Cogito ergo blog

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

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

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

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

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

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

Postcards from the hedge

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

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

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

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

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

All creatures ... and a few plants

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

My lovely fuchsias:



Even more impressive when seen from below!



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




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



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



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



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



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

Stayin' alive

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

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

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

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

A shed too far

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


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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lion in a den of Daniels

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.