Thing 1, Thing 2

I’ve finally figured out why I was getting nauseous on dialysis – it’s all down to the rate at which I have fluid taken off. It seems I can’t tolerate much more than 800 mls per hour which means that I can only afford to gain about 2 litres between sessions (the computer adds an extra few hundred mls for saline and drinks during the session).

This puts my daily fluid allowance at about 1.5 litres to include all drinks, gravy, jelly, fruit, etc. It’s a tough regime to stick to and it takes its toll on the bowel – I haven’t had a proper No 2 since Monday because I’ve been so strict with my fluids.

I mentioned this to Sister Sailor today and we started joking about enemas and colonic irrigation then she came out with the startling fact that you can give yourself a DIY colonic by waterskiing. Being a sporty type she unwittingly managed this herself when unable to stand up and not wearing a wetsuit this position forced rather a lot of high pressure water where the sun doesn’t normally shine.

This reminded me of an acquaintance of mine who suffering a similar termination of regular bowel action took matters into her own hands with embarrassing consequences. Miss X took an old squeezy mustard bottle, rinsed it thoroughly (or so she thought), filled it with warm water and inserted it into her rectum. She was splattering mustardy poo for days afterwards – every time she sneezed, sat down, coughed, etc. out it would come.

I think I’ll stick to my plums and Senokot for now but I do have a squeezy curry sauce bottle knocking around in the kitchen somewhere …

I Am The Law

Working with the military, friends come and go as tours of duty begin and end. Initially I had difficulty accepting this rapid turnover and would get quite upset but now after 7 years it’s virtually a case of turn up at the leaving do, shake their hand and say “OK then, see ya!”

Occasionally you get people that you get close to and the goodbyes get harder. I’ve recently had to wave goodbye to Dave and Julie and their gorgeous cats Chester and Kensington. Dave was the First Sergeant for my squadron and was a good mate and confidant. My husband nursed his Porsche back to health after a long illness (just one of his many talents, among wall building, welding, plumbing, computer genius, CAD work) and Dave’s generosity in payment kept our heads above water while my husband was unemployed.

There must be something about the name Dave because another Dave that I knew was hard to say goodbye to a few years ago. He should have arrived home again in California today after 15 months away from his lovely family on what’s called a “remote assignment” in Turkey. Most tours with the US Air Force are undertaken with your family in tow but with remotes the military member goes unaccompanied. As I understand it remotes are in places that are either too dangerous or too alien to take a civilian family to. They're off to Hawaii next so they had to endure the tough assignment before scoring the holy of holies.

Dave was a “pointy head” avionics whiz who worked in a microelectronics laboratory but he was assigned to a staff job in Quality Assurance at the same time that I was a Technical Order Distribution Officer – I procured, tracked, distributed and inspected all technical data required for maintaining F-15s and their support equipment and for flying them too. He’s retrained into Intelligence now and I’m sure he’s heard all the jokes before so I’m not even going to mention the one about not usually seeing the words Intelligence and Dave in the same sentence.

I thought of Dave as younger brother. Or a puppy. He was always dragging back some booty that he’d managed to dig up from somewhere, and dancing around all knees, elbows and big feet with his tongue hanging out excited about what he’d pulled off. I’m sure he’s grown out of that by now … maybe.

He also fed my Sour Skittles addiction – best not dip too much into that murky period, I was different person when I did Skittles.

One afternoon I was sitting working at my computer when a message flashed up saying that I was being monitored. I couldn’t carry on working while the message remained so as there was an “OK” button in the message I pressed it and it went away.

A minute later it happened again so I thought I’d better get the computer dude down to see what was going on – I wasn’t particularly concerned about being monitored, you sign a user agreement before you’re allowed a network account that says you’re likely to be monitored and as I hadn’t heard of chatrooms, Ebay and blogs back then I was reasonably compliant. I was worried in case it was some kind of virus, so off I went.

Before I got out of the door I couldn’t help but notice Dave curled up in hysterics on the floor.

It took him a full 5 minutes to tell me what he was laughing about because he was laughing so hard and it turned out that he’d learnt how to send messages through the network that pop up on the screen. He’d set me up. Hmm, time to neuter that puppy.

A few weeks went by when the perfect opportunity came along to play the joke on one of the other guys in the office, Jamie. Jamie had acquired a whole load of old .exe arcade type games. Needless to say those games are verboten on a military computer.

Jamie was busy at his desk playing Frogger and had a couple of other guys, his supervisor included, standing behind him when I sent the message through the network direct to his screen that OSI – The Office Of Special Investigations, the US Air Force's Secret Police was "watching his illegal activities".

Jamie totally freaked out – unsurprising really as he was waiting to go to Officer Training School in preparation for retraining as a fighter pilot. An OSI investigation would undoubtedly cost him his new career.

He started to shutdown his system. I managed to keep a straight face long enough to ask what was wrong but I couldn’t contain my laughter for long so I left and went to the office next door. While I was in there giggling hysterically the computer guy came in and asked me what was going on. With a stroke of genius he decided to go storming into my office and told Jamie that he was impounding the computer. He promptly dismantled everything and took it away leaving poor Jamie wondering what was going to happen next.

He got as far as explaining to the Group exec about what happened (the exec was playing along as he twigged that there was foul play afoot) and was prepared to go and talk to the Group Commander before he found out that it was all a big joke. But don’t feel too sorry for Jamie folks – he had that shock coming to him for a looooong time.

Welcome home Dave!! If you’re reading this I thought you’d like a trip down Memory Lane.

Soggy Pussy

Stubbed my little toe last night whilst trying to go through a door (note to self must allow more clearance). Naturally I used some ripe Anglo Saxon expletives which rather startled the cat that I was carrying at the time. Her ripe feline expletives, punctuated with claws, forced me to drop her and she ran off through the catflap. I opened the back door to try to entice her back in before she got too wet - it was blowing a gale and raining cats & dogs - a wet pussy tends to stain the sofa.

Imagine my surprise when I spot a cluster of my favourite molluscs outside forming a veritable picket line in the rain. They shook their eye stalks at me in fury and held up tiny placards proclaiming cute little phrases like “Temperance Mothers Against Beer Traps!” and “Make Slime not War!” and “Shock and Awe No More!”.

I fear my hostas could be in danger from gastropod guerillas so I shall have to tread very carefully

Do Dustmen Dream of Clockwork Snails?

Dateline ++ Twisted Pines ++ Thursday ++ 7:15 am ++ Bin Day

I wish I got as much jobsworth satisfaction from my employment as our local binmen seem to get. Thursday is bin day for a large chunk of Twisted Pines. Many moons ago we were given wheelie bins which were emptied every week. A couple of years ago we were given 2 extra wheelie bins per house for garden waste and recyclables. Nonrecyclables get collected one week, garden waste and recyclables the next. Supposedly we're supposed to be recycling 70+% of our waste so where the logic is in collecting it 50% of the time is lost on me.

So, last Thursday morning just as I was loading the car ready to head off to the hospital, the bin lorry appears round the bend of my little cul-de-sac. It isn't a very wide road but I could have squeezed past them had they not taken such an aggressive stance in the middle of the road. Instead I sat patiently waiting for them to trundle past, they have a job to do, no point getting irate about the timing is there, I thought. They of course, knowing that I was waiting to get out took their sweet time getting closer to my house. When they finally arrived at my neighbour's drive I thought the driver might be kind enough to pull forward an extra ooh 8 or so feet and thus allow me to get out.

I thought wrong.

Mr driver inched forward and with an evil smirk on his face and looking me in the eye the whole time, completely blocked me in. He then proceeded to inch slowly along while the guys emptied all the bins from the other side of the cul-de-sac before finally emptying my bin (which was deposited right in the middle of the entrance to the drive forcing me to get out and move it before I could drive off). Then instead of moving forward and turning round in the turning circle, which has ample room for turning an articulated lorry, I've seen it done many times, they reversed down the road at a pace slower than you would use to berth the QE2.

In the words of Mr Wogan, is it me?

Pay Day & Day Off

Hussar hussar on both counts!

Klu Klux Klanacillin

I have another infection in my chest line. Actually it's probably the original infection just flared up again. I'm on Flucloxacillin, 500 mg 4 times a day plus the IV Vancomycin that I get at the dialysis centre.

Supposedly I should take it on an empty stomach, half to one hour before food. This is proving to be something of a problem since the phosphate binders I take with meals (Phosex) tell me to wait 2 hours after taking antibiotics before taking them. Quite the conundrum.

The Fluclox is also having the usual undesired effect on my digestive tract and I'm visiting the loo with McKeithian regularity ... with any luck I'll weigh-in at my dry weight tomorrow.

Beer O'Clock

Hello, my name is Calamity Jane and I have a drink problem. Beer. Sweet, sweet beer. Greene King IPA, brewed locally, and I'm such a lightweight that I just can't handle it any longer. I've been through a whole can this week already and I just don't know where to turn.

You see it all started with the snails. Casa de Calamity is a Mecca for snails. They come backpacking from all over the neighbourhood, they bring their friends, they bring their families. Some nights you just can't wander barefoot in the garden without a sickening squelch underfoot. By day they hole up in the yuccas, confident in the knowledge that I can't get them, spiky and festooned with cobwebs as the yuccas are.

It all came to a head at the weekend as I was planting some new plants that I had treated myself to from Blooms of Bressingham. I had placed a Veronica in the spot where I wanted it and went off to find the trowel. When I came back there was a huge snail, sitting eyes akimbo right in the middle of the plant. Probably excited about the new eaterie in town. He took an unscheduled flight into next door's garden.

The next day I discovered that they had half eaten my new Echinops so without further ado I raided him indoors' beer supply, cut down some plastic bottles and sank them into the garden and filled them with beer.

The beer traps have been quite successful, many snails have died a slow but hopefully inebriated and peaceful death but I don't know what to do with them now. I can't exactly put them on the compost heap, and I'm wary of putting them in the bins for the bin nazis to find - our local council is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to refuse collection.

What is a mass murderer to do?

Blood's thicker than vodka

I had to have a chortle to myself today when I discovered that I'm taking a performance enhancing drug. The joke is, well if you saw me with a tennis racquet or watched me run you would know. Anyway EPO or erythropoetin is a substance normally produced in the kidneys that tells the bone marrow to make more red blood cells. In kidney failure you don't produce the EPO so you get anaemic.

Those little blighters do far more than just make you pee - they control your blood pressure and they also have a complicated relationship with your parathyroid gland in your neck which controls how much calclium is stored in your bones.

Apparently some "professional" athletes take EPO to boost their blood count in order to get more oxygen in order to enhance their performance. Sounds fair, but they run the danger of thickening their blood so much that it clogs up their heart. Little danger of me getting like that - I can never get my Hb over 12 which is at the lower end of normal.

The only performance enhancer I need is Smirnoff & diet tonic with freshly squeezed lime - funny how it makes me believe I could write for a living.

Campari Moment

I'm finding it difficult to post everyday mainly due to the time factor. Divide 24 hours between dialysis, full-time employment, a relationship to maintain, a house to run, the blogosphere to patrol, sleep, etc., and you don’t get much change. Then of course you actually need something interesting to write about, most things at work are covered by the Official Secrets Act, I have very little interest in politics so I’m left with the minutiae of my life. Ho hum. You can always change channels.

We went to Whipsnade Wild Animal Park on Sunday. It was a nice day out although I was expecting it to be crammed with animals due to it being one of the more famous zoos, but the animals seemed to be few and far between. Some people are awfully sniffy about animals being kept in captivity but I don’t have issues with it as long as they have space and are well cared for. Let’s face it most of the animals have been born in captivity and would be poorly equipped to deal with life on the lam, and if it means saving one more species from extinction it can only be a good thing, right?

The highlights of the visit were seeing the birds of prey demo, watching the macaws in flight (they were so breathtakingly beautiful in the air that it brought tears to my eyes) and standing at the edge of the chalky downs and looking out over the Vale of Aylesbury. Living in flat Suffolk one seldom gets the chance to see for miles and it was fantastic to see the fields laid out below and gliders overhead (but maybe not so fantastic to see all the planes flying from Luton Airport – oooh eee oooh).

Fatality

Got into work this morning to the sad news that a young lieutenant from one of our sister squadrons was killed in a head-on crash with an HGV at the weekend. It's the first death we've suffered on the roads for some time and it happened on road that wasn't covered by the wing commander's blanket ban on overtaking in the local area. I expect that to change very soon.

It's too early to know what happened but allegedly he was on the wrong side of the road. Newcomers to the base have driving education in a classroom, add this to driving a left hand drive car on the left side of the road, on narrow country roads when they have been used to driving on dual carriageways back home, and in my humble opinion it's a recipe for disaster. I've seen so many near misses as someone following far too close has to pull right out into the other lane to see if it's safe to pass.

There's a saying on the base - the most dangerous thing you're going to do today is drive to work or drive home. So true.

Easy Hit Counters.com

http://easy-hit-counters.com/

Haven't figured out how to post links yet (took me long enough to work out how to insert the code for the counter!) so I hope this will appease you guys temporarily.

Give 'em a whirl - it's simple once you know how.

Fanclub

Another dodgy dialysis today. About 2 hours in I started to feel gizzard (after Gizzard Puke - time to test your age and knowledge of entertainment history) so Sister Mac came over to sort me out. My blood pressure was 60/42 so oopsy, too much fluid coming off hence the sickness. I started to get hot so she got me a fan and gave me some IV saline. I had my head in the bowl and was considering letting it all go and sod the embarassment when suddenly something heavy fell on me - it was the fan, she's knocked it over onto me! Sister Mac just erupted into hysterics and I couldn't help but laugh too which took my mind off feeling poorly so obviously it's a new NHS technique. Mind you now I'm afraid to ask for toast next time in case she lobs the toaster at me. Hungry? Here this will take your mind off it!

Brakes

Driving through town today I noticed a sign outside a tyre & exhaust retailer. It proclaimed "STOP! Here for brakes". I wanted to pull over and scrawl underneath it "Or not! As the case may be" or maybe move the sign 50 yards further back.

Something for the Framley Examiner perhaps? If I was more proficient at this blogging lark I would have linked the Framley Examiner but I haven't worked out how to do that yet. Answers on a postcard to ... alternatively just click on the Comments link and share the wealth. Ta.

Crouching fleabag, hidden moggy

A few nights ago during the enormous full moon, him indoors and I were lying in bed on the cusp of falling asleep when we were roused by strange noises coming from the garden.

MeowOoOoOooooo!! MeowOoOoOooooo!! MeowOoOoOooooo!!

This went on at regular intervals for several minutes until fearing that we had a werecat lurking in the shrubbery we decided to get up to investigate. I plodded downstairs and he just stuck his head out of the bedroom window.

When I got to the kitchen one of our cats was on full alert under the dining table so I crept over to the back door just as the motion sensing security light went on outside. I looked through the back door and saw a vague ginger shape which I took to be the local unneutered bully. He's a fearless, impertinent little sod with only a short stub of a tail due to some kittenhood accident, and the most enormous pair of cojones you are ever likely to see on a cat. I don't know what his owners call him but we call him Ginger Bollocks - not very imaginative but there you go.

Anyway, I decided to chase him off because he has been known to come in through the catflap and help himself to our cats' food. This is a long running problem with the neighbourhood cats, our house backs on to a huge factory yard and acres of woodland so we have feral cats up the yinyang plus of course the domestic cats from various neighbours all trying it on periodically to eat our food. It's got so bad that we have the back door under CCTV surveillance both indoors and out so we can see who is coming and going while we're watching TV at night. So far we've managed to catch 2 feral cats plus one stray who we managed to reunite with his family. We also recently installed a harmless washer jet system to scare them off. It's hilarious to watch the little blighters try the catflap only to get a facefull of water. More on that another time perhaps.

Now it's impossible to open our back door quietly as it has several locks on it and it sticks when it gets damp so I was expecting him to be long gone by the time I got out, but as soon as I opened the door it was apparently the catalyst for a humungous cat fight. The fight was between Ginger Bollocks and a cat that I'd never s ...

I'm sorry Miss but the Blogger ate the rest of my essay.

I'm not sure what happened here by we appear to have reverted to an older saved version somehow. I shall endeavour to rewrite the rest of the story but I doubt it will be as riveting and funny as the original. It really was a cracker, sorry you missed it first itme round.

From the sublime to the ridiculous

Monday was spent at Sunny Hunny - Hunstanton in Norfolk for the uninitiated. It was an amazingly hot September day, apparently the hottest September day recorded since 1942. It was too hot for my liking though, I do tend to flake out if it gets over 25 degrees celsius - I had expected it to be bearable by the sea but there was no breeze coming in from the water at all so I retrreated indoors to the Sealife Center to visit the fishies.

The tide was turning when we arrived and the sea was going out, after we'd been there for a few hours the sea must have gone to a good half a mile out. Many of the sea front shops and businesses had sand bags around the front of their premises because ultra high tides had been predicted - something to do with the unusual alignment of the sun and moon exercising gravitational pull on the tides. The moon for the last few nights has been huge and so bright it hurts to look at it.

It was a lovely day out though especially as on the way there we had seen a stoat trying to grab some roadkill. I've never seen a stoat before and I get a real kick out of seeing our wildlife.

Yesterday morning I set off of for dialysis half an hour later than unusual and the traffic on the way to Bury St Edmunds was much heavier at that time of day. I was the third car back from Elveden crossroads when the lights changed for us to cross. We set off and about half a mile down the road the car in front of me overtook car no 1. a red Citroen Saxo which was pootling along at about 50 mph. I had enough clear road to overtake as well so I did and pulled in again, the car ahead of me motored off into the distance.

Meanwhile behind me a young girl was overtaking everything thing she could and she ended up overtaking the Golf that had been behind me before I overtook the Saxo, and the Saxo itself. Then all hell seemed to break loose. A white van coming in the other direction rounded a bend which was about 300 yeards ahead of me and started to lose control - it looked like it was going to flip over in my lane but instead it started a series of S bends narrowly avoiding hitting me! I glanced in my rear view mirror in time to see it smash into the Saxo. The Saxo rose up into the air, it was like one of those slow motion moments from a movie and I could see bits of both vehicles just explode around them. It was just awful. Of course my brain shut down for a few seconds and as I had been going about 60-65 myself I was round the bend (huh literally I think) before my brain gears reengaged and found a relatively safe place to stop and call the police.

While I was stopping I remember the girl who overtook both cars was close behind me and I thought to myself bloody hell she's gonna overtake me too now, either that or crash into me. She did go past me once I stopped but she stopped in one of the farm tracks further along. I was on the phone to the dispatcher when I saw the girl walking towards me, she apparently was also on the phone to the emergency services. I got out to see if she was OK - her name was Laura and she was 19, she was extremely shaky (as was I) and we stood around for a few minutes waving at traffic to slow them down and making calls to various relatives, employers and dialysis units. The ambulance, police and fire brigade arrived really quickly and we didn't want to get underfoot so I moved my car to a safer spot off the road and then we walked back to the accident site to see about giving a statement to the police.

When we got there I could see that the little red Saxo was a complete write-off but the passenger compartment looked intact - God bless those crumple zones! The driver was sitting in the ambulance but she was fine, a little bruised and dazed but she was OK. The driver of the van was wandering round looking pissed off and he was giving Laura and I really filthy looks. I heard snatches of his conversation to someone who turned out to be in the Golf that had been behind me (...black car ... rocketed off). The police were too busy clearing up to take any info so we just loitered by the ambulance. The Saxo driver's boyfriend arrived and when she saw him she just burst into hysterical tears, the poor love, I felt awful for her - I was shocked myself so who knows what was going on with her emotions.

Finally another policewoman arrived and was able to take our witness statements. Just as Laura was saying that she was in the black Clio the first policewoman who had sent us away joined us and said "Oh, so you're the driver of the black Clio!" and pulled our policewoman away for a quiet word. Then they came back and I was told I could go but poor Laura had to stay behind.

I had just got back to my car and was waiting to pull away when I saw a police car reversing up the road towards me - they were bringing Laura back to her car. She got out looking miserable and she came over to tell mw that the police were saying the accident was her fault and she might be charged with dangerous driving. I think that's a bit trumped up myself. That van came hurtling round the corner and he started to lose control a good 200-300 yards ahead of me. I think he overreacted when he saw a car pulling in after overtaking, braked sharply on a bend and simply lost control on a damp slippery road. If it's anyone's "fault", it's his.

I hope I don't have to go to court over this.

Major bummer/Angels in blue

This hasn't been one of the best weeks of leave I've ever had. I was at the hospital yeserday for the third time so far this week and I will have to go back again tomorrow. Yesterday's dialysis started on a promising note with me finally being able to have a needle in my arm. It was only a baby needle but it was in and didn't clot so that's the important thing. My blood was taken out via the catheter and returned through the needle - supposedly this toughens up the fistula so eventually it will be able to take 2 needles.

The trouble started when I had my cup of tea and biscuits after I had been on for an hour or so. I don't normally eat biscuits due to the constant battle with my weight but I get extremely hungry while I'm dialysing so I make an exception and have 3 custard creams with my second cup of tea ... bliss. I used to eat my sandwiches too until I started getting nauseous after eating them so I restricted myself to the biccies instead.

Unfortunatley it seems that I can't even tolerate the biscuits anymore. I started to feel really poorly around the same time that Sister Mac was changing out one of the lines on my machine. I started to retch and suddenly it was all hands to the pumps. I had 3 nurses fussing round me as they were trying to look after me, the machine and the needle in my arm. Every time I gagged I put presure on the needle and I was in danger of it blowing out the fistula which would have meant some internal bleeding. Fortunately they managed to contain everything (literally) but I was left feeling miserable and embarassed.

Apparently while some people seem to be able to stuff their faces with all the forbidden foods while they're dialysing there are a few like me who get sick when they eat. Something to do with the rapid changes in body chemistry that occur when you're having fluid and waste products removed from your blood.

I can't praise those girls and boys enough - they really are angels. They're a small, tight knit team who work long hours and are always kind and funny. Nothing seems to be too much trouble for them. The last few months could have been much worse, but these angels have made my transition to a kidney patient smooth and free from worry, and even though I've known them for only a few months I think it is fair to say that I love them.

L'Escarguh-oh!

Day 3 of my 2 weeks of annual leave. I've done very little really, caught up with some laundry, watched some movies, drank a lot of vodka, read some books, been to dialysis of course. The weather is glorious and I'm feeling rather smug about managing to predict a good time to take off after a month of almost constant rain. No doubt it will all come back to bite me on the arse when I get back to work to begin the normal mass clear-up operation that usually follows an absence. I hate being considered indispensible, indeed you would think that in a military organisation that business goes on with or without you ... trouble is that I do all the little administrative tasks that everyone thinks are straightforward when in fact they can be the least straightforward of the lot. There aren't any checklists for writing a letter but there are hundreds for maintaining an aircraft. And believe you me, high ranking people can get awfully excited when a letter isn't in the right format.

This morning I had to make an unscheduled trip to the dialysis unit in order to get my arm scanned with the ultrasound scanner so the staff could see where they need to be aiming their needles (I shaved 7 minutes off travel time to have a new personal best of 28 minutes and I was showered, teeth brushed, blown dry, made-up & dressed in 14 minutes which must be, I immodestly brag, a world record for a woman). I need to get rid of the central line in my chest as soon as possible so it's imperative to get the fistula in my arm in use. The course of the blood vessels have been mapped by the conveniently placed freckles on my upper arm. Tomorrow we shall see if the nurses can hit red gold.

Things I have learnt this week:

1. Snails come out mostly after dark
2. They travel in packs (note to self, must find out the collective noun for multiples of snails ... a Bryan of snails maybe?)
3. Even if you pretreat for several hours with Vanish, squashed snail does not wash out of your socks.