And on it goes....

Yesterday was the turn of the electrician. And, yes, JG, I have arranged for double powerpoints to go everywhere! I will have more powerpoints than, at the moment, I can possibly think of a use for but, as is the way with many things, you expand to fill so I have no doubt they will get used! There will also be powerpoints outside! The three main rooms will also all have a BT point and an aerial socket. Apart from the kitchen. No room and as at least one phone will be a walkabout, I see no need to take up valuable space with unnecessary stuff.

I also need to give some thought to curtains, something I've not had to do before as our current accomodation has shutters. Because the cottage is small, I can't decide whether to have the same curtains in each room, or vary it a bit. The colour scheme throughout will be the same, and probably somewhere between off-white and clotted cream (but not Magnolia!). At the moment I'm thinking about a deep blue or racing green, in velvet would be nice but I suspect cost will be prohibitive....but then if I speak nicely to my Aunt, who is an amazing seamstress, she might just make them for me which will be a big help as far as cost is concerned!

I'm not having carpets. Half the cottage has wooden floors and although the boards are new-ish, and currently a mess, the hope is that they can be cleaned up and stained. The rest of the floors in the hall kitchen and bathroom have been screeded.....but it looks like they have been screeded over the original quarry tiles and OH is going to have a go at chipping away the screed in the hope that we can reclaim the tiles.

The place also has a bit of history. There are currently two cottages on the site but they have been created from what was the Ladies CLubhouse for the Royal Wimbledon Golf Course, although much has changed and the RWGC no longer play on Wimbledon Common.

This picture shows the Ladies standing in what is partially my back garden and partially next doors.

All systems go....

I have spent the last 18 months anticipating the day I would get my hands on the keys to the cottage and I have been giving a lot of thought to what sort of look I want to give the place. I knew it needed a lot of work doing to it but nothing prepares you for the day you actually get the keys and are told "let's get started". That day arrived yesterday and the Big Boss (who's authorising payment for all this) is "keen to get on with things".

So the last 24 hours have passed in a complete blur of plumbers, kitchens, bathrooms.

My head is spinning with technical discussions about boilers and whether a combi-boiler (which is what I want) will work properly because there is a water pressure problem in the area. Apparently it should if have acold water tank in the attic and fit a pump to keep up the flow to the boiler....but a builder "wot does plumbing" told me that and not the plumbers which is a incy bit worrying! But hey, if it works, I'm game.

I've had to try and think about where I want the radiators, powerpoints, telephone points, radiators, aerial sockets, the layout of the kitchen and whether we want to move the door (we do), where is the oil tank going to go and how much of the bushes should be cleared to create parking. What needs to be cleared in the garden and which bits of fence need replacing or repairing.

Although I have chosen which kitchen I want.....Kelmscott Oak...mind you, I haven't looked at the price yet. But given the size of the kitchen I could have the walls lined with gold leaf and it wouldn't break the bank.

What fun this is!!

Well that was fun!

Saturday night was Greyhound Gap's annual fundraiser. This year we decided to leave the haunted houses to themselves and have ourselves a good time with a disco and karaoke. We started organising this in January and I have had all that time to not look forward to it. Disco and karaoke are really not my thing. I had my fill of discos when I worked in a nightclub 20 years ago. I just do not dance and I do not sing. My singing would clear the room. Now I'm middle-aged I prefer a quiet night in with friends to dinner than to boogying until the early hours.

However, I surprised myself. There's life in the old girl yet! The DJ was superb and played some proper rocking and rolling, proper dancin' music (remember "The Bump"!? "Tiger Feet"!?). It was probably the best night I have had in a long, long time!

Doing "The Bump" (That's me on the left. Dancing with the handbag. I wouldn't normally dance with my handbag but there were some very kind souls there who were chucking money at Gap right, left and centre and, as Treasurer, it got given to me. Shortly after this photo was taken I managed to unload it into the club's safe. That was good. It mean I didn't have a wonky shoulder the next day.)



Let's Twist Again (That's me on the left...again.)



C'mon let me see you shake your tail feathers ( You'll realise that's me on the left won't you?)



Me (yes, on the left) and Lisa doing what we do best...being loud!

Well this is going to be a problem

I got my hands on the keys to the new cottage today. I have seen inside before but that was over a year ago and time does play tricks on your memory. I knew the cottage was small but I had forgotten just how small it is. In fact, small is not the word. Miniscule is more apt.

My furniture is not going to even get through the door let alone fit inside. That's going to be a problem. There's no storage space either.

Ho hum. *Remember it's rent free. Remember it's rent free*

I have the bestest boss.....

....not "Big Boss" but "Boss". I have my photography classs tonight and I have completely forgotten to get a black and white film for my old AE1. Boss was heading off to Asda so I asked if she would mind picking up a film for me. She's just rung to say that Asda don't do black and white film and where else could she get it for me. The only other place is Jessops which is about 5 miles in the opposite direction but she's going to go there for me anyway! Boss rocks!

Technophobia

We have a new laptop at work and it has wireless capability. Unfortunately none of us do. We can't get it to connect to the internet and have no idea if what we're doing to try to connect it to the internet is right.

Things like that make my brain wibble.

Other than that it's great and it meant that I could work at home yesterday and type the Board meeting minutes whilst sitting in my comfortable reclining-heat-padded-massaging armchair. That's a life I could get used to.

The games people play

Lots of games in fact.

We had friends to stay for the weekend and we played crib, Yahtzee, Mah Jong, 1s and 6s, more crib, Pass the Pig, Nom and Uno.

And great fun it was too!

The absolutely bestest news of all though is that, tonight, the Board approved the recommendation that I move into a vacant premises on the Common. Yay!! There's a lot to be done as the cottage needs complete renovation so we won't be moving a for a few months yet. But it's not often you get to renovate a house how you please (within reason) and have someone else pay for it!! The only downside is that the cottage is about 1/2 the size of our flat so it will all be a bit of a squeeze. The upside is that it is rent free....something of a bonus! As payoff, I have to join the 24 hour duty rota which means I will be on call one night a week and will have to work one weekend in four. I think I can deal with that.

More waiting.

The good news is that scan is all clear. Yay! But the blood test results aren't back and I have to go back for another appointment in 4 weeks so I'm still none the wiser.

I did have my sensible head on this morning though so was able to clarify a few things. If the thyrogloblin results are still elevated, and the doctor I saw this morning would be surprised if they weren't, then I will be back in hospital for more radio-iodine treatment. Which in itself is no big deal. The problems arise because I have to come off my thyroid medication for a few weeks beforehand, and that is a really big deal and I'll be about as much use as a wet lettuce.

They don't "know" but it appears to be universally assumed in this field of medicine that elevated thyroglobulin levels do mean that the cancer will have returned. However, that said, elevated levels can also mean that not all the thyroid cells were killed during the initial radio-iodine treatment. But the doctor thinks that is probably unlikely because my results have been static at just about zero for the last three years and that scenario would have shown a steady increase not a sudden jump. Either way they would remove the cells anyway as they won't take a chance that there might be cancer there.

Watch this space.....again!

Deer, oh deer

This morning, I was on a mission. I was going to get up at dawn and head over to Richmond Park to take some pictures of the deer as the sun rose. That didn't go quite according to plan because at 5.30am this morning, south west London was in the grips of a quite spectacular thunderstorm. So I reverted to plan B and went back to sleep! However, by 10.00am the sun was shining so I, along with the OH and The Lurchers headed over to the Park.

It's just coming into rutting season now and that makes for an eery walk with the bucks bellowing and calling from every direction. You have to be very careful as you never know where the deer are going to be. You keep your eyes peeled but the deer do like to hide themselves in the bracken. I'm not sure who was more surprised when this fellow popped up not 10 feet from us! My heart was in my mouth!

A bit further along we came along this handsome beast. OH and The Lurchers kept well out of the way whilst I photographed him. The deer aren't by any means tame but they are used to people and you can ger very close. But if the deer were in full rut, I wouldn't have been within 200 yards of him. Actually, I wouldn't have even been in the Park because they can be very unpredicatable when the hormones are flying!



"Who you lookin' at"

So far so good

Had the ultra-sound scan at the Royal Marsden this afternoon and the great news is that there doesn't appear to be any thyroid growth, at least, "nothing worth doing a biopsy on" was the radiologist's comment. Mind you, last time I had ultra-sound and a biopsy the radiologist said it didn't look like there was anything nasty there and it turned out to be very nasty indeed so I'm not counting my chickens just yet but am allowing myself to feel just a bit relieved!

Also had some more blood tests and will get the results of all the tests from the consultant next week.

Side-Effects

Possible side effects from the Thyrogen injections, as listed by the company that makes the drug are, among others, weakness and fatigue.

They are not wrong.

Ouch

So, off to the see my local Practice Nurse for the first of my pre-scan Thyrogen injections this morning. Never having done one of these injections before, the nurse studied the instructions carefully. I noted the same blank look on her face that must have been on mine when I read them.

Me (fearing the worst) : "They don't say where to give the injection do they?"

Nurse (confirming the worst): "No, but as it's intramuscular I'm afraid it's in the bum"

Me: "Oh"

Nurse: "Hold on, I just need to find a bigger needle"

Me: "Oh crap"

You'd think that after almost 15 years of having needles stuck in me that I'd be used to it by now wouldn't you? I mean, the last stay at the Royal Marsden resulted in them trying to get blood samples out of my feet because the veins in my arms had closed up in protest. Let me tell you, needles in the feet hurt. But no, needles still have the ability to turn me into a quivering, shaking wreck. And just to add to my misery I had to bend over with my jeans around my knees with my bum bared to the world.

And guess what? I have to do it all over again tomorrow.

I have returned

Parents returned safely from their holiday and as they have now taken back possession of Millie the Whippet, I made my way back to London yesterday.

I had my first photography evening class last night. I've not been to an evening class before but it I had guessed the first class would be a bit vague given the need for everyone to introduce themselves and for the tutor to do all the necessary stuff like Health & Safety and where the toilets are, and I wasn't wrong. What worried me was that the tutor seemed too easily distracted and was flitting between different subjects faster than a bee collecting pollen. We had a basic outline on shutter speeds and apertures with promises that he would be going into each in more details at a later date. I hope he does because there were a lot of blank faces about me. Thanks to the chaps at Pixalo, I have learnt a few basics about shutter speeds and aperture sizes and just as well because without that I would have been completely at a loss as to what he was talking about. I think he told us about three different things we'd be doing next week but finally seemed to settle on low light photography and those that have them should bring along their tripods. Seems a little cart before horse if you ask me, but hopefully it will all become clear.
Other than that, the tutor is a really nice and approachable chap (even if I can't remember his name) and I enjoyed myself!

Rick on the Roof

As I took The Lurchers and Millie the Whippet out for stroll yesterday evening, I noticed a chap sitting on his roof, surrounded by signs which appeared to detail why he was sitting on his roof. I walked swiftly on trying to get the gist of the signs without actually appearing to be looking (why do we do that? Why do we have a pathological fear of being trapped in conversation by the local nutter?). I didn't get much other than something about being made bankrupt. He was still there tonight and I also noticed that he has a tent up there! No one-off protest this then.

Overcome by curiosity I trawled the net and this chap actually has a website. Rick on the Roof. So he isn't the local nutter but just some poor chap who, if the webste is to be believed, has suffered a massive injustice at the hands of a "corrupt justice system". Doesn't it come to something when the only way to get attention in this country is to camp out on your roof?

In other news:

JG and Dakota both rightly decoded OH's message! Quite why he is bemoaning the lack of kisses on a text message when in all the 13 years we have lived together he has never told me he loves me nor seemingly wanted to go out of his way to help me is really quite baffling!

Had a lovely walk on the beach with the hounds this morning. I grew up by the sea and every so often I hanker to get back to the waves, so it was nice to get my fix this morning.

Greetings from Wales

Well here I am in sunny (for the moment) Wales.

It's a funny thing about coming to Wales, you can drive down the M4 in brilliant sunshine but as soon as you get to the Severn Bridge, it immediately clouds over and starts raining. Odd that, but at least it explains why Wales is so green and didn't have hosepipe bans like the rest of Britain...it does rain a lot.

A very uneventful journey apart from having a front row view of the big huge plume of smoke emitting from what looked like a very serious fire in Langley. I did have my camera with me but decided, probably sensibly, that stopping to take photographs on the M4 was not a good idea.

All started well on my arrival. The key for the front door worked and I was greeted by the two resident cats who came hurtling down the stairs yelling "feed us!". The next door neighbour has been looking after them whilst the parents away so I think they were trying it on a bit. The cats soon legged it into the safety of the laundry room when they saw The Lurchers and Millie the Whippet arrive en masse.

Half an hour later I was unpacking my coolbox when I heard a very unpleasant sound behind me. One of the cats was depositing something very smelly and very runny in the laundryroom floor. Delayed reaction I guess. Although why she couldn't have taken herself out through the cat flap I don't know.

Then I sent a text to OH, who's at work, to let him know I had arrived safely, signing my texts inmy normal manner "Ax". I received a text back saying "mESSAGE received only one lips". At this stage I have to say thank heaven for Puzzle Donkey, without having successfully solved one it's puzzles about predictive texting I don't think I would have worked it out. Go on, you can work it out!! And then, like me, you can wonder what the heck that is all about.

Then, as the sky was looking particularly interesting, I got the camera out to find that the Hoya filter on the end of my zoom lense has smashed to smithereens. I have no cleaning kit with me (actually, I have no cleaning kit period.) There are particles of glass all over the end of my lense and blowing them off has helped a bit but not got rid of them. I don't want to wipe them of for fear of scratching the lense and am now stuck hoping my camera buddies can come up with a make-shift solution.

I wonder if the next few days are going to be so interesting.

Update: the cat did what she did on the laundry room floor because there was a screw jamming the cat flap closed for some reason. Makes mental note to talk to neighbour tomorrow.

Update 2: Camera now cleaned with the aid of a clean paint brush. Now why couldn't I have thought of that?

Moving right along...

Having spent the days since last Wednesday with my emotions swinging between panic to denial and hysterics and back again, I seem to have plateaued and am back on an even-ish keel. Having been in this position before I knew it would pass and that I would, if not forget about it, at least let it slip to the back of my mind a bit. I am grateful that the Royal Marsden moves so fast but the downside of that is that it does hit the "OMG" button!!

In other news, Millie the Whippet is staying with us for a few days whilst the parents sun it up in Spain so I'm taking a few days leave next week and taking her (and the Lurchers of course) home to Wales on Sunday and staying at my parents until they get back on Wednesday. I'm looking forward to a few peaceful and quiet days with just the hounds for company. I might also try and think about where my relationship is going and do I really want it to keep going there, although I'm not sure I'm brave enough to tackle that one just yet. One problem at a time.

9/11

It is, of course, the 11th of September and my thoughts are with anyone and everyone that got caught up in the atrocities of that day.

It's one of those days, a bit like when Kennedy was shot, everyone remembers what they were doing when they heard the news. I was at the first day of my new job working in the office of the President of Cummins Power Generation. It was someone's birthday and we were in the main office eating cream cakes and I was just thinking what a great place this was, my firt day and we're already stuffing cakes! The President, Jack, was not there as he travelled the world on business a lot and on this occasion was in New York. Just before lunch someone called to say there had been a plane crash in New York, and then the details started to filter through and Jack's PA suddenly paled, Jack was at a meeting in the World Finance Centre.

Later we found out that from his meeting room, they had felt the blast of the first plane hitting the first tower and saw the second plane hit the other tower. He had also seen people throwing themselves out of the Twin Towers. I'm sure a lot of people found themselves in similar, if not worse, situations but it affected Jack deeply and really made him re-think his life. Always a philanthropist, two years later he retired and gave himself and his talents completely over to helping others.

I hope everyone involved has been able to have some closure and move on with their lives.

It's all a bit crappy really

Four years ago I was diagnosed with Follicular Thyroid Cancer. As cancers go, it's one of the better ones, if there is such a thing, as it is fairly easy to treat. Two operations to remove my thyroid gland and a week at the Royal Marsden hospital to have a dose of radioactive iodine treatment to remove any remaining thyroid cells - that was pretty interesting as I had a week in total isolation with my very own Geiger counter in the ceiling! Since then I have had annual check-ups at both St George's Hospital (where I had the surgery) and at the Royal Marsden. The tests check to make sure that the level of Thyroxin medication I'm taking is correct and to measure for any Thyroglobulin - Thyroglobulin is used by the thyroid gland to produce the thyroid hormone Thyroxine - and, as I shouldn't have any thyroid cells, I shouldn't produce any thyroglobulin.

This morning I had my annual appointment at the Royal Marsden and was told that there's been a "blip" in my thyroglobuline levels, indicating that there may be some thyroid cells regenerating. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that the cancer is back with them. But it might be. And that's a bit scary.

The Royal Marsden being the Royal Marsden, they don't piss about and straight away I was sent for a chest x-ray and to book an ultra-sound scan. I'll have that scan on 27th September and on the two days prior to that, I have to go to my GP surgery to have thyrotropin injections - if the thyroid cells are present, the thyrotropin will stimulate the cells and make them more visible on the ultra-sound.

Watch this space.

In case anyone was wondering......

....this was the shot that I finally entered in the photo competition!

You would not believe what's gone into getting to this point. 300 photographs and three evenings out wandering the streets! (Being underneath Hammersmith Bridge after dark was ermmm...interesting!) I finally realised that I was trying to be too clever and was trying to produce a shot I could see in my mind but didn't have the knowledge and experience to actually bring to fruition. So I went back to keeping it simple and I'm finally happy with this shot! It's been one hell of a learning curve but it's been fun nonetheless.

I'll post up all the other shots I shortlisted on my "one-a-day(ish)" photoblog over the next few days.

I need your help!

Another forum I frequent has a regular photo competition and the current theme is "low-light". I have read up on taking low-light photographs and over the last few evenings have been out and taken about 150 photographs! I'm not 100% pleased with any of them but I've managed to get a shortlist but I can't decide which one to put forward. So I need your help.....tell me which one you think is the best of a bad bunch!


Here are the options:

New template

Now that I've transferred to Beta-Blogger I've been having a fiddle with the template and ringing in the changes! I'm not sure if I like this look but I'm going to live with it for a while and see if it grows on me. I may yet transfer back to my favourite plain black!

The Weekend

Saturday was a terribly lazy day seeing as how I spent most of it in bed. We were supposed to be going out for dinner with family but I'd been feeling crappy all day, with a headache lurking. By the time I started to get ready to go out, the headache was turning into a migraine and my stomach was lurching everytime I moved. So OH went out for dinner and I went back to bed.

I felt like a bit of chewed string on Sunday morning but at least the headache had all but gone. As we had planned to go to the Country Affair Show at Hampton Court and I really felt the need to get some air, off we toddled. We had a really good time and I got to experiment lots with the camera (pictures below). I was asked once or twice if I was with the press and I did wonder what would have happened if I'd said yes! I've discovered that the art of getting the picture you want is to just get on in there, look like you should be doing what you are doing and move swiftly on! It seemed to work anyway! And the big bonus, a stall with therapists doing acupressure massage - I was definitely having me some of that! It was fantastic and I seem to have some flexibility in my shoulders for the first time in ages - and no bloody headache!

Anyway, some pictures from today:
















EDITED TO ADD: The rest of the photographs are here

Being positive!

Following Dakota's advice to get out there and do something., I've gone out there and done something! I've just signed myself up for a photography course starting on 20th September and I'm really looking forward to it! It willbe so nice to finally know what the heck I'm doing with my camera rather than trusting to pot luck!

The classiest headline!

BT Yahoo News today reported on the decision to de-classify Pluto as a planet. Some bright spark managed to come up with the classiest headline.....

"Goofy Decision? Pluto Is Not A Planet"

They really put some thought into that didn't they!?

Full story here

Move right along....

...nothing happening here. Nothing to see. Move right along.

I really do need to get a life.

Just call me stupid

Because that's what I am. I ran out of my thyroid medication on Sunday and kept forgetting to pick up my repeat presecription. So I've been without since then and I wonder why I'm feeling so bloody tired.

So second reason I'm stupid is that the MOT on my car ran out on 11th July. I bought the car a year ago today and, for some reason, assumed it had been done just before I bought it. Except it hadn't. So I've been driving round illegally for the last month and will continue to do so (although as little as possible now) until my mechanic can get it sorted for me a week tomorrow.

Now I'm going to bed before I do anything else stupid.

In other news, Millie the Whippet has learnt an important lesson today. Do not stick your nose into a sleeping cat's face, even if you do just want to say hello. The cat won't like it, will take a swipe at you and you'll scare the bejeezez out of my mother by screaming the house down.

Tuesday Challenge #6 - The Golden Hour

Stu's 6th challenge was to try to demonstrate the difference in the quality of light at different times of the day.

These are not meant to be artistic and good photos so please don't judge the quality of their composition, they serve only to show the light difference

Pic 1 - taken at 2.30pm



















Pic 2 - taken at 7.30am



















The difference is quite amazing with much warmer hues in the early morning.

I've also just resurrected my "One a Day" photo blog if anyone should be inthe leastbit interested!

Millie goes home

Met up with the parents at Reading Services today to hand over Millie the Whippet to them. Or rather, they had to drag her out of my arms as I really did not want to let her go! But, as is the way with dogs that steal your heart, off she went without a backward glance. Life will be easier without a 6 month puppy around but I will miss her, even if The Lurchers don't.

Whether it's because of that or something else but I have been feeling a bit on an emotional edge today and because of that, the things I need to be doing are falling by the wayside because I cannot find the motivation to get on with them. Everything seems to be falling into the "way to difficult" category at the moment. Still, I'm going home for a few days next month - on my own with just The Lurchers and a little Whippet for company - and hopefully that will help restore some balance within me.

Something strange in the night

There's been something strange happening at the house next door to us over the last week or so. Most evenings, as soon as it starts to get dark, they start digging! It's a bit creepy and although we've tried to peek over the fence to see what they are doing, all I can see is a man with a shovel but not what he is doing!

The house is a halfway house where young people who have carried out minor offences or have just lost their way for some reason are rehabilitated and taught "life lessons", how to cook and generally look after themselves. We don't have much trouble from them, occasionally some noise and when spirits are running high, they can jump from their fire escape onto our roof. But this digging has got us bemused!

If the police come knocking on our door about a mising person I'll at least know where to send them!

Newsflash!

Millie is off to Wales to live with my parents! Woot!

A guest

We've had Millie, a young Whippet staying with us for the last few days. She has come in to Greyhound Gap's care and as she was fairly close to me, I have arranged for her to be spayed and chipped and all that stuff. She was going to be going back to her owner on Sunday night and she would continue to look after Millie until a suitable home was found. Unfortunately, her owner has a lot on her plate at the moment is feeling very emotionally fragile so it was agreed that it would be better all round if Millie stayed with me for the time-being.

It's made things a little awkward because Lurcher No.1 usually goes to work with OH and Lurcher No.2 comes with me. I can't take two dogs to work and leaving them all at home could be a bit fraught - being a young dog, Millie hasn't yet learned when to leave alone and the Lurchers have both told her off several times this weekend. Whilst that is how Millie will learn the boundaries, I don't want it getting out of hand with me not there to keep thingsunder control. Fortunately, OH is working for one of his old clients this week and he can take both lurchers with him, which solves the immediate problem.

My parents also came to stay this weekend and the good news is that they have fallen for Millie hook, line and sinker. They weren't planning to have a dog just yet and wanted to continue to enjoy the opportunity to holiday abroad since losing their last dog four years ago. But Millie has wormed her way into their hearts and they have gone home to give some serious thought to whether or not to offer her a home. I hope they do, she is just so perfect for them and I think she'd thrive there. So keeping everything crossed at the moment!

Stu Challenge ~5

The fifth of Stu's photographic challenges was, on first read, quite simple, just get out there and take some pictures. Well that's easy enough. The challenge comes in deciding which of the several hundred pictures I've taken over the last few days to put forward! So I took the easy route and went out this morning and took some more and here they are:

One of my favourite trees on Wimbledon Common



A wood pile, of which there are several on the Commons, that are built to encourage Stag Beetles:



Baden-Powell has many connections with the Commons, the most famous of which is that he wrote "Scouting for Boys" in the cottage that was attached to the Windmill. I'm sure that title wouldn't be allowed these days!



Lurcher No.1. I like this shot because of the way it catches the water dripping of her muzzle and the rings the drops make in the water.

My camera is a spaceship

Well, my new camera certainly feels like a spaceship - one I have no idea how to drive properly yet! My attempt at meeting Stu's Challenge No. IV turned into a bit of a disaster this morning as for the first part of the challenge - moving the background up and down - I managed to get the shots out of focus. not a brilliant start. The second part - your camera is a spaceship - was hopefully a little more successful......

This is the one I managed to get in focus - so you can see what it is:














....and these are the spaceship ones:

New toy!!

This morning I achieved greatness. I had an hour off work and managed to get done everything I needed to do in town: I went to Boots, BodyShop, the bank, Uniqlo and.......I went here and I bought one of these.

I am a very excited bunny and looking forward to home time tonight so I can go play and get on with the next challenge!

Friends in pain

I had a long chat with my bestest friend the other evening. Niki has Trigeminal Neuralgia(TN), an extremely painful and debilitating condition. The drugs she is on are debilitating if taken in any doseage to kill the pain, which they never do completely anyway, leaving her incapable of doing anything other than lying on her bed semi-comatose. So she has to take a doseage that takes the edge off leaving her susceptible to attacks of pain from the slightest thing, cleaning her teeth or washing her face or the brush of wind on her face. What you or I might consider to be a fairly unbearable migraine is the pain Niki has learnt to live with on a day to day basis. I don't think anyone can imagine what it must be like on a bad day.

Niki has to live with her parents as she can no longer work or drive. She has had two major operations of open skull surgery and a nerve block through the cheek. None have worked. She should be having a third open skull operation but the nearest consultant to her is in Bristol and as she is in Wales, the Welsh Health Authority have to approve the expenditure. And they won't. They say the operation can be carried out in Wales but, whilst that is true, none of the surgeons who could do it have the TN expertise to know what they are doing once they are inside her skull. The Bristol consultant has also said that there is more chance of the operation not being successful that being successful but there is still a chance that it will be but she deserves that chance.

The problem is that, technically, it isn't a life threatening disease. Not in the conventional sense of the word anyway. But in the last 6 months there have been four suicides from sufferers of TN and Niki, at the moment, sees suicide as a very real and possible option for her. Niki is a strong-willed, independant person who, despite everything, remains cheerful and resolute. She is now dependant on her family and friends for almost everything she does and has borne the whole thing with fortitude. For her to see suicide as something she has a right to do if she chooses, and to talk about it so matter of factly and so rationally, leaves me reeling.

She is my best friend and I love her like she was flesh and blood but in this situation, is it right for me to think she is selfish to take this way out when all other options have been exhausted? Or am I being selfish to expet her to live in agony just so the rest of us have her in our lives?

Who knows me best!!

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How green does your garden grow?

If it's anything like mine, very green. You might be excused for thinking these....



















...are gooseberries. They are, in fact, tomatoes. I have no idea when they are supposed to turn red because I've lost my very helpful Reader's Digest gardening book, without which, my gardening skills plummet to zero. I hope they hurry up and turn red soon or I'll be digging (no pun intended) out recipes for green tomato chutney.

Stu's Tuesday Challenge III

I'm really enjoying these photography cchallenges that Stu is setting. I love taking pictures but have never had the gumption to go out and learn more about what I'm doing. this is a great way to start "thinking" about the photos I take rather than snapping away!

So here are my efforts for this week to capture a repeating theme…

The man who killed 10,000 dogs

I've had family members almost sneer at me when I've tried to tell them about the atrocities that go on in the greyhound racing industry. "Oh" they say, "it's only a few dogs for heaven's sake. There's always going to be one or two people treating their dogs badly."

I want to ram this article in their faces and tell them to go away, read it, inwardly digest what it says and then tell me it's only a few dogs and it's still OK to go greyhound racing and support such atrocities.

And about time too

On Wednesday evening I finally got round to ringing an old friend that I haven't seen or spoken to for over 12 years.

Janet and I were at agricultural college together and we hit it off from the word go. We were "ladettes" before anyone had even thought to invent the term! We smoked, we drank, we swore and we didn't give a monkeys what anyone thought! The thing about agricultural college, even one as small as Gelli Aur, was that the boys seriously outnumbered the girls, in our case, 12 girls and 70 odd boys, so you did what you had to do to fit in. Even the lecturers said we were the coarsest bunch of girls they'd ever had there!

Janet dumped me in a bath of silage on my 18th birthday and I dumped her in a freezing cold water trough in January on hers! She taught me to roll cigarettes and I introduced her to the joys of Snakebite!

Janet's family - Mum and Dad, two brothers and a sister - welcomed me into the fold as one of their own, but then that's what farming families in Wales do. Being an only child in a single-parent family, this was such an eye-opening thing to happen that I've loved them all dearly ever since. As we grew up a bit, I was bridesmaid at Janet's first wedding and top-table guest at her second. Mine was the bolt-hole she escaped to when her first marriage collapsed around her. I should have been god-mother to her first daughter, Alice, but as I hadn't been christened, the Vicar was having none of it! Even if he had, I'm not entirely I would have been the kind of god-mother he would have had in mind!

The last time I saw Janet was Alice's 1st birthday. We didn't drift apart but she was in West Wales, I had moved to London and we just didn't stay in touch. My fault because I knew where Janet was and I kept moving about so she never knew where to find me. I still thought about her from time to time and kept meaning to call but never seemed to get round to it. Fortunately we have the kind of relationship that we could talk after a few months as if we had only spoken yesterday. But 12 years is a bit longer than a few months and whilst I was 99% sure Janet would be pleased to hear from me, that 1% doubt made me a bit nervous!

But I shouldn't have worried, once she picked herself up off the floor we were again chatting like we only spoke last week. What nearly made me blub was that she obviously had photos of me around and had talked to Alice about me and Alice says she remembers me and, with no prompting, ran off to get the totally inappropriate charm bracelet I had bought her for her 1st birthday! I've yet to meet her younger daughter, Sarah, but hhopefully it won't be too long before I do. Friendships that endure like that are to be treasured and I'm so glad I finally picked up the phone.

Stu Challenge II

I haven't blogged for a few days and thought I really must get round to it today but couldn't think of anything worthwhile to write and then Stu issued another photography challenge.....problem solved!!

The challenge was:

Your challenge this week, should you choose to accept it, is to take a photo (or several) with the intention of converting it to black and white. Of course, you can make the conversion if you wish, but the real work goes into finding a suitable subject.

I think I've gone a bit overboard on this one but I was having such fun and couldn't pick just one photograph so you got all seven! My only problem is that I don't have Photoshop so I had to make do with what I do have and the best of the bunch turned out to be Picasa. Even if it's not quite what Stu had in mind, I had fun!!

Edited to add...the pictures don't look quite so good now I've uploaded them because Blogger makes them that bit too small. They do look marginally better here

A mission accepted....

I'm hugely impressed by Stu's pictures and deciedd to take up his mission to take an interesting shot of a "bit" of an object rather than the whole thing. Being me though, I didn't use an object but one of The Lurchers. I love taking pictures but by Stu's high standards I'm pretty crap and I'm not sure if I've caught the gist of what he was suggesting or not. Well, I'll let you judge that one for yourself!

Who?

OH is watching a programme on TV about The Who. I don't really remember their early stuff and by the time I was old enough to appreciate music I was much more into glam rock (my first ever single was T.Rex's Ride a White Swan...what taste for a 7 year old!) and they never did, and still don't, do much for me.

Most people will have heard their distinct style over the years and will recognise the songs but isn't it a sign of the times that the most famous songs of one of the most notorious bands of their time will be more readily identified by which CSI they are the theme for!?

Ummmm.....

Headline on a local community website I frequent:

"OFWAT needs sharper teeth to deal with leaks"

Not quite sure that's what I'd use.......

.

Bring me sunshine!

I bet the All England Lawn Tennis Association can't believe that, after all the sunshine and warm weather we've had, the first day of Wimbledon and it's persisting down!

We're only about a mile from the courts and I passed them on my way back from the bank this morning. Thousands of people milling about in their shorts or summer frocks (depending on whether they're in the cheap seats or hospitality!)....I hope they brought their brollies with them!

At least we had superb weather for our camping weekend. It was very relaxing and wonderful not to have to worry about a thing for a few days. There was a little drama on Friday afternoon with the new air bed, as mentioned in my previous post. I didn't actually hyperventilate blowing it up, as JG suggested I might, but I did hypervetilate not blowing it up. Because it's so big it comes with its own pump that plugs into the mains. Not a problem, I thought, as there's power where we were staying. What I failed to remember from last year is that although there are plug sockets there, the generator that powers them is embrokified, so they don't work. A minor sulking fit ensued until I remembered that a friend who lives not to far away had a battery operated pump. So a quick dash there and back and my kingsize airbed was inflated and I was a happy camper once more!

Oh dear!

So much for going back to camping basics! I've just bought a new air bed. Nothing wrong with the one we have but it's small and not the most comfortable of things. So I bought a king size 2ft high inflatable one.

I've yet to tell OH just how big it is and I'm hoping it fits in the tent!

We're off!

We're off for a long weekend (Dogga, I'm getting as bad as you!) camping! I have my tent, airbed, billy cans and every other comfort that might be required whilst parked in a field. Every year we seem to have more and more stuff and for just two nights, we set off with the car packed to the gunnells and stuff on the roof rack as well.

I really must try to get back to camping basics one of these days.

Why is it....

Why is it that men will do things that no woman with even half a brain cell would contemplate?

OH has had toothache for the last couple of weeks and it reached a high point on Friday when he could hardly eat. He then proceeded to get very, very drunk, wrapped some fabric around the tooth and then knocked it out with a lump hammer. I'm so glad I slept through it all.

Arggghhhhhhh

It's been a busy week this week. As well as normal work there was a Board meeting on Monday night and work's Annual Open Meeting last night. All my normal work has had to pile up whilst we got everything ready for the meetings. Plus our Open Day is coming up so the Senior Keeper keeps on at me to get stuff sorted out for that as well.

I got in about 10pm last night and apart from checking e-mail and a brief visit to a few weebsites I pretty much went straight to bed. So I was not hugely impressed to get up this morning and walk into the kitchen to a sink load of greasy unwashed dishes, with greasy unwashed saucepans on the side. Nice. And had someone thought to get The Lurchers breakfast bones out to defrost? No. And why, when someone has ages to "ablute" whilst I'm getting all the trough boxes ready, does someone choose to go the minute I need to? And does someone think to stop and say, don't rush, I'll walk The Lurchers this morning. No, they don't do that either.

I know OH is working full time as well and has a busy job on at the moment but so the *^%$* do I and a litte help would be really nice.

Today did not get off to a flying start.

Tog time again

Writing a shopping list so that you remember everything you need when you are in the supermarket is all very well, assuming you remember to take the list with you of course. But when you forget to put the things that you really need on the shopping list in the first place.......

*Public Service announcement*
That blog replaces the really interesting blog that I would like to have blogged but can't because I'd probably get sacked.

Dreams

Last night I had a nightmare. I suspect it was brought on by Lost being on the TV when I went to sleep but I, and a lot of other people, were in a ruined building in what seemed to be a jungle-like place. In the background was a terrifying drum beat making a boom boom, boom boom noise, and we were all cowering waiting for it to stop. When it did, we all got up to run to safety, but no sooner had we got up than it started again. So we all ran back to our cover and started cowering again....I guess with that very childlike concept that ifyou can't see whatever it is then it won't see you.

At that point I woke up, but in that split second of realising I was awake, I also realised that I could still hear that drum beat, boom boom, boom boom. I was absolutely terrified. It was only when I lifted the pillow off my head (don't ask, I just sometimes sleep that way), I realised that the beat was actually OH gently snoring and with the pillow over my head, it was reverberating through the bed. It still took a while for my heartrate to slow down and I've felt out of sorts all day.

I had another vivid dream last week. So vivid in fact that it is still with me. In the dream I was with my cousins and we were visiting a house that, I knew well in my dream, although awake it meant nothing to me. There were some friends of theirs there and one chap I seemingly knew well and it appeared that he loved me and cared for me a great deal. It was a very pleasant dream and when I awoke I was left with the feeling that, in my dream at least, I knew what it felt like to be loved unconditionally by another human being. It's a feeling I cling to still.

Productive

We've had a very productive day today.

The beans and tomatoes got planted

I'm not big on flowers but I do love fuschias and geraniums so a few plants I bought at a village fete last weekend got potted up too. As did a sad looking Thyme and an even sadder looking Rosemary, both of which I've had for a few years but have never done very well. Added to the pot were a new Marjoram and Lovage.

With Lurcher No.1 acting as Foreman.

I've also cut a load of Lemon Balm and Feverew and have hung them up to dry. And washed the kitchen down with an infusion of Rosemary and Thyme - both natural antibacterial. Very necessary as we seem to have been invaded by fruit flies.

All in all a very satisfying day (apart from the fruit flies that is)!

Please excuse the odd layout and text not matching up with pictures - Blogger won't play properly.

Growing pains

I've decided to grow some food in my garden again this year. I always start full of enthusiasm but somehow I can never keep it up. OH and I fall into the "stick it in a pot and if it grows it grows and if it doesn't, oh well" school of gardening, which is fine for shrubby type things because you cn pretty much stick them in a pot and they grow without requireing too much attention. However, tomatoes and French Beans, which are this years' chosen plants, require a little more care and attention. I am determined to see it through this year and reap the rewards of a bountiful crop of both.

Time will tell.

Chicken Little

Well, whatever was wrong with the chicken won't be bothering it any more. To borrow a phrase, it's now an ex-chicken. Owners have been informed and the response was "what colour chicken was it?". As you do.

And it appears to have stopped raining.

Holeedayz

On holiday I might be but today is one of those days for curling up on the sofa with a good book...or as we have Sky here, curling up on the sofa watching Star Trek! It is absolutely persisting down here and it's in for the day so seemed as good a time as any to catch up on the blogging.

We're house sitting for some friends who have a small-holding so we have horses, rabbits, chickens and sheep to look after as well. We would have a cat but The Lurchers seem to have scared her off and she hasn't been seen since Monday, which is starting to worry me a bit now. But cats are resourceful creatures so with any luck she's holed up in the hay barn.

My days are pretty much the same, get up and get dressed. Put on wellies and go out and let the chickens out, feed them and collect the eggs. Prepare a little feed for two of the horses and go out to the paddock to feed them, give cuddles and make sure rugs are all on straight. Count the sheep in the next paddock. Come back, grabbing a handful of grass and leaves on the way, and go see to the rabbits. Lunchtime, go check on the horses and go see if there are any more eggs to collect. Evening, feed chickens, check on horses, count the sheep, then at dusk, put the chickens away. In between, walk the Lurchers, either round the "grounds" or somewhere local for a change, then laze about reading the paper, doping the crossword or reading.

Sounds idyllic? Oh it is! Most of the time. The weather so far has been pretty foul, with bouts of nice sunshine in between although I don't think we'll see any sunshine today. It gets a little less idyllic when you have to worry about a cantakerous old mare that won't let you put a rug on her when it's peeing down and today, we have a poorly chicken. Cantakerous old mare finally let herself be rugged, but I'm not sure what's wrong with the chicken. She sort of stood up and then sank slowly back down again with a bit of a slant to the right. FIngers crossed it's nothing serious - maybe she's just a bit dazed from falling off a perch or something....hopefully.

I'm off!

Off on my hols to deepest Gloucestershire for 10 days. Catch you later!

All over for another year

With the stressful build-up we had to the Greyhound Gap Annual Dog Show this year, it was quite a relief to reach the end of the day with everyone and everything in one piece. Things like half the rosettes not turning up, mounts for our special prints not turning up, programmes being printed with missing info and then, on the morning of the show, getting a phonecall from Lisa, Gap's Founder, to say that a circus had moved in where we were supposed to be and no-one had a clue what was going on. A few sharp words from Nettie, one of our Trustees and several other volunteers on site, had the poor man from the Counil quaking in his boots but get it sorted he did. In fact the site, despite being a long way from the loos, was much better.

Getting to the show necessitated an early start for us...I had no idea there were two 5 o'clocks on a Sunday. Left home at 7 with the aim of getting there for about 9.30am. We were on track until I took a wrong road and ended up on the M6 Toll Road and having to go miles out of our way before getting off and finding our way back into Walsall.

But come to an end it did and the show was a huge success, raising over £2,000, and lots of people either meeting for the first time having "chatted" forever on the Forum or old friends meeting up again. Considering how many hounds were in attendance, we had very few problems and all the hounds behaved impeccably!

Time to start planning next year's now.........

Why is it....

...that it's only after printing off 300 programmes that someone points out a monumental mistake, despite a draft being shown to everyone 2 weeks ago and no comments made!? Hey ho, such is life! At least I'm in a frame of mind to laugh about it!

Fun!

The Da Vinci Code Quest on Google

It never rains....

My car has been making some odd noises fo rthe last week or so. Called my mechanic but he's on holiday until last Sunday so kept the use of the car to a minimum. Spoke to mechanic and he would pop up Monday evening for a listen and a looksee. Yesterday I had to use it very briefly and it started making an even funnier noise. Mechanic didn't stand over the car, shaking his head, pursing his lips and inhaling through his teeth because he's not that kind of person, but if he was that kind of person then he would have been standing over the car shaking his head etc etc.

He suspects either a gear box or transmission problem, and something wrong with the engine as well. I haven't had any problems with the gear box so my money is on the transmission...not sure if that's the more expensive option or not. At the moment he can't tell me when I might get it back.

Which is all something of a bugger as we've got Greyhound Gap's annual show in Walsall on Sunday and as well as me, OH and The Lurchers, I have a load of boxes and two bloody great big gazebos to take with me. OH's car also has a problem with its engine management system so we can't take that either. My boss has offered me her Freelander but that just isn't going to be big enough. So it looks like on top of the expense of getting the car fixed, I'm going to have to hire a car as well. And it's a Bank Holiday Weekend which means a three day hire and not just the two I need it for.

*moving swiftly to a few hours later* and we might be back on with the Freelander again. Boss asked the very obvious question, why don't we put a roof rack on it? Oh, that's a good idea, so now off to hunt for a roofrack. Anyone know where I might be able to hire one!?

Doesn't time fly....

I've been meaning to blog for days but what with one thing and another I don't seem to have got round to it. Soe here's a synopsis of the last 10 days:

Good Friday - Persisted down all day with that drizzly but very wet rain. Yes, I know most rain is wet but drizzle normally sits on the surface rather than soaks you but this drizzle was ermmmm wet. Moving swiftly on. Anyway, I had managed, for the first time in about 8 months to grab one of the horses from work so I could take myself off for a ride. Got soaked just getting tacked up but one of the Keepers lent me his proper big army riding coat which sits across the back of the horse as well so we were all snug as a bug. Been out for about 10 minutes when across my walkie talkie radio came the call that the farrier had arrived and all horses were to return to the yard. Bugger! Still, better than nothing. Pootled for the rest of the afternoon and then headed on down to Sussex to stay with friends for the weekend.

Saturday in Sussex - walked the Lurchers and their friend Ms Teyha. Eat breakfast then spent the rest of the day playing Mah Jong and poker.

Sunday in Sussex - ditto the walking then card games - crib and Nom - lovely roast Sunday dinner and then drive home.

Monday to Wednesday - I'm on holiday for a few days with the intention of letting my brain and body catch up with each other. Mission almost accomplished.

And that's about it really, this weekend was pretty quiet although we trying to get everything organised for the Greyhound Gap Annual Dun Dog Show on 30th April. One of my tasks was to make up some ribbons to sell for the Justice for Rusty campaign, something we always mark at the show. I never thought getting a bit of ribbon to fold over and stick to itself would cause so much grief, although given I am not really an arty type, I shouldn't have been surprised. Now got to go and sort out some alternative rosettes as the silly company we've been dealing with didn't complete the order and have been so tardy in sending out the replacements that they haven't allowed enough time to deal with the inevitable "lost in the post" somewhere scenario, which of course is exactly what has happened.

Well that was a jolly weekend

I'm a bit late blogging about it as I was too pooped on Sunday evening when we got back and I had a Board meeting yesterday evening.

We departed for Dorset on Saturday lunchtime and arrived there about 3pm. Stopped off at the B&B we were staying at and then headed off to Swanage to give The Lurchers a run on the beach. Got back to the B&B, got changed and headed for the pub for 6pm to join in the celebrations for OH's younger sister's 40th birthday at this very fine establishment (very fine because they didn't utter a word at The Lurchers who were spreading themselves across the floor for a kip!).

On Sunday morning we all met up for a walk round Houns Tout and then down to Chapman's Pool. It's a bit of steep descent and my legs knew about it once we got to the bottom. Once on the beach we all dearched for fossils, drank mulled wine warmed on a campus stove and ate mini creme eggs. Just the fortification we needed to for the trek (albeit more gentle than the descent) back to Kingston.

I could have stayed longer, I love Dorset.

Embrokified

We seem to be experiencing a period of things being embrokified.

The DVD recorder thingie doesn't think that it needs to read DVDs anymore, which is a bit of a bugger because it won't record either and that's bordering on being devastating when there are two episodes of Star Trek Voyager on every day (and I don't care how sad you think it is that I love Star Trek!)

My alarm clock doesn't think it needs to alarm any more, resulting in me oversleeping two days in a row. Well, it seemed only natural that the batteries were going so I changed them. Only it doesn't appear to be the batteries, hence me oversleeping for the second day.

My mobile phone, whilst not completely embrokified just yet, is well on it's way. The charger won't plug in properly and required vast amounts of wiggling to get it happy enough to work. And the display screen keeps breaking up.

And finally, I seem to be a little embrokified too. The big boss finally flipped me over the edge yesterday and I told him so. Fortunately for me he admitted I was right. Things at home aren't as hunky as they should be and the combination of the two has left me in tears at the slightest thing today.

The first three should be relatively easy to fix. It remains to be seen if I can get myself back on track.

Driving. Slowly.

I had to do two homevisits for Greyhound Gap this weekend. The first was in Croydon, just the right side of Croydon for me, and less than 10 miles away. Took me an hour each way. The second was in Fulham on Sunday. Now that's less than 3 miles away and it took me half hour to get there.

That's fairly normal for driving around South West London. It doesn't matter what time of day you travel, it takes you an age to go even the smallest distance. But you would have thought it would have been quieter on a Sunday. It was only when I was almost at my destination when it suddenly occurred to me what day it was. Choosing to drive through Putney on Boat Race day was perhaps not the best of ideas.