Cinnamon Marine

Late morning and working out

2010-11-30T09:10:00.000Z

I'm having a late morning, and not feeling in the slightest bit guilty about it. Today I have to go off to another area for an information event, but it should only take me half an hour to get there and I don't need to be there until 11am, so in theory I could have gone into the office for an hour first. Instead, I set my alarm for an hour later, have done half an hour of Tai Chi and am making myself a decent lunch to take with me. I feel a lot better for just that additional hour, and I didn't wake up until just before my alarm went off, so it seems this is what I needed.

Rather frustratingly, actually doing exercise and cutting down on snacks as well as generally keeping an eye on what I'm eating doesn't seem to have made much of a difference. I've been exercising twice daily (ten minutes in the morning, half an hour in the evening) most days since the beginning of November, and the end result is a loss of only 2.6lbs in weight. Good thing I find I'm actually enjoying working out, otherwise I would be tempted to chuck in all in as a waste of time. I should look on the bright side that at least the weight is going in the right direction, but it would have been nice to have seen more of a result on the scales. No miraculous appearance of six-pack abs either.

There is snow. Not vast quantities, but just enough to be annoying. If it affects my plans for the weekend I will be severely pissed off - not only because I would end up missing the one thing I have been looking forward to all year, but also because I've already paid a lot of money for it. There can be blizzards Thursday night for all I care, just as long as I can get to where I need to be!

Libraries and communities

2010-11-20T10:35:00.000Z

My local library is under threat a closure, due to the cuts that need to be made in the council's budget. Strangely, I don't feel overly fussed about this. Yes, I have been using the library system a lot more of late - I get my reading fix without damaging my bank balance too much and without having to think of ever more ingenious storage solution - but while it will be a bit of a faff having to go into town on a Saturday to use the main branch if I don't manage to get out to the library at lunch time in the week it doesn't bother me too much that the local branch might close.

I was in there this morning, changing the two books I read last weekend for three others. These are books I possibly wouldn't buy so it's expanding my reading in that sense, but the same would be the case in the main library. It's a nice enough building, I'm not sure how old but probably one of the newer ones. While I was there, though, I heard the staff loudly talking about an incident last night with trouble from local youths, learned that at the job interview for that particular branch a large part of the questions were not to do with knowledge of library duties but centred on how a candidate would deal with youths causing trouble, and was one of only two people in the half hour I was browsing who was actually looking at borrowing books. There were three or four people using the computers, something which could be set up at the community centre round the corner if need be. And that was it. Maybe there is a rush later in the day, I don't know. But given that this is a Saturday when one would expect it to be busier because fewer people would be at work, and that the library is meant to be a vital community resource, it doesn't seem to me that there is really much call for it in this community.

I realise that what I see is only a very small snapshot of the life of the local branch in the course of its week. Still, it does seem rather a waste of resources.

The council is giving local communities the opportunity to run their branches with volunteers. Apparently there has already been interest expressed in doing so for some of the branches at risk. Don't know if that applies for mine. Community groups would get the building for a peppercorn rent, the council saves money on staffing costs. I realise it is not going to be easy for communities to do, but if they really value the resource and enough people actually make use of it then it strikes me as a reasonable option. The real downside with libraries like mine is dealing with the trouble such as I heard being described, which is a bit rough for volunteers to have to cope with. And yet that comes down to the problems with the nature of the community - is it any fairer for people employed to work in libraries to have to put up with that?

Well, hello again!

2010-11-17T07:33:00.002Z

I'm not completely sure what I'm doing back here. It is something I've been thinking about since I was surprised by a comment in my inbox from someone who had stumbled upon the blog and wondered why I had stopped writing so abruptly. I guess I was a bit taken aback that a) someone had actually read it recently, and b) thought it was interesting enough to comment on it. So I thought I might as well drop back in to say hi.

It has been a really long time actually. I have little excuse for the sudden halt - I was still unemployed at that point so there's a huge element of laziness in it. It has been well over a year, maybe time for a quick summary:

1) The rabbit died in September 2009. It was very sudden. I just found him dead in his cage one morning. He hadn't appeared to be ill so I don't know what happened. I suspect it might have been a cold, bunnies are apparently suceptible to them.

2) I got a new job, working for a charity where I have been since October last year. Far less stressful than the old one (and what I hear about what is going on in my former office does amuse me) but if I'm honest I find it a little dull. Initially it was maternity cover but I've been kept on in another project, and apparently I'm wonderful. Nice to be appreciated.

3) I got a second cat last December, a gorgeous fatty of a black tortoiseshell, eight years old and from the animal shelter. This was largely because I thought Titan was lonely, but inevitably they tended to fight. Tilly occupied the bedroom and bathroom for a good three or four months. In the end they tolerated each other but didn't hugely get on.

4) Grandma died in March. We did have a live in carer for the grandparents for a while but by Christmas Grandma was so unmanageable that in the New Year she had to go into a home. Mum has been living with Grandad ever since, and in the end Grandma stopped eating, so effectively starved herself to death.

5) I had to have Titan put down in October. Had him just under two years. Cats Protection had thought he was about ten when I got him, but I suspect he was older. In addition to the beginnings of kidney failure he ended up with a heart problem which the vet said if he was human would make him a candidate for a transplant. Add thyroid problems on top of that, which oddly would have made his kidneys worse if we had cured it, and in the end I had to make what was a really heart-breaking decision. The vet was lovely, but it was so difficult. Mum paid for him to be cremated, so he is now in a lovely carved wooden box on the bookshelf that he liked hiding on.

6) GBF and I are looking to possibly set up a company and work together. There has been a set back in that GBF decided this week he didn't really want to work with the potential backer we had lined up - understandable because he had worked with the guy before and knows what he's like. Was a bit frustrating though since we were so close, but probably the best thing in the end. We're going back to the drawing board to decide where we want to go from here.

7) I'm attempting to get fit. Again. My current office has way too much food around and the weight has been creeping up again. Since the beginning of November I have been doing a ten minute work out with a DVD when I get up, and half an hour on the Wii in the evenings. No dramatic changes thus far but I'm only on week three. At least I'm taking more care about the food intake as well.

So here we are. Summary of the year.

I can't promise that there will be frequent postings from now on; I'm trying to maintain a variety of things at the same time in my non-work life, but posting here now I realise I have kind of missed this place. So to the person who posted last week, thanks for the boost.

All hail the new domestic goddess

2009-07-01T07:37:00.003+01:00

I've been making jam. Yes, really. We have so many raspberries on the canes at the Grandparents' that I'm having to come up with creative solutions rather than let them go to waste. My first attempt was a small batch for myself which worked wonderfully well (and only lasted about three days because I ate most of it from the jar...) but I turned nearly a kilogram into jam for the Grandparents on Sunday. Mum has frozen some as well, yet I was still able to pick nearly 2lbs last night which, along with some that were in the fridge from earlier in the day, are in the process of becoming raspberry balsamic vinegar. There will be even more ready over the next few days. More freezing, I think.

Since Sainsbury's is currently selling off loads of strawberries that are nearly on the turn very cheap, last night I also made an attempt at strawberry jam. I was following one of Nigella's recipes. She said it didn't need added pectin because the lemon juice contains enough so used preserving rather than jam sugar (I had been using normal sugar plus pectin for the raspberries). It hasn't set. Next time I shall add pectin, but it makes for a nice sauce anyway which could go pretty well with ice cream or natural yoghurt and certainly works well in porridge. I could add some gelatine to some for use in a strawberry flan as well I guess.

Really enjoying this experimenting anyway, and the results are delicious.

Shopping and - shopping

2009-06-18T22:55:00.003+01:00

I've been shopping, thanks to my Mum's generosity. She offered to get me a new outfit since my diet has been going so well and my smarter clothes don't fit properly anymore. (As an aside, I've so got to go through my wardrobe and throw things out - the white tshirt I pulled out today in a fit of laziness is huge.) It's partly a congratulations thing and partly because I have an interview on Monday. So yesterday I spent a frustrating couple of hours wandering around most of the shops in town.

My main trouble is, I usually have an idea of what I want and then have immense difficulty finding it. I had in mind beige trousers and a linen top, either in dark brown or a dark orange or, for preference, a combination of the two. Next had precisely nothing I wanted to try, although there was a pair of trousers in a greyish almost tarten kind of pattern that I put on my if-I-can't-find-anything-else list. Marks & Spencers came up trumps though, and I tried on three pairs in there before settling on a side fastening pair (size 10!). The top was the nightmare though. I know it's the summer, but we don't all want spaghetti strap tops. There were a couple of things here and there that it might have been possible to settle for, but since I can't really recall what they were like they obviously didn't grab my attention much.

As I had only put two hours in the car park I eventually wended my way home but decided to stop at Starbucks for a short, skinny cappucino and a ginger crunch biscuit then had a wander round the clothes section in Sainsbury's - and found two tops to choose from. One was a terracotta sort of colour, button down, coming down to just below my hips, while the other was a dark brown tunic with a beaded belt. Settled on the terracotta because that was the sort of colour I had had in mind to start with, but thanks to an unexpected cheque for £100 from Dad which arrived today I went back and bought the tunic.

Today's shopping expedition, in addition to the tunic, was to find a pair of trousers like the ones I bought yesterday but in a dark brown or black. Sadly M&S let me down this time - the only side fastening black trousers I could find were in the sort of material leggings are made from. No thanks. It was success in Debenhams this time, although these are front fastening. They aren't too bulky though. Mum thought I should have an alternative option to the light colour in case it rains on Monday. She also told me to get a handbag. It was a bit disappointing in terms of what was available, but I settled on a snakeskin bag with dark brown leather trimming. Should work fine with either combination of clothes. And the snakeskin look will go well with the utterly, utterly awesome pair of shoes I found in the sale in Faith. Check these out:

Aren't they fabulous? Now, a top in those colours would have been ideal!

Dress size irritation

2009-06-15T21:05:00.003+01:00

I'm at a mid point between dress sizes, as I discovered today when browsing the shops. Since I don't have a huge amount of cash to spare at the moment and the weight loss is still going okay (another 1.4lbs gone last week) I went for a browse round the charity shops in search of some smart trousers that fit. It was quite irritating. Having lost 2 inches around my waist and 1 inch aorund my hips over the last four weeks, I'm now too small for a 12 not to feel too loose, but a 10 is just that little bit too tight still for comfort. Found a couple of nice pairs too, although I suppose I could have bought the 10s with the expectation that in a couple of weeks they might be more comfortable. In the end, though, I just came home with three more books and a tshirt.

Had to pay a visit to the dentist this morning too, where it turned out a filling needed to be rebuilt. At least it was only £26 but I could have done without that.

On the positive side - ice cream for 1 1/2 points! Yay! I had a Skinny Cow Mint Double Choc ice cream as a treat. Yummy. I also had brie for the first time in ages as part of a sandwich at lunchtime, but it's a little depressing how little 30g of brie actually is. Oh well, the stuff I've had in the fridge for a while is wonderfully ripe, spreads well and is a reasonably strong taste for a brie so it was fine.

Really need to do some exercise though. I noticed, as I was lying in bed this morning, that my stomach now wrinkles when I'm lying on my side. Toning up really is in order. And maybe it will help boost the weight loss as well since that's slowing down week by week. I'm down 7.7lbs now, still another 6.3lbs to go.

Diet success and election failure

2009-06-08T22:41:00.003+01:00

I'm into week four of the Weight Watchers diet and it's working splendidly so far - I've lost nearly half a stone so far. Current weight (as at the 'official' weigh in yesterday morning) is 9st 4.8. I'm actually below 9st 7! For the first time in such a long time that I have no idea when I last weighed this amount. Sometime in my early teens I suspect. The weight loss did slow down last week which is only to be expected really since we're in quite new territory here. I've just realised I should have done taken the various measurements again as well yesterday since they have them marked down at week 1, week 4, week 8 and week 12, but I'll do it in the morning. Most of my points were consumed late afternoon/early evening today since I spent most of the day dozing on the futon, which made the cat very happy as he had his pillow for the day.

The reason for my excessive sleepiness is that I had a very long day yesterday. I unexpectedly had to go down to St Clear's, which is the other side of Camarthan, and back, doing a favour for some friends who were let down by their ride at the last minute on Saturday night. It's very tiring, doing such a long return journey in one day. The M4 on the return journey was a bit hairy because of tiredness, but by the time I had turned off towards Monmouth I was feeling okay again. And I'm doing it all again on Friday too. Still, it does the car good to have a long journey sometimes. It hasn't been getting a huge amount of use recently.

European election results were worrying in parts - there are now two BNP MEPs, one for Yorkshire and the Humber, the other (Nick Griffin) for the Northwest. About the only microscopic crumb of comfort in that result is that the BNP actually polled fewer votes than they did in 2004, but it was the combination of the collapse of the Labour vote, low turnout and PR that got them in. Just goes to show what a bad idea PR is really, doesn't it?

Still, the Conservatives did very well and even topped the poll in Wales. Labour came third behind UKIP and Labour woes/leaderhip crisis remain the focus of the media. What seems not to have had much of a mention is how bad this result was for the LibDems - with the ruling party in meltdown one could be forgiven for having expected the LibDems to have picked up more votes, but while they gained an additional MEP their vote share actually fell by 1.1%.

But the chaos in the heart of Government is much more entertaining, if exasperating, and it seems the PLP have shown yet again this evening what a bunch of spineless nonentities they are since supposedly Brown was given the support of today's PLP meeting. He has led Labour to some of their worst election results ever (they haven't lost in Wales since 1918 for example and they lost the four county councils they held across Britain), he has lost five Ministers who have resigned saying he should go, the economy has tanked, there are reportedly two potential leadership campaigns ready to run (as soon as someone else plunges in the knife, of course) and he got booed by the veterans at the D-Day anniversary. Yet still the spineless cowards of the Parliamentary Labour Party still don't have the nerve to give him the boot.

Another sunny day in the garden

2009-05-30T21:41:00.002+01:00

Goodness, but wildflowers are expensive. For a selection of six wildflowers I paid £9.99 today, but they're now in the garden and the overgrown bed in the corner by the beech hedge is starting to look a bit better. I think I'm going to get some seeds to start some off in the greenhouse ready for planting out later in the year - I want next year's display to look really colourful. The six I got today are a foxglove, kidney vetch, red clover, betony, wild marjoram, and one I can't remember. They should spread reasonably well and they're meant to attract bumblebees too. I suppose I could get the butterfly attracting set as well, but that's going to mean a fair amount of digging to get the bed fully cleared.

Assuming the weather remains decent tomorrow I shall go back to the veg patch and get on with clearing some more. I potted on the second pot of courgettes this evening so we will eventually have five of those to plant out, and the excessive amount of broccoli is still going strong so something will have to be done there too. Right now, I also itch. I think this is due to me discovering where the ants had started making a new nest - in the bag of compost I needed to pot on the courgettes. Eggs and everything. So that bag got emptied over the compost heap which at least means it's out of the greenhouse.

Grandma was in a major flap when I arrived, which meant Grandad was in a foul mood. I have never heard him call her an "old bitch" before. He threatened to stomp his walking frame on her foot, she gave him a shove as he was heading back into the kitchen. Urgh. It's like dealing with a couple of toddlers. Offering tea and cake then retreating to the garden is the only way to keep my head straight. And I get it again in the morning. Yay!

Dad and his wife came over for coffee this morning - they were going to a wedding in town where they hardly knew anyone, and it's at one of the most evangelical, happy-clappy churches we have around here. Haven't heard how it went yet, but I'm willing to bet he hated it. I wonder if the bride and groom gave testimonies?

Sudden burst of creativity

2009-05-27T22:31:00.003+01:00

Having been intending to do it for months, this afternoon I finally got round to turning a 'London Calling' from The Clash t-shirt into a hoodie. It's not perfect - I had intended lining the whole thing but the t-shirt wasn't as big as I thought it was, and I keep forgetting to check which way round the material needs to be when cutting out the second piece so it has a half black half camouflage hood when it should have been all camouflage lined with black - but I'm quite pleased with the way it has come out. Very comfy too. I'm contemplating adding pockets but am not sure whether to bother. My sewing machine kept deciding to unthread itself and Titan was not being helpful by either sitting on what I was trying to cut out or thinking the whole thing was a toy for him so it was a long afternoon of work. Now I have to decide what I'm going to do with the Ramones t-shirt I bought at the same time as The Clash one.

This burst of creativity was inspired by Grandad's reaction to his birthday present, his war memoir put in a scrapbook with some of his photos and other relevant bits I found online. He loved it. I think he has spent most of the day looking at it. It was about 11ish this morning that I took it over and he sat browsing through most of the hour I was there, then when I went over this evening he still had it open and was reading through it with his magnifying glass. I must say, it does look pretty good all done up together.

Another job application has gone in today and I have another couple to work on too. Today has been miserable weatherwise though, so if it's fine tomorrow I am planning on taking a walk. Need some exercise. The scales this morning indicated I have lost another pound since Sunday though so the diet is definitely going well. At this rate I will make the 10% of body weight lost mark well before the 12 weeks are up. I'm getting near to my usual plateau though so it will probably slow down quite a bit soon.

Diet doubters

2009-05-23T08:16:00.002+01:00

No, not people who attempt to sabotage your diet, but those people who insist that you're fine as you are and you don't need to lose weight. I've encountered this from a couple of people I know recently, both male, both older than me, both in relationships/married, and both felt it appropriate to tell me how gorgeous and sexy I am so I don't need to diet. Hello? Does your wife/partner know you talk to other women like that? In the case of one of them, he recently photographed my tattoos (semi-pro) but I have more than a sneaking suspicion that he was after something else as well. Never going to happen but it took some diplomatic manouvering on my part to evade it without it being obvious I knew what he was after and that I thought he was a complete sleazebag. After all, when a guy who is going to be photographing you semi naked tells you over the lunch beforehand that having a kid has eleminated his sex life it's not too difficult to work out. I can do oblivious quite well when I want to though. And the cat makes an effective barrier too.

I suppose in one sense it should be seen as flattering that guys go out of their way to tell me how good I look. But then again, it's deeply aggrevating. I'm not happy with my weight, why should I care if someone else is? Okay, so I'm not massively overweight, and I'm well aware I have self-esteem issues which affect how I perceive myself, but then I didn't think I looked too awful either. And the fact remains that for my height I am overweight. I'm never going to be superthin - I don't have the bone structure for that, my family being peasant stock and built for breeding, a genetic trait which is totally useless as far as I'm concerned. What's wrong with wanting to get to a healthy weight for my height?

It is something I have to work on, and something I will keep having to work on. But I'm not starving myself, I'm eating far more healthily, and I'm already feeling that little bit better while only on the first week. My body is not there for the aesthetic appreciation of other people, it's my skin to feel comfortable in. And if that means dieting when some men (who will never get to touch me anyway) like me the way I was, then sucks to them. Their opinions are irrelevant.

Bringing in the green

2009-05-22T12:44:00.002+01:00

The reorganisation of the kitchen has given me an opportunity to put some greenery in the flat where Titan, so far, has been unable to reach it. Amazing how much space a microwave takes up really. Since I've wall-mounted it, I now have electrical bits and pieces in one corner (toaster, slow cooker, hand blender) along with my knife block, which had been on the window sill, and scales which has freed up space in one of the cupboards. I've moved the mug trees from the window sill to the worksurface dividing the kitchen from the living room and have made much better use of the space in the cupboard which was basically where I shoved everything else, in addition to my crockery, when I moved in because I was fed up with unpacking. The window sill is now occupied by a mini rose and today's purchase which was an Aloe Vera.

The diet is still going well. At least I'm not worrying too much about over stocking the fridge with veg at the moment - I'm actually eating it instead of it sitting there waiting to be thrown away after it goes off. I did myself stewed plums with 40g of Sainsbury's High Fibre Bran Cereal for breakfast this morning which was very nice. I've just had a banana and the remainder of the plums for lunch, although I might do myself a salad sandwich in a minute. I'm planning on having enough points left for a dessert with dinner this evening and it certainly looks doable.

I'd say the living room could do with a makeover too, I just don't have space available to move things. Will continue giving it thought.

Border success

2009-05-20T22:06:00.003+01:00

Another day at the Grandparents', but at least it wasn't raining today. This meant I could spend the nearly hour and three quarters needed in the garden to finally clear the border I've been wanting to do for ages and have planted out the remaining petunias. It's not perfect, but it's looking a lot better.

In the greenhouse, the courgettes are sprouting nicely and I think all six will come up. The spring onions are finally showing, there are signs that the lollo rosso is starting to come through, and the rocket and broccoli are doing well. Cucumber, peppers and tomatoes all seem happy enough, but I will have to weed the little gem lettuce.

Still haven't finished the kitchen. It is looking better than it was, but after doing lunch for the Grandparents and the gardening I didn't feel like starting immediately after I got home. Thought I might after I had dinner (veg heavy spag bol and only 5 1/2 points too) but Midsomer Murders was on and it turned out to be one I hadn't seen so I watched that instead. Don't have to go anywhere tomorrow, I can finish cleaning the kitchen then. I've been wondering whether a hanging rack for the saucepans might be practical. It would give me a very large drawer free, but might make the place a little overcrowded.

I think I need to make myself some of the rich hand oil I made up for Mum. My hands are ever so dry and when I put some handcream on earlier my right knuckles didn't take to it well. Maybe the oil will be a bit better. I'm also coming to the conclusion that the very dry patch on my left arm that has been there forever might actually be mild eczema. It gets quite sore at times.

Curiosity got the better of me this morning and I weighed myself, even though I'm only halfway through the first week. I've lost a pound and a half since Sunday. Woohoo! We'll see what the "official" weigh in on Sunday says.

Merlot, Sex and the City, plus the cat

2009-05-19T22:45:00.002+01:00

An evening doesn't get more relaxing than this - lying on the futon, glass of merlot to hand, and a cat purring away on my stomach. Mind you, I needed it today.

My plans for a full kitchen reorganisation were thrown for a loop after I got back from running a few errands (almost) first thing and just as I was taking a quick break with a herbal tea just before I set to. Mum rang. She had tried calling my mobile but I didn't have a missed call and the message didn't beep through until after she got hold of me on the landline. It seems my Grandparents' carer didn't show up today and apparently Grandma was panicking. So, shortly after 11am and following a brief stop at Sainsbury's, I arrived at the Grandparents' to find Grandma was perfectly fine.

Spent four hours there, but the weather was crap so I couldn't retreat to the garden to potter around. Instead I did the jobs Mum had put in the book for the carer to look after - cleaning the kitchen and bathroom and doing some ironing, as well as getting their lunch. That was dead easy since Mum had prepared everything aside from the vegetables. I took my own and had a pitta bread pizza plus salad, hence the stop at Sainsbury's. Doing it again tomorrow since it was the same carer lined up she's not going to be sent again. It's simpler if I go rather than trying to find an alternative, especially when the Grandparents didn't seem to keen on the idea of a male carer.

Relaxed for a bit when I got home before deciding to start on the kitchen after all. I had Michael Monroe then Motley Crue on the stereo and got immensely frustrated with the drill. First up it needed recharging - which I discovered after I had already moved a whole load of stuff off the work surface. Great. After it charged for a bit I then had the usual problem of finding that even though I measured where I wanted the holes, the drill doesn't quite co-operate. At least the screws eventually went in okay. I now have a wall mounted microwave, although goodness only knows what the walls in this place are actually made of, they always make drilling very difficult. Got one cupboard sorted as well; the rest can wait until tomorrow afternoon.

I do hope it's decent weather tomorrow, I want to do some gardening.

Still on track with the WeightWatchers. Won't find out until Sunday whether it has actually meant any lost weight, but I don't feel like I'm starving. Went slightly over the daily allowance by having a second glass of merlot this evening, but since I had two bonus points from yesterday that I didn't use that doesn't matter much.

Oh well, since I've got to be at the Grandparents' in the morning I shall have one more smoke, a quick web surf, then head off to bed.

Roasting vegetables and mysterious parcels

2009-05-18T18:43:00.003+01:00

Day two of Weight Watchers seems to be going alright - largely because I fell asleep for a chunk of the afternoon and so didn't have lunch. My planned lunch of chicken breast and roast butternut squash, carrot, onion, red pepper, mushroom and cherry tomatoes is currently cooking as my dinner. On the other hand, that's a lot of food for not very many points and a 50 minute walk to Sainsbury's, Homebase and back has given me an additional couple of points for the day. I've even had one of the new Cadbury's Hot Chocolate Chunks to drink using some of my milk allowance and will be having a nice glass of Merlot with dinner.

When I went out for my wander I discovered a card indicating I missed a delivery of a package. I wonder if this is the Guitar Hero microphone I ordered weeks ago finally reappearing from wherever missing parcels disappear to in the depths of the Royal Mail. Strange, though, that I missed the delivery considering I was here at the time and I was before my extended nap. Did they actually knock?

I'm determined to reorganise my kitchen tomorrow. The trip to Homebase was in order to pick up wall mounted brackets for the microwave, which I've been thinking about doing for an awfully long time. It always takes me ages to do these little DIY things though - witness the lock on my cupboard door, which I still haven't fitted. At least I should have a bit more work surface space, and I will take the opportunity to give the kitchen a good going over. I shall be consulting my copy of The Cleaning Bible later on to see what would work best. This might lead on to a reorganisation of the living room, although really there's not much I can do in here.

Then I think I shall turn my attention back to the family tree.

Time for yet another diet

2009-05-17T19:53:00.002+01:00

As I noticed the other week that my weight was once again creeping up to 10st (not great when you're 5'2), and intrigued by the accounts given off the plan by people on the snopes message board, I finally decided to give Weight Watchers a go. However, since at the moment the joining fee and weekly fee for the meeting is not really cash I have spare I went for a hunt on eBay and found someone selling off their books from when they joined in 2006 - including the journal which had not been used. I had a read through the booklets in the week and had a test run on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Today is the first proper day of the diet.

It all looks pretty straightforward really. You have a certain number of Points you're allowed to consume daily which is dependent on your gender, weight, activity levels and age. You can also gain additional Points through exercise. Every food has a points value, and the books I got helpfully list those. The best one is the shopping guide which sorts food by categories and by brand. It seems I can have 17 Points a day, which seemed a very low figure given that the highest amount allowed are 40 and you shouldn't go below 16.

Anyway, the trial days went pretty well, so today I started properly. This includes measurements. Not impressed to discover I have a 21.5" diameter thigh. However I do seem to have dropped a couple of pounds, so cool. I'm not putting that down to three trial days though. So, this means lots more veg, being careful with the snacks, etc, etc. Certainly filling up with veg has been helping so far and while I was a bit peckish yesterday evening I had a carrot and that dealt with that.

It's the exercise thing that will be the problem. :)

Greenhouse, garden and anxiety

2009-05-10T22:04:00.002+01:00

My violas are looking good. Now there are multiple blooms on each plant I might actually be able to get enough petals to make the eczema cream I want to try. Possibly next year though, when they've spread a bit.

Since it's the weekend, that must mean gardening. Lovely weather for it, although while I remembered to put some sun block on my tattoo for future reference some on my face would be a good idea. I was a bit on the red and sore side when I got home. An aloe vera moisturiser I've got has helped with that a lot.

The greenhouse is pretty much done for now. The tomato plants are really liking the growbags, although after planting the cucumber in the spare space on one growbag Grandad's neighbour, who has about 60 years more gardening experience than me, told me you should keep cucumbers and tomatoes separate, so I'm going to have to dig it up again and put it in a pot by itself. Ho hum. She was also able to tell me that the rather gorgeous and delicate flowers in a variety of colours that have seeded themselves in an overgrown patch of the garden are columbines. They are so pretty.

I bought little gem lettuce plants yesterday so have planted those out in the greenhouse earth; the marigolds bought on Monday have been repotted, as has the parsley. I've also planted a variety of seeds: chives, spring onions, broccoli, courgettes, lollo rosso and rocket. Oh, and the lemon balm had to be repotted too. After lunch I weeded one of the flower beds and have planted out some of the petunias, which have come on a treat since repotting during the week.

Titan decided to try and give me heart failure this afternoon. I had the window open and while I usually spot when he is investigating it this time round he managed to not only investigate but also get out without making a noise or drawing attention to himself. He must have got onto the porch roof and I can't work out how he got down from there. A frantic time was then spent by me first making sure he wasn't hiding in the flat then searching the streets for him and desperately hoping I wouldn't find him dead on the nearby main road.

Coming back up the road towards the walk through which leads to where my car is parked, I spotted a familiar looking head peering at me around a fence post. As soon as he saw me heading towards him he disappeared through an overgrown patch of ground and up the fence onto a neighbour's shed roof. Since I couldn't reach him and he wasn't coming down I had to bang on the neighbour's door to try and gain access to the garden - took three attempts at knocking and the guy answered the door in his underwear so I suspect I woke up someone on night shifts - although it was about 6.30pm by this time so hopefully it wasn't too bad. He was great though, and once he had put on a dressing gown came to help me get Titan. Blasted cat was not co-operating and any time I got near enough to make a grab at him he switched sides of the roof.

Eventually, with me standing in a bush on the other side of the fence, my neighbour gently encouraged Titan towards me with a stick and I was able to get a grip on the scruff of his neck. Of course, he dug his claws into the shed roof, then the fence, then me. Once I got a good hold on him though he did co-operate and didn't object while I carried him home. No struggling even when I had to shove him under one arm to get my key out.

I was so upset when I realised Titan must have got out, and the time it took to find him was really awful. He doesn't seem to resent me for my rough handling in bringing him home though, and we've had a bit of a cuddle on the futon.

At least the rabbit can't get out. Or the hamster. It does mean I'm going to roast in the flat over the summer if I can't open the window.

On Friday evening GBF and I had a barbecue at his Mum's place. Very nice. GBF and I did the cooking and my evening also involved attempts at catching a frog so the dog couldn't eat it or lick it and make herself ill. The camouflage very well in rosemary bushes. He was eventually removed to a crowded border further down the garden. After eating, we headed back to GBF's and played Worms on the Wii. Great game! I was a bit crap at it until I got used to the controls. That's one to add to my must buy list, when I have some money.

Tomorrow evening will be planting out the cabbages and possibly doing a bit more border weeding, depending on how long the cabbages take to do.

Potting on

2009-05-07T23:09:00.002+01:00

Mum and I have been in the greenhouse this evening, potting on the basil, mint, and some of the flowers as well as planting the tomato plants in the growbags. Unfortunately we ran out of the small pots for the remainder of the flowers and couldn't find the key for the shed so weren't able to get any more out. My uncle said he had been in there on Sunday so I wonder what he did with the key. We'll plant out the cabbage at the weekend and I want to plant rocket and lollo rosso from seed as well which will be able to go in the greenhouse. Forgot to check if we actually have lollo rosso seeds but I do know we have rocket.

Otis is molting all over the place at the moment, and Titan is shedding as well although not as dramatically. My flat really isn't a great place for anyone with allergies at the moment.

I've been feeling pretty good today, don't know why. I hadn't even noticed that I had been feeling particularly off until I felt better. As a consequence I had a fairly productive day getting bits and pieces done. Really need to tackle the kitchen though, still haven't got round to doing that.

Mum has tomorrow off work - she's taking the car in for a service. However she will be leaving the Grandparents' place at her usual time and hasn't told them she has the day off. It will be good for her to have a day to herself. She ended up losing her temper with them on Monday after going up in the evening (earlier than her usual time) to discover Grandad hunting through the phone book for my number because Grandma had been driving him nuts fretting about where Mum was. It seems that Grandma has been behaving herself since. She hasn't been staring out of the window waiting for Mum and while she is still following Mum around the house she has at least tried not to be so obvious about it. Mind you, this evening she did spend most of the time in the kitchen staring out of the window at us while Mum and I were in the greenhouse. Did she think we were going to dematerialise from the bottom of the garden?

My online window shopping for houses I can't afford is now leading to daydreams following examination of grounds from satellite images. The one I really, really like is behind red brick walls, so very private, and has two acres of grounds. Aside from the mature trees, through which the driveway runs, they haven't done anything to it. It's pretty much all lawn with only one flower border as far as I can see. So inevitably I've been thinking about what I would like to do with it. A walled kitchen garden for a start. And I would create a little secluded area, a large circle of grass surrounded by beds of dog roses and wild flowers, possibly a willow. A stone seat, maybe a small, tasteful water feature, something very peaceful and slightly hidden away. Oh, and part of the grounds could become a mini orchard as well. Lots of dreaming involved here. I suppose I shouldn't admit to having been looking for furniture for the house I can't afford as well.

Amateur gardening, or making it up as I go along

2009-05-04T21:21:00.004+01:00

Its been a while, and inevitably my project 365 attempt died a death. I might resurrect it at some point, when I'm doing a bit more. My depression came back with a vengeance about a month or so ago and sapped all motivation for a while, in spite of the tablets. I'm a bit more settled again but who knows when it's going to rear its head once more.

However, I have a few little projects on the go to keep me active at the moment. The biggest one is my Grandad's garden. Mum and I smothered one of the veg patches in weed killer a little while back and have started on clearing the patch. It's still going to take a lot of work, but we should be able to start planting at least part of it soon. If we have a sunny day this week I will see about spraying the other veg patch so that it doesn't seed and send weeds all over what we've been clearing. Clearance of the second patch can wait until next year!

I spent most of the weekend disturbing woodlice and ants nests in the garden. Hard work and my legs are feeling quite stiff still today. Back hasn't been too bad though. On Saturday I had a go at the border in the front garden, weeding it and sowing some flower seeds. Hopefully there might be some evidence of these in about three weeks. I also had a go at some of the larger plants that were actually growing through the tarmac path - that thing is knackered. I really need to have a good go at the moss coverage too. Still, it's looking that little bit better.

Yesterday's job was to clear out the greenhouse. Removing the dead plants and weeds wasn't too much of a problem, although turning and breaking up the soil was. It's so dry! Also, the two grow bags that used to hold tomatoes turned out to contain two ants nests, as I discovered after my uncle had turned them out for me to dig in the compost. I'm going to have to get some ant powder or something, I do not want to have to deal with flying ants in there. I also went around the concrete slabs of the patio and pathways to remove the grass that was growing through the cracks. There are still a few to finish but it looks better. My cousin did the major edging on Saturday which was a vast improvement.

In accordance with one British bank holiday tradition, Mum and I went off to a large garden centre today to pick up some bits and pieces for the greenhouse. Another couple of grow bags, five tomato plants, a couple of peppers, a cucumber and some herbs. I'm thinking we can also plant lettuce and rocket direct in the soil - the last time lettuce was planted in the garden everything else managed to eat it before we did so the greenhouse is probably the better option. Mum also got a three sets of 20 flowers (on an offer) for use on the family's graves which need some clearing and also for the borders in the garden since we have so many.

We also went for three types of cabbage which we will be able to start planting out soon. First will mean a rummage through the garage to dig out some scaffolding boards to edge the veg patch and define the path again. It's amazing the amount of stuff Grandad has hoarded. I raided a stack of unused bricks to extend the rough path in the greenhouse for example - I have no idea why he has those, but they've been there for years. It was a large scale game of Jenga since I had to reach across a table of junk and the old petrol mower to reach them and hope I could remove the three bricks I needed without knocking the whole lot over.

In spite of the stiffness, it was a lovely way to spend a sunny weekend. And there's always something else to do; if I hadn't felt physically tired and utterly filthy after doing the greenhouse and paths I could have happily carried on pottering around for hours yesterday. Today's weather was a bit crap though. Still, now the greenhouse is being brought back into use it doesn't matter too much if it's raining out - I've got potting on and planting to do in the dry!

McBride, Draper, and the dangers of political gossip

2009-04-12T23:18:00.003+01:00

I used to work in politics, up until about a month ago when I was very glad to leave the stress and exhaustion behind. As an employee of a political party working in a constituency rather than in Westminster, in the great scheme of things I was a very small fish in a pond the size of the Atlantic. Yet even at one (slight) remove from the Westminster bubble I became aware of numerous stories that were doing the rounds which have subsequently come to the attention of the public in recent years.

Politics is full of gossip, at European, national, and local levels, and while those of us with a link hear a lot of the juicy details it is very easy to forget that people on the outside have no idea what is being spread. I well recall my surprise at discussions with family members when Charles Kennedy was ousted as LibDem leader due to his drinking problem - stories had been doing the rounds for years and I had it in my head it was one of those things that "everyone knew". That's part of the problem, I think.

Working in politics has an air of unreality about it, we end up sucked into the machine and think that everyone has the same interest in political-anorak detail and knowledge of juicy stories that we do. It also skews the way we look at news stories and issues. I knew the time had come to leave about a year before I actually did when my first thoughts on hearing about the death of a local politician was related to when the by election might be, who we could put up to stand and what our chances of winning were. I was instantly horrified at myself, but to my shame those genuinely were my first thoughts.

So yes, there is gossip in politics, some stories better founded than others, some juicier than others, and some more malicious than others. The events of the last few days, however, go far beyond that.

It all kicked off publicly with this post on order-order.com, the hugely successful blog written by Paul Staines under the name Guido Fawkes - "the only man to enter Parliament with honest intention. The intention being to blow it up with gunpowder..." However, the seeds were planted several months ago with the return of that obnoxious little shit Derek Draper to Labour politics. He launched himself onto the blogosphere in an attempt, funded by the Unite Union I understand, to produce a pro-Labour popular blog to counter the likes of Guido, Iain Dale and Conservative Home. His early activities were misguided in the extreme since he seems to have decided that the way to build up a profile and support in the blogosphere is to enter into blogwars with Guido and Dale - instead he found he became a figure of fun for many bloggers and no one took him seriously. And this weekend he should, hopefully, have learned not to take on someone like Guido.

Guido Fawkes had, for some time, been hinting at evidence in his possession linking Draper's activities with the heart of the Downing Street operation. Thursday's post was the sign that the shoe was about to drop. He had emails between Draper and Damian McBride, a man in a position of great importance in the Prime Minister's inner circle, which provided evidence of a deliberate, concerted plan to plant salacious stories and deliberate falsehoods about senior Conservative MPs, including David Cameron and George Osborne, as well as Conservative backbencher Nadine Dorres.

Naturally, Downing Street's rapid rebuttal unit swung into action the moment it became clear the full story was to appear in the Sunday Times and News of the World. Saturday's front page story in the Telegraph was extraordinary, especially when you consider that the paper says they were offered the emails and declined. I should point out that the article linked online is not 100% what appeared in the paper - the original article did not mention McBride by name, referring to him as an "unnamed adviser" and "one of Gordon Brown's senior officials". It chose to focus on how the emails were obtained, strongly implying that it was by illegal means, rather than the content and the clear evidence of a vicious smear campaign they contain.

Guido has made his view of the Telegraph's story clear, and on their own website too.

Downing Street desperately tried to play down the significance of the emails, a spokesman describing them as "juvenile and inappropriate". A statement released to the media on Thursday night and said by the Telegraph to come from "a source close to the Downing Street official and Mr Draper" read:

They were knocking round some ideas for a blog, but the whole thing never
got past first base.

To call it an orchestrated smear campaign is ridiculous. It was just
some ill-judged gossip between friends which was never meant to see the light of
day. They appear to be some ideas - laid out in embarrassing detail - for stories which could appear on a Left-wing version of the Guido Fawkes blog called Red Rag.
They're all stories that have been doing the rounds in Westminster for a while, written up in a scurrilous style.

By Saturday evening, McBride had resigned.

I spent a fair amount of time on Saturday evening going through the blogs and the newspaper websites to find out more. Obvious sources were Guido and Dale, but Political Betting also provided some interesting information, and much clicking of links was done. Note the above quote from the source "close to the Downing Street official and Mr Draper", paying special attention to the last sentence. It's trying to suggest this story was in the same league of Westminster gossip as the likes of Charles Kennedy's drinking habits, a line which failed the instant it was subject to scrutiny.

From the blogs last night I had a pretty good idea of what was in some of these emails, and was very interested to read the story in the Sunday Times which, along with the News of the World, opted to publish the story. The front page story says:

The unfounded smears suggested:

"Putting the fear of God" into Osborne by spreading rumours that he took
drugs and had sex with a prostitute.
Spreading rumours about the mental health of Osborne's wife.
Challenging Cameron to reveal details of an "embarrassing illness".
Accusing a gay Tory MP of promoting his partner's business interests in the
Commons.

Dale reproduced parts of the emails with cc line attached - Draper's reply to McBride's suggested stories was copied to Charlie Whelan and Andrew Dodgshon. Whelan had to resign as spin doctor for Gordon Brown in 1999 after leaking information about Mandelson's resignation over his home loan. He currently works part-time for Unite, who fund the LabourList blog run by Draper. Dodgshon is the Political Officer for Unite.

So, we have McBride (a Special Adviser and therefore paid by the taxpayer) providing Draper (who runs LabourList) with false stories written "as I'd write them for the site" for a potential blog to be called Red Rag; Draper deems these stories to be "Absolutely brilliant" and his reply is copied to Whelan and Dodgshon, who work for the union funding LabourList - it is unknown from what Iain Dale has reproduced whether they were copied on McBride's original email, but since he begins it with the word "Gents" there was clearly more than one recipient. McBride also wrote "obviously Andrew will want to adapt for his own house style, length, etc." which rather suggests that Dodgshon was not only a recipient of McBride's original, he was to be the one actually writing Red Rag. "ill-judged gossip between friends"? Sounds a bit more than that to me.

As for the claim that "the whole thing never got past first base", Dizzy seems to have located evidence to the contrary. I had a look earlier tonight and the site was still up, still minus content. I wonder how long it will remain. For a project that "never got past first base" there seems to have been an awful lot of work put into it, given the domain name was registered, a site designed and the holding page put up.

What I also found, in my trawl of the web, is that the stories printed by the Sunday Times may not even be the worst of them. I'm not going to write what the various bits of information I've encountered add up to but if this information is right then the stories Draper and McBride were concocting move from the "scurrilous" to the truly revolting. In one of his two (so far) apologies on LabourList, Draper sends particular apologies to "David and Samantha Cameron". Samantha Cameron was not mentioned in the emails referenced by the Sunday Times. Unless Draper intends to further spin this as a generalised apology for suggesting her husband has an embarrassing illness this might have been a mistake.

As I said, if you work, or indeed are involved as an activist, in politics you do tend to find it has an air of unreality at one remove from what those not involved are aware of or even acceptable. McBride has already discovered the danger of allowing it to take over; Draper has less credibility this week than he had before, not that he had much to begin with. This wasn't mere gossip, it was a concerted effort in lying and smearing. When even Alistair Campbell says of the emails "I was struck .. by their unpleasantness" then you know you have gone far too far.

The wonders of Blogger Buster

2009-03-23T23:15:00.004Z

It seemed to me that the only appropriate image for the day was a website I have been spending a lot of time on recently. Blogger Buster is a resource blog for bloggers, run by the wonderful Amanda who has a wealth of information up on her site as well as some great templates such as my new one. Like it? If you use Blogger and want to do more with it, check out her site and you will learn a lot.

The reason I've been spending a lot of time there, and on other sites giving information on layouts etc, is because I'm making major changes to one of my other blogs. I'm not terribly technically minded as far as the internet and programming goes, but as a result of the info I've found I have now added a custom domain name, changed the template to one that looks fabulous for the direction I want to go in, and think I have worked out how to do the one thing I thought I would never be able to figure out how to do - add a proper navigation bar. I haven't tested out my theory of my new knowledge as yet, but I am reasonably confident it will work.

Today has been filled with a morning of paperwork, which is kind of sucky, and an afternoon hanging out with friends, which is far more cool. I have more paperwork to do in the morning as well as some phone calls to make but once that's out of the way I will be able to concentrate more on my blog design experiments. And if this all works out, I have more ideas I want to try!

Ever get the feeling you spend too much time online?

Project 365 from this weekend

2009-03-23T00:06:00.003Z

Yesterday at Twickenham - the Commandos abseiled down from the corners of the ground with the St George's flag in the build up to kick off. Thirty members of the 7th Armoured Brigade (the Desert Rats) were also presented with their Iraq campaign medals by the Princess Royal, which was lovely.

Mum's completed present for Mothering Sunday. And she was delighted with it, so yay me! But then, she's a very special person and deserves something a bit special to match. I just hope she doesn't regret being my guinea pig...

Completed card

2009-03-20T23:50:00.002Z

Day's image

2009-03-19T22:35:00.000Z

Feeling like I'm living in a TV series

2009-03-19T18:50:00.002Z

Well, actually two series today. First up was Grow Your Own Drugs. I spent most of the day making the present for Mothering Sunday for Mum, which has resulted in my kitchen having a lovely smell. I've made

Rich Hand Oil
Lemon Balm Lip Salve
Glycerine Soap
Lemon Bath Bomb

I also need to turn a piece of blue muslin into a gift bag, but that shouldn't take long.

I've now moved into How Clean Is Your House? The bathroom is part way through a good going over, but I'm listening to Old Harry's Game before finishing. I've even had a good go at the grout in the tiling. It's looking pretty good right now. I need to do some cleaning of surfaces but might well leave washing the floor until tomorrow, when I'm planning on having a good go at the kitchen. The living room floor will need vacuuming this evening though. Titan has taken to scraping through the woodshavings in Otis' dog basket and the carpet is looking ridiculous.

I suppose once I'm done with the bathroom the evening will become Ready, Steady, Cook. Just as long as I don't get any water on the bath bomb which is drying on the side.

Ducks, oils and roaming

2009-03-19T07:50:00.002Z

Felt too tired to post sensibly last night, so here's the photo for yesterday - these ducks were possibly lost. There's no body of water around where they were happily roaming in the middle of town so I'm not quite sure what they were doing there. Very cute though. There were four of them, waddling around on the grassy patch in the middle of the bus station and looking so out of place I had to take a picture.

I spent most of yesterday roaming town, which is possibly why I ended up feeling quite so tired. Lots of walking involved. First I went to see whether my favourite boots had been mended. I noticed last week that they had spilt down one side and dropped them into a traditional cobblers on Tuesday rather more in hope than expectation that something could be done. I was initially told it would only be £4.50 to patch them, but when I went in the cobbler (who hadn't been there when I dropped them in on Tuesday) said he hadn't done them because he needed to do more than a simple patch and wanted to talk to me first because of the cost. He needs to take the whole of the sole off to replace but can mend them and for only £22 which is much cheaper than buying a new pair and I get my favourite boots back so I'll go get them on Friday. I also dropped off my cowboy boots for re-heeling and will get it all tomorrow.

To the family history library next, and miracle of miracles one of the microfilm readers was free. This is going to be a long job though because I don't know what year I'm looking for so have started with the beginning of 1933. I'm searching for a story about my great-great-Grandad that my Grandad remembers being in the local paper but can't recall when. Just searching through one month took over an hour, and it's terribly soporific so I won't be able to do long stretches of it.

Overspent in Neals Yard Rememdies next. I'm going to be making some of the things from Grow Your Own Drugs for Mum for Mothering Sunday but it means buying various essential oils and they aren't cheap. Using only a couple of drops, though, means they will last quite a while. My kitchen currently looks like a mini specialised chemist, and I still don't have quite everything so once I manage to get myself dressed this morning I will be paying a quick trip to Holland & Barratt for vitamin E oil and cedar essential oil (I'm using it in place of sandalwood which I can't find locally and from what I see online is horrifically expensive anyway) and hoping that Neals Yard have beeswax back in stock. Experimentation will be going on today! I just need to be able to keep the cat out of it all.

Mum's card is finished though, and I need to get a small basket or something for presenting the whole thing.

I had a quick lunch in town too, at a little cafe I've passed lots of times but never been in before. Small mug of butternut squash soup, slice of bread and a latte. Very pleasant.

It was a beautiful sunny day yesterday, so it's a bit of a shock to open the curtains this morning to see fog. Where did spring go?

A letter from America

2009-03-17T22:17:00.003Z

I received these in the post this morning, from a snopester who very kindly offered them to me after seeing photos of the dragon and castle that I finally got round to mounting. They are by the same designer and the dragon will be a definite long term project - which I won't start until I get the phoenix and a couple of other unfinished projects which are sitting in my cupboard finished.

Haven't finished the card for Mothering Sunday yet. I was working on it this afternoon when I had a phone call from Mum asking if it was okay for her to drop by after work so I had to hide it away in a drawer, and I've been over to the Grandparents this evening because Mum rang to say she had come up with a couple of job adverts she thought I might be interested in. There are a couple of definite possibilities in there, I'll have to have a look for more detail online.

I really must have a filing session and tidy up my desk, the paperwork is starting to get out of control, and it's not like I have a huge desk in any case. The kitchen and bathroom could do with some work as well.

Was in town today and having a hunt around for inspiration for a Mothering Sunday present. I don't want to get Mum Grow Your Own Drugs since we don't both need to have a copy. One thought I had was the DVD of a TV series I knew she enjoyed which was a sort of reality TV thing of a family living for a year on a Victorian farm. Couldn't find it in HMV which was just as well - when at the Grandparents' this evening I saw a copy there! At least it would have been a suitable present! She has the book too, so that's out. I had a browse in Waterstones as well for books in a similar vein to Grow Your Own Drugs but wasn't particularly enthused by the few they had in there. Maybe a wander up to Neal's Yard Remedies tomorrow might be in order for some inspiration. I don't know if they will have any books, but maybe I could make up one of James Wong's recipes. I need to go into town anyway, to pick up my favourite boots from the cobbler who has hopefully been able to mend a split in the side. Must remember to take my cowboy boots to be reheeled as well.

Project 365

2009-03-16T23:08:00.002Z

It's Mothering Sunday coming up, so this evening I've started on a card for Mum. Don't know what I'm going to get her as a present though.

This is yesterday's photo - Titan's latest tactic to try and get me to feed him earlier in the mornings is to climb onto the bookcase and emerge mewing onto my computer desk from behind the stereo. That's not going to work either.

Lies my family told me

2009-03-16T22:44:00.002Z

Okay, well I might be being a bit harsh with the post title, but I spent a lot of yesterday feeling really quite angry with my Dad's family.

On Saturday I collected a load of data from my Dad. This was stuff that Dad and my uncle had gathered together over the years on family history. Saturday evening I had a browse through it and learned that my great-uncle did not have the same father as the rest of his siblings, my rather snobby Grandma actually left school at the age of 14 to go into service, her terribly superior sister was married twice - divorcing in the 60's, and my Grandma's parents divorced in 1960 so Great-Grandad could marry someone younger than him with whom he later had a daughter. He ended up dying in Tenerfie in the 1970s, and the photos in my uncle's data are the first images I've ever seen of him.

Sunday morning, I was continuing my browsing. Apparently Grandma's Grandmother died in a lunatic asylum in 1950. I also came across newspaper cuttings relating to the gas explosion at my Grandad's parents' home in the 1970s. The Mirror was as sensitive then as now by the look of things - while I was aware of the gas explosion and had a vague knowledge that my Great-grandmother later died as a result, seeing her described as a "human torch" was actually quite upsetting. I don't think I had ever really thought of it in anything but abstract terms before. They both died years before I was born so I never knew them and, my Dad's family never talking about family history, I didn't hear stories about them in my youth. But seeing the descriptions there in black and white, and knowing the case was serious enough that it was raised in the House of Commons, kind of makes it more real.

It's the total silence on the past that made me angry though. My Mum's side of the family always reminises about previous generations. I've grown up with stories which makes you feel connected to the past and like you have an understanding of these people you never met. I know which family traits in current generations are similar to those of my Grandad's brothers, for example, so the other year when I, my Mum and my uncle were fitting a new blind in the bathroom we ended up in fits of laughter in comparing our various approaches to my uncle's recollection of seeing Grandad and his brothers fitting the new sink when my uncle was a teenager. I have nothing like that from Dad's family.

What really sent me over the edge with them and their secrecy, though, was talking to Dad about my great-uncle. It seems the family secret only came to light when my uncle was ding his research. He spoke to some of Grandad's relatives in the line now living in Australia and one of them mentioned it, assuming my uncle knew. My great-uncle died earlier this year; Dad said his own sons only found out recently and Dad's not sure all the sons are aware even now.

I just do not understand this unwillingness to talk about the past. It's completely unfathomable to me. One of the first things Mum asked me to check up on when I started going to the county archive was the baptismal record of one of Grandad's relatives - she had a suspicion he might not have had the same father as his siblings either. As it turned out, assuming the baptismal record is true, he did but that's the difference, it was something known about, suspected, and openly talked about. Not hidden away and buried.

Today's revelation includes the discovery that Grandad's uncle was coroner in Singapore prior to the surrender to Japan in 1942. He was subsequently interned by the Japanese. In 1951 he emigrated to Australia. Again, I wasn't aware of any of this. That's a family member I would like to find out more about.

Day trip

2009-03-14T22:47:00.002Z

I've been at my Dad's today, meaning a round trip of over 200 miles. This little chap frequently appears in the garden and helps himself to the contents of the bird feeder. Fortunately for me, he stayed put long enough for me to snap a picture after I came out the kitchen door. I was sure he would take off as soon as the door opened. Love squirrels. I wonder whether they're any good as pets.

The main reason for going was that Grandma's there at the moment - she has been at my uncle's in France for the last three months. My brother came down for the day too, Grandma's sister is there as well, and Dad's mother in law now lives close by and spends a lot of time round there so we had three elderly ladies putting the world to rights before and during lunch. It's noticeable that they tend to talk all at the same time, which makes for some confusing conversations at times.

Grandma has decided to move over to France to live with my uncle and aunt. They are apparently concerned about how well she can take care of herself now. Seems a bit unfair - she's 85 and slow moving, but is rather more likely to be able to cope on her own than my other Grandparents are. Still, she wants to stay to see through the sale of her house, and given the current financial climate that could take a while.

We had to do the obligatory family photos in the back garden. Fortunately it was quite a pleasant day, but my brother can't deal with looking into the sun so is pulling a face in all pictures. Dad is very fussy about pictures too, and complained that the ones his wife took of me, hom and my brother were not centred. I told him to just put them on the computer and crop them. Easy enough.

I came away with my uncle's family tree research, which I will need to go through and add onto ancestry.co.uk - a long task, that. Dad has also been transferring old photos from slides onto the computer, so I took copies of the ones of my bro and I as kids, and from when we lived in Africa. I'll do CDs for Mum too, she doesn't have a lot of these since Dad tended to use slides. Goodness, but I was a fat child. And the clothes I had to wear were most unflattering...

An increasingly familiar sight

2009-03-13T23:07:00.003Z

There seem to be more and more signs like this popping up these days. I've thought for a while how depressing the centre of town is with all the empty shop fronts. Out where I live are a couple of retail parks, one of which is pretty new and only has a KFC drive through and a Homebase on it - it's otherwise empty. The next one over has the empty shell of an MFI store and the large furniture place which has had several owners in the few years it has been in place and is now sporting the above sign as the most recent occupier has gone to the wall. The one nearest to me has a couple of closed stores and another couple on their closing down sales.

As far as the out of town places go, I've never been sure how some of these places make money at the best of times. There are too many of them for a start. When you have rows and rows of large furniture stores is there really enough business for all of them? Do people buy furniture that frequently? (As an aside, has DFS ever sold anything at full price?)

In town now it's a different story - clothes shops, shoe shops, there's the slightly sad looking Woolworths building (I can still remember when that one opened) and increasing numbers of blank windows in the shopping centres. The large retail development that opened a couple of years back is still largely empty. If it wasn't for the fact that the cinema is there I very much doubt it would have much footfall at all, situated as it is off the main track.

One wonders how bad it is all going to get, and how long it will take to recover.

Meet my tigger

2009-03-12T23:15:00.003Z

He's not finished yet by any means, but until I can get some more money together this is going to be it for a while. At least it could pass for a complete tattoo anyway. Word to the wise - ribs hurt! My artist was so pleased with it though, I think everyone in the studio was called in to have a look.

What will be happening when I have the money is the blue/white colouring I wanted, then we're looking at a background which my artist described today. The tiger will be climbing rocks, and we'll have bamboo on the right hand side coming up over my shoulder. Very long term project, this one!

I've got a hint via the snopes message board as to how I can reach it to put lotion on without completely dislocating my shoulder. Tomorrow, therefore, I will be going to Homebase in search of a small paint roller. Brilliant idea, but not something you would normally think of.

Rediscovered dresses - and they actually fit!

2009-03-11T23:35:00.000Z

GBF's dip collection

2009-03-10T22:50:00.002Z

Six years on

2009-03-09T21:37:00.002Z

Six years ago I started stitching this; three years ago I finally finished it (the project having spent quite a long time sitting unfinished in a cupboard during that time); tonight I finally got round to mounting and hanging it. I saw a great idea in a craft magazine which suggested mounting the design on a canvas. There was certainly plenty of material round the edges to staple down on the frame I bought on Saturday. It is now hanging on my wall and I am very proud of it. Hopefully the phoenix won't take as long.

Regretting things lost

2009-03-08T22:03:00.002Z

I've gone back to my Grandad's garden for today's image. The daffs are starting to look really lovely and cheerful even in what turned out to be a miserable day complete with hailstones. It had been quite bright first thing too. The snowdrops are going over and the crocuses took a battering in the rain; something's eating the tulips as well.

This morning I was on granny-sitting duties while Mum went to church. Grandad was still in bed when I arrived around 9am catching up on some sleep - Mum had crept out of bed to switch on the slow cooker at 5.30am and it was like Grandma had been waiting for the merest hint that Mum might be up. Grandad was therefore prevented from sleeping by her moving around so he needed the lie in.

Grandma was in quite a bad way today, she is clearly getting worse. The latest thing is she is having the greatest difficulty in remembering how to get dressed. As a result, on two occasions when she went up to the loo after lunch we heard this wailing cry of "Can somebody help me?" because she couldn't work out how to get her trousers back on. Most of the morning she had been fine but inevitably as it drew closer to the time Mum was going to get back she started to go downhill, and she was also panicking madly after lunch when I was about to leave and Mum confirmed she was going to go home for a couple of hours to get things done before Evensong.

I have a bit of a fantasy going on about the Grandparents' house. They have lived there since the 60s and I can't really face the idea that one day it will not be the home base of the family. On the other hand, it also needs an awful lot of work done to it. In my head I have these day dreams of winning a huge amount of money on the Lottery, and when the time comes I buy the house. I even know what I would like to do to the place, redecoration last having taken place sometime in the late 80s/early 90s.

First up, the driveway needs widening. It's on a blind corner, is a steep slope, and at the moment virtually everyone hits one grass bank or another reversing up it. So widen the driveway, replace the tarmac with brick and the hedge with a Cotswold stone wall. Flower borders on the house side of the wall and by the two property boundaries to the left and right while the rest of what is currently the front lawn becomes brick driveway, to increase the amount of parking available (we can get four cars on the drive now, but it takes some switching about depending on who needs to leave first). The brickwork can also replace the path down the side of the garage which is currently closed off and excessively mossy, and the brick paved area at the back of the garage.

Secondly, there's the garage itself. When it was built the joist put in was concrete, not a metal one. Consequently, the garage is starting to slowly come away from the side of the house. Definitely needs something done.

I'd like to extend the width of the kitchen to the far edge of where the dining room window currently is, with a useable flat roof and a French door put into the wall of the main bedroom, so I could enjoy a morning coffee or a glass of wine of an evening on my balcony. The dining room (and indeed all the ground floor) would have real wooden floors, but the newly extended kitchen would be granite flagged.

The cellar would need to be properly damp-proofed and spruced up a bit so it could become my craft room as well as a storage area. The room to which the conservatory is attached (the conservatory becoming the rabbit's domain) would become my library/study, while the front room will of course have the TV, DVD, Wii, etc.

Upstairs I wouldn't do much more than redecorate, although I could probably go for a new bathroom suite and shower as well as fully tiling the room.

As for the garden - the vegetable patch needs to be restored, and the greenhouse replaced. I'd have a summer house (since the rabbit will have the conservatory) in the corner of the lawn surrounded on two sides by hedge. The former Christmas tree which has now got too tall and is leeching all the nutrients from the soil around it, and the yew would go. Dividing the lawn area from the vegetable garden would be a trellis, to be hung with honeysuckle, climbing roses, perhaps a trained fruit tree - that sort of thing. The beds will all need completely re-doing as well.

It's a nice fantasy - keeping the Grandparents' house in the family but modernising it. Sadly I'll never have the money for something like that.

A grand day out

2009-03-07T22:19:00.002Z

I had a call from GBF this morning, shortly after I had finally bothered to get dressed, asking what I was up to. At that point I was just about to head over to Hobbycraft to pick up the missing thread I need for the phoenix and have a look at the canvasses for finally getting round to mounting the dragon and castle I finished stitching a couple of years ago now. He and his friend C were looking to have a day out, so they joined me and we had a few hours out.

Parked in the docks and first stop was a cafe so GBF and C could get breakfast. I had already eaten so stuck with a peppermint tea, but still ended up eating two and a half hash browns that the others didn't want. Next we wandered on to Hobbycraft where I picked up a canvass, the thread I wanted, and a couple of other bits and pieces (that place is far too tempting, hence infrequent visits). On into the centre where C was in search of a new mobile phone charger, and we eventually ended up in the cathedral.

It has been an awful long time since I had a wander round there. At the moment there's a restoration project going on, which has put up a couple of new gargoyles as well as repairing the external stone work. Apparently it needs three quarters of a million to pay for it all - not really surprised. The masonry work that has been done is looking wonderful though, and I love the new gargoyles. It's great to think there are still such talented people about, but I just can't envisage anything of the majesty of the cathedral as a whole being built these days.

Inside, we wandered round looking at the artwork. One of the side chapels has a modern stained glass window, all deep blues and purples. The centre window depicts Thomas accepting the risen Christ, while the two side windows are inspired by Psalm 148 I think it was. That's one calling on all of creation to praise God:

Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created.

He established them for ever and ever;

he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

vv5-6

What was particularly striking, though, was a set of three modern depictions of the crucifixion, the pieta, and the resurrection. They have been placed in the alcoves of what I believe is the Lady chapel, right at the east end of the cathedral behind the main altar. The alcoves had been empty for 450 years, since the Reformation, and these paintings are fantastic. They sit so well in their spaces, in terms of the colours and style in comparison with the surrounding stonework. Very strong, very striking. This is the middle piece, the pieta:

Amazing work.

We went on to the cathedral coffee shop, where the others had a cream tea and I had a jacket potato with cheese, then it was back to the car and heading for home. It was a really pleasant few hours and does make a change to get out.

This evening I've been listening to CDs I need to write reviews for tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to say, but will listen again as I write.

Growing tiger

2009-03-06T23:11:00.002Z

Look at the work on the leg, isn't it fabulous? Having lasted two hours for the first session, today I lasted only 40 minutes before my artist called time. I was bleeding more than usual, the skin was very red, and the heat radiating from it was surprisingly strong. It hurt too, a lot! I could probably have coped a bit longer but my artist felt it wasn't sensible so I've got an hour next week before he goes off to South Africa for a month and hopefully we'll be able to get most of it completed then. He warned me it might scab more in the healing this time as well. Last week's was surprisingly easy healing. I'll keep plastering the bepanthen on it and hope my bra strap doesn't aggrivate it too much.

I've been working on my phoenix tonight as well, and will have to go to bed in a minute because my eyes are going funny. I've also discovered I'm still missing a thread - I was sure I had them all now. Nuts. Maybe I've got some of the right colour in one of the kits I've done, there's usually plenty left over in those. Bet I won't though.

Hot water returns!

2009-03-05T21:31:00.002Z

The plumber spent nearly three hours at the top of this ladder this morning, cursing and swearing at the element in my water heater which was initially refusing to allow itself to be undone, before he finally succeeded in fitting a new one. I have hot water back - yay! I can give Mum her ladder back too now, and if I get on and do something with the storage cupboard door I might be able to give her all her tools back too, as well as removing my Dyson from the living room.

The plumber warned me before he started that there was a possibility the cylinder on the water tank would crack in which case I would need a whole new one and that would get nastily expensive. Thankfully it held, but he did suggest it isn't in the best of shape. Can't think about replacing it now though, so as long as it works that's fine with me.

Met up with GBF in town this afternoon for a generalised mooch around book shops and for computer games. I was very good in Waterstones and didn't buy various books I had been looking at. Perhaps I'll look for them in the library. The main problem is I never think to make a proper note of names or authors. Oh well, I can always go to Waterstones again before a trip to the library. I've got three books out to read at the moment anyway, as well as a couple I bought last week, it's not as if I'm going to run out of reading matter.

Thinking of books, apparently it's World Book Day. It seems a fair number of people fib about the books they read, according to a survey released today. I see very little point in this, myself. If you want to be judged by the books people think you've read then why not read the damn books? Of the top ten books people lie about reading I've only read one - Orwell's 1984. Well, that's all I've read in its entirety. I've started Hawking's A Brief History of Time but have never completed it. Maybe I should give it another go, it's somewhere on my bookshelves I think. Unless I purged it in a rare clearing of space on the shelves. I've also read bits of the Bible but since I've never read the whole lot I can't really claim that. Unless the survey means that 24% of people say they have read some of the Bible and are lying. I can't imagine why 24% of people would claim to have read the whole lot - the genealogies alone are liable to be skipped, and let's face it, some of the law passages are quite the yawnfest as well. War and Peace and Ulysses have never particularly appealed to me so I've never picked them up. If I recall correctly, we had to do some Joyce in school and I can't say I was terribly enamoured of his writing.

Still, there's no reason everyone has to have read the same books. I'm quite happy picking through ones that appeal and ignoring some of the classics I would have to force myself to finish. At the moment I'm reading The Brutal Art by Jesse Kellerman. Someday I do aim to finish reading Richardson's Clarissa though.

Pretty birdie!

2009-03-05T07:56:00.001Z

I've just been made very happy by the sight of a bluetit sitting in the tree outside my kitchen window. Usually it's just pigeons and seagulls around here.

Project 365 - day 37

2009-03-04T22:13:00.003Z

In glass and metal

2009-03-04T15:44:00.003Z

Quiet spaces, empty places. Deserted streets on a sunny afternoon. Surprisingly few people about, although there is a low murmur in the library from people looking through shelves and booking computer time. Papers rustling.

On a whim I pop into the art gallery and museum, a place I've never visited in all the time I've been here. There's a glass exhibition on at the moment in the small room on the ground floor. Entering, I'm confronted by a crystal skull, a modern version of an ancient puzzle. Myriad colours, reflections and illusions. There's a piece with an almost shell-like shape - from one angle fragments of a cello in blue cover the surface; from another, it's revealed as half an instrument formed in the base of the glass. Two glass sheets with moon-like images complement each other, one in darkness, the other a paler night.

Enjoying the solitude, I climb the stairs to the gallery's cafe. There's one elderly lady sitting on a square leather sofa. She seems to be waiting for someone. I order a blueberry tea and settle into a seat to read, the wood and metal barrier ahead of me separating the cafe from the open space of the gallery's atrium with its tall glass and metal work doors allowing the sunlight to shine in. Quiet, restful. Just what I was looking for.

Then, one by one or in pairs, the cafe fills with women, mainly elderly. All clutching bags from which wool and needles peep. It seems the empty cafe plays host to a knitting group. There's a bubble of conversation which makes it hard to concentrate: "He was up on the stage"; "those little children collecting the cutlery"; "I'm trying to make this thicker than the last one"; chatter, gossip, comparing of work.

I finish my drink and descend the spiral staircase, the doors opening automatically before me, and I'm back on the quiet street in the afternoon sunshine. Time to retreat home.

A bit of shopping

2009-03-03T22:10:00.001Z

See? I do leave the flat

2009-03-02T20:29:00.003Z

It was quite lovely out this morning, so I walked into town. Bit of decent exercise for the first time in a while, and I had wanted to go register at the library in any case. My hopes weren't high though - last time I went into the town library the book selection was pretty crap. I wouldn't say it's exactly wonderful now but I came away with three books to read which saves me buying and also means I don't have to find more space on my shelves. Had a look in the family history section of the library too, which contains the local newspaper on microfilm dating back to the 19th century. Somewhere in there is a story about my great-great-grandfather although since there wasn't an index obvious I guess I will have to make an educated guess at a time period (around the turn of the 20th century I think) and search the slow way. Wonder if their microfilm reader is printable.

Had a mooch around town as well. I needed to pop into Boots, and I lost my plain nose stud in the shower this morning so I wanted to get a new one, then I sat outside my current favourite cafe having a hot chocolate and a smoke while getting on with reading The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale. Some elderly guy with an impenetrable accent came over and asked me something - eventually I worked out he was asking if I was reading Harry Potter. Bizarre - it certainly doesn't look like a Harry Potter book. And since when is it okay to come up and interrupt a complete stranger while they're reading?

Started walking home then changed my mind and went up to the cinema. I was in time to catch the 12.20 showing of He's just not that into you, which doesn't exactly come across as a feel good movie but was okay to while away a few hours. There were about five of us in the cinema. I like it like that.

Got home about 3.30 and made myself a mini quiche, with some Jusroll cases I bought the other week and leek, onion, red pepper, asparagus and mushroom, topped with mozarella and served with raw spinach, red lettuce and vinaigrette. Since I made too much filling there is another in the fridge for tomorrow. Ended up falling asleep on the futon again although I don't see why since I had a good night's sleep last night.

Tomorrow I shall wander over to Next and have a browse. I've got £100 to spend in there but we'll see what they have. I could do with a couple of casual day dresses, but what they have in the store in town wasn't really inspiring. Don't want to waste the gift card after all.

Geek central at the Grandparents'

2009-03-01T22:07:00.003Z

My uncle and I were playing around with the laptops after lunch today - I was expanding his music knowledge and he was trying to copy his book to my external hard drive. That didn't work, sadly, so he's going to email it to me.

It has been a bit of a family gathering at my Grandparents' this weekend. Both my Mum's siblings and their respective spouses were down. We always have a great time when we all get together. Yesterday there was a mass gathering in front of the TV for the rugby (I would not like to have been Danny Care trying to explain to Martin Johnson in the changing rooms afterwards what on earth he was thinking with the shoulder charge that got him sin-binned in the 69th minute) and an evening of general chat. Today was the family gathering for lunch and much general amusement which always happens when we all get together.

Grandma was having her usual flap today about everyone going home, and trying to guilt me into staying when Mum had to go to a service at church in the afternoon as well, but I had to get to Sainsbury's before it closed at 4pm so couldn't, and in any case I'm afraid she would have driven me nuts. No doubt she spent the time winding Grandad up instead. They were only going to be on their own for about three hours. We know it's the illness, but when she announces she isn't going to eat any dinner it is harder and harder not to see her as a petulant child. One aspect of Alzheimer's I guess.

I'm having to shut Titan out of the bedroom at the moment. He won't leave the flowers alone. At 1am and 3am he was easily put off, but 5am he was being far too persistent so I eventually shut him out. I've left the door shut all day as well, which means there is a lovely scent in my room. Titan isn't too happy about it though. I hope he doesn't get noisy overnight.

I really ought to try and get out more...

2009-02-28T23:13:00.002Z

...otherwise I'm going to run out of things in the flat to take pictures of for Project 365. I swear I must come across as an agoraphobe or something. Anyway, it's the turn of Sir Didymus today.

More flowers

2009-02-27T23:53:00.002Z

And Titan has already made an attempt to eat them. These were given to me at a dinner at which I had the embarrassing position of being guest of honour - embarrassing because they made me make a speech and I hate that. It was also very good for the ego because everyone said such nice things to and about me! This was a thank you dinner from one of my areas, held at a lovely Italian restaurant. The food was fabulous and also not in such huge quantities that I felt bloated, which can be a problem sometimes with pasta. I can't not eat it after all! This time round I even had room for a dessert, which also wasn't too sickly or over-filling.

Good news on the rugby - although I didn't see the match I understand that the Welsh lost to the French and so will not get a Grandslam this year. Strange how it is that in this match each year I end up supporting the side least likely to get the overall victory in the competition! I haave a horrible feeling England will be losing to Ireland tomorrow at Croke Park. Let's hope England play like they did against the Welsh rather than as they did against Italy.

The solution to feeling crap is...

2009-02-26T23:15:00.005Z

...pay a man to stick needles in you for two hours. Seriously, check out the results of the first session of my new tattoo! It's slightly out of focus, but that's the problem of trying to take a photo of your own back. No doubt, in view of the crappy news I had yesterday, I will probably have a pang of regret about going through with it because of the money in the next few weeks, but since I'd already largely paid for it with the deposit I figured I might just as well. Really not going to tell my Mum about this one though!

The electrician came back today to fit my new spotlights. Only charged me £40, which is less than I was anticipating. He and my plumber will have to come and replace my immersion heater next week though, and I dread to think what that's going to cost.

Sent off two job applications and registered with a second employment agency today. I've also been back in touch with one of the temping agencies to say I can give them the longer time they were asking for, so here's hoping they come up with something soon at least. There's another job I've seen advertised that I need to investigate, but I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with doing the job stuff this morning and was suffering from a touch of cabin fever so I spent the afternoon out. Also went to an open day at a major local employer this evening, but they're largely looking for financial stuff with qualifications I don't have so that was a bust.

I've also signed back on to sparkpeople (we'll see how long that lasts) because I weighed myself this morning, having realised I was getting fat again. Initially I was relieved because I'm still under 10st, but then decided that a pound under 10st is not really something to be relieved about so I'm going to make use of their food tracking thing for a bit.

Oo, sleepy. Will need to go to bed.

Screw Them (slightly squished)

2009-02-25T22:17:00.002Z

GBF knows how to make me smile, even on a crappy day.

An end to procrastination

2009-02-24T23:04:00.003Z

After several months (or a couple of years in the case of one) I finally got an electrician over to have a look at the two spotlights in the flat that aren't working. One is now fixed, handily enough the one between the living room and kitchen and while working the one I tended to use most. However, the one in the bedroom is completely knackered and needs to be replaced. The electrician is coming back on Thursday so I had a trip down to Homebase earlier. It looks like proper indoor spotlights aren't done anymore, just those halogen things. Nuts. I've got two so the other one in the bedroom can be replaced too - might as well have matching light fittings if I'm having work done.

I also asked him to have a look at the water heater. Unfortunately he didn't have the right tester with him since I forgot to mention it when I phoned up, but he'll do that on Thursday as well. It's looking like I might need a new immersion heater. Bugger. Job for the plumber, apparently. Maybe I can get him to look at the kitchen tap at the same time. And possibly the hot tap in the bath to find out why that doesn't work at all. Something must be blocking it.

You never know, I might even get round to fitting the new lock on the storage cupboard properly at some point. But then, that's only been since December.

Might take a trip over to the county archive tomorrow, or possibly grave hunting. If I go for the archive I will have to have a look over my notes to see where best to try next. Do it in the morning.

Another experiment will be coming up for the slowcooker too - gammon poached in coca cola. I'll report back tomorrow. Something that takes up to six hours to cook should be perfect if I'm going out.

Project 365 today is another crafty one. I'm now working on a cross stitch phoenix, which I found the pattern for in a magazine. It's progressing okay, I've only had to unpick a couple of mistakes. But look at the colours on this though. Stunning.

Basement cat sleeps on the corpses of his victims

2009-02-23T22:02:00.001Z

Or Titan on his favourite bed, if you prefer.

Finished!

2009-02-22T21:28:00.003Z

Well, sort of. I can't do French knots at all, and after several frustrating attempts gave up. If I can find small enough ones, I might see if I can sew in seed beads where the knots are meant to be. As you can see, I also can't do lazy daisies very well. That was annoying, you'd have thought they would be pretty straightforward. I was probably pulling them too tight.

The final, final stage will be to print off the mount and get it affixed to a card. Need a new colour cartridge for the printer first though.

I've now started on a phoenix, and it will be stunning. French knots in that as well though - more seed beads?

More from Grandad's garden

2009-02-21T22:43:00.000Z

New book, old tattoo

2009-02-20T23:18:00.004Z

I took myself into town for a brief wander around lunchtime. Mum asked me to pay a cheque into her bank for her so I was mainly doing that. I had hoped that my pay cheque would have arrived, but no sign yet. Hopefully tomorrow or Monday.

A new charity bookshop has opened up - this one for Barnardos. I had a browse. It's books, I couldn't not. Only a small place, but I did pick up a book on Jack the Ripper that I haven't read before. I've been watching Whitechapel so its got my interest up again. This one is Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation by Trevor Marriott, a former detective with the murder squad who has been using modern techniques to examine the case and apparently concludes that there were many more victims than usually believed. The trouble with this sort of thing is that no one is ever really going to be able to answer the question as to who the Ripper was, but different investigations are interesting. Dad gave me The Ripper Diaries years back, the one which supposedly included the actual diaries of the Ripper, in that case identified as James Maybrick, whose wife was later accused of murdering him. Then there are the conspiracy theories, etc. All very interesting as a purely intellectual exercise, of course, but ultimately futile.

Popped in to see my tattoo artist as well. There have been a few changes since I last went in there. The studio has new signs, additional artists, more space, and in a couple of weeks' time there will be a photographic studio out the back as well. Looks like things are going fine there then. The studio might be good to check out when it's up and running. GBF and I have talked every so often about getting a good picture of us done, and the place he went to for one with his sister is ridiculously overpriced and the staff were rude. I've got to go back in next week to have my rose touched up - I admitted that the bunny has been at it, and my artist wants to see what he can do about that. If only I had the money for my back piece.

Other than that, I've been playing around on the computer, acting as a pillow for the cat, and carrying on with the Japanese lady cross stitch. I've also signed up on Craft Bubble and have posted some photos of stuff I've made. People are being very kind with comments. Did get round to making the cottage pie, but decided as it was cooking that I wasn't actually hungry. Should be good for three or four meals though, and it gets rid of the rest of the minced beef.

I'm sure my project 365 photos should be rather more interesting than they are, but then I've not been out doing much so I have to be inventive around here. At least it hasn't been 25 (so far) photos of the cat asleep on the futon.

Just bits and pieces

2009-02-19T23:17:00.003Z

This is what I'm currently working on. Not too much of it left to go, just some of the head dress then the detailing. The recommendation in the magazine is to frame it, but I think it should work just fine as a card. I need to work on my card stocks, I don't have many left. And, let's face it, I have some time on my hands at the moment. But then, there's a rather fabulous phoenix design I've seen that I want to make as well. Given how long it took me to finish the dragon and castle (which I still haven't got round to framing) it will probably take me about three years.

I've been doing some bits online today for a band - trying out the street team mission facility on ReverbNation. It will be interesting to see how that works.

Other than that, there has been water all over the kitchen floor today. I finally defrosted the freezer. It does make a mess, but then the kitchen floor probably needed washing and at least I can shut the freezer door properly again. As a result, though, I've got a load of minced beef to finish off. I think I shall make a cottage pie tomorrow.

Random prezzie from GBF

2009-02-18T23:22:00.000Z

Thanks hun! I'm going to have lots of fun with this!

I decided on a little treat

2009-02-17T22:53:00.002Z

Having had a semi frustrating four hours in the county archive today, I took myself off up into the hills in search of gravestones. There's a particular village that my family has a lot of 19th century connections with, so I thought I would go and see if I could find any relatives in the church yard. Unfortunately, all the headstones are so badly weather-worn as to be illegible, so after a fruitless search I opted to head off to the nearest town, which I haven't been to in a while, for a wander. Ended up in a lovely little cafe having a cream tea while deciphering my notes from the archive, then in my wandering I found an artisan chocolate shop and treated myself to six chocolates plus some instant hot chocolate which looks as if it could be quite yummy. I haven't tried it out yet.

The family search has been rather more successful this evening though. In entering the data I had gathered, which to be fair has included some assumptions in tying it together but they're not completely wild stabs in the dark, ancestry has come up with some useful hints from other people's family trees. Assuming that my deductions are correct, and the data other people have collected is also accurate, it has now reached back to the beginning of the 1700s when we had been stuck about 1800. I'm not sure how far back it is possible to go, given that we're peasant stock and therefore not important enough to be recorded anywhere other than parish registers. However, I shall persevere. The task might be made a little more difficult by the discovery that the family might have originated in Cambridgeshire. I wonder what online resources the Cambridgeshire archive has.

Ever get the feeling you need to defrost the freezer?

2009-02-16T22:17:00.000Z

Project 365 Day 20

2009-02-15T23:32:00.001Z

These are in a corner of my Grandparents' garden. Aren't they pretty?

One thing after another really

2009-02-15T07:53:00.002Z

Yesterday morning, the washer on the hot tap in the kitchen broke. Apparently. I couldn't turn the wretched thing off, so in the end turned the water off at the stop cock and decided to see if I could manage to replace it myself. First step - quick trip to Homebase for some spanners, since I didn't own any. I downloaded guidance on how to replace a washer and went to try and get the tap off. Fail! Not only had I not managed to work out how to turn off the flow from the hot water tank, so every time I turned the tap water started running again, I couldn't get the tap off anyway.

Gave up and went up to the Grandparents. Grandad came home and seemed instantly brighter. My uncle and one of my cousins were down as well so I took my uncle through some of the family history stuff I have been doing. Having finally found the baptismal record of the furthest back direct ancestor on my Grandad's paternal side I had been able to identify the names of his parents, giving us one generation back. However, their forenames were all I had and trying to find more about them is needle-in-a-haystack time. My uncle, though, thinks he has information on them, having found a coiuple of that name from about the right time in his searches a while back but not knowing how they fitted in to our tree. That will be a huge help if he has it right.

Watched the rugby, with a decided lack of optimism at the start but a growing feeling that England are finally starting to play the kind of game they should have done last week. Much more running as opposed to kicking, some very good attacking play, and while the Welsh ultimately won and had the greatest amount of possession, England scored two tries to their one. Paul Sackey's try was the result of him winning a foot race against two Welsh players after Andy Goode actually managed to get a chip kick right. Delon Armitage get a well deserved five point as well, he was playing much better than last week. Cueto and Sackey got a decent amount of ball and demonstrated what to do with it, both of them were excellent. Joe Worsley was named man of the match even though the Welsh won. His defensive play was top notch, he made some great tackles and generally managed to be in the right place at the right time. Brilliant work.

I was rather less than impressed with the ref, again. Mike Tindall was given 10 minutes in the bin for holding onto the ball/not rolling away in the ruck (can't remember exactly which) - rather harsh. I suppose the ref would argue that he had warned England against this earlier in the match so was making an example. Andy Goode was given his marching orders right at the beginning of the second half for not staying on his feet in the ruck and effectively killing the ball. Again, a harsh decision, justified by the ref by suggesting that this action prevented a try-scoring opportunity for the Welsh which wasn't guaranteed to be on so a penalty try couldn't be awarded. However, the Welsh not only got away with playing the man away from the ball on several occasions (the most blatant of which was the guy who clearly positioned himself to put in a hit on Sackey after Sackey had chip-kicked, therefore preventing the chase by Sackey which, given his pace, could have seen him score a second try), they also got away with dangerous play when Delon Armitage was taken out in the air. It wasn't a momentum thing, Armitage was clearly in the air as the Welsh player came charging on and took out his legs. All England got for that was a penalty - if killing the ball in the ruck merits 10 minutes in the bin, dangerous play should get at least that if not a red.

Still, the Welsh played well but England were by no means outclassed and have proven that they can play a running game when they put their minds to it. Toby Flood came on for Goode in the second half and did a great job, Harry Ellis was on fire again, there's good potential there.

This morning the kitchen tap has me thoroughly confused. I switched the water back on so I could have a shower, and not only is the water not pouring out of the hot tap, I managed to turn it on and off again. I had thought turning it on would be pushing my luck but apparently not. So maybe I don't have to call a plumber just yet after all. Very stange.

Project 365 Day 18

2009-02-14T01:07:00.004Z

I've not long got back from Dudley and have well over 100 photos to sort through from tonight, plus some video footage. I shall leave it for tomorrow, but it seemed appropriate to use one for today's Project 365 image. Lordi and Fatal Smile were both brilliant, and I'm afraid I'm developing another rock singer crush - not Mr Lordi, I hasten to add, but Blade from Fatal Smile. If you see his picture, you'll understand why! A Swedish blond bombshell with a voice with the power of Bruce Dickinson's. *sigh*

We're bringing him home

2009-02-12T22:44:00.004Z

Otis was doing his prisoner on death row impression when I got home from granny-sitting this evening. Well, the cat's already been in Project 365, it was inevitable the bunny was going to get a look in sooner or later. He's currently behind the futon nibbling the carpet, so a return to the cage is imminent. If you're wondering about the padlock, that's necessary because he has worked out how to open the cage door.

Leaving Grandad was heartbreaking this evening. He was in a weepy mood today, so Mum has decided he is coming home on Saturday. Poor love, he gets so lonely. He was holding my hand most of the time I was there, and as I was about to leave with Grandma he got up out of his chair (which takes a bit of doing these days) and gave me a hug, saying he doesn't know what he would do without me and Mum and welling up again. It's not like I actually do anything much, I just appear every so often to help out when Mum has conflicting schedules.

I've decided that the best way to try and fathom out the complexities of Grandad's line, with its lack of originality in the naming of children, is to try and draw it out properly, with the children of each sibling in each generation inserted. So, since there is no way I could get that on A4 (big families in the 18th century) I went and bought an A2 sketch pad. It probably still won't be big enough but it's a help. The visual prompt is very useful. We shall see how it goes.

Granny-sitting

2009-02-11T23:37:00.002Z

Atmospheric, no? It was a bit on the foggy side this morning, but I decided to take a detour via this church on the way to the county archive this morning in search of the grave of my Grandad's great-grandparents (which makes them my great-great-great-grandparents, does it?) The village it's in is only a couple of miles from me but I've never been there before. Never even been through it. It's very pretty and I suspect rather more expensive these days than when Grandad's great-grandparents lived there. We were all surprised at the quality of the headstone - given that my family were all agricultural labourers and things of that ilk we were expecting something rather plainer than it actually is. Okay, so it's not an ornate, OTT marble thing with gold leaf, but I was expecting it to be just a plain stone featuring only the inscription.

Spent a couple of hours in the archive and found the baptismal register for Grandad and his siblings, which I took copies of. It seems his parents moved around a bit - all within the same village, but aside from the eldest where the residence is just entered as the village, the addresses on the entries for the other four are all different. I also found the entry in the register of marriages for his elder sister, which is helpful because it gives me a rough idea of the date to look for her husband's records - I haven't been able to find anything about him so far.

Grandad seemed quite chuffed about it all when I showed him this evening, so we spent an hour discussing family history before Grandma upped her attempts to get attention paid to her by putting on her coat and announcing she was going to leave. Was sorely tempted to let her try it, especially since the front door of the care home was locked, but since I was granny-sitting tonight I eventually took her home. She's got a cold at the moment which is probably contributing to her crappy mood, but it did make for a useful discovery. Mum got her some cough medicine which the pharmacist assured her should be fine with the various meds Grandma is on and is meant to be non-drowsy. I gave her some about 8.40 this evening, and about 10 minutes later she was asleep on the sofa, snoring away like a good 'un. So that's the answer then - if we need to keep Grandma quiet for a bit, give her cough medicine!

Buried in history

2009-02-11T07:53:00.002Z

Just to be clear, this photo was taken yesterday and is therefore the image for dat 15 of Project 365. I just didn't get round to posting it yesterday because I was sorting out the information I need to look for in the Archive today and when it got to 1am I decided I really needed to go to bed. What struck me about this skyline is the incongruity of the shop and restaurant blocking the view of a beautiful cathedral which in the past would have been rather more dominant. You can see it from miles around in the countryside, but get into the city itself and it seems somehow diminished. Sad, in a way.

I spent several hours yesterday at the county archive and will be going over again this morning, this time armed with specific queries from Mum. Yesterday I was partly getting to grips with it all, but also trying to solve a puzzle I had found from Mum's cousin's data back in the late 1700s. In the end, the answer to that one seems to be that there were siblings with the same name, one dying two years before the other was born. Apparently this was a frequent occurance, but it does play merry hell with untangling the threads of family. Today's task should be simpler in that I'm only lookingt at the late 1800s/early 1900s but the end result is to discover whether or not my Grandad's great uncle was legitimate.

I am really enjoying this!

Snowing again

2009-02-09T23:46:00.003Z

I was going to label this as the last snowman of the wintery weather, but this evening it started bloody snowing again so no doubt there will be more. Strangely, this afternoon when I went over to Mum's to steal info from her family tree there was quite a lot of snow on the ground there while this side of town it had pretty much disappeared.

Been spending a lot of time playing on ancestry.co.uk again today. My eyes are now starting to go funny in spite of the glasses so it's probably about time to stop. Depending on what the weather's like tomorrow I might take a trip to the Family History Society archive - if it's still crap out then I'll just stay here and do it online. I need to go through it properly and make a few corrections to the automatic info I had added in from hints the website came up with, and checking the actual records should help there. I also emailed Dad's brother who has a whole load of stuff he has been putting together for years on the family tree and have allowed him to view what I have online. He has been after info on Mum's side of the family. In return, he is putting his research onto a data stick and sending it back to the UK with Grandma for me.

I love this not-actual-research thing - I have quite the family tree developed, and I haven't had to do much myself yet!

The tangled web of family

2009-02-08T23:28:00.002Z

Having been minding Grandma again this morning while Mum was at church, I decided it was about time I had a look at Mum's family tree research - if I have some free time she would like me to go and do some research for her in the archieves at the local Family History Society. Grandma was just dozing on the sofa so I had an undisturbed hour or so looking at the programmes and CDs Mum has and trying to get my head around where she is with it all. I think we do need to go over her material together, however, because while she has a family tree in development on the computer, what she has printed out is long lists of register material so you have to wade through quite a bit to find the relevant stuff. Basically, I need her to give me an indication of the specific areas she would like me to research.

As a consequence, when I got home this afternoon I signed up for ancestry.co.uk and have spent the last ten hours near enough playing around on the site and developing my own family tree. Fortunately for me, my Dad and uncle did a lot of work on their side of the family and Dad is going to see about putting it onto a CD and sending it to me, but even the most immediate generations are pretty complicated. Who married who and when, trying to recall when various cousins were born (and how many children one of them currently has), second marriages, step-children, etc all make for quite the tangled web. It's interesing to sort through and there's a small feeling of triumph in just finding material which, to be honest, I could just ask either Mum or Dad for. Once I've got the last couple of generations sorted out I will try and be more disciplined in following a particular family line back - I've been leaping around a bit rather.

I'm surprised I managed to concentrate on it for so long though. Titan woke me up about 3am and instantly my mind started buzzing with the latest worry I have developing. I think I have a plan worked out now, but it meant I couldn't get back to sleep. So the fact that I haven't dozed off during the day is a little concerning - it suggests that annoying state of tiredness when you're too tired to manage to sleep. Here's hoping for a better night.

England 36 - Italy 11

2009-02-07T22:39:00.002Z

A scoreline that definintely flattered England, one thinks. It was a very promising opening, with Andy Goode taking advantage of Mauro Bergamasco's inexperience at scrum half (risky experiment, that) and touching down in the first couple of minutes with a lovely kick to convert his own try, but after that things just were not going well. Goode seemed to totally fall apart, his place kicking was substandard and his kicking from hand was truly dreadful and more than a little misguided. Sadly, I seem to have been to too many England matches when I end up yelling at the fly half to stop kicking the bloody ball away. If there was some advantage gained from it then I could understand it, but too many times the better option would have been to run and no attempt is made to do so.

Harry Ellis played a blinder, coming in from all over the place and making some attacks that I was sure were going to see him injured. His two tries were brilliant and he was deservedly named man of the match. It was a shame to see him substituted in the second half.

Flutey and Cueto also scored tries, Cueto's in particular being a great piece of work. I keep thinking England doesn't make enough good use of the wings. Once again, Sackey was largely relegated to defensive work, which he does damn well, but I would have liked to see him and Cueto being given more of an opportunity to run the ball.

Two England players were sinbinned, in what I thought was a mixed afternoon for the ref. I still fail to see why Haskell was yellow-carded since unless I missed something he was given his marching orders for obstruction, and I don't think that merits ten minutes in the bin. Geraghty was an idiot though and got himself ten minutes off a very short time after replacing Flutey. Can't see Martin Johnson being happy with him...

Italy deserved a better scoreline than they got, but Mirco Bergamasco's try was very well deserved. England really need to be quicker at the breakdown (although at points in the match this was going well) and stop kicking away opportunities when they could run. More and better use of the wings, please.

Also, I want to add how much I dislike one of the rule changes. Allowing the opposition to bring down a maul has effectively killed it as an offensive manoeuvre. A classic rolling maul is both a great technical skill and a thing of beauty, and both England and Italy are good at the art of the rolling maul. I love watching the pack at work but this rule change has cost us a wonderful example of what a pack can do. It needs a rethink, although I doubt there will be one.

Project 365 - day 11

2009-02-06T21:41:00.000Z

Hibernation plans

2009-02-06T13:31:00.003Z

My plan for the day was largely to spend it reading on the futon accompanied by hot chocolate, playing around with the guitar (byebye fingernails), doing a bit of craft stuff and watching TV. Since my order of non-alcoholic wine actually did arrive today when I was expecting the snow to delay it until Monday, my plans were slightly amended to include a trip over the road for some bits and pieces and to test the ability of the slow cooker to make mulled wine. Might be a treat for the evening though.

Sainsbury's had the white chocolate and raspberry cookies back! They've been missing for ages. So of course I had to get some of those as well.

I did manage to get the e string on the guitar tuned properly though. No idea why it wasn't cooperating yesterday. Cutting my fingernails particularly short has also enabled me to play chords properly as well. Wonder how long the development of calluses takes. The strings are making my fingers sore.

Ho hum. Time for lunch. I think it shall be the remainder of the soup made from the liquid left from the venison the other day.

Faking the guitar

2009-02-05T22:55:00.003Z

More snow overnight. Very few people or cars were around the couple of times I ventured out today. I suspect the staff at Sainsbury's and Pets at Home were very bored, so few customers in. The car parks were looking very empty, except for the JCB clearing snow from the spaces.

Having developed major guitar envy at the weekend, viewing my uncle's Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty, I finally got my guitar out again today. Of course, it was horrendously out of tune so I spent some time with the electric tuner trying to get it sorted out - and promptly snapped a string. *sigh* Not knowing how you replace a string on a guitar, and not having any spares anyway, I called the music shop my uncle bought his Marshall amp at and they kindly said they could do it for me. The roads were pretty clear by this afternoon, and as I say there was very little traffic about, so I popped down there and was shown how strings are replaced. I'm still not convinced it's entirely in tune, but it seems to be as close as I can get. The high E string and the electronic tuner were not cooperating.

I played a bit on Guitar Hero III this evening as well. The cat took it very well, just slept the whole time. I'm out of practice on that one as well so while it was better than I expected it was by no means great. Getting my fingers sorted out with the blue key is still giving me trouble.

Sir Didymus needed rescuing a moment ago. Daft hamster was chewing the bars on the cage and managed to get his nose stuck between two of them. He was making a hell of a racket but I managed to rescue him. That's the only time my fingers have been near the bars that he hasn't tried to bite me!

This pretty much sums up the day

2009-02-04T22:35:00.000Z

Cars, cooking and books

2009-02-03T22:14:00.002Z

Well, that title pretty much sums up the day. With the huge quantities of snow failing to materialise, I carefully edged the car out of the ungritted and icy road this morning to take it off for its service and MOT. No major problems with it, but a £220 bill is something I could do without right now. I shall have to bite the bullet tomorrow and have a look at my accounts - I'd be inclined to let this one slide and pay it off over two months, except I have my car insurance renewal coming up and I can spot a slippery slope when I see one.

After dropping off the car I walked back into town. Lovely clear day, blue skies, but the wind was a bit on the chilly side as one might expect. Paid a cheque into the bank, went and spent too much in Waterstones, then retired to the fabulous little cafe GBF introduced me to for a hot chocolate and brie & cranberry croissant, ie breakfast. Walked home after that and was back by 11.

I also test drove my new slow cooker, finally getting round to cooking the venison I bought yonks ago. Pretty easy stuff, chop some veg, add a can of soup, leave it in the slow cooker for seven hours. Tasted pretty good too, although since my quantities were guess work using a recipe found online I've ended up with rather more liquid left over than anticipated. Rather than waste it, I will blend it with the remaining veg (possibly adding another potato) et voila, another couple of meals worth of broth. I've also got a fair amount of venison left too, which should be good for sandwiches with redcurrant jelly.

As well as the slow cooker venison experiment I made up another batch of muesli, to get the packets of fruit which were taking up space on my work surfaces out of the way, and put the whole lot into a tupperware container - again, a space saver since the firest batch had still been in the bowl I mixed it in.

I really need to ignore the buy one get one free offers on fruit in the supermarket though. The other week I took the two bags of apples on offer rather than the one I realistically was going to get through. Taking a bite out of one today I realised I was in danger of having to throw away a whole load of fruit again when I got a mouthful of bruise. So I've turned them into stewed apple, which should last a little bit longer. Need to get fresh fruit though - I think the clementines are about gone too.

Anyway, since I haven't done much photoworthy today and forgot to take my camera out with me in any case, today's contribution to project 365 is Titan doing what he does most of the day:

Snow day

2009-02-02T13:25:00.002Z

Guitar envy

2009-02-01T20:38:00.003Z

Due to the rush to depart this morning (having had a call from the nursing home to say Grandad was being aggressive and they couldn't do anything with him, could someone come and try and calm him down; sounds like he has developed a UTI again so I went to sit with Grandma while my uncle went over to the home), I didn't have my camera with me when I viewed my uncle's latest toy. Guitars being an appropriate theme for the day, though, the above is from mine.

My uncle has treated himself to a Gibson Les Paul Black Beauty and a Marshall amp (his amp isn't the same as the one in the linked pic, but how stunning is that guitar?) It is beautiful, has a fabulous sound and I want one! Of course, actually being able to play would be a bonus...

Grandad had settled down again by the afternoon. Mum went over after church, when I finally managed to get hold of her, and stayed to wait for the doctor. My uncle came home after a while and joined my aunt, Grandma and me for lunch. Grandma was being all "woe is me" all morning, which was rather wearing, and my aunt was in town when we had the call from the home so I had Grandma all to myself. Cigarettes are very useful in situations like this. When Mum got back she said they had been able to finally take a sample which had all kinds of nasties in it, including blood, so the doctor has prescribed him some antibiotics. He seems to get UTIs with a depressing frequency though, and it always makes him confused and unmanageable. Wonder if there's anything that can be done about that; drinking more water possibly?

Wedding Belles

2009-02-01T00:07:00.003Z

Two photos from the 31st - GBF and I went to the UK wedding reception of an old schoolfriend who now lives in Canada this evening. The actual wedding took place a couple of months ago in Vancouver. It was slightly bizarre - there were so many people there I haven't seen in years, so long in fact that some of them I didn't recognise. Still, we don't tend to dress up to the nines much, so I went all out, and even though I do say it myself - I looked fabulous, darlings!

To Worcester

2009-01-30T22:58:00.005Z

Brief trip out today, to the lovely little city of Worcester. I wanted to go to Lakeland to get a small slow cooker, and Worcester is the nearest one. Yes, I could have just ordered it online, but it does me good to get out and I do like browsing Lakeland. Very small shop there, but interesting nonetheless. I'm such a domestic geek at times. Anyway, I found my slow cooker and picked up a recipe book to go with it. Now I need to decide what to do to test it out.

Day 3

2009-01-29T20:03:00.003Z

After a fairly lazy day, during the course of which my hair turned a shade of purple, GBF and I met up for a coffee this afternoon. Coffee turned into an all day breakfast at a cafe in town, so I still haven't had the garlic bread and soup I was planning on, but actually the fry up really hit the spot. Back at GBF's place, Nemo was demonstrating his determination to reach the cat biscuits, even after he had been fed. Quite an ingenious cat, that one.

A creative day

2009-01-28T23:03:00.003Z

Day two of Project 365, and the above photo represents my creative efforts for today. That camouflage material was in the process of becoming a corset style top, which has actually worked out very well. Now that I've made sure I've got the principle right (including the very lazy method of using iron-on hemming tape at the top and bottom) I will be doing the same thing with the rest of the Alexander Henry skulls and roses material I've got.

I've also made cranberry bran muffins - which are absolute heaven when warm from the oven. They're so good that I ate two of those instead of actually having dinner this evening. The muesli worked out very well too, making a very yummy porridge when heated with milk in the microwave. Having found garlic butter in Sainsbury's this evening I shall probably turn the half baguette that is slowly going stale in the fridge into garlic bread and have that with soup for lunch tomorrow. See? Actually thinking about possible meals in advance. That's got to be a good thing, right?

Project 365

2009-01-27T20:56:00.003Z

One of the posters over on snopes mentioned that they were going to be doing Project 365, which sounded like an interesting project so I thought I'd give it a go. The thing is, I can't help thinking that a lot of the images are going to be so dreadfully mundane. Not a lot happens on a day to day basis that is terribly interesting, and I will probably forget to take my camera around with me in any case. However, we shall see how it goes.

I suppose an explanation of the photo is in order. One of the little projects I've been undertaking is writing up recipes to index cards. I started doing this ages ago after I decided that it was rather more practical for use and for searching than the book I had been noting them down in. As I was doing it this afternoon, I came across a recipe for muesli that I had noted down ages ago but had never actually made. Since I'm determined to actually eat properly at the moment, and am largely succeeding in eating reasonable meals, I thought I would give it a go. The above is the end result. I've adapted it somewhat since the original called for 200g of mixed nuts and I'm not a fan, so instead of the nuts I've added 100g each of apricots and prunes. Also included are cranberries, apples and figs (all dried), plus pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds along with the oats. I shall try it out for breakfast in the morning, possibly heating it with milk in the microwave to turn it into a porridge kind of thing.

As an aside, the cost of dried fruits really mounts up. Cranberries in particular, although I need them for the cranberry bran muffins I shall make tomorrow. Still, I've got about 12 days worth of muesli there, and enough fruit and seeds to make another batch. Here's hoping I like it then!

In other news, Grandad is back in the nursing home again, although fairly pointlessly this time it would seem. His back has been very painful, and the strong painkillers the doctor prescribes usually make him constipated, so the doctor suggested he go into the care home for supervision since they were also to be giving him a laxative to counteract the constipation. After all, we don't want a repeat of last April when he was taken into hospital in the middle of the night. However, he hasn't been taking the painkillers because his back hasn't been as bad, so there really doesn't seem to be much point in him being in there. Poor love will be bored out of his mind as well. Grandma goes in on a day basis while Mum is at work. Mum told me this evening that the staff told her Grandma was getting at Grandad at lunch today as well. Although she was going to consult her brother on the subject, Mum and I are both agreed that there seems little point in him being in there at the moment, and since they are paying for it, it would be better for him to go home. Mum wants to bring him home Friday.

I've been doing some other little projects as well over the last couple of days. Sunday evening, for example, I spent a couple of hours putting together a band page for Gypsy Pistoleros on ReverbNation. I'm quite pleased with how it came out, and Lee (singer) seems happy with it too. It's an interesting little tool. Could be quite useful. There's still a lot to sort out with it, such as the mailing list, but I hope it helps.

GBF has been saving kittens. I wasn't able to go with him Friday because I was sitting with Grandma while Mum took Grandad over to the care home, but his sister's boyfriend gave him a lift to pick up eight kittens from someone he knows from the club. She had been moaning about them for a while and was threatening to drown them, so GBF said he would take them and try to rehome them, otherwise he would take them to the animal shelter. I went over to his after I finished at the Grandparents', and there were the most adorable little bundles of fur roaming around his living room. Some were two months old, the others four months and, as I later discovered, it seems they probably all have worms. At least two did, which makes it likely all eight do. GBF had advertised them on freecycle and had quite a lot of takers, plus two friends of his were each taking one, so there were six needing homes. By the time I left that evening, six of the kittens had gone and the other two were being collected Saturday morning. I don't know why the woman couldn't have done that herself. We did warn the new owners of the worms issue, of course.

I was very angry about the whole situation actually. Firstly, both litters were from the same cat, so the poor thing had litters two months apart. I very much doubt she would have had it spayed in the mean time so there may well be more on the way soon. Secondly, with all the kittens having worms the mother cat must have too, and I don't suppose she's getting treated. Finally, it seems the place the kittens were picked up from was squalid, and she has a large dog as well. Poor kittens were terrified at GBF's, which will in part have been due to the move but I highly doubt that was the only reason. It's probably just as well I didn't go to collect the kittens, I would be inclined to report the woman to the RSPCA. Still. all the kittens have new homes and will hopefully be loved and looked after. GBF did a good thing there.

Lady of leisure

2009-01-21T09:08:00.002Z

I've been enjoying a leisurely few days of not working, but I still seem to have been surprisingly busy. My usual response to time off is to turn into a sloth and hibernate, but look - not long past nine am and I'm up and on here. And while I was slower moving yesterday I still had quite a lot to get done and managed it all. Strangely motivated domesticity methinks.

Monday was lovely. I went into town about 9, stopping on the way to post my brother's birthday present and pick up a parcel for me - the complete collection of Hanoi Rocks albums, plus Michael Monroe's solo albums, Demolition 23 and Jerusalem Slim. If you cast a glance at the review blog, this is the collection I was beaten on a few days back, but it turned out the buyer backed out so the seller offered it to me on a by it now basis for a limited period as a 'second chance' thing, which I didn't realise eBay did. This meant I spent less than I would have done if my last minute bid had made it too!

Dropped off my black knee boots for re-heeling, then treated myself to a hot chocolate and a cinnamon danish in a lovely little cafe off the High Street while I examined my package and had a read of CJ Sansom's Dissolution which I finally got round to buying at the weekend. Ambled into Waterstones and picked up another three books - Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Don Quixote, and Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. Next up was getting my hair cut for the first time in about 18 months or so. It looks so much better without the split ends!

I also wandered into the theatre for the first time in a long time to see what's coming up. As a result, in February I will be seeing Richard E Grant on stage in God of Carnage, a play I know nothing about but believe it was new in the West End last year. Haven't been to the theatre in such a long time, I've kind of missed it.

Titan had managed to knock over a vase of flowers at 5.30 Monday morning, so as I was returning home I stopped off and bought a new one in The Range. Unfortunately, by the time I got home I was carry quite a lot and I managed to drop my car key outside. Didn't discover this until I was going frantic looking for it in the afternoon when I was meant to be going to a doctor's appointment. Rang the surgery to let them know I could walk down but that I would be late so they had me reschedule for next week. Fortunately I found the key outside the front door, but that could have been something of a disaster.

In the evening I joined Mum as her plus one at the PCC Supper, which was very pleasant and meant I saw a lot of people I hadn't seen in a while since I haven't been to church in an awfully long time. The guest speaker was the faith and ethics producer/broadcaster from the local BBC radio station. Very entertaining chap. Mum introduced me to a lady who is spending a few weeks at our church to give her experience of a different parish - she's curate at a church out in the sticks. Rather flatteringly, she asked what I was studying! Don't know what's going on if I look under 21 these days. I don't imagine I could get away with officially knocking ten years off my age though.

Yesterday was largely based in the flat, although I did take some cardboard and the recycling box down to the recycling centre. I keep forgetting to put the box out so it had got quite full. My wardrobe came under much needed scrutiny and I have a bag of clothes to take down to the recycling centre this morning, along with a pile of magazines I should have cleared out a while ago. It also meant that I was able to watch the full BBC coverage of the inauguration from 2pm on News 24, largely while I was sorting out the living room.

The inauguration was interesting, but the BBC coverage was probably overkill given that the ceremony itself was surprisngly brief and most of the run up was out of sight of the cameras - the Obamas in church, then having tea with the Bushs (Bushes?) at the White House before going for the ceremony. The first three hours of coverage were largely vox pops, a couple of brief interviews, scenes in Obama's father's village in Kenya, and the BBC correspondents complaining about the cold! Obama's speech was very good, quite low key but striking the right note of realism for the times we live in and the task ahead.

Dinner out last night, unfortunately with a crashing bore. Having avoided it for several months I had finally run out of excuses to get out of it. He was getting quite tipsy and continually going on about Ken Clarke and Europe. I hope to able to avoid such dinners as much as possible in future.

On the agenda for today, I need to go to the recycling centre again but first I shall do my accounts then pop over the road for a bit of shopping. I shall also pop up to my Grandparents' at some point since my Aunt is down until tomorrow and I'm off to Dudley this evening to see Faster Pussycat so I won't get any other chance to see her. Might vegetate tomorrow!

Freedom!

2009-01-18T19:20:00.003Z

And what a nice day it has been. Okay, so my plan to go for an amble in the countryside in the crisp but clear afternoon was somewhat scuppered by the fact that I fell asleep instead (having failed to get up much before 11am), but it has been a very relaxing and chilled kind of day.

Before getting dressed I spent some time on line, with Titan curled up purring on my lap. My feelings of happiness with the cat were somewhat mitigated by the fact that I discovered just before my shower that he had once again crapped in the bath.

Lunch was leftovers - another couple of the sausages in a leek sauce that I made earlier in the week, this time served on a bed of rice. After which I went over the road to pick up some milk, kale for the rabbit and hamster, Wiskas and kitty litter for the cat, and cookies for me. Spent some time reading CJ Sansom's Dissolution which I finally picked up yesterday, having been thinking about it for a while (yay for unexpected Waterstones gift cards), then fell asleep. I've just cleaned out the animals and have a chilled glass of non-alcoholic rose beside me right now. At some point I need to tidy up the place, but that can wait until tomorrow.

Yesterday evening I spent playing with the most gorgeous Golden Retriever. She belongs to old school friends of my Dad's. Dad and his wife were staying with them this weekend and I joined them for dinner. Such a gorgeous doggie! Sadly she would be too big to move in here with the four of us, and I don't suppose Dad's friends would give her up either.

Dad was happily drinking himself into a stupor again - mulled wine, followed by gin & tonic, then red wine over dinner, and whisky to follow. Okay, so he could have been worse, and indeed probably would have been if we had been at his place, but while he wasn't giving the impression of being completely hammered it never ceases to amaze me these days the amount he puts away.

Friday night was Screamin 88s at the 2 Pigs. My first live music injection of the year, and a perfect energiser considering it had been a long week and I was quite weary. First up was a band called Perpetua, who put in an impressive display of shredding. Screamin 88s were terrific again. After a year of problems settling with a drummer they now have Magic Dave of 4ft Fingers weilding the sticks, and he was great. Good turn out as well, or at least so it appeared. From right down at the front in a small venue it's kind of difficult to tell. I'm quite pleased with how the photos came out too - have a look in the albums on www.myspace.com/cinnamonmarine if you're interested.

Doctor's appointment and haircut tomorrow, but for now I shall pour myself another glass of wine, light up a cigarette, treat myself to a cookie, and relax.

Nice and toasty car

2009-01-09T07:41:00.002Z

I love my garage - I have a working car heater again! Damn good thing too, it's frosty out there today. Rather less than impressed with KwikFit though. I know they're not really the place to go to for electrical stuff, but they were insistent the fuses were fine. My mechanic, however, tells me it was a fuse. Apparently there is more than one fusebox that could affect the heater, and clearly KwikFit either didn't know this or didn't check both. As I say, I know they don't really deal with electrical stuff, but I'm feeling rather miffed because I've been freezing my tits off for a couple of weeks now for no real reason.

Public transport is getting expensive, isn't it? The bus worked out quite nicely in terms of getting me to work and back to the garage later to pick up the car, plus I got a walk out of it which will have been beneficial no doubt, but it cost £4.20 for a return. Admittedly it has been a while since I've used public transport but even so, that seems excessive. I suspect it is cheaper to drive, and at least then I get door to door.

I thought I was going to have to miss out on a gig next Friday (Screamin 88's at the 2 Pigs) because of having a meeting dropped on me unexpectedly, but the meeting has been brought forward to tonight. A qualified yay! Still means I lose a Friday evening, but at least I can get to the gig. That'll be my first gig of the year.

Am feeling lazy this morning and in a can't be bothered mood as far as making breakfast and lunch is concerned. Supermarket stop on the way to work then.

The car wins, I give in

2009-01-07T07:52:00.002Z

Still snow and ice outside, although I don't think any more snow has fallen overnight. Hope the road isn't too slippery, I've been taking it very carefully but ice on the roads always has me a little paranoid. Not a bad thing I guess.

After yesterday's drive to work I have given in and the car is booked in tomorrow to have the heater fixed. I have to have the window open to prevent the windscreen misting up and it was definite brass monkey weather. Then the inside of the windscreen started icing while I was driving and I thought there was just no way I could carry on like this for another couple of weeks. Looks like there's a bus I should be able to get to near the office, but Thursday will be a heavily truncated work day as a result. Please don't let it be raining!

I've been watching Paul McKenna's I can make you thin on Living. It's an American programme and was shown over a five week period, but Living is showing it all this week. It's a useful reminder of the book, which I need to get back from Mum sometime and which I haven't focussed on in a while. Trouble is, this morning I can't decide if I'm hungry or not so I'm not sure whether I should eat breakfast. Perhaps I could take some cereal to work with me.

What is noticeable is that as soon as I returned to work I started eating proper meals again. Lasagne on Monday, a rice, veg and chicken concoction last night (which I shouldn't have eaten all of because I was full after about half of it, but it was so nice!), and will finish off the lasagne tonight. Sandwiches for lunch at work, and I got a small baguette for today to which I have added cheese and a selection of German sausage. Flavours are good, and variety is better. Especially if I let myself actually taste the thing properly. Yesterday's ham, cheese, mushroom and pickle sandwich became a toastie. Very yum. I need better bread though.

Titan is now having food in pouches, even though it is more expensive than the cans. He hadn't been eating a lot of the canned food but would always demand fresh in the morning or evening, no matter what was left in his bowl. Throwing so much away seemed pointless so I thought I would give the pouches a go and probably not have to use as many of them as I might have thought. So far he has wolfed his way through three (one last night and two this morning) in no time, leaving only small bits not huge lumps. Maybe it's because it's the fish flavours? There's more variety in the senior food in pouches, to be fair. Still, I think he could do with gaining some weight, so if he's inclined to eat the lot then this is probably a good thing.

Otis loves the mixed food Mum bought him because she thought it looked more interesting than what I've been feeding him the last two years. This from the woman who didn't think I should have got pets at all... More of a variety than just the nuggets, although I have it mixed in with the nuggets anyway. He ate the lot during the day yesterday, and the evening's supply as well. Currently he is having breakfast without me having to dump him back in the cage, and I haven't even gone near him with the kale yet.

Might have a small bowl of cereal after all. Excuse me.

Winter wonderland

2009-01-05T21:45:00.002Z

There was more snow this morning. Not too bad on the main roads, which is what I use most of the way to work, but my road was a bit hairy. I suspect it will have become ice by tomorrow - will have to take it very carefully. At least it being snow meant the temperature was up a bit, I don't really like having to have the window open when it's so cold.

I actually seem to have eaten properly today, for the first time in what seems like ages. Okay, so there were chocolates in the office, but there were three actual meals instead of snacking and general grazing. More to the point, I didn't even eat all of the lasagne I got out of the freezer for dinner. Home made one as well - ish, anyway. So I bought the sauces, who cares? I still added loads of veg to the meat layers when I made them. I even did veg to go with it tonight rather than just eating the lasagne. Titan kept following me around when I was carrying the plate and yowling at me. I don't eat his food, why does he imagine I'm going to give him mine?

Work was okay after two weeks off and reasonably productive too. Still have a fair amount to get done, but it's not as hectic as I was thinking it would be. One of my colleagues had flu (actual flu, not man-flu) over Christmas. What a rotten way to spend the Christmas break. I had flu several years back. Lost half a stone, but I wouldn't recommend it as a weight loss method.

Unfortunately, work has managed to throw a spanner in the works of a gig I wanted to go to by deciding to hold a meeting that night, so it looks like the first gig of the year will be Faster Pussycat, Bang Tango and Beautiful Creatures on 21st. I'm feeling in need of a live music fix.

So this is 2009

2009-01-04T20:18:00.002Z

Well, here we are then. A New Year, following a Christmas watching a Grandmother get more and more eaten up by Alzheimer's, to the point that she panics about opening Christmas presents. Back to work tomorrow, and already I know that there is a huge pile of work awaiting me because people are incapable of getting to grips with the concept of getting things into the office in time to be done before the close down. It's not like this is a new concept.

My car heater currently doesn't work. I managed to fuse the cigarette lighter (or so I thought) when the metal contact part of the DAB radio thing I bought for the car came off. KwikFit tell me it isn't the fuses and that the motor might have blown. My garage was closed over Christmas and the New Year too, and last night when I was out for GBF's birthday I discovered that the inside of the car ices up as well as the outside. I'm hoping to get away with not getting it fixed for a couple of weeks because having a day off in the first two weeks back can't look great but I can't get to the office without the car. Then I could get it fixed, serviced and MOTed at the same time (and have minor heart failure at the cost, no doubt).

Titan and Otis seem to get on fine now, although Otis is still pushing his luck at times. Curling up on the futon in front of the TV with the cat is so nice. Titan is currently asleep on my bed. Will have to disturb him shortly to remake it, having stripped the sheets this morning.

Other things going wrong - I had to saw the lock off the storage cupboard in the hall after it jammed shut and I wasn't able to get to the vacuum cleaner. Took ages on Christmas Eve. I was fitting the new lock this afternoon, and while it works fine when not in the door, I can't get it to work when actually fitted. Might give up and just get a padlock arrangement. Two of the spotlights aren't working now. One in the bedroom went ages ago and the one by the computer went over Christmas. I suppose I really ought to get an electrician in at some point, along with a plumber to sort out the hot water tap on the bath.

Well, that's quite a grumble for the first post of 2009. I shall put it down to having a bit of a headache as well.

Meet Titan

2008-12-01T07:53:00.003Z

At the moment, I have a cat sitting on the bookshelf and a rabbit grooming himself on the end table. The hamster appears to be asleep. Yep, transformation into crazy animal lady is progressing nicely!

I picked Titan up on Thursday evening and he seemed to settle in fairly rapidly, although he was yowling a bit until he found a window sill he could sit on and watch the outside world. He hasn't made any attempts to sneak out the door, he just likes watching what's going on. Favourite places so far seem to be behind a row of books on the book case or the cat bed type thing attached to the scratching post I bought him. Last night he did join me on the futon, but he doesn't seem to be the lap cat type - or maybe it will just take him a little longer to really feel settled.

He doesn't seem to have paid much attention to Otis either, although Otis did not react well to the new flatmate the first couple of nights. I made sure Otis was out of his cage (with the fence across the living room of course) before I let Titan out of the travel cage, just to reinforce that the bunny was here first and that part of the living room he has first dibs on. Thursday night I was kept awake all night by loud thumping from Otis, and nothing I could do would get him to shut up. Friday evening he seemed fine until shortly before I went to bed when he seemed spooked again and started thumping. He was attempting it from the cage as well, but this time I shut the bedroom door and he gave up eventually (after about an hour *sigh*). I just hope he didn't disturb the neighbours with the noise.

Saturday and last night there wasn't a peep from Otis all night, although I was disturbed by a loud bang at shortly after 6am Sunday (I was already awake). The inevitable had happened and Titan had finally managed to knock some books onto the floor. I got up to investigate and Otis started his lively 'let me out!' routine, so since I was up anyway I obliged, at which point he started bouncing around the living room in a 'play with me! Play with me!' kind of way. I went into the kitchen for something and Titan joined me, sitting looking at me with a very clear 'well, since you're up, how about feeding me?' expression. They've been sharing space quite happily and not really going near each other. Otis, however, might end up pushing his luck. Yesterday evening, Titan was ambling from the futon towards his scratching post and paused to work out how to best get over the fence to it. Otis cautiously sneaked up behind him to investigate, which didn't impress Titan much so he put out a warning paw. I will still need to keep an eye on them, but you never know, they might even end up as friends.

I do love my boys.

A mixed bag

2008-11-22T21:45:00.002Z

I'm currently listening to Chinese Democracy. Yes, I finally have my mitts on the album I've been waiting 15 years for - and so far I'm really liking it. Of course it was never going to be Appetite for Destruction mark 2 and the negative comments I've seen don't seem to have taken into account the fact that Axl will have evolved musically in the 17 years since the Use Your Illusion albums came out. I already know it's going to take a couple of listens to really pick out the layers because there's a lot going on here, but it's all worked together so well. Plus the title track is fabulous!

I've had a week off this week, largely doing nothing. Tuesday I took a trip up to Worcester which was lovely and ended up going on an unexpected walk along the river and back across fields. Sadly I was wearing heels at the time and ended up with some nasty blisters, but it was still a brilliant day. A new opportunity came out of it as well, which I'm going to have a go at and see how I do.

Wednesday GBF and I went to see Quantum of Solace. Daniel Craig really is a superb Bond, but I wish film makers would stop with the excessive cutting between shots in action scenes. It makes it hard to see what's going on when I'm feeling sea sick. Craig is in the Dalton mould of Bond, grittier, more real, and a vast improvement on Brosnan. I think a reassessment of the two films Timothy Dalton made is already taking place in the light of the newest incarnations, and not before time too.

Thursday and Friday I spent time with the Grandparents. The carer Mum had arranged was unexpectedly not available, so I went up Thursday to help them with getting lunch - which in reality means making it for them (which I'm not complaining about, especially since Mum had prepared it all Wednesday). I had Grandma claiming that Grandad throws things at her, which in view of the fact he has difficulty in doing the smallest things quickly is a ridiculous suggestion. He knocked over and broke a glass at breakfast so I think that's where that came from. Having watched him take ten minutes to cross a room to get a tissue, there is no way he would be able to grab something and throw it at anyone.

While they were eating lunch I was doing the washing up, and looking through the kitchen door into the dining room I had this flash of recognition of the scene - they reminded me so much of John and Norma Major in the Spitting Image sketches. Isn't that awful!

Friday I was a bit later up there than anticipated because I stopped on the way to buy a new vacuum cleaner. My cheapy little thing finally gave up the ghost on Thursday, killed by a combination of my hair and the rabbit's wood shavings and hay. I should have known that the computers would inevitably be on the blink, I think they usually are whenever I'm buying anything on credit. However, I now have a Dyson Animal, and given that I had been using the old machine when it gave up the ghost I was horrified by the amount of crap that came out of my carpets after I ran the new one over them. They can't have been this clean in years!

Anyway, it was nearly midday when I got over to the Grandparents' by which time chaos was reigning supreme. Mum had told them I would be over to get their lunch for them, but Grandma had inevitably got it into her head that I wasn't coming and had put the veg on to cook ay 11.45. Lunch is meant to be at 12.30. Oh well. I reheated the rest of the sausage casserole from Thursday in the microwave and they had lunch a bit early, but Grandma was wandering around in a flap and had clearly been driving Grandad nuts because he was in a bit of a temper. It was his turn with the unreasonable comments, calling Grandma evil and malicious. Just what you want to hear one grandparent saying about another. He settled down okay over lunch, although Grandma kept coming outside every two minutes afterwards while I was wrestling with the bird feeders - the bird seed had sprouted and the peanuts had gone off so I had bought some fresh. Got Grandma settled into her chair and she was dozing on and off afterwards while I had a chat with Grandad over a cup of tea. I got him telling me some of his army stories, pretty much all of which I've heard before but it's good to get him talking.

When Grandma woke up again she was more flakey than before, going into her "I'm scared" bit even though she can't tell you why when you ask. I gave her her next tablet and tried to get her a bit settled before I had to disappear again. Hope Grandad didn't have too trying an afternoon with her, but Mum says they were both in a cheerful mood Friday evening so it can't have been too bad.

Today, Mum and I went up to Twickenham for the rugby. Ye gods, but England were crap! There was some good handling in evidence but some appalling mistakes. Twice, for example, Cipriani kicked from hand without, one can only assume, looking what he was doing because there was a Bok perfectly placed to charge down the ball. Cipriani is fortunate to only have given away one try like that. He also kept screwing up the passing, when a charge was going on and the ball had been going well hand to hand he missed out a couple of players to send it to the wing - misjudging the throw so the intended recipient couldn't get a proper hold on it or it just when straight past them anyway and into touch. Too many good opporunities were kicked away (what the hell was Nick Easter doing kicking from hand anyway?!) and the end scoreline was a truely embarrassing 6-42. Sackey had a couple of decent moments including a good run which sadly didn't come to anything, and the Boks were frankly lucky to only have had two players in the sin bin and none sent off for some horrendous and completely unnecessary (especially considering how far ahead they were) high tackles, one of which possibly prevented England getting a try. Major changes needed for next week or I can see the Kiwis getting a ton on them. Cipriani needs to be ditched in favour of Flood for a start.

I also met a cat on Monday who, assuming Cats Protection are happy with the home visit on Tuesday next week, will be coming to live here. Trial period initially, to make sure he and Otis get on alright. He's called Titan and is a black tom they think is about ten who was found as a stray, although he clearly had been a looked after pet at one point. Very friendly, likes being stroked, although he will put out a paw to push you away if you do something he doesn't like. Mum won't be happy - she's convinced getting a cat would be cruel to Otis and Didymus. Well, that's what the trial period will reveal, and Otis isn't loose when I'm not here anyway. Plus I've got Didymus a hamster ball to run around in on the carpet so he shouldn't be in danger either.

Lunch at the Grandparents' tomorrow, along with my uncle and aunt who were looking after them while Mum and I were at Twickers today, then back to work Monday. Feeling quite weary actually. Will go to bed once Chinese Democracy has finished.

Reflection and anger

2008-11-13T08:10:00.002Z

Its been a reflective kind of week, what with Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day. Watching the service at the Cenotaph always has an impact on me - there are just so many people that we owe so much to, and every year we're still sending our troops out around the world to do jobs in difficult circumstances which may end up costing them their lives or leaving them seriously injured. And who knows what mental traumas will remain even if physically they return in one piece. It's a special kind of person who can do that job.

Over on the review blog I've put up a video by a band called Morpheus Rising. It's for a single called An Ordinary Man and sales of the single are raising money for Help for Heroes, a charity looking after those service men and women injured in the line of duty. The song developed out of reflections the singer had on losing friends of his in battle. Go have a listen, and download it if you like it - or even if you don't! It's in a great cause.

Then last night I watched the Dispatches programme on Channel 4 about a charity working with abandoned and tortured children in the Niger delta area of Nigeria who have been accused of being witches. Those poor children. They get beaten, starved, burned and all sorts of other horrific things because of the word of so called "prophets" who brand them witches. It's hard to say that these are the lucky ones, but at least they're alive. One hesitates to describe the belief in witches and that a child of three has caused the death of their mother through magic as primitive, but it's hard to see what other word fits. And then you have the "prophets" making a lot of money preying on these fears and charging for exorcisms, and they aren't primitive in their views, they are barbaric and looking to hurt children in the name of making money.

One woman who is in a large measure responsible for the increase in attacks and abandonment of children through her 150 branch church and the films and books that it produces claimed that a sign of witchcraft in a two year old is that the child doesn't sleep through the night and cries, has fevers, etc. It's a two year old child in one of the poorest areas of the country, if there were no health issues it would be practically miraculous! And in spite of not exactly being child-friendly, I know damn well that toddlers are going to be ill and have disturbed nights sometimes. If that's a sign of witchcraft then everyone on the planet is a witch. Her perverted teachings are responsible for a horrific amount of child abuse, and she has no shame about it at all. She has the nerve to call herself a Christian! She might do well to remember the words attributed to Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23:

Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord", will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?" Then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers."

If you want to know more about what's going on and the work of the charity featured in Dispatches, go to Stepping Stones Nigeria's website.

One of those weeks

2008-10-30T22:10:00.004Z

There's another new skirt. This one:

I love Alexander Henry fabrics! The skirt's a little puffy around the hips on the faux suede side, and it is half and half instead of alternate quarters because I cut the suede then used it as a template for the AH and cut them front to front instead of front to back, but I really like it. Looks good with the boots, doesn't it?

Its been one of those weeks really. It started with last Saturday when I discovered someone at work was playing silly buggers and had managed to piss off several people by doing so. Monday meant being let down by someone else at work so we're now needing to find another person to fill a role we thought was covered. Wednesday morning I woke up to discover water dripping through my bathroom ceiling - thankfully that turned out to be a leak from the stop cock tap that the plumber I managed to get over in the morning fixed in 45 minutes. I didn't get into the office until the afternoon then spent the rest of the day thinking it was Thursday. Today I had a long drive to pick up a document just because the person holding it didn't want to put it in the post, and this meant being stuck in a traffic queue at roadworks for over half an hour on the way back. Then, this evening, I had to drive out into the middle of nowhere and find a farm in the dark. The day has been longer than I intended, but at least with the last bit I got to play with a wolf - who is adorable.

Tomorrow's going to be a long day as well, but at least I'm not working this weekend. And I get to see Hanoi Rocks on Saturday! The new skirt will have to have an outing.

Playing with the new toy

2008-10-26T20:42:00.003Z

I've spent a chunk of today playing with my new sewing machine, the cheap one having decided it really isn't going to work. I bought myself a Brother LS-2125 and have decided I love it. Very easy to set up, straightforward in terms of threading and although I've got to work out pressure on the pedal so I don't go too fast, it seems to do what I want it to do. So today I made myself a new skirt. Voila:

I'm really pleased with this. I used the tutorials from What the Craft and tried it out with the camouflage fabric to make sure I had the principles right before cutting up my lovely, fabulous and pricey Alexander Henry fabric. For the first time I put a zip in a garment, and it was surprisingly straighforward. I've also worked out darts properly (having had a major blank before and getting it stupidly wrong), and I made it from straight measurements rather than a pattern. Now I want to try it out with the Alexander Henry and the black faux suede I bought to go with it.

I've also bought another Alexander Henry fabric on eBay today. It's this one. I'd quite like to make it into a waistcoat for a friend but wonder if I'm being too ambitious and whether that would be a bit much in terms of the nature of the friendship we have. Which I realise is going to sound odd to anyone out there reading this but I don't plan on going into that. Besides, I probably need to get more practise at making stuff fir ne before I inflict it on anyone else.

Frustrations

2008-10-24T07:58:00.002+01:00

Its been one of those weeks really. Glossing over Tuesday's major disappointment (which I'm not going to go into), I've been feeling hugely inspired on the clothing front and have bought a whole load of material with which to have a play. However, the cheap sewing machine I bought a few weeks ago has decided not to work, I can't figure out why, and of course I can't find the receipt anywhere to take it back and get it replaced. I think the bobbin case is out of alignment or something. Even if I can get the dratted thing to thread it won't sew - it might make one stitch but it then stops. Argh!

I've found a marvellous website, which can be identified as the source of the frustration as well since I want to try things from it but can't until I can either get the machine working or borrow my Grandma's. It's What the craft? and has a load of great, easy to follow tutorials for exactly the sort of things I've been looking for.

I've also been on a fabric buying splurge so am living in a mess of bags of material as well. From a small fabric shop in town I bought a load of camouflage patterned material, I've been picking up some old band t shirts, and I've fallen in love with Alexander Henry fabrics. Currently burning a hole in one of the drawers is one of the skulls and roses designs in the skulldiggery collection. I want to turn it into a pencil skirt with two panels of the patterned fabric and two of a black faux suede I found in The Range. I have the fabric and a zip, I just need a working sewing machine! There's enough of the skulls and roses material that I think I can make a corset top as well, also with the faux suede, and I've ordered a quite expensive eyelet tape specifically for corset styles from eBay - including postage I'm paying nearly £10 for a metre (!) but the only other ones I've seen look cheap. We'll see how it goes and if it turns out to have been worth it.

Bloated, sluggish and tired

2008-10-20T07:22:00.002+01:00

That's a fair summary of how I've been feeling the last few weeks. Perpetual tiredness is really no fun, especially when you can't identify a reason for it. Over the weekend I came to the conclusion that it's basically because I allowed my eating habits to go completely to pot - again. Saturday's food intake was two fishfinger butties and a scone. All carbs, a smidge of protein, and not a vitamin to be seen. Well, not many anyway. Yesterday I did a bit better by having a baked potato, but I suspect that was in the oven nearly an hour longer than intended because I inevitably fell asleep on the futon in the afternoon and when I woke up couldn't remember when I had put it in to cook. Tasted okay, although the skin was almost tough as concrete.

So I'm trying to make an effort again. I bought loads of veggie stuff and stocked up on fruit yesterday, I'm determined to actually make sure I have a proper evening meal (rather than a bowl of pasta or noodles) and I do need to get back to doing some exercise on a daily basis because that inevitably slid due to time issues.

Currently I have a lovely piece of topside marinating in the fridge for tonight. My brother bought me Cooking Guide for the DS for my birthday and I am making saurbrauten as the first recipe from it. The beef has been marinating since last night and smells gorgeous so I hope it works out alright. I actually went to the butcher in the supermarket because I only needed 200g of beef and so all the joints that were on display pre-packed were way to big. Might have to do that a bit more in future, it's got to be better to only buy what I need.

Here's hoping the energy levels improve with the diet. The scales tell me I'm 9st 7.6 at the moment, so at least I'm not getting fat again even though I'm feeling quite bloated today.

Catch up

2008-10-01T07:50:00.002+01:00

Wow, where have I been all month? Let's face it, nothing much interesting has been happening, so while I've been online a lot I haven't really felt the need to blog. Discipline is needed, clearly.

Last time I posted I was going to head off to a friend's in Surrey. It was really nice, although having to deal with munchkins is not really my cup of tea. Especially not when youngest one had a leaky nappy and smeared poo over the sofa I was sitting on... Pleasant. It really is beyond me why small children seem to like me though. At breakfast on the Friday I had the youngest wanting me to read him a story, then the eldest insisted on clambering onto my lap so I could read her a story too. GBF was highly amused when I told him later and wished he could have seen a photo. Presumably for the look of panic on my face.

L and I had a Thai takeaway with her hubby on the Thursday evening before she and I went for a girlie evening at the cinema to see Mama Mia. It was an entertaining movie, and surprisingly a bit of a girlie time did me the world of good. We went to a spa on the Friday morning, having dropped the kids at nursery, and I had a massage for the first time in months. Wasn't as relaxing as it could have been though, since my massuse was fascinated by my ink and wanted to talk tattoos. Lunch at the country club after that, then I headed back home, in utterly filthy weather which provided the perfect excuse not to go via Southampton.

Rock of Ages was a bit of a disappointment, although I got to spend the day with Gypsy Pistoleros so that made for a fun day. Turnout was awful, and the people who were there seemed totally apathetic to what was going on up on stage. Why bother coming out then? I didn't bother going up on the Sunday because I was feeling quite tired and thought I ought to spend the day recovering since I had to go back to work on the Monday.

The following week, though, I finally met one of my rock heros - I went down to Bristol to see Duff McKagan's Loaded. It was amazing! The band were clearly enjoying themselves, the crowd loved it, and hanging around outside the venue for nearly 2 hours afterwards paid off when I actually got to meet Duff! I have a photo to prove it and he signed the booklet of Appetite for Destruction for me. So, just four original GNR members to go then... My inner 14 year old going bezerk meant I hardly slept Sunday night (didn't get home until gone 2am anyway) and was a total zombie at work the following day.

Last weekend was Love/Hate and Phil Lewis' LA Guns at JB's in Dudley. Having not been terribly impressed with Love/Hate when I saw them previously, I was surprised to find myself being blown away by their performance this time. It was brilliant, huge energy and very much a crowd pleaser. LA Guns put in a decent performance as well, although not to the same standard. Phil Lewis really has an inferiority complex when it comes to Tracii Guns though, he kept making derogatory comments and actually came over as quite the tosser. The guitars weren't anywhere near as good as when I saw Tracii's LA Guns, but I suppose that's only to be expected. I eventually made it home at 5.30am (hanging with friends) and spent Sunday not moving all that much. Fabulous night, but I sometimes think I'm getting too old for this!

I've got Pretty Boy Floyd and Britny Fox coming up on Friday. Must remember to get more batteries for the camera.

Preparing for a busy weekend

2008-09-04T08:43:00.002+01:00

Somehow I seem to have had a fairly chilled week and a half, and now I'm craming a huge amount of activity into the last couple of days before the return to work. Today I'm heading across country to visit L, my friend from uni. She texted me a few weeks ago when she was having a particularly tough time and wondering if she needed to go on meds. J will be looking after the kids this evening while L and I go for dinner and to the cinema, then tomorrow while the kids are in nursery we have a spa session booked. Hopefully a time out and some pampering should do her good.

I'm back tomorrow afternoon - and in spite of attempts at guilt tripping from my father will not be returning via Southampton. Unless I leave L's very early in the afternoon anyway. I've got the animals to look after, and I need to make sure I get a decent night's sleep because I'll be off to Birmingham on Saturday morning for Rock of Ages. Lots of driving over a couple of days = me likely to fall asleep at the wheel. If I leave L's early enough a stop off in Southampton might make sense to break up the journey but it's really out of the way.

The AA.com route finder wants me to go through town and via the A40 then M40 to join up with the M25. Why? Surely it's simpler to just drop down to the M4, which is what I will be doing? Especially since everyone seems to be digging up the A40 at the moment.

Mum will be checking up on the animals while I'm away. After work this evening and before work tomorrow. Bet the bunny will be miffed with me and pee on the futon when I get back. Must check the water in the car and top up the petrol before I go. It's a 2 1/2 hour drive so I will take it easy.

I have one new toy and the expectation of another. Both hugely expensive toys I'm getting for free. Well, for an 18 month mobile contract but I would be having that anyway. My Sony Ericsson phone has been annoying me for a while now. It keeps switching itself off. So GBF and I went into town the other day and investigated the packages at Phones 4U. While I hadn't initially planned on changing my mobile provider, having been with T Mobile for 11years (since it was One 2 One), but last year's upgrade was such a nuisance I decided I didn't mind. First the T Mobile shop didn't set the phone up properly then tried to tell me there was nothing wrong with it when I went in to complain, then although I had requested the Web 'n' Walk option be put on when I upgraded they tried to charge me £84 for data calls in the first month so I had to ring up and shout at them. The experience in the Phones 4U shop was really the last straw though - in spite of the fact that the call was coming from a shop that sells their products, it took 23 minutes before the call was answered, just so we could check whether or not I was due an upgrade.

So, we looked at packages. I'm now signed up to Orange on the Raccoon 35 plan, meaning 700 free minutes, 100 texts, and unlimited free anytime calls to landlines, for £35 per month. It's a smidge more than I'm paying now, but not enough to be significant. I've got a nice shiny new LG KC550 in silver, with a 5 megapixel camera, and I'm getting an iPod touch for free, which is being sent to me since they didn't have them in the store at the time. Plus I got £25 cash towards the cost of getting out of my T Mobile contract, which isn't due to end until December.

GBF got me sorted out yesterday with the PAC number to transfer my existing number to my new provider, which was surprisingly simple to do. I thought it was going to be more of a hassle than that. Breaking the contract cost me £63, but GBF also pointed me in the direction of Envirofone who will send me £67 in return for the two handsets I no longer use that are knocking round the flat, so that's sorted as well.

Anyway, need to give Otis some attention before I leave. He keeps sneaking out from behind the fencing at the moment. I've got to pack as well, although I won't need much. Should be a good couple of days.

Sudden attack of insomnia

2008-08-29T04:52:00.003+01:00

It's coming up for 5am, I've been awake since 3.30am and this is pissing me off a touch. I would understand it if I had had a ridiculously early night, but I can only have had a maximum of three and a half hours' sleep. And with the dawn chorus starting to twitter outside my bedroom window I can't see me dozing off again for a while. Hence sitting here and writing to anyone who happens to be wandering past on the superhighway.

So, what have I done with the first of my two weeks off? I'm nearly done with the second transformation of a pair of jeans into a dress. There was an unforeseen challenge with this one though - the jeans were straight leg, unlike the other pair of trousers which were boot cut, so it turns out there wasn't enough material in the legs to got round my waist. No matter, I am solving the problem by inserting a panel of red velour into the bodice, matching it with red velour stripes down the sides of the skirt, and will turn the top into a halter neck again with red velour ties. The knock on effect is that the top edge of the back is substantially lower than the front, which means I need to go in search of a backless bra to wear with. Also, I'm not going to be 100% this has all worked until I've finished stitching - I've got to put a couple of darts in the sides of the top because otherwise that part is too big while the midsection is reasonably snug across my back. I've just got to hope that in the end I can get the damn thing on and off. No room for weight gain though!

Speaking of the dreaded weight issues, I finally got my hands on a Wii Fit yesterday. Tried it out in the evening and am loving it already. So far I've only had a go on the aerobic exercises and the yoga, but will try the muscle workouts and balancing games today. It occurs to me that a bit of yoga before bed would be a good wind down from the day. Apparently my balance is pretty good, being pretty much centrally aligned, but it looks from the yoga that my left leg doesn't take the strain as well as my right, which seems contradictory.

As well as getting the Wii Fit, I had my phoenix finished. I don't think Mum likes it. Saw her yesterday evening and until I mentioned it she didn't comment on it. And again I got the "That's enough, I don't think you need any more". My skin, my money, Mum. Although it's going to take me an age to save up for the Japanese style blue tiger back piece I want. Dee did a really good job too. He didn't do the clouding in the Japanese style to match the phoenix because otherwise it wouldn't have looked right with the other three tattoos on the shoulder so it's hazier and entirely free hand, but now it looks like I have a complete shoulder rather than four individual pieces. Stung like buggery again though. Dee is now recommending Bepanthen, the nappy rash cream, for the healing stage. It does seem to have a noticeable effect - it hasn't been weeping overnight like they usually do for a start.

Here's the finished article anyway, front and back views:

Dee is a genius.

The other task for the week was rearranging my living room, which became necessary after Sir Didymus bit Otis on the bum. Otis was sitting close up to the hamster cage and Sir Didymus came down to investigate. They've met nose to nose through the bars and the hamster didn't try anything. This time there was some investigatory sniffing then Sir Didymus edged forward a bit and Otis shot across the room. I've taken one of the shelves out of the larger bookcase and the hamster cage is now resting on that. Works quite well, and clears a bit more space on the floor again so Otis has more space for running around.

Country walks and experimenting

2008-08-24T22:30:00.002+01:00

I had a lovely walk across the fields this evening. Part of the problem of having gone into holiday mode is the thinking 'I can't be bothered' but let's face it, I don't have an excuse not to take exercise for the next two weeks. It's not like I don't have the time. And in fact, once I got out there I loved it.

This evening I tried to reverse a route I took a few weeks back, with a slight variation at the start. When I tried it the other night I got a bit lost by taking the wrong exit out of one of the fields, but given that it started raining the shortened route was just as well. Found the right footpath this time, and it was glorious.

I've yet to encounter anyone in these treks across country. Perhaps it's the time of day I go, but having the landscape to myself is fantastic. There's a maize field along the route, and in the couple of weeks since I last traversed it the maize has shot up. It was less than a foot high last time. Today a lot of it was taller than me. Once through the maize I walked round the edge of a pasture, all churned up by the cattle that have grazed it in the rainy weather we've been having of late. Then there was a field of tall grass, changing to a lovely golden colour and coming up past my knees. Presumably it's for winter feed. I saw the flash of rabbits' tails disappearing ahead of me - there are so many bunnies about! Eventually my route brought me back to the road near the church I've walked to before, so I went and sat in the churchyard to have a smoke before deciding which way to head home.

There's a footpath leading back to the fields through the churchyard, so instead of following the road back I opted for the new route back. A short way down the track I was led into a wheat field, the heads of the wheat nodding in the wind. The footpath leads round the edge of the field and is slightly overgrown with thistles. Even they were looking pretty though, with bursts of purple flowers here and there. It meant I was watching my step a bit more than the scenery though, but at one point I looked up and across the field of gold. At the other corner I saw a flash of movement and initially didn't realise what I was seeing, until the deer started to leap through the wheat, tail flashing, legs clearing the heads of the crop. So beautiful. I had no idea deer came down so close to the edge of town. What a bonus for the evening!

It really did my heart good. I walked the last stretch home along the road with a smile on my face.

Yesterday I tried an experiment. Frustratingly, I've found that the alcohol cravings have never entirely gone away, or rather they sometimes rear their heads and temptation falls like an anvil. So, having had a craving for a gin and tonic yesterday afternoon, in the evening I gave in and bought a can from the supermarket. I was really curious about what would happen, and had a certain amount of fear as well because I just didn't know. And the conclusion of the experiment was - I didn't like it. I could feel the alcohol running through my veins, my face felt hot and the heat didn't wear off for a long time, and a short while after finishing the drink I actually felt sick. Interesting. I wouldn't have predicted the reaction being that. So now I know. I told GBF by text what I had done, and as he pointed out in response, it's not something I want.

Celebrated this morning by ordering four bottles of Sutter Home's Fre red from The Alcohol-Free Shop. I've been dying for a red for ages, but the supermarkets seem to have stopped carrying it. Bit of a nuisance, that.

Goodbye to another of my Grandparents' generation

2008-08-17T18:40:00.002+01:00

My great uncle Pete died last night. He was my paternal Grandma's younger brother and while I can't remember exactly how old he was, he must have been in his late seventies by now. For the last few months Pete had been on dialysis three times a week. He was being driven home last night after his session and collapsed around the corner from home. While they got him back to the hospital they weren't able to revive him.

At the moment we don't know what the cause of death was, but I would put money on it being his heart. Years back he had a triple heart by pass but it has never really been right. A lifetime of hard drinking and heavy smoking will do that to you. I think he only quit smoking when it finally killed his wife. Margaret was near permanently hooked up to oxygen for the last year or so of her life due to emphysema.

I didn't see much of Pete, but I will always remember him as both great fun and a dreadful influence. Even at Grandad's funeral in 2004 he was the one people wanted to be around because he was pretty much guaranteed to make you smile.

One time, about 12 years ago now, I was at Dad's for a few days and he took me up to have dinner with Pete and Margaret. I couldn't drive so Dad had to, which he didn't like much because one thing you could count on Pete for was generosity with the alcohol! So Dad couldn't have a drop and Pete was feeding me vodka and lemonade. After a while, when I was feeling rather hammered, he offered me another one. I looked at Dad and said I didn't think I should. Pete's response was "It's not a question of whether you should or shouldn't, would you like one?" Me: "Yes, please!" Dad was in a foul mood on the drive back to his because he was sober and I was completely wasted.

So goodbye Pete. I'll raise a glass in your memory tonight (non-alcoholic I'm afraid, but we all have our demons). Wherever you are, I'm pretty sure you're providing the craic.

My overnight visitor

2008-08-14T18:38:00.003+01:00

I suppose the usual response of people to having a pigeon in the kitchen is to try and get it out again. Mine was to make sure it had food and water and hope it didn't die overnight.

I found him in the middle of the main road near me yesterday evening as I was returning from a walk. He was alive but clearly had a broken wing. It was rush hour so the road was very busy and I couldn't leave him to get squashed. So I took advantage of a break in traffic to go and pick him up, wrapped in my coat. Got him to the side of the road. He was struggling so I put him down on the grass where he instantly flopped. He was clearly a racing pigeon - he had a ring on his leg. With a broken wing he wasn't going to be going anywhere, so leaving him would have probably just resulted in a longer death than if I had left him and a car had hit him. I was at a bit of a loss to be honest, (what do you do with a racing pigeon) so I called Mum who was at my Grandparents'. Grandad's suggestion was to get him to a vet. It occurred to me that I was fairly close to the pet shop so I picked him up in my jacket again and took him there.

They were really helpful actually. At first it was suggested that I take him to a wildlife rescue centre, but they wouldn't take him because he wasn't a wild bird. They then found me the number for the Racing Pigeon Society, which it turns out is based here. Unfortunately they were already closed for the day. The manager of the pet shop gave me a box with bedding to keep him in overnight, some seed, and instructions to give him some water with sugar in it, so I carried him home and he spent the night in my kitchen.

This morning he was much perkier, which was a relief. I didn't relish the idea of ringing the Racing Pigeon Society to tell them I had a dead bird. Called them just after 9 and I arranged to drop him in on my way to work. Apparently he belongs to a chap in Nuneaton. So he's now in a loft at the Racing Pigeon Society while they contacted his owner.

I don't know what happens to racing pigeons with broken wings. I do hope the poor thing doesn't get put down after all this.

A minor miracle

2008-08-07T07:39:00.003+01:00

I have a new pair of jeans - only cheap £10, but for the first time in ages I have a pair that do not trail along the ground. They also currently don't have nibble holes in the legs, but how long that is the case remains to be seen. Most importantly, and definitely on the miraculous side as far as I'm concerned, they are a size 10. That's right, size 10!!! Now there's a clothing size I never thought I'd get into again. I can't even remember the last time I could, it was probably in my early teens. The impetus for trying it was being fed up yesterday with the pair of size 12s I was wearing, which I had to keep pulling up a bit everytime I moved around. I can get those on and off without undoing them, so I figured the 10 was worth a try. Mum doesn't believe me though. I'm willing to accept I'm not a general 10, and we all know how sizes vary from shop to shop, but for now I am reveling in my minor triumph and will go in search of a second properly fitting pair of jeans later.

Weight wise, I've lost nearly half a stone since I bought the new scales. Started on a disappointing 10st 2.2, I'm now on 9st 10.2. My Health Coach has decreed that I am now in an acceptable BMI zone (although BMI is bull really) and has increased the amount I'm allowed to eat quite dramatically. Thing is, I don't want to eat that much. It's too hot for one thing. Even when the skies are clouded over, as now, it's far too muggy to be eating a lot. I'm sitting here sweating now. On the other hand, it does give me that little bit more freedom in what I eat and when.

It has now been agreed that Grandma is going to go into full time residential care, so now we're waiting for a place to become available at the home she has been going to on a day resident basis. No idea how long that is likely to be, but the thought of waiting on 'dead men's shoes' is a bit depressing. Mum has offered to go and live with Grandad once Grandma is in the home. He hasn't said yes yet, but my aunt and uncle think it's a great idea, and there's no way he can stay there by himself. A power of attorney has been agreed as well, Grandma's consultant deciding that while Grandma is not competent to look after herself she can understand the power of attorney concept well enough to agree to it.

I do hope Grandad agrees to Mum moving in, and I imagine he will in the end. I don't want to see that house go before it needs to. They've been there since the 60's, it's the only place I've known my Grandparents to live. I don't want it to be someone else's home just yet.

There's a new addition to the household

2008-08-05T22:13:00.003+01:00

Mum thinks I'm nuts, but there it is. I was in the pet shop yesterday and fell in love with this adventurous little hamster. So this evening I collected Jareth's old cage from Mum's garage and went to bring the little one home.

At this point he still doesn't have a name. I'm torn between Rusty because of his colouring and Grizzler because of the noise he makes - and I think I'm edging towards Grizzler. Mind you, if Otis is anything to go by he isn't going to be called by his actual name all that frequently. He has already been 'Poppet', 'Pudden', 'Piglet' and 'Sweetling' since he's been here.

Otis seems a bit bemused by the sudden appearance of a second cage and has been to investigate. I bought him a parsley bell and have made a fuss of him this evening so he doesn't get jealous. Although I still half expect him to show his displeasure by peeing on the futon at some point.

I haven't had my littlest boy out of his cage yet, he isn't quite settled. I'm sure Jareth never made the noises this one has when I first got him. Still, he's getting used to me and I'm letting him sniff my finger every so often as part of that process. So far he hasn't bitten me, which I'm taking as a good sign.

As I say, Mum thinks I'm nuts but as I pointed out, it's got to be a better option than a cat which is what I was very tempted by. At least she agrees on that.

More meandering

2008-07-29T22:43:00.003+01:00

I took my long walk on Sunday afternoon. Back up the road, following my footsteps from a few days before, and again stopping to watch the rabbits in the fields. This time I walked up to the church I had seen in the distance - it's only half an hour away and I'd never seen it before. Unfortunately it was looked so I couldn't go in, but I sat and had a smoke in the churchyard and took shelter in the overhang of the porch from the brief and very welcome rain shower that blew in shortly after I arrived. It didn't last long and wasn't heavy so I opted to amble back while the rain was still coming down. So refreshing.

On the return journey I decided to cut across country. The footpaths are pretty well marked if slightly overgrown in places. Nothing too difficult to traverse though. Farmers' fields, pasture for cattle, maize crops, that sort of thing. I suspect someone goes out rabbiting there because I spotted a couple of shotgun cartridges in one wooded clump. So many birds around. I was delighted to see a beautiful peacock butterfly sunning itself on a fench post - I don't think I've seen one in a very long time.

Of course, the paths across the fields brought me out onto roads I was unfamiliar with. It's a part of town I've not really been to before. Thankfully, a helpful signpost pointed me in the right direction and I eventually emerged onto the road running along the back of the trading estate Sainsbury's is on, so about five minutes from home. I think I might have to explore more of these footpaths. Will need to find a decent map first so I have a rough idea where I'm going.

This evening I've been relaxing on the futon with a glass of wine and a copy of Olive, one of the BBC food magazines I've seen a lot but never bought before. Instructions from my DS this morning were to buy and read a food magazine so that's the one I opted for. It's very good. This month is an Italian special, just my sort of thing. There are some easy ice cream recipes in there I must try.

Of course, I had to have a wander this evening as well, but it was just around the block. I couldn't manage it yesterday since we finally had thunder storms, so I was down on my steps target yesterday. Today was fine though, and cool enough not to be awful out. If only my office had air conditioning.