Nemesis Of The Vole

Crafts, Cooking and Christmas Fun!

2012-01-10T23:42:00.002Z

It was so nice this year, because Zeph's old enough to really get involved and start to understand what was going on. I've been looking forward to this for ages!

Zeph made Christmas cards for the family. He loves painting, and really got into choosing what colours of paint and glitter, and spent ages deciding where to stick the stars. I'm glad he seems to like arts and crafts!

Zeph was a bit unnerved by seeing Santa. Well, it wasn't seeing him that was the problem, but having to get near enough to get his present. He was fine as long as I was next to him, and was really happy about getting his gift - he now thinks that Santa always gives you books. Mind you, he doesn't have a problem with that!

We had a nice family evening trying to assemble a sort of biscuit Christmas tree. Possibly our first mistake was in getting a cheap set of biscuits from Asda. This is what the finished result should have been.

Chris and Zeph had a lovely time using the pouch of ready-made icing (that had to be massaged until it went soft...) to stick the varying sizes of star-shaped biscuit together and to dot onto the 'branches' ready for sticking on the sugar decorations.

The finished result. Note the lack of similarity to the picture on the box...

It was already slipping sideways before we even started sticking on the sugar shapes, and by the next day had almost folded in half. After tasting bits we didn't even eat the damn thing! The biscuits had no flavour, the icing tasted about as nasty and artificial as it looked and you couldn't even bite the sugar sweeties. However, we had fun trying to put it together and that was the important thing. Next year I'm going to make a gingerbread house that we can decorate instead.

Zeph also had a lovely time making reindeer food. He scooped out porridge oats into a bowl, and mixed in some pink and purple sparkly sugar (for cake decorationg) to make it magic, then filled little paper bags with the mixture. On Christmas Eve night he went outside just before bedtime and emptied the reindeer food onto the lawn so that the reindeer could have a snack while Father Christmas brought the presents. (He gave the extra bags to his wee friends.)

All in all we had a lot of fun, and there'll be even more we can do next year!

Festive decorations in the Anderson household

2012-01-07T22:56:00.007Z

Our tree with some parcels and cards underneath. Zeph helped hang the ornaments on and was really excited about hanging up the one he made and the one he was given at the library party.

These are some of my favourite tree decorations.

"Bauble Zeph did!"

We like to buy a new bauble each Christmas, something that refers to an event of that year if possible.

2008 - Three guesses where we got this! I picked it up browsing in a Perth department store with Nettie, so my little festive wombat brings back really fond memories. :-)

2009 - We bought this set of reindeer from the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre near Aviemore when we were up at Aviemore with the samba band the September before Zeph was born.

2010 - We had a huge amount of snow and ice in November and December, more than I remember seeing since I was a child, so we chose this glass bauble that has bubbles of glass inside and looks like ice drops.

2011 - There wasn't any particular reason for this one, but I just liked it!

Finally, the bauble garland that hangs across the fireplace!

P.S. I have no idea why the pictures are varying in size!

Water

2011-08-14T20:54:00.003Z

Imagine an endless sea of choppy, dark-grey water. You can't tell how deep the water is, but it could go down for miles and miles. Above you is a heavily overcast sky. There's no blue, just storms in varying degrees of formation.

There's only one other thing visible anywhere. Stretching on as far as you can see is an iron girder, maybe a foot wide, with water lapping over it. Above this is the smallest of openings in the cloud. A thin streak of watery sunlight shines down on the girder.

Think how little a bump it would take to send you off the girder and into the sea to drown.

I came off my meds a couple of months ago. Welcome to my world.

Winter holiday

2011-01-31T00:04:00.002Z

Since both Chris and my dad had holiday time left to use up, we decided to go down to see Granny for a few days. She'd planned to come up here in the autumn, but couldn't, and was missing Zeph!

We took the opportunity to call in to see some of the rest of the family. Here's Zeph having a go at driving his big cousin Jane's car.

We also called in to see my great-aunt and uncle. Aunty Joan was Grandad's sister, and she looks a lot like him. We haven't seen her since Grandad's funeral, so they hadn't met Zeph.

Up at Hilary and Nigel's house for dinner, Zeph decided that he was only going to eat sausage rolls!

"What, there's no more?"

This is Billy, who's a very cuddly dog!

This is Cassie - she's lovely. :-)

The car broke down, as is traditional. A small hole had developed in the exhaust pipe on the journey down. My dad thought it would be easily fixable with some filler, but on the way back from town after doing some shopping on Monday there was a horrendous noise. Chris wanted to know what it was, and my guess was that the pipe had ripped itself open. Yup, that was exactly what it was. My dad and I looked throught the shrubbery by the roadside to find a suitably-sized stick, which he used to hold the pipe together for the short drive back to Granny's house. A local garage could do a repair, but they couldn't see to it until Wednesday morning. On Tuesday we didn't do much, as it was drizzly, but most of us wanted to get some fresh air and exercise so Chris and I, my mum, and Zeph went for a walk.

On Wednesday, once the car was sorted, we went out to Sacrewell Farm and Country Park. Zeph loves animals, so we figured it'd be a good place to go!

Big goat!

Little goat!

Zeph was fascinated by the shire horses.

Definitely a boy horse!

We also saw cows, pigs and piglets, but they weren't very obliging about posing for photos.

Geese, swans and ducks, oh my!

There's a small mill with a waterwheel.

I love the frog on the pump spout!

The door latch appears to be sticking its tongue out.

A rusty old sewing machine.

Big rabbit!

Zeph and his Gran-gran.

On the way back up to Scotland, we called in to see Zeph's Gran Rielly. She was going to come up before Christmas but got snowed in, and was having Zeph withdrawal.

Zeph was pretty worn out by the time we got home. Well, we all were! It was nice to get away for a bit, and we're looking forward to going down there again in the summer.

Gorgie City Farm

2011-01-17T00:07:00.002Z

Today we went for a wee family outing to Gorgie City Farm. I used to go past it on the bus on my way to college but hadn't ever visited, and Chris went there when he was very young but not since then, so it was interesting for all of us.

First we walked round the poultry section. Zeph was very excited, and was shouting "Quack quack!" at the chickens and turkeys, who looked slightly nonplussed.

While we were there we heard a mum saying to her daughter "Look, we might have one of those for our Christmas dinner next year!"

"Mummy, I'm trying to look at turkeys."

In the barn was Fudge (the cow), who might be having a calf this spring, and Red (the pony). Zeph liked watching Red get groomed.

Next we watched one of the pigs having her dinner.

In a pen further round was a sow with nine piglets. She was busy watching for her food to arrive, but her piglets didn't have that problem!

This goat wasn't being particularly social today.

Before going to the pets' corner we visited the sheep. They had also just been fed, so were too busy to pay us much attention. One sheep kept bleating loudly, though, which fascinated the boy!

We finished our visit by looking at the small animals. They have budgies, chinchillas, zebra finches, gerbils, degus and guinea pigs. Zeph liked watching the budgies best, I think.

It's a lovely little farm, and I think I'll be taking Zeph there quite a bit - at his age there's a lot to keep him entertained!

Facebook Status Updates 2010

2011-01-07T02:04:00.000Z

01/01/10 Rowenna Anderson - Happy new year!

04/01/10 Rowenna Anderson is not ignoring anyone's calls or texts. Her mobile has decided not to work anymore.

08/01/10 Rowenna Anderson found one of her rats dead this morning. RIP, Cicero. We loved you. :-(

10/01/10 Rowenna Anderson has a baby who won't settle tonight.

12/01/10 Rowenna Anderson had Zeph weighed today - he's 11 lb 5!

13/01/10 Rowenna Anderson is trying to get a sensible answer from eBay user support. Trying and, so far, failing.

14/01/10 Rowenna Anderson went shopping today and bought a lot of clothes and jewellery. Oh, and books. Fortunately it was all from charity shops. :-)

17/01/10 Rowenna Anderson has been rearranging the living room furniture. Ooh, the excitement! ;-)

18/01/10 Rowenna Anderson can't believe that Zeph is two months old!

24/01/10 Rowenna Anderson went to her antenatal class reunion today. She had a lovely time and really enjoyed catching up with everyone and meeting all the babies!

25/01/10 Rowenna Anderson is having friends round for a Burns Supper. :-)

27/01/10 Rowenna Anderson is going to redye her hair, and is hoping that colic-boy sleeps well tonight.

30/01/10 Rowenna Anderson is down in England, Zeph has now met his great-granny, three great-aunts, a great-uncle and three second cousins. He's had a busy day!

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01/02/10 Rowenna Anderson cooked dinner for her aunt, uncle and cousin tonight.

02/02/10 Rowenna Anderson's other rat died and she feels really guilty for not doing more for him. Bye, Julius. :-(

05/02/10 Rowenna Anderson is on hold on the tax credits helpline. ETA: And they are exceedingly unhelpful...

05/02/10 Rowenna Anderson is rather unsure about the new facebook layout...

07/02/10 Rowenna Anderson took Zeph to his first gig today, a show by Raise Your Hem, four very talented ladies. :-)

11/02/10 Rowenna Anderson took Zeph for more vaccinations tody, and also to have him weighed and measured. He's 12lb1 and 59cm.

16/02/10 Rowenna Anderson is making pancakes.

19/02/10 Rowenna Anderson got to go to samba tonight for the first time in over three months! She had a great time and really enjoyed seeing everyone again. :-)

23/02/10 Rowenna Anderson really hopes that someone handed Chris's wallet in to the lost property office...

23/02/10 Rowenna Anderson is really glad that someone did hand Chris's wallet in. Yay!

24/02/10 Rowenna Anderson is heading out in the sleet for an extra story/rhyme time at the library. She has a stinking cold so will be trying her hardest to avoid sneezing on the other small people there.

25/02/10 Rowenna Anderson went to samba again, and Zeph was a good boy for his Granny, Grandpa and Uncle Dave. :-)

26/02/10 Rowenna Anderson has just bought a ticket for A-Ha's farewell tour. She spent a tad more than she usually would...

(But it's a really good seat, she's never seen them live, has always wanted to and this is her last chance. :-) )

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01/03/10 Rowenna Anderson is feeling down today. She doesn't really know why.

02/03/10 Rowenna Anderson thinks that Zeph's giggle is the best sound in the world. :-)

04/03/10 Rowenna Anderson is looking forward to movie night at Flora Streater's house on Saturday. She hopes that Zeph will behave himself!

07/03/10 Rowenna Anderson has a bad headache starting. :-(

08/03/10 Rowenna Anderson has an extremely tired and upset baby tonight.

12/03/10 Rowenna Anderson is wondering if anyone wants to go for a drink after Alice In Wonderland tomorrow...

14/03/10 Rowenna Anderson enjoyed the film, and also the drinks afterwards!

14/03/10 Rowenna Anderson got cool things from Zeph for Mother's Day - a cuddly meerkat and a card saying that I'm the 'bestest mummy'. :-D

15/03/10 Rowenna Anderson "Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words 'I have a cunning plan' marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?"

17/03/10 Rowenna Anderson has to take Zeph for more vaccinations tomorrow afternoon. He's not going to be happy about it, but this is the last set until he's a year old.

17/03/10 Rowenna Anderson just found £218 of assorted gift vouchers that were wedding presents - woohoo! :-D

20/03/10 Rowenna Anderson is sorting out books to give to charity shops. She has 55 here, and already gave another 15 or so away. For those who know Rowenna well, surprisingly, her getting rid of books is not a sign of a coming apocalypse!

23/03/10 Rowenna Anderson wondered why her ankle/side of foot was sore, remembered tripping over a bag on Friday evening, and has now found a swollen area on the side of her foot. It's not fair - my heels are just starting to feel better, now this!

23/03/10 Rowenna Anderson has spent the last hour trying to remove nasties from her computer, thanks to a certain someone not taking precautions with her msn. *glares in the direction of that someone*

24/03/10 Rowenna Anderson is worried - Zeph has a fever again...

28/03/10 Rowenna Anderson had fun at Marjory Mackie's birthday party today, and got quite pissed!

30/03/10 Rowenna Anderson just saw a longer trailer for the new series of Doctor Who, and a clip of one of the episodes, and is now ridiculously excited. :-D

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03/04/10 Rowenna Anderson really liked Doctor Who! She will have to watch it again because Chris was still at work and so missed it, and also it's difficult to hear a tv with a colicky baby screaming in one's ear...

03/04/10 Rowenna Anderson just finished SPANC-ing Colin Harvey and Davron Elliott...

07/04/10 Rowenna Anderson accidentally watched an edition of The Jeremy Kyle Show this afternoon. She feels quite dirty.

09/04/10 Rowenna Anderson wants a dragon to ride!

10/04/10 Rowenna Anderson's son crapped all the way up his back this evening. Delightful!

14/04/10 Rowenna Anderson has a bad headache, is feeling unreasonably grumpy, and wishes that Chris wasn't going away for the weekend... :-(

16/04/10 Rowenna Anderson was seen yesterday by a nurse who looked and sounded just like Julie Andrews. (The Princess Diaries era, not The Sound Of Music.) It made her appointment a lot more fun!

16/04/10 Rowenna Anderson feels lonely.

17/04/10 Rowenna Anderson meant to buy herself trousers today but instead bought books, mostly for Zeph. Oops!

17/04/10 Rowenna Anderson forgot to mention that she is playing a samba gig tomorrow in Edinburgh. 12 - 3 outside the art galleries on Princes Street, busking for a good cause. Come along if you can!

19/04/10 Rowenna Anderson is glad that Chris is home!

21/04/10 Rowenna Anderson is watching Kung Fu Panda for the first time. So far she likes it!

22/04/10 Rowenna Anderson woke this morning with an awful migraine. She's really glad her mum came through to help look after Zeph!

23/04/10 Rowenna Anderson let her baby fall off the bed this morning. Not exactly prize-winning parenting...

26/04/10 Rowenna Anderson is sorting out her file drawer. She might pass out from the excitement of trying to find current paperwork amongst several years of detritus. Mind you, she is learning a valuable lesson from this.

30/04/10 Rowenna Anderson went shopping today. She bought groceries, a set of saucepans and a sonic screwdriver. As you do.

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02/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is getting really excited about DKY tonight! :-D

03/05/10 Rowenna Anderson had a great time last night! It was so good to catch up with people she hadn't seen for years. Oh, and she is hugely grateful to Colin Harvey for babysitting!

07/05/10 Rowenna Anderson thinks she isn't going to like the result of the election...

07/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is really tired but can't go to bed - the election results are so close!

08/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is watching Count Duckula!

11/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is really angry. The handle of her Tommee Tippee breast pump has melted during its usual microwave sterilisation, rendering it unusable and also damaging the other part of the pump, the steriliser box and two soothers. She will be making a furious phone call tomorrow, demanding a replacement and recompense. >:-[

13/05/10 Rowenna Anderson decided this afternoon that shredding old paperwork is boring, and that burning it is far more fun! :-D

14/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is watching Cake Boss. Those guys are amazing!

15/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is glad that Annette Hudson called her this afternoon - it really made her day! :)

18/05/10 Rowenna Anderson can't believe that Zeph is six months old today! In some ways it seems like no time at all, but it also feels like he's always been here. :-)

20/05/10 Rowenna Anderson couldn't go to samba tonight because Zeph was so unhappy. He cried almost all evening. Rowenna feels sorry for Zeph but also misses her drumming fix!

25/05/10 Rowenna Anderson has been rearranging the kitchen. She had to make room for Zeph's highchair, because he needs it now that he's eating actual food.

26/05/10 Rowenna Anderson would quite like it if people could let her know whether or not they are coming round to mock Eurovision on Saturday...

26/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is not feeling well.

27/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is looking forward to her wedding anniversary tomorrow and to her Eurovision party on Saturday. It'll be really nice to have three whole days with Chris too, as he's not working again until Monday. :)

30/05/10 Rowenna Anderson is bidding for Playmobil on eBay...

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01/06/10 Rowenna Anderson managed to get a pair of trousers for samba that fit - hurrah!

02/06/10 Rowenna Anderson is really looking forward to Friday's samba gig at the zoo!

04/06/10 Rowenna Anderson thinks that Nadin Dunnigan does really good work - the photos of Zeph are beautiful! :-)

05/06/10 Rowenna Anderson and Zeph had fun at the Meadows Festival today. They had a picnic, and bumped into several friends. The only downside to the day was the torrential downpour that soaked them on their way home...

09/06/10 Rowenna Anderson enjoyed going to see Samantha Dale-hindle this afternoon and watching Zeph play with Brandan. :-)

11/06/10 Rowenna Anderson is very proud of Zeph - he just spent ages trying to open a book (That's Not My Bear) and eventually managed it. :-)

12/06/10 Rowenna Anderson got some useful things at the NCT sale today.

15/06/10 Rowenna Anderson is looking forward to the Linlithgow Marches tomorrow!

16/06/10 Rowenna Anderson has a sneezy, coughing little baby. He had fun at the Marches, though.

18/06/10 Rowenna Anderson is really looking forward to tomorrow's Linlithgow Gala Day and the annual Sambalistic barbecue! :-D

21/06/10 Rowenna Anderson has spent today tidying and cleaning. She's tired.

26/06/10 Rowenna Anderson really enjoyed tonight's Doctor Who and is very excited about the Christmas special! :-D

28/06/10 Rowenna Anderson is discussing the bizarreness that is cheese soup with Shawna Willoughby...

28/06/10 Rowenna Anderson has had a migraine all day. However, she's glad that Zeph woke a lot earlier than usual for his night feed because he woke her in just enough time for her to take her meds!

29/06/10 Rowenna Anderson is wondering why Firefox won't work but IE will...

30/06/10 Rowenna Anderson would like everyone to know that the Chris Anderson on her friends list isn't the one who is her husband. He won't go on facebook.

The other Chris Anderson is a very friendly chap, however, and may well like to talk to you.

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01/07/10 Rowenna Anderson is getting enormously excited about Annette Hudson and Christian coming to visit. They arrive in just over two weeks! We're going to have parties and barbecues and go camping!

06/07/10 Rowenna Anderson just answered a round on Family Feud on 'If you dyed your hair, what colour would you NOT want it to turn out?'

At various times, she has had her hair dyed six out of the seven colours in the answers!

10/07/10 Rowenna Anderson went fruit-picking today, and now has a box of strawberries and a smaller box of blackcurrants.

13/07/10 Rowenna Anderson has another migraine. She is getting tired of this...

14/07/10 Rowenna Anderson has more tidying and cleaning to do. She wants some sort of robot slave to do it for her.

17/07/10 Rowenna Anderson is very excited because Annette Hudson and Christian are finally arriving tomorrow! :-D

19/07/10 Rowenna Anderson is hoping that this time her hairdye might actually have the effect she's after!

22/07/10 Rowenna Anderson is just back from the rainiest camping trip EVER!

23/07/10 Rowenna Anderson fell over this morning, whacking her head and cutting her foot open. This lead to a trip to A&E (the second one this week!) and four stitches in her foot...

25/07/10 Rowenna Anderson is hoping that Granny is ok and that it doesn't rain tomorrow...

26/07/10 Rowenna Anderson is so glad that the weather stayed sunny for the naming and party. Everyone had a good time, lots of food was eaten and Zeph got cuddles from almost everyone!
Oh, and Rowenna went to see Granny in hospital, who is doing well, all things considered.

29/07/10 Rowenna Anderson is trying to hang curtains...

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01/08/10 Rowenna Anderson went out to the Mission last night. The music was good, even if she couldn't dance due to a sore foot!

02/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is going to the zoo today. She hopes it won't rain too much because Zeph is going in his big boy pushchair, and we don't have a proper raincover for it.

04/08/10 Rowenna Anderson's camera crapped out when she was at the zoo yesterday - it decided that it wouldn't zoom any more. Today Rowenna bought a new camera so she now has to figure out how it works! :-D

06/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is finishing making Annette Hudson's birthday present.

06/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is *really* fed up with phoning various tax offices and being put on hold!

*headdesk*

08/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is already really missing Annette Hudson and Christian...

10/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is getting on with tidying the house, and she really enjoyed meeting Katherine Lymer (and her sister and nephews) for coffee this afternoon. Zeph had a lovely time playing with Daniel too, and stealing his sock...

13/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is on hold with Tax Credits again...

14/08/10 Rowenna Anderson thinks that Alistair McGowan is not as good an impressionist as he thinks he is.

14/08/10 Rowenna Anderson had a brilliant time at tonight's samba gig! :-D

21/08/10 Rowenna Anderson f**king *hates* packing for holidays, especially when it's nearly 2 am, she isn't finished and her brain has stopped working...

22/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is on holiday! Tomorrow (as long as it doesn't rain) she gets to go to the zoo for her birthday treat! :-D

23/08/10 Rowenna Anderson thanks everyone for their birthday messages! She has had a nice day, but is leaving the zoo trip until later in the week because of today's monsoon-like weather. Rowenna got some great presents, and ate lots of cake. :-)

28/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is going to a country park this afternoon, and then for tea at Hilary Holt's house. She is looking forward to playing with the dogs!

29/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is playing cards with her family (and winning... ;-)) and wishing she didn't have to go home tomorrow.

29/08/10 Rowenna Anderson is looking forward to DKY tonight, but keeps getting tearful because Zeph is away at his grandparents' house, having his first sleepover. She's missing baby cuddles...

30/08/10 Rowenna Anderson had fun at Dky Edinburgh last night, although she's knackered today due to the extra-late opening! Oh, and thanks to Jordi for ending the night by playing 'Let's Do It!'

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01/09/10 Rowenna Anderson is crying.

03/09/10 Rowenna Anderson - For those of you who haven't heard, my granny died last night. It was pretty unexpected - although she'd had various medical problems none of them were very serious. Apparently she said she felt tired, went to bed early and was found by the nurses half an hour later. I know how much she'd been missing Grandad, and I'd like to think they're together again.

05/09/10 Rowenna Anderson and Chris have just had their first experience of going to check on a crying baby and finding that they need to change his pyjamas, sleeping bag and sheet...
That does explain why he's been off his food for a day or so!

06/09/10 Rowenna Anderson still has a sick baby, and isn't feeling very well herself. *sigh*

07/09/10 Rowenna Anderson is going to Granny's funeral tomorrow and isn't sure how she'll handle it. :-(

08/09/10 Rowenna Anderson managed ok at the funeral, but on the way back to town got stung on the boob by a wasp that was blown into the car.

11/09/10 Rowenna Anderson is hoping that she makes some sales at tomorrow's craft fair. (In the Kirk Hall, Linlithgow from 10.30am for those who are interested!)

16/09/10 Rowenna Anderson is realising that no matter how baby-proofed the place is, the little monkey will still find something to get into!

16/09/10 Rowenna Anderson has, until Sunday, four small furry houseguests.

17/09/10 Rowenna Anderson isn't in a very good mood for some reason.

21/09/10 Rowenna Anderson keeps feeling like she's going to have a panic attack.

24/09/10 Rowenna Anderson went foraging again today, with Chris and Zeph. They picked 2kg of plums and 3kg of blackberries, so are going to be very busy cooking tonight!

28/09/10 Rowenna Anderson and Chris have made six jars of blackberry and apple jam, ten jars of blackberry chilli jelly and four and a half jars of spicy plum sauce. :-)

30/09/10 Rowenna Anderson's very clever baby managed to pull himself up to standing today. It's amazing what the lure of a tv remote on the sofa will do!

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02/10/10 Rowenna Anderson managed to get baby clothes and other useful things at an NCT sale today. Yay!

03/10/10 Rowenna Anderson went grocery shopping this evening. She found everything she needed, queued up, had everything rung through the till, opened her purse to get her debit card out... and realised that Chris still had it in his wallet from when he went up to the shop last night! *sigh*

One of the customer service people put our bags aside, and Chris had to go to the shop on his way home.

06/10/10 Rowenna Anderson has a headache and a sore throat. :(

06/10/10 Rowenna Anderson is providing tech support to her mother-in-law over the phone.
*headdesk*

07/10/10 Rowenna Anderson had fun playing snare at samba tonight.

10/10/10 Rowenna Anderson just saw Zeph crawling! :-D

11/10/10 Rowenna Anderson has just had a roast dinner and is going to spend the rest of the evening making jewellery and watching Avatar for the first time. Apparently it's quite entertaining.

11/10/10 Rowenna Anderson thinks that Avatar was quite good, although pretty much the same as Dances With Wolves crossed with Return of the Jedi...

12/10/10 Rowenna Anderson is having lamb steaks, garlicky mash, green beans and wilted spinach for dinner. She is very hungry and is really looking forward to it!

15/10/10 Rowenna Anderson got to go to the pub this evening, and is now (over the internet!) helping her cousin pack for a holiday...

17/10/10 Rowenna Anderson enjoyed listening in to the conversation a family was having on the bus today. Highlights included "You're not supposed to say 'useless child' to your own children!" and
"Mummy, that's the church where you and Daddy got married."
"No, not that one"
*heavy sigh* "I get confused - there's just 'so' many churches around these days..."

...Note - these churches were pretty old!

18/10/10 Rowenna Anderson had a great time visiting Lyndsey McGlynn this afternoon. We ate cake, and Zeph had a lot of fun playing with Jenny the dog!

21/10/10 Rowenna Anderson has had a lovely time today. First coffee with Chris Anderson and Bill, then meeting Simon Pegg at his book signing (and getting bumped to the front of the queue because we had Zeph with us), then a really nice dinner out with Lesley Walpole, Lorna Brain, Ros and Susie. :-)

24/10/10 Rowenna Anderson is spending the evening making jewellery, downloading music and watching the Robert Downey Jr/Jude Law Sherlock Holmes film. Nice and relaxing. :-)

25/10/10 Rowenna Anderson enjoyed bathing with a cute young man this evening. ;-)

30/10/10 Rowenna Anderson is in the pub because Keith Beaton is a terrible influence.

30/10/10 Rowenna Anderson had a great time last night! Despite an impromptu night in the pub with Keith Beaton, Douglas Wilson, Colin Harvey and Robbie Loosemore, to celebrate Colin passing his library-bus-driving-test, she doesn't have a hangover. Surprising, since she drank more last night than in the last six months put together...

31/10/10 Rowenna Anderson is eating pizza and watching The Mangler and BERSERKER.

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04/11/10 Rowenna Anderson's sad grumpy baby keeps waking up crying. Teething isn't fun for anyone. :-(

04/11/10 Rowenna Anderson isn't going to samba tonight. She needs to make more jewellery, and the teething baby needs an early night.

05/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is hoping that it stops raining so that she and Chris can take Zeph to see fireworks tonight.

05/11/10 Rowenna Anderson has to get everything together for the first big craft fair of the season tomorrow.

08/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is really tired and grumpy.

09/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is very proud of Zeph - he managed three tottery little steps today! :-D

It ended with him landing on my lap. It's still rather more 'falling with style' than marching, but it's a start!

11/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is looking forward to samba tonight, after missing last week's practice.

13/11/10 Rowenna Anderson had a lovely time at Nadin Dunnigan's house this evening, with Lyndsey McGlynn. We had Thai for dinner, and I loved playing with the cats, the gerbils, and a box of beads! (Not all at the same time...)

17/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is hugely excited because she's going to see A-ha tonight at the SECC!

18/11/10 Rowenna Anderson Ticket, booking fee and postage - £62.45
Train/bus fares - £13
Exorbitant Scotrail sandwich & coffee - £4.80
Tour t-shirt - £20
Exorbitant venue hotdog and Pepsi - £4.60
...
Finally getting to see one of your favourite bands live, as they're nearly finished their farewell tour - PRICELESS! :-D

18/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is making Zeph's birthday cake. It's the first time she's had to do this, and she's worried that she'll mess it up!

21/11/10 Rowenna Anderson really can't be bothered with anything today. All she's done is play with Zeph, make a bit of jewellery and watch tv, and nap.

22/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is tidying the living room, shelving the books she bought today, and then making some jewellery.

25/11/10 Rowenna Anderson says "Happy Thanksgiving, all my American friends!"

26/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is making jewellery and sorting supplies for tomorrow's craft fair - the Linlithgow Advent Fair, bleaching and dyeing her hair, and listening to Zeph talking to himself (over the baby monitor).

Oh, and we have First Snow!

27/11/10 Rowenna Anderson sold a lot of jewellery today! :-D

27/11/10 Rowenna Anderson is enjoying an evening of pear cider, pizza, choc-choc-chip cookies and assorted tv comedy. :-)

29/11/10 Rowenna Anderson and Zeph need to go the bank and get groceries, so are venturing out to the frozen blizzardy wastes of Musselburgh. If they don't return, send a search party!

29/11/10 Rowenna Anderson made it back alive, with a bag of Agatha Christie books, toys for Zeph and plenty of groceries. Oh, and pulled muscles in her thigh and lower back from lifting the buggy over/through snowdrifts and slipping on ice.

##########

02/12/10 Rowenna Anderson ventured out to the frozen south today. Nowhere had any wellies, sledges or snow shovels, but Tesco still had a few pairs of gaiters.

03/12/10 Rowenna Anderson - I was playing in the snow today, and made a polar bear. It's not being very good at covering its nose to hide from its prey.

06/12/10 Rowenna Anderson is laughing at her email inbox spam section. There are two consecutive mail headers.
First, 'Give her high-quality lovemaking'
second, from eBay 'free insertion fees on the first December weekend'

I guess that's a pretty good offer! ;-)

06/12/10 Rowenna Anderson and Chris managed to get out to lunch and cinema without the baby, despite the snow. Big thanks to Colin Harvey for babysitting and taking Zeph for lunch at Pizza Hut!

07/12/10 Rowenna Anderson just accidentally decapitated the Buddha. Oops.

11/12/10 Rowenna Anderson - I'm going to the Taste of Chaos show tonight!

17/12/10 Rowenna Anderson had a lovely time at the Sambalistic Christmas dinner! :-)

17/12/10 Rowenna Anderson is freezing and tired and hungry and grumpy. >:-(

17/12/10 Rowenna Anderson has just found out that her prepayment gas meter isn't working which is why the house is really cold. Since she'll have to stay in for the repair guy, she may well miss the Secret Satan swap. *sigh*

19/12/10 Rowenna Anderson didn't get to the Secret Satan swap, since the gas engineer didn't get here until 5pm, but had a great evening in assorted pubs with Colin Harvey and Davron Elliott!

19/12/10 Rowenna Anderson had a lovely afternoon with Lorna Brain and Lesley Walpole, (and Chris, Roger and Nick!), and Zeph enjoyed playing with Reuben and Flora.

22/12/10 Rowenna Anderson is listening to A Very Scary Solstice while wrapping presents. :-D

23/12/10 Rowenna Anderson has done a lot of laundry today, some packing, and now that Zeph is napping is going to make a load of Christmas cookies and some stuffing balls.

25/12/10 Rowenna Anderson says "Merry Christmas!"

29/12/10 Rowenna Anderson has sliced her thumb open and it is very sore! On the plus side, she managed to buy a food processor/liquidiser on special offer, and Chris bought her a new computer chair for Christmas.

31/12/10 Rowenna Anderson has just finished baking a mincemeat and pumpkin pie, and is now onto baking little fruit tarts and making devilled sausages.

Random photodump!

2010-05-15T21:35:00.002Z

Here, for your delectation, are a small selection of photos, sad and homeless pictures that have nowhere else to go...

I think that this child's t-shirt (being sold in our local supermarket) will not go down very well in Scotland!

Energy champion? Energy champion? Are there not enough made-up job titles already?
And also, 'energy champion' makes me think of a good version of this guy...

Spelling FAIL!
(Also being sold in the local supermarket.)

This is the kind of thing that hurts my brain!

There'll be more of these to come, but my other photos are on my PC. I'm using my netbook at the moment so I'm restricted to those pictures already on Photobucket!

The gods don't want me walking...

2010-05-07T23:38:00.002Z

This is getting ridiculous. As far as my legs and feet are concerned it's just one thing after another!

I've had arthritis in my knees since my mid-teens. I'd torn ligaments several times, and the strain to my joints led to the arthritis developing. There's not much that can be done. I had physiotherapy once, but other than that I take anti-inflammatories when I really need to and try to keep my leg muscles strong to help support the knee joints. Sometimes they're not bad, but at other times trying to bend or straighten them feels like having chisels jammed into my knees and twisted...

While I was pregnant I developed plantar fasciitis which caused a lot of pain in my heels. By the evening I could barely walk and just shuffed round the house. After Zeph was born it mostly got better in my right foot but stayed just as bad in my left. I've got a referral to the podiatry clinic at our doctors', but while waiting for that I tripped in our living room and I've pulled or torn something in my right foot. There's a swollen area on the inner side of my foot that hurts, and it's no better nearly two months later.

Oh, and to top it all off, a week ago I thought I had something in my shoe, like a bit of gravel. I checked in my shoe and sock, and there was nothing there, but that evening I found a tiny cut on the sole of my foot. For the next few days it hurt whenever I was wearing my shoes. I checked my shoe and sock repeatedly, but never found anything. By then I was assuming that it was just the walking on a cut that was making it hurt. When I was at my parents' house on Thursday evening they noticed blood on the bottom of my sock and asked about it. I explained, then my dad suggested thast there might be a nail in my shoe. I scoffed at that, then turned my shoe over. Sure enough there was a large drawing pin* embedded there, that couldn't be felt from the inside unless you pushed on the outside too... My response was to spend the rest of the evening muttering "Bastard pin!" under my breath.

So, I currently have buggered knees, a knackered left heel, a damaged right foot and a small hole in the bottom of my foot. See why I think the gods don't want me walking? *sigh*

*'Thumb tack', for the Americans.

Memories, part one

2010-04-27T20:55:00.003Z

Watching Zeph learn so many new things and develop his memory has made me think about my memories, how they formed, why certain ones are so strong, and the things that trigger a particular memory.

Some colours have a very strong effect. For instance, for years a certain shade of bright turquoise made me queasy because I've always had a problem with travel sickness. On long car journeys when I was young my mum, sitting in front of me, used a pillow when sleeping in the car that was that colour. That colour and the feeling of nausea are always linked now. There's a shade of bright pink that is even worse. When I was little I got threadworms, as many kids do, and at that time the only medicine to get rid of them was this hideous vivid pink concoction. The taste was worse that anything else I've ever tried: it took ages for me to choke the whole horrid dose down a little bit at a time. Nothing took the taste away, and I spent the rest of the day at school finding excuses to leave the classroom so I could run to the water fountain. Now, when I see something that colour, I get the taste of the medicine in my mouth - in my family that shade is called 'worm-medicine pink'. I went off strawberry icecream for a couple of years because we got one that was that colour, and to me it tasted like the medicine.
It shows just how well linked memories like that can last - I had that medicine 26 years ago!

I can't think of any specific memories that are triggered by smells, although a couple of weeks ago I was walking in town and smelled something that made me feel strongly nostalgic, but I don't know why! I have no idea what the smell was - it was so fleeting - or what I was nostalgic for, but the sensation lasted quite a while.

I remember some strange associations I made as a child too. Each day of the week had a colour (and still does) but a few words had a kind of image that went with them, I'd imagine someone doing an action for each word. I can still remember what I saw, but the words don't have that effect any more.

Want some more random memories?

I remember being three or four years old and my mum being late picking me up from playgroup. I walked round the little playing field (it seemed like miles) then decided that since I knew the way home from there I would just walk back by myself. I got home fine, to a very surprised mother, followed shortly afterwards by a panicking playgroup worker who was desperately hoping I'd got there!
From the same day I remember how the trees all round the field just looked like a dark green blur, not individual trees. My severe short-sightedness wasn't discovered for another couple of years.

I remember catching the bus into town. It was quite a novelty! I loved looking out of the windows - everything looked so different from up there. Even more exciting was the day of my playgroup's summer trip to Edinburgh Zoo. My granny and grandad came along, as well as my mum, and Grandad and I went upstairs on the bus. It was the first time I'd ever done that, and it was amazing. I suppose this is what happens when you live in a small town!

Also from playgroup I remember the day a little girl locked herself in one of the toilet cubicles, and a play worker having to climb over to let her out. It was one of the most exciting things I'd ever seen. (Like I said - small-town girl!)

I remember when my sister was born. I woke up in the morning to find our next-door neighbour there. She took me to her house for breakfast, and I remember wondering if I should tell her that it wasn't the same as what we usually had*. My dad came to get me, and told me that I had a new baby sister called Flora. I thought (and said) that it was a strange name! We went back to my house and I got a new turntable for my train set. I thought that was more exciting than a baby, really...

*I can't now remember what I usually had, although I remember my mum having cornflakes one morning. The phone went, and while she was talking I ate all of my breakfast and finished hers too. I thought that was the funniest thing ever.

I remember my headmistress coming to find me in the dinner hall when my youngest brother was born. She told me that I had a new brother, and that my dad would be coming to pick me up after lunch. I also remember being really annoyed with a boy in my class who said "What, another one?"

This is fun, and I like the idea of writing my memories down. I'll write some more of these, I think.

Hello...

2010-03-16T23:30:00.002Z

I'm sorry, I've been pretty shit at the whole blogging thing. My main problem is that every time I think about writing I convince myself that what I have to say isn't interesting, or will just sound stupid. It's probably related to the fact that my brain has gone melty again. My depression came back last summer, but I couldn't be treated then because my meds aren't safe for use during pregnancy. I started back on them when Zeph was three weeks old. I thought they were working really well, but I've been getting steadily worse over the last few weeks. I've been comfort-eating a lot, lately, especially chocolate, so the weight I've out on isn't helping my self-image either. I'm going to start exercising again, because that'll help my figure, my brain and my knees, and maybe start work on the garden. I'm also going to try to post regularly, and hopefully get past this worry.

So, as a reward for reading my self-indulgence, you too can mock an idiot who I saw on tv today. It was on a programme called Freaky Eaters, about people with various food phobias etc. The woman on today's show was sent out to the supermarket to buy assorted items of food to cook. She really hasn't got a clue.

"I can't buy that meat - it looks like bits of animals, like that bit looks like a tongue, and that one looks like a... thing."

"What's that stuff... 'greens'... It's got spinach in it and umm, some other stuff I don't know."

(At the fish counter, looking at whole fish)
"Oh, that's awful, they look just like animals! How do vegetarians eat fish? That's cannibalism!"

Facebook status updates 2009

2010-01-05T00:29:00.001Z

02/01/2009 Rowenna is not doing very much today.

04/01/2009 Rowenna went to see The Spirit. It was quite good.

05/01/2009 Rowenna found that her new role at work is as bad as she'd expected.

09/01/2009 Rowenna is hoping that Monday might improve work.

10/01/2009 Rowenna has a really sore throat and feels generally crap.

12/01/2009 Rowenna has managed to leave her phone charger at her parents' house. Bugger.

12/01/2009 Rowenna just doesn't care any more.

15/01/2009 Rowenna is hoping to get to samba this evening.

17/01/2009 Rowenna might get Guitar Hero tomorrow, if it's cheap enough.

17/01/2009 Rowenna has Guitar Hero - now she can ROCK, slightly.

21/01/2009 Rowenna appears to have another cold starting, judging by the sneezing and sore throat.

21/01/2009 Rowenna definitely has a cold and feels horrible. :-(.

24/01/2009 Rowenna is glad her fever has mostly gone, even if the rest of the cold remains.

24/01/2009 Rowenna now knows that inhaling Worcestershire sauce is a mistake.

26/01/2009 Rowenna has discovered that there *is* such a thing as a pen licence.

31/01/2009 Rowenna got a splinter in her hand from a drumstick.

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01/02/2009 Rowenna got a Calvin and Hobbes book from a charity shop. :-D.

02/02/2009 Rowenna spent her day having snowball fights.

05/02/2009 Rowenna is terribly out of practice at leading the samba band.

07/02/2009 Rowenna says 'Jo-jos'!

08/02/2009 Rowenna is watching The Devil Wears Prada.

08/02/2009 Rowenna is talking to Shawna on the phone. :-).

09/02/2009 Rowenna made a snow Scrabble grid. :-D.

11/02/2009 Rowenna is all re-purpled.

12/02/2009 Rowenna is hoping to learn some new patterns at samba.

12/02/2009 Rowenna is trying to get Colin back on Facebook.

14/02/2009 Rowenna is still angry with facebook.

15/02/2009 Rowenna supposes she forgives facebook, since they've let Colin come back.

16/02/2009 Rowenna thought she'd better change her profile photo since she's had the same one since joining facebook.

21/02/2009 Rowenna is going bowling today, followed by dinner and pub. :-D.

22/02/2009 Rowenna had fun today, and is now quite pissed.

22/02/2009 Rowenna is going out to the shops, having heard that there may be some WiFits in stock...

22/02/2009 Rowenna finally managed to get her WiiFit! (Well done, Nintendo, taking only two months to supply enough stock...)

24/02/2009 Rowenna is going to make pancakes tonight.

25/02/2009 Rowenna is going to the beach for a walk.

25/02/2009 Rowenna wants to finish making her silver ring, dammit!

28/02/2009 Rowenna has to rebuild the computer desk.

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03/03/09 Rowenna Anderson had awful insomnia last night and had only about 3 1/2 hours sleep. She can't function on that...

04/03/09 Rowenna Anderson has (fingers crossed) a fully working computer.

05/03/09 Rowenna Anderson wants her cold to bugger off.

07/03/09 Rowenna Anderson is looking forward to Watchmen.

07/03/09 Rowenna Anderson thought Watchmen was amazing.

13/03/09 Rowenna Anderson will be spending tomorrow dressed as a cat.

15/03/09 Rowenna Anderson is unreasonably tired.

19/03/09 Rowenna Anderson is rather annoyed that her piece of silver cracked slightly.

21/03/09 Rowenna Anderson is looking forward to getting her new printer tomorrow.

22/03/09 Rowenna Anderson found that her printer was out of stock so has it ordered.

25/03/09 Rowenna Anderson has a lovely shiny new printer.

27/03/09 Rowenna Anderson is very tired and glad it's Friday.

27/03/09 Rowenna Anderson has a bad headache starting.

28/03/09 Rowenna Anderson is excited that her house is on google maps street view. :-)

30/03/09 Rowenna Anderson has a nice new loo seat.

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04/04/09 Rowenna Anderson is in the pub but not drunk.

06/04/09 Rowenna Anderson is eating gherkins.

07/04/09 Rowenna Anderson is really really grumpy.

07/04/09 Rowenna Anderson has just seen the trailer for the Easter Doctor Who episode and is vastly overexcited!

12/04/09 Rowenna Anderson says Happy Easter/Chocolate Day!

13/04/09 Rowenna Anderson had forgotten how tiring gardening is.

15/04/09 Rowenna Anderson has THE POWER!

18/04/09 Rowenna Anderson is keeping an eye out for any earlybird velociraptors.

18/04/09 Rowenna Anderson still has no velociraptors in her garden, unless there's one hiding behind the garden waste bin. It'd have to be a small one, though.

19/04/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to the Supersuckers/Nashville Pussy gig tonight.

20/04/09 Rowenna Anderson thinks that Nashville Pussy were ok, but Supersuckers were very entertaining.

22/04/09 Rowenna Anderson is fed up with the necklace she's making and wants to go on to her next project.

25/04/09 Rowenna Anderson loves Better Off Ted!

25/04/09 Rowenna Anderson apparently has a haunted bum.

26/04/09 Rowenna Anderson has loaded a helluva lot of music on her ipod.

28/04/09 Rowenna Anderson is attending the second night of a first aid course but would rather be at home.

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03/05/09 Rowenna Anderson says .-.-.mipmip.-.-.

06/05/09 Rowenna Anderson wonders why jewellery class is the quickest two hours of the week.

09/05/09 Rowenna Anderson absolutely loved the new Trek film!

16/05/09 Rowenna Anderson is looking forward to the atrocious tripe that makes Eurovision so much fun!

19/05/09 Rowenna Anderson heard a lovely strong baby heartbeat today. :-)

22/05/09 Rowenna Anderson has been feeling the baby moving!

25/05/09 Rowenna Anderson gets to spend tomorrow's day at work playing at the Science Centre. :-D

26/05/09 Rowenna Anderson is so tired she can barely think.

28/05/09 Rowenna Anderson was at her wedding reception four years ago from now.

30/05/09 Rowenna Anderson went shopping for maternity clothes today. She now has trousers for both work and samba, plus a nice skirt, and they are all comfortable round her middle. Hurrah!

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04/06/09 Rowenna Anderson has had a bloody long day at work with repeated fire alarms leading to evacuating the building three times, has not got most of this week's tasks done and will be spending tomorrow trying to look happy about helping at a sports day. Can it be Friday even

10/06/09 Rowenna Anderson wanted to let you know that if any of her Edinburgh friends want to see her playing samba, her band will be in the parade for Prestonpans Gala Day, Saturday 13th at 12-12.30ish.

14/06/09 Rowenna Anderson finally got to see The Princess Bride last night and really liked it. :)

18/06/09 Rowenna Anderson is a bit worried about the numbness and tingling in her lower face and left leg, and is also really nervous about her 20-week scan tomorrow morning.

19/06/09 Rowenna Anderson has a good healthy baby growing in her. :-)

21/06/09 Rowenna Anderson's leg numbness is most likely nothing to worry about. Phew!

25/06/09 Rowenna Anderson wants to smack certain people round the head.

27/06/09 Rowenna Anderson doesn't get to play samba for six weeks. :-(

28/06/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to go shopping this afternoon, and may end up buying a couple of books. What a surprise!

29/06/09 Rowenna Anderson has really bad sciatica but is still looking forward to AC/DC tomorrow.

#####

01/07/09 Rowenna Anderson had a great time at the AC/DC gig but didn't bump into anyone she knew there.

02/07/09 Rowenna Anderson has melted.

05/07/09 Rowenna Anderson got woken up this morning by a massive crash of thumder and torrential rain, so quickly got dressed and went outside to jump up and down in the rain. :-D

09/07/09 Rowenna Anderson has only two more sleeps left until her holiday!

10/07/09 Rowenna Anderson is officially on holiday, although she still has one more sleep before actually leaving. :-)

12/07/09 Rowenna Anderson is in Wales and slso having trouble getting Scrabble to work.

14/07/09 Rowenna Anderson is going fossil-hunting tomorrow.

18/07/09 Rowenna Anderson is all packed, ready to head over to England.

23/07/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to spend tomorrow playing.

24/07/09 Rowenna Anderson is still going to the park, even with the thunderstorms. So there.

25/07/09 Rowenna Anderson has sunburned some delicate parts of her anatomy...

26/07/09 Rowenna Anderson doesn't really want to go home.

27/07/09 Rowenna Anderson really should get on with tidying.

31/07/09 Rowenna Anderson had a worryingly quiet baby for the last couple of days, but it's really making up for it now!

#####

01/08/09 Rowenna Anderson thinks she should get G-Force round to help with the tidying. It might not get done any faster but would be more fun.

06/08/09 Rowenna Anderson thinks that there's a chance of actually getting the spare room cleared before the baby comes along!

08/08/09 Rowenna Anderson is eating a big bowl of fruit salad.

13/08/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to the Doctor Who exhibition tomorrow! :-D

16/08/09 Rowenna Anderson is going into town to watch street performers.

19/08/09 Rowenna Anderson says "Nearly my birthday!" :-D

20/08/09 Rowenna Anderson got to play samba tonight! Yay! :-D

23/08/09 Rowenna Anderson says "Birthday birthday birthday!" :-D

23/08/09 Rowenna Anderson thanks everyone for the birthday greetings. She had a lovely day and is now very full of pizza and cake!

29/08/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to be playing a samba gig at Stenhouse Primary School this afternoon at 2pm, if anyone wants to watch.

30/08/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to see Adam Hills tonight! :-D

31/08/09 Rowenna Anderson saw Adam Hills last night and got a t-shirt signed by him and had a photo taken with him. :-D

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02/09/09 Rowenna Anderson needs to warn people that if she appears to send them a link on MSN completely out of the blue, DON'T CLICK IT! Her MSN has been hijacked.

05/09/09 Rowenna Anderson bought what promises to be a truly terrible film today!

06/09/09 Rowenna Anderson has plans for today that go like this - tidying/dishes, bacon rolls for lunch, shopping for maternity/baby gear, doing the weekly food shop, working on clearing the spare room. Rowenna Anderson is going to be knackered by tonight. Rowenna Anderson will most likely be getting an early night.

07/09/09 Rowenna Anderson was at her first antenatal class today. It was both useful *and* fun. Plus, there was coffee and biscuits. :-)

09/09/09 Rowenna Anderson is watching Warehouse 13 and likes it a lot.

11/09/09 Rowenna Anderson hopes she sells some of her old stock at Saturday's craft fair.

13/09/09 Rowenna Anderson sold a lot of jewellery today. Woohoo! :-D

14/09/09 Rowenna Anderson is being kicked in her innards *really* hard!

18/09/09 Rowenna Anderson is going away for a long weekend with the samba band! Outdoor activities, barbecue, drumming, tie-dyeing and a ceilidh. :-D

22/09/09 Rowenna Anderson had a lot of fun at the weekend, especially the 'Miss Sambalistic' pageant!

24/09/09 Rowenna Anderson thinks that she may actually be carrying a baby hippo. Her midwife agrees...

27/09/09 Rowenna Anderson had a lot of fun at the club last night, and met up with some people she hadn't seen for a year or two. :)

29/09/09 Rowenna Anderson is thinking about last year and what might have been, and feeling a bit sad.

#####

01/10/09 Rowenna Anderson finishes work tomorrow and is feeling rather weird about it. It'll be nice to get a rest and she won't miss the commuting, but she will miss the kids at work.

03/10/09 Rowenna Anderson bought some more baby things today. What a surprise. ;-)

05/10/09 Rowenna Anderson is ill. :-(

06/10/09 Rowenna Anderson is getting her new shed delivered tomorrow! :-D

08/10/09 Rowenna Anderson has her new shed (as yet unassembled). It's kinda sad that I'm excited about this, isn't it?

09/10/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to see Zombieland tonight.

12/10/09 Rowenna Anderson Look at my new shed! :-D

Huge thanks to Colin, Bill, Davron and Tony, who spend their entire Sunday afternoon to build it for me!

13/10/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to assemble shelves today.

17/10/09 Rowenna Anderson saw Surrogates tonight. It was better than she'd been expecting, although a certain tiny someone kicked her really hard for most of the film. (And no, it wasn't Chris!)

24/10/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to play drums tomorrow, but isn't sure she has the energy.

24/10/09 Rowenna Anderson played a small samba gig today and found it absolutely knackering. It's probably a good thing that there aren't any more gigs she'll be doing for a while.

25/10/09 Rowenna Anderson is dyeing her hair and is fed up with the whole process.

28/10/09 Rowenna Anderson had better get on with painting the baby's room...

29/10/09 Rowenna Anderson thinks her pelvis might be disintegrating, judging by how sore it is.

30/10/09 Rowenna Anderson would like to know why the carpet fitter isn't here yet.

30/10/09 Rowenna Anderson has nice new carpet! :-D

30/10/09 Rowenna Anderson is going out to a fancy dinner tonight, courtesy of the council!

31/10/09 Rowenna Anderson isn't doing much for Halloween but is having fun nonetheless.

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02/11/09 Rowenna Anderson thinks the baby may be part aardvark, judging by the apparent size of its feet.

03/11/09 Rowenna Anderson is tired and grumpy and twitchy and nervous. :(

04/11/09 Rowenna Anderson has spent all afternoon cooking meals to freeze. She is now thoroughly fed up with chopping veggies!

06/11/09 Rowenna Anderson is tired of not knowing when things are going to start happening.

06/11/09 Rowenna Anderson just heard that her friend died of lung cancer last night. She doesn't know what to do.

11/11/09 Rowenna Anderson is getting really fed up now!

12/11/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to see the midwife today and is hoping that things will be progressing. *crosses fingers (but not legs)*

13/11/09 Rowenna Anderson is going to tidy the bedroom to take her mind off the fact that the large lump in her middle is showing no signs of moving out anytime soon.

15/11/09 Rowenna Anderson 's little passenger has still not come out, so she is going to the hospital tomorrow for tests and a scan.

27/11/09 Rowenna Anderson says "Happy Thanksgiving, Americans!"

30/11/09 Rowenna Anderson has just spent an hour and a half holding a tube over Zeph's willy, trying to collect a urine sample. None of the baby books tell you about this sort of thing!

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05/12/09 Rowenna Anderson 's baby is currently doing impressions of Tim Westwood in his sleep!

09/12/09 Rowenna Anderson took Zeph for his first visit to Santa today, at the local library. He also now has his own library card.

14/12/09 Rowenna Anderson Zeph's not well. He seems to have really bad trapped wind and is a very unhappy little boy... :-(

20/12/09 Rowenna Anderson and Zeph are back from the hospital after being in there since Monday.

23/12/09 Rowenna Anderson hasn't got her Christmas tree decorated yet and still has presents to buy and packing to do. *sigh*

23/12/09 Rowenna Anderson is knackered from pushing the pram through the snow, and aches in places she didn't know existed. However, she has finished the Christmas shopping and really, she likes being out in the snow.

25/12/09 Rowenna Anderson Merry Christmas!

25/12/09 Rowenna Anderson is having a lovely Christmas. She got great presents, Zeph has been very good and it's still snowy. :-)

27/12/09 Rowenna Anderson Zeph says "Thank you for my presents!"

31/12/09 Rowenna Anderson is watching Better Off Ted and playing online Scrabble. She is a so-called 'party animal'. Really.

Overheard On The Bus 2

2009-10-05T21:02:00.003Z

Jeez, I've been rather remiss in posting lately!

Today the bus seemed to be filled with students. Posh students. Posh English students. This led to me getting to overhear a phone conversation that made me doubt the state of education these days.

Posh Student 1 (on phone) - "Hang on, I'll ask..."
PS 1 - "Anyone know when Burns' Night is?"
PS 2 - "What's that? Do you mean like Bonfire Night?"
PS 1 - "I think it might be November or December, something like that."
PS 3 - "It's for some old Scottish poet, I think. Sounds like the most pointless celebration ever!"
PS 2 - "Huh. I've never heard of him!" *giggles*

Me - *headdesk*

Summer holiday photos - part 2

2009-08-17T19:36:00.002Z

Let's see...

I think this installment will be photos from a lakeside picnic and from the Llanberis Lake Railway, and pictures from our day on the beach.

This is the view from our picnic spot - it's so beautiful there.

The picnickers!

Flora and Matt

Dave

My parents

Huw and Kirsty

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Chris and the little train at the Lake Railway.

We stopped for a while and went down by the lake. Somewhere there's a photo of me in the same tree when I was aged about eight...

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So, we didn't really get any good beach weather. It wasn't quite raining when we got to the beach, but drizzle set in soon afterwards. It definitely wasn't bikini weather!

We just had to half-bury Kirsty. At least her legs would have been warm.

Some of the family playing frisbee.
There weren't many other people on the beach, and by the time we were playing cricket it was raining enough that almost everyone else had (sensibly?) gone home.

By the time this shelter was necessary to keep our belongings dry we headed home too.

The next post will most likely be an assortment of random photos that don't really fit any particular post.

Summer holiday photos - part 1

2009-08-13T23:30:00.004Z

Ok, here we go...

I think this first selection may as well be from the slate mine we visited.

I think this was my favourite part of the museum. In theory, setting up a display of mannequins to show how the slate was worked is a perfectly good idea. In this case, though, I suspect that their budget was severely lacking. See for yourself the style of dummies and clothing which they found to represent these tough Welsh slate workers.

This one has strangely long arms

and I don't think this one is a miner at all. I think he's a Russian spy.

My brother Dave, being a miner.

This sign was in the ladies' toilets, beside an overly complicated water tank/tap system. It's so wonderfully poetic!

While I'm here I'll post photos from Beddgelert as well. It's very touristy, but I guess that's what happens when a place is so picturesque!

I'll put up another photo post in the next day or so.

Other blog

2009-07-03T21:56:00.001Z

I've been keeping a second blog for the last eighteen months or so, about our attempts to start a family. I hadn't posted on it since September, but recently added a couple of posts.
If anyone is interested, you can read it here.

Fun in the snow at midnight

2009-04-06T21:19:00.003Z

One night I was saying to Chris that I was sad that there hadn't really been any proper snow to play in. Later that night we looked out of the window to see that it had been snowing steadily for a while. We decided to go out for a walk - there was nobody else out at all. It felt magical, like the snow was there just for us.

Chris demonstrating the snow.

I love this picture.

My snow angel in the park.

Snow WALL-E

We had a brief game of Snow Scrabble.

Snow crystals

Please ignore my resemblance to a rather strange snowman!

Chris surrounded by 'mysterious orbs'. ;-)

More 'orbs'

We thought that the rats might like to experience snow. We were wrong.

The next day

Oh, and finally, here's my little snow-bear.

There you are, I think that's all of my winter photos.

Union Canal in Winter

2009-04-06T19:59:00.003Z

Enjoy.

Edinburgh's Festive Lights

2009-03-22T22:03:00.002Z

There is an ice rink and other activities in the Gardens too.

This is the German Christmas Market, plus the Scottish Market.

These lighted buildings, and the ferris wheel and other rides are all right in the centre of the city.

I took these photos while riding on the ferris wheel.

I think these lighted trees are beautiful. They also have a menorah in this square.

It's always kind of sad watching the wheel being taken down and packed up.

And once all the stalls etc. are gone...

Facebook status updates 2009

2009-03-04T23:41:00.004Z

Christmas with my family

2009-02-13T22:58:00.003Z

I have a lot of photos waiting to be posted here, thanks to my lack of PC inhibiting my ability to upload the aforementioned photos, so the next few posts will be rather picture-heavy. Ah well.

So, Christmas with my family...

My youngest brother, Huw, finding the only way that a party hat from a Christmas cracker wll fit on his hair.

Granny, not as drunk as she's pretending to be!

Chris (looking cute) and my other brother, Dave.

Nap time!

On Boxing Day we went up to a local country park for a walk. They have this brilliantly mispunctuated sign.

I've used the barbecues there, and didn't see any signs of their other use!

Huw, on a climbing net, possessed by demons.

Having seen a lot of photos of houses that Americans think to be really overdecorated, I thought I'd share with you the level of Christmas lights that get that reaction here. ;-)

Not quite the same, really.

Right, that'll be all for this post. The next one will probably be photos of Edinburgh at Christmas, with the big wheel.

Stories from the bus

2009-02-02T22:12:00.002Z

There are very few good things about my two bus journeys each day. I get time to read the Metro in the morning (if I don't get travel-sick) and I can listen to radio comedy shows on my iPod on my way home, and occasionally I overhear conversations that result in me trying not to be obviously laughing out loud.

Man on phone #1
Man - “You’re kidding me!“
...
Man - “No, you’re really kidding me!“
...
Man - “Oh no, of course I believe you!“

Gran, mum and daughter
Mum (to child) - "Would you sit down!"
Daughter - "Awww..."
Gran (to child) - "You know, we only tell you these things because children need to learn how to behave. After all, grown-ups don't like yelling at children, do they?"
Daughter (thinking a bit) - "Well, not most of 'em..."

Man on phone #2
Man - "Yeah, she was in the... what's it called? Nativity play."
...
Man - "Yeah, you know, there's Mary and... you know, the other one, the bloke, Joseph, that's it!"

Oh and the other night Chris and I were on one of the newer buses in Edinburgh. It has a scrolling sign, much like we have on trains, telling you the eventual destination and the next stop. Apparently it can have only 27 characters/spaces, as it announced 'Next stop: Commonwealth Poo'. Juvenile, possibly, but that didn't stop us laughing for about five minutes. Mind you, the people sitting behind us saw it and found it funny too, so either they're childish too or we're perfectly normal. I shall leave you to make up your own mind.

My bead jewellery

2009-01-25T23:28:00.002Z

Ok, a few people have been asking about the jewellery that I was making and selling before Christmas, so I took some photos at the last event.

The silver shapes, chains, broochpins, earhooks etc. are bought ready-made, but I put them together with beads, wire etc.

These are bracelets that I only began making this year.

A close-up of one of the necklaces in the first picture, to give you a better idea of its construction.

I also have a huge board of earrings - they're quite quick to make and customers like to have a choice of earrings to match a necklace, so I usually make several pairs of earrings to go with any necklace.
I've left this photo this size because the earrings weren't all that visible when the picture was smaller.

So, there you go.
I do enjoy making this sort of jewellery, but I really loved the college course I did in silverwork and miss that kind of work. I'm looking forward to starting my evening class - I really need a refresher in soldering, sawing etc. and then I'll start buying tools to do silver jewellery at home. :)

Facebook Status Updates 2008

2009-01-02T20:04:00.005Z

4/1/2008 Rowenna is sitting at her lovely new computer desk.

11/01/2008 Rowenna is keeping her fingers crossed.

14/01/2008 Rowenna is hoping that the washing machine actually gets fixed today, and that Chris's job trial works out.

14/01/2008 Rowenna is doing the washing now that the machine is fixed, but still has her fingers crossed for Chris.

14/01/2008 Rowenna is enjoying her working washing machine and employed husband.

25/01/2008 Rowenna is still jittery.

29/01/2008 Rowenna is feeling horrible from her migraine.

31/01/2008 Rowenna is glad that her duties at work have changed.

#####

1/02/2008 Rowenna is looking forward to a long weekend.

3/02/2008 Rowenna is not getting as much done as she wanted.

4/02/2008 Rowenna is getting on with things, albeit slowly.

8/02/2008 Rowenna is getting very excited about the party.

10/02/2008 Rowenna is hungover after a very good party.

12/02/2008 Rowenna is trying to stop smoking. Wish me luck...

22/02/2008 Rowenna is glad it's Friday...

28/02/2008 Rowenna is wishing she could get on with the garden.

#####

8/03/2008 Rowenna is wishing she had brushed her teeth better...

15/03/2008 Rowenna is shocked by the price of wood.

17/03/2008 Rowenna is apparently able to concrete in fence posts. Who'd have thought?

23/03/2008 Rowenna is enormously pleased with herself for finishing building a fence.

#####

3/04/2008 Rowenna is hoping that her digestive system has finally finished its rebellion.

6/04/2008 Rowenna is enjoying having guinea pigs.

16/04/2008 Rowenna is very glad that Colin lent her a laptop and retrieved all her files. :).

27/04/2008 Rowenna is sad that the museum is shutting for several years.

#####

4/05/2008 Rowenna is not looking forward to tomorrow's callanetics...

7/05/2008 Rowenna is determined to keep up her exercise plan.

17/05/2008 Rowenna is pleased that her rockeries are coming along well.

20/05/2008 Rowenna is angry wth her stupid tooth for breaking in half...

24/05/2008 Rowenna is overexcited about Eurovision.

27/05/2008 Rowenna is thinking that Latvia woz robbed!

#####

4/06/2008 Rowenna is not liking stopping smoking.

13/06/2008 Rowenna is wanting her neck, back and head to stop hurting.

16/06/2008 Rowenna is glad she bought a bike.

21/06/2008 Rowenna is hoping she stops constantly thinking about smoking.

#####

5/07/2008 Rowenna is a tad embarrassed about crying at Doctor Who.

6/07/2008 Rowenna is a tad embarrassed about crying at Doctor Who, even more so about crying during the Sunday repeat.

10/07/2008 Rowenna is hoping she can sleep tonight.

20/07/2008 Rowenna is excited about going on holiday!

#####

26/09/2008 Rowenna is sitting at home staring at the walls.

27/09/2008 Rowenna wants her baby back.

#####

19/10/2008 Rowenna doesn't want to be back home.

#####

2/11/2008 Rowenna has just ordered 800 holiday photos!

9/11/2008 Rowenna is trying to find a difficult Christmas present.

19/11/2008 Rowenna has a headache.

21/11/2008 Rowenna hopes that certain things might be finally sorting themselves out.

23/11/2008 Rowenna is tired and fed up.

29/11/2008 Rowenna was pleasantly surprised by today's craft fair.

#####

3/12/2008 Rowenna is ordering gifts online.

4/12/2008 Rowenna is wondering if she'll manage samba practice after falling and landing on her hand today...

7/12/2008 Rowenna is really quite drunk.

7/12/2008 Rowenna is less drunk than last night, but more hungover.

9/12/2008 Rowenna is excited about going to the panto with work tomorrow.

9/12/2008 Rowenna was surprised at how good the panto was!

12/12/2008 Rowenna had fun at samba tonight.

12/12/2008 Rowenna is nervous and anxious and doesn't know why.

13/12/2008 Rowenna is in the pub, posting from her phone.

14/12/2008 Rowenna is more drunk than she thought she was.

14/12/2008 Rowenna is hungover (can't imagine how that happened! ;-) ) but had a great time last night.

16/12/2008 Rowenna is trying to get Christmas parcels sent off. Sorry, they're going to be late...

16/12/2008 Rowenna is upset about how few days she gets to spend with Chris over Christmas/New Year.

21/12/2008 Rowenna has most parcels wrapped but almost no cards written.

24/12/2008 Rowenna is at her parents' for Christmas. It's busy here.

25/12/2008 Rowenna hopes everyone has a great Christmas.

27/12/2008 Rowenna has a Wii!

31/12/2008 Rowenna wishes everyone a Happy New Year!

Facebook Status Updates 2007

2009-01-02T18:36:00.003Z

15/9/2007 Rowenna is tired and weird.

17/9/2007 Rowenna is packing boxes.

26/9/2007 Rowenna is grumpy and weird.

28/9/2007 Rowenna is hopefully getting a house!

#####

1/10/2007 Rowenna is not knowing whether she's made the right decision.

2/10/2007 Rowenna is moving house in two weeks.

3/10/2007 Rowenna is moving house in ten days.

4/10/2007 Rowenna is moving house in nine days.

5/10/2007 Rowenna is going to measure up the new house and get the keys tomorrow.

6/10/2007 Rowenna is very happy with her house.

8/10/2007 Rowenna is ridiculously excited.

9/10/2007 Rowenna is panicking about getting everything done in time.

10/10/2007 Rowenna is knackered from painting for about 8 hours.

15/10/2007 Rowenna is already fed up with unpacking boxes.

16/10/2007 Rowenna is hating customer support lines.

16/10/2007 Rowenna is wondering how her books have managed to multiply whilst in boxes...

17/10/2007 Rowenna is getting lost amongst the boxes in the spare room.

20/10/2007 Rowenna is having a quiet night in by herself.

22/10/2007 Rowenna is measuring for shelves.

#####

2/11/2007 Rowenna is feeling crappy because she has a cold.

15/11/2007 Rowenna is trying to sort out a pirate costume.

17/11/2007 Rowenna is overly full of cake.

21/11/2007 Rowenna is wondering if she'll ever get the house sorted.

#####

2/12/2007 Rowenna is happy because she has two baby rats!

11/12/2007 Rowenna is wishing that she didn't have to go to her work Christmas party.

15/12/2007 Rowenna is still wishing that she didn't have to go to her work Christmas party.

19/12/2007 Rowenna is surprised that the work Christmas party wasn't as bad as she expected!

29/12/2007 Rowenna is hoping her cold gets better before Hogmanay.

Mini Photo Post

2008-11-30T22:27:00.002Z

I may not be able to start posting Aussie photos yet (bloody computer...) but I had a few pictures taken on my phone that I thought you might like. They made me laugh, anyway.

This is a price label on a shelf of chocolatey Christmas treats. I suspect that it might be somwhat juvenile of me to still be sniggering at the word 'balls'. Oh well.

I found this very 1970s kitchen appliance in a charity shop. I managed to resist buying it. ;-)

Does it make your food fancy? Is it only for using when preparing an especially posh meal?

Yesterday, at the craft fair, I found these...

This was a leaflet handed round all the stallholders, advertising another event. We wondered if they'd meant to put 'bizarre' instead of 'bazaar' as some sort of joke, but it seems really unlikely.

This sign made me laugh for ages.

I have a lovely mental image of a toddlers' AGM, where it's perfectly normal to hold your breath until you go blue if the committee doesn't agree with you, and that winds up with sippy cups of juice and a nap for all attendees.

I don't have a photo of the last thing I have to share with you today. The local council has been doing various public consultations recently, discussing several proposals about parking, new building permits and so on. They came round the craft fair, handing out questionnaires. Most of the letter was fairly straightforward, until I got to the last question.

Here it is, word for word.
------------------------
4. Linlithgow Palace

Linlithgow Palace is an iconic building. Do you believe it should be

* Left in its current conditon as a glorious ruin

* Be partially re-roofed

* Be restored to as near its original conditon as possible before being ravaged by fire and becoming a building that tells the History of Scotland

------------------------

Now, firstly, I have no idea what the italics are for. What is 'a glorious ruin'? In that context it makes no sense.
The main problem, though, is their lack of understanding that punctuation is their friend. Based on its last sentence, one can only assume that the authorities plan to rebuild the Palace then burn it back down again.

Actually, I'm assuming that that's not what they plan to do. Councils here aren't known for their ability to effectively spent taxpayers' money...

Things I have Learnt This Weekend - 1st & 2nd Nov. '08

2008-11-04T21:32:00.002Z

1) Parsnip and chorizo soup is quite possibly the nicest soup in the world.

2) Apparently Guitar Hero is a lot more difficult than it looks.

3) One cannot work an iPod whilst wearing gloves, however, one can work an iPod with one's nose.

4) People look at you as if you have gone mad if you are listening to BBC Radio 4 comedy shows on the aforementioned iPod, most likely because you are sitting on a bus giggling.

This isn't fair

2008-10-30T23:06:00.002Z

I've only had five months free from the depression and it's back again, much quicker than before, too. Usually I have two or three months of slowly getting worse before I want to be dead.

The day after I was in hospital the anxiety started. It's a horrible feeling. I'm totally panicky about everything, I don't feel that I can do anything or make any decisions. It's paralysing. I'm so scared I feel sick, I'm visibly shaking a lot of the time. I thought that it was just nerves about the holiday, because I hadn't been on any long flights before or something, and I'm terrified of meeting new people. I was wrong.
It carried on for the first few days we were away then seemed to stop. I thought maybe it was because I was relaxing, but then it came back. I felt that I couldn't do anything right. It's so tiring to second, third, fourth, fifth guess yourself on everything you say and do.

Now it's getting even worse. The anxiety is still here, I can't stop crying, I can't sleep, my brain won't stop. I feel like I've let down everyone I know. I keep thinking about cutting myself - I used to, and I remember the feeling of release.

I want everything to stop.

Cut Off

2008-10-28T23:02:00.002Z

I think the depression is coming back.

I feel so disconnected from everyone and everything. The glass wall is back up, cutting me off from everything around me.
Either I am real and everything else isn't, or I'm the illusion - I think that's probably the case.

I don't care about samba. I don't care that it's Halloween soon, and Christmas after that. I have a work night out soon and I don't want to go. I'll just be in everyone's way, stopping them having fun. That's what I do. People always have more fun when I'm not there.

Fun With Macro Settings

2008-09-20T22:47:00.003Z

I was having a lot of fun with my camera while on holiday, especially the macro setting.

A single bulrush at a nature reserve.

A fuchsia bush growing on Granny's garden.

A Small Tortoiseshell butterfly on buddleia.

Some sorts of beetles on a thistly thing.*

*Yes, those are their scientific names. You can trust me, I'm a drummer.

And finally, a hedgehog that was wandering round Granny's garden.

There you go, that's all for now. To make sure you come back, I'm giving you advance notice of my next post - it'll have a photo of me all dressed up for my birthday night out... ;-)

It's been a while...

2008-09-07T21:02:00.004Z

... as someone pointed out to me today, so many apologies, if anyone had actually noticed!

Now that I have a new computer I can upload photos again, so here's a selection from my summer holiday down at my gran's house.

This is Anita, my gran's dog. She was adopted from a rescue centre and had been badly mistreated, so is terrified of everyone.

Tilly, on the other hand, has no concept of being terrified of anyone. She thinks humans only exist to play with her.

She belongs to my aunt, as does Badger, who likes nothing more than to lie on your feet to be stroked.

These are Tiddles (the bigger one) and Clem. They lived with my gran for as long as I can remember. Clem had always had an enormous crush on Tiddles, and spent a lot of time following her around and headbutting her in a bizarre sign of affection.

Tiddles was very old, and had barely been eating for a while. Shortly after we were down there she went to the vet for inpatient treatment, and died in her sleep one night. I'm so glad I got to see her one more time.
Granny doesn't know if she's going to keep Clem now. She's worried that he'll be too lonely on his own, so might have to rehome him.

We spent one day at a wildlife reserve. I really enjoyed playing with the macro setting on my camera, and I'll do a post of those photos another day.
One of the best things there was an army-style assault course. We all had a go, and timed ourselves. I'm just glad I wasn't quite last!
To give you some idea of the sort of obstacles, here's a few pictures of Chris having his turn...

I had great fun doing the course, even if I did get stuck in the cargo net, with one arm trapped up behind my back...

Dave and Huw on the swings.

Finally, our traditional just-before-getting-in-the-car-to-go-home photo.

Back row (l-r) - my dad, Dave (little brother #1), Flora, Alex (a cousin), Huw (little brother #2).
Front row (l-r) - my mum, me, Granny, Matt, Chris.

It won't be as long before the next post, honestly!

Fantasy Dinner Party

2008-06-27T22:11:00.003Z

This evening, Chris asked me who I would invite to my ideal fantasy dinner party. We decided that seven guests would be about right, so I started thinking about it. I think I might have a rather odd selection...

Rosemary Sutcliff

I've been reading her books since I was young, and I think that her stories instilled in me a love of and fascination with history. Her books have a beautiful amount of detail and give you a great snapshot of the period.

David Bowie

He's had so many different personas - I'd like to see who the real Bowie really is. Mind you, it could turn out to be very disappointing - what if he's really dull in real life?

Koko

She's a gorilla, she can communicate. Why would I not want to talk with her?
Anyway, she can probably hold a better conversation than an awful lot of adult humans.

Jane Goodall

I'd love to hear her talk about her research, although she may be heartily sick of discussing it in social situations...
Besides, she might like to meet Koko.

Jesus

I believe there was a man of that name, and I think he did some good things. I don't however believe that he was any sort of supernatural being. I'd like to talk to him to try and find out what was really going on.

Octavian/Augustus

Octavian grew up to become the Emperor Augustus. I don't want to invite his grown-up, emperor-ish self, I want to invite him as a teenager. I'd like to see what kind of boy grows up to wield that kind of power and create an empire.
(Quite a bossy one, I suspect.)

Bill Bailey

Bill Bailey is bloody brilliant! He's one of my absolute favourite comedians with a wonderful streak of surreality. Besides, people might confuse him with Jesus, and that would be funny.

I'd hope that all the guests would get along. The only problem would be my being to shy to talk to any of them!

(This isn't any sort of official blog tag, but if anyone would like to create their own dinner party, I'd love to read about it. :) )

More Freecycle Oddness

2008-06-18T22:45:00.003Z

Here's some funny ones. I can't decide whether number five or six is my favourite. :)

1)
WANTED: PLAYPEN,TRAVEL COT OR DOG CAGE (EH29)
Posted by: "*****_****_********"
Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:21 am (PDT)
hi we are looking for a travel cot, playpen or dog cage asap if anyone
has one of these we would e very grateful
thanks

###########################

2)
OFFER: fireproof jacket
Posted by: "**** ******"
Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:28 am (PDT)
Largish, green jacket. Warm, waterproof, fireproof. Has reflective strips front and back. Good if you work outdoors around combustible things. Or just if you want to look like an oil rig worker.

###########################

3)
OFFER: Barbed wire bum throne with large crack(EH14)
Posted by: "****"
Thu May 1, 2008 7:30 am (PDT)
Bought myself a barbed wire toilet seat, unfortunatly it had to be
replaced as the lid was cracked thus leaving me with nowhere to put my
sandwich when in the bath. The seat itself is fine and dandy, a clever
person may be able to fill and spray the lid so that the jaggy surprise
of embedded barbed wire is concealed. The seat comes with its fittings
and is unused. It may also be suitable for a goth like picture frame or
anybody who needs a template to draw easter eggs. I have to add that
any damage to your crack from the seat crack is your own
responsibility. Sandwich is not included.

(I have no idea what this guy is on!)

###########################

4)
offered; 1 pair cat nail clippers and 1 pair baby nail scissors(eh11
Posted by: "*****"
Sun May 4, 2008 4:28 am (PDT)
Cat nail clippers used a few times but still work great, baby ones
hardly used.
Thank you.

(Ok, so were they using the cat clippers on a baby or the baby clippers on a cat?)

###########################

5)
OFFER: Damaged expresso machine (Stockbridge)
Posted by: "****** *******"
Mon May 19, 2008 1:02 am (PDT)
Tefal expresso machine - the expresso part works fine, but the milk
frother is blocked...by a broken-off wooden toothpick, which turns out
not to be the best thing with which to attempt to clean a milk frother.

###########################

6)
WANTED: bee hive QUICK QUICK OUCH (fort kinnaird)
Posted by: "****.******"
Wed Jun 18, 2008 4:45 am (PDT)
we destroyed a honey bee hive by accident.all the bees are still there
homeless and mad at me.

###########################
###########################

There's also been a couple of rather sad listings (both from the same person).

WANTED URGENT drill to put up picture and shelf EH11
Posted by: "****"
Mon May 5, 2008 11:02 am (PDT)
I NEED A DRILL URGENTLY this week preferably as erm friend coming up to stay and i need to put a shelf up ect make it seem im ok so they don't worry

WANTED: white paint, rollers, brushes, wallpaper, wallpaper glue (eh
Posted by: "****"
Mon May 5, 2008 11:07 am (PDT)

i need any of the above so i can fool my friend into thinking im ok, her benifit really i dont want her worrying about me she cant help me anyway... so shel just end up feeling bad

Doctor Who Trailer Maker...

2008-06-17T22:24:00.002Z

...possibly the most fun you can have on your own!

Here's mine - enjoy!

Edit: Dammit, I don't think most of you can see this. Bugger.

Bleah

2008-06-13T09:41:00.003Z

Well, I've been feeling thoroughly horrible for the last two weeks now.
First I started a nasty cold (which I also gave to Chris and my dad). Combined with quitting smoking, I have a revolting cough that gives me a terrible headache.
I've pulled a muscle in my back, which is going to be fun, considering that I have two samba gigs in the next four days, and I now appear to have some sort of stomach upset too.
Somebody shoot me, please?

Role models

2008-05-17T21:26:00.002Z

Y'know, sometimes I really don't know what to think of teenagers.
I can't remember who I most admired when I was younger, but my favourite authors and people like Neil Armstrong were high on my list.

I recently read about this survey. Apparently, for under 25s the most admired woman is Amy Winehouse, and second most admired man is Pete Docherty.

For those of you lucky enough not to know of them, this is Amy Winehouse.
She is admittedly a very good singer, but is far better known for being a junkie. Lately, almost every news article about her is discussing her latest unfortunate relationship, or falling drunkenly down the street, or new photos of her takng drugs.

Pete Docherty is a singer and musician who is also best known for being an addict. He has been frequently arrested for various drug and driving offences, but bizarrely has been let off with almost no punishment, until last month when he finally served a few weeks in jail.

Why on earth are these people so admired by teenagers?
Is it just because they're famous?
Is it because their behaviour makes them seem edgy and exciting?

It isn't just this - just look at the obsession with appearing on Pop Idol, X-Factor, Britain's Got Talent et al.
Oh, and speaking of the last, Britain apparently does not have talent.
(I accidentally watched some of tonight's show...)

Kids seem to be willing to miss classes, exams and so on just for the chance to be mocked by a 'celebrity' judge in the vain hope that they'll get their fifteen minutes of fame before tumbling back to obscurity. According to the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, many of their pupils' greatest ambition is to be a singer or actress, and some just want to be a WAG (footballer's wife or girlfriend).
What happened to wanting respect and recognition for their own talents?

There seems to be an ever-increasing idea that anything that doesn't lead to fame isn't worth pursuing.

Random Moodiness

2008-04-29T18:55:00.002Z

Well, I've been feeling pretty down for the last little while. I don't really know why, though. I've had no energy or motivation.
The house is a tip - the spare room is still full of boxes from the move. I can't seem to keep on top of everyday tidying and cleaning either.

I'm also very unhappy with my weight. Every year I decide that I'll be slimmer by the summer, and I'm always still fat and uncomfortable. I don't know why I can't just get off my flabby arse and do something about it.

I don't feel like a proper person. Everyone else can manage.

*sigh*

Anyway, in case anyone else is feeling down, here's some signs etc. that amused me.

Before you ask, no, it wasn't me who crossed out the incorrect apostrophe. Boo says it wasn't her either. ;-)

This is a price label in Ikea. It's for a sort of massage brush, and, in case you can't read the sign, it's called 'Knobber'. (Possibly funnier for Brits...)

(Also in Ikea)

Really? Milk that tastes like... milk? Being in Ikea, I thought it would taste like woodchip, but apparently not.

Oh, and finally this one...

Awww... Who's got a little noblet then? Yes, you have!

WTF?

2008-04-20T22:16:00.002Z

I was watching The Graham Norton Show tonight and Kevin Bacon was a guest. He said that while Googling himself he found a Youtube video made by a fan who turned out to be just a tad obsessive.
Of course I had to look it up...

Freecycle

2008-04-07T22:54:00.003Z

For your amusement, here's three of the best Freecycle ads I've seen since I joined.
The last one is my favourite, mainly due to the air of desperation in the heading...

OFFERED: 15" kinda rubbish flatscreen monitor (LEITH)Tuesday, 11 March, 2008 10:53 PM
From: "*********"
I've got a 15" (so pretty small) flatscreen monitor up for grabs, but as stated above its not
that good, the resolution is fairly pathetic unfortunately ! Probably good for something like a
kids computer or summat...oh and recipient must collect as I've no easy transport !

#################################################################################

OFFERED: FAULTY MOBILE PHONE (London Rd)Thursday, 6 March, 2008 11:05 PM
From: "************"
phone with faulty joystick and tendency to switch off by itself.

#################################################################################

Wanted: shed/robust tent/man & umbrella in garden 24/7(southside/edin
Posted by: "********"
Mon Apr 7, 2008 1:02 am (PDT)
I have been looking for some sort of garden storage, shed, etc. for so
long now I'm dreaming of it! I'm even thinking of putting up a tent
in the garden to keep all the kids bikes, toys, plant pots dry ...
Please help a woman who is going slightly deranged dreaming of sheds
and tents!

Book Tag

2008-03-30T12:35:00.002Z

Ok, Carlotta. Here we go.

1) The nearest book to me is Torchwood - Border Princes by Dan Abnett.

2) Page 123, third sentence is...

'After what's happened today, I want to share that secret with you.'

3) Next five sentences...

'I believe it's only fair.
"Need to know?" Gwen asked.
Jack nodded."Exactly that. Today has shown me I'm not omniscient."
"I could have told you that." muttered Owen. "And if I'd had to, that would have proved the point, kind of, wouldn't it?"
Jack refused to be baited.

I tag Nettie, Smerk, Shawna, Tru and Thundy. Sorry, ladies! ;-)

More Lolrats

2008-03-22T21:04:00.003Z

As you can see, the boys have been their usual troublesome selves lately.

Julius roams the whole room, scrambling up and down the furniture. He likes to steal things and run away with them, usually food-type things but often stuff like pens and cigarettes too.
He outdid himself yesterday, while trying to jump from the top of the fireplace to the dining table. He slipped, and ended up sliding down the table leg like a fireman, head first. He's such an idiot sometimes!

Cicero still doesn't jump down to the floor, probably because he has what we think are cataracts in one eye - he seems to be completely blind on that side. We assume that he's too scared to jump down because he can't tell how far it is. He likes to sit snuggled on people's shoulders, and particularly likes sleeping tucked under the computer monitor, where it's warm.

On the whole, they're good boys, and I love when I come in from work and they're jumping up at the bars to say hello.

Dinosaurs Have Been Fighting In My Garden

2008-03-10T20:49:00.002Z

Well, maybe not, but that's rather how it looks at the moment. Our friend Iain is a landscape gardener, and when we moved in he promised to help us sort the garden. On Sunday, he and his brother Al came round to start work on the garden. The plan was to take up the broken slabs from the area that we're keeping slabbed, and to replace them with undamaged ones.
Now, you'd think that the old slabs would be laid on a firm base of gravel or suchlike, but not here. The people who had this place before us were the laziest load of bastards on Earth! There's slabs, gravel, plastic, more slabs, wonky ground...
I think that the layers keep going down, eventually becoming the roof of a Morlock village. Either that or it has to be a strong enough layer to stop the demons getting out.
On the other hand, Flora thinks that eventually one of the layers just has to be gold, or that the weight of all those slabs will have created diamonds.

The end of the garden currently looks like this...

We're going to build a fence across the bottom of the garden (with help from another friend or two) next weekend, so we need to leave space to dig the postholes. That means that we can't relay the slabs yet, so Al and Iain are going to come back in a couple of weeks.

I decided to move some of the gravel to make an area where we could dump the broken bits of slab, and jokingly said, "You know, if I find slabs under the gravel too, I'm going to be hunting whoever did it!". I started digging, stopped, and called "You're not going to bloody believe this..."
There's gravel, plastic, slabs, then goodness knows what else under there.
We're gonna need a bigger skip...

Knowing how much Flora likes sharp things, I (possibly foolishly) gave her a pair of secateurs and asked her to start demolishing the dead evergreen, since we were planning on taking out all three of them anyway.
She set to it with glee.

Chris posing with the 'topiary'.

It was fun to do, as you can tell by the two grinning loons here...

We were on such a roll that we decided to carry on and take out the second of the trees in the gravel...

and the third one...

The garden looks so much bigger without those trees.

Oh, and we found these caterpillars. I have no idea what they'll turn into.

Finally, in surprise news, Flora barely managed to injure herself at all, although she did nearly take my eye out by waving an uprooted tree about...

Garden Plans

2008-03-02T14:20:00.003Z

Ok, anyone who has no interest in gardens, look away now...
Now I've got my new camera (Yay! :-D) I've taken photos of the garden as it currently is. I've also done a couple of diagrams in Paint to try and explain my plans.
So, the front garden.

This is it seen from the pavement.

This is the front of the lawn. You can see the lovely rockery edging which we discovered when the grass died down in the winter. (And the line of rocks that runs across the lawn at the point where the height changes a bit.)

We're keeping the little conifers round the lawn.

I'm not completely sure what to do with this bed. I'll keep the cotoneaster that's already there, and I think that a fairly big shrub might be good just inside the gate, to conceal the diagonal fence supports.

Right, so here's my plans for it.

I want to put miniature rose bushes between the trees along the wall, crocuses on the lawn just above the rockery edging, and quite flat plants between the rest of the trees. I'm thinking forget-me-nots and primroses, but I don't know what else.

Under the window, I was considering planting tulips and irises against the wall, and something smaller in front of them.

Right, the back garden.

As you can see, it's in a bit of a state. Fortunately, a friend of ours is good at building fences and is going to help us with that, and another friend is a landscape gardener who volunteered to help with relaying slabs and so on.

Here's my plan for the back.

We're keeping the two palm-type trees but taking out the three big evergreens. At least one of them is fairly dead already. It was somewhat like that when we moved in, but I don't think having an excited, half-dressed two-year-old climbing in it helped...
The bed at the top of the plan is going to be somewhat Oriental. I want to plant dwarf bamboo, ferns, sea holly, plants that have a restful sort of feel.
The rockery is going to have a Scottish Highlands sort of feel. I want to plant heathers and a miniature broom, but I'm not sure what else. I'm going to plant a rowan tree next to it, and the bulged-out bed next to that is going to be sown with meadow seed mix, with maybe some extra meadowy flowers such as poppies and cornflowers. The idea is to make a peaceful wild little corner. I'll plant bulbs in the grass round the rowan too.
I think the rest of the lower flowerbed will be bigger, brighter things. Since we're keeping the palms, I think it would be nice to have some colourful things in that bed, such as fuschias and freesias, and other things that I haven't thought about yet.

On the decking, we're putting trellis on the fence, and planting climbers in troughs underneath. We're also thinking about putting baskets screwed to the wall, as it can get so windy that hanging baskets probably wouldn't be hanging for long! Chris really wants a zen garden - one of the things with sand and stones to arrange. I said I'd build one for him, so that's going to sit on the decking next to the oriental-style bed.

Now that I have a camera again, there's going to be plenty of photos of the (hopeful) progress. :)

I Has New Camera!

2008-03-02T13:17:00.000Z

The title of the post says it all, really. I'm a very happy bunny.

Tasks for this weekend

2008-02-02T01:32:00.000Z

Right, we've decided to have the housewarming party a week on Saturday. I'm now having a minor panic because the house is nowhere near viewable yet. The spare room is still so full of boxes that you can't shut the door, which is even more of a problem because one friend has asked to sleep over on our spare mattress, and currently there's not enough floor for it.
My only hope is that I had two days holiday to use up by the end of this month, so I have next Monday and Friday off to get things done.

So, the list of things that need to be done...

1) Assemble new seat/storage thingy
2) Sand dining table
3) Varnish dining table (at least three coats)
4) Scrub paint off floor
5) Shelve all of the books that litter every surface
6) Unpack some more of the boxes of books, now that we have another bookcase
7) Unpack and set out some of the ornaments, etc. that we were given as wedding presents, especially as a lot of them were given by people who will be coming to the party...
8) Finish sorting the bedroom, do several loads of laundry
9) Dust
10) Put the escapee Christmas decorations in the loft
11) File all the paperwork that's lying around
12) Buy party food
13) Find homes for all the odds and ends that are sitting around

*sigh* We'll see how it goes.

Pissed off with work

2008-01-23T01:14:00.000Z

I'm getting really sick of my job. I'm a nursery nurse. My job is to care for and educate small children. Recently, it seems that more and more of my day is spent doing other things. The amount of paperwork we're supposed to fill in is increasing by the day, and I don't think a lot of it is necessary. The latest thing is to work out a way for the children to assess their own strengths and weaknesses - these kids are three and four years old, for goodness' sake!

We plan the daily activities, which is fine, but then there's several different forms etc. to fill in, assessing how the activities went. If something worked well then we have to fill in a sheet describing what went well, and also a 'next steps' sheet, to say how we're going to follow up the activity, We also have to fill in a sheet for any children who need more of a similar activity to improve, and for those children who found it too easy. Then there'd be another sheet to say what we actually did to follow up. If a child expresses interest in something, there's even more of these forms.
As well as all this, we have a file for each child, where we keep dozens of observations on each child, plus carefully selected pieces of their artwork etc. for using when we make the profile that will be sent to the school which they are due to attend.
Oh, and unlike every other year, now we're not even allowed to write the profiles for our key group - only the teacher is deemed suitable to do this.

The boss has decided that we have too many staff in our room for the number of children (there's a minimum ratio) so if anyone is off ill or on holiday nobody is called in to cover them. The thing is, that 'too many staff' only applies when all of us are in the room at the same time. It takes no account of teabreaks, or doing the dishes, or getting all the extra paperwork done, or all the times that our room leader is called out to meetings, or 101 other things.

I'm getting so fucked off with the whole job now. It just doesn't seem worthwhile my being there if I can't actually do the job for which I was employed. I often don't feel like I'm doing the best for the children in my care.

On a slightly lighter note, there is the odd thing that makes me remember why I wanted to be a nursery nurse in the first place. for instance, today some of the kids were talking about what they want to be when they grow up. One of the younger ones said, very definitely, 'I want to be a sheep'...

Funny stuff

2008-01-21T22:41:00.000Z

I thought I'd post a couple of things that make me laugh, in case anyone needs cheering up.
This is the back of a DVD about fishing, that was being sold for 97p (US = $1.90, Aus. = $2.13) in a local supermarket.
It's all very innocent, but it sounds so porny it made my dad think it was worth showing me!

(Plus, that's one of the best names ever!)

I'm rereading The White Road by John Connolly, and found the bit that always makes me giggle, which is a bit embarrassing when I'm on a bus or train.

'Young men and women cruised up and down Broad, rap and nu-metal grinding out insistent, competing beats. Fred Durst, record company vice president, proud father, and multimillionaire, was telling the kids how their parents just didn't understand his generation. There's nothing sadder than a thirty-year-old man in short pants rebelling against his mom and dad.'

For anyone who doesn't know, this is Fred Durst.

Hope you enjoyed them. :)

Neo's challenge

2008-01-18T22:55:00.000Z

Ok, this post in response to Neo might take me a while to write. Here goes (in no particular order)...

1) Have children and raise them properly
2) See a platypus in real life
3) Stop pulling my hair out
4) Write a children's book
5) Pay off my credit cards
6) Make and sell silver jewellery
7) Stop smoking
8) Exercise
9) Take up archery
10) Get a large remote-control Dalek
11) Redo the entire garden
12) Visit other countries
13) Get the house sorted out
14) Meet some more of my online friends
15) Learn how to do more things with my computer
16) Figure out how to keep plants without them dying (current count: dead - lots, alive - 3, not sure - 2)
17) Skydive
18) Walk along Hadrian's Wall
19) Make a mosaic
20) Make a family tree for my mother's side of the family
21) Learn to fight with a quarterstaff
22) Write samba music and teach it to the band
23) Become more confident
24) Find a way to stop my depression coming back
25) Learn Latin
26) Stop hoarding junk
27) Moisturise more often
28) Have a pet lizard
29) See my friends more often
30) Keep up a good sex life
31) Lunge wildly at the Pope ;-)

I'm glad I'm only 31 - this was difficult enough as it was!

Christmas presents

2008-01-12T23:13:00.000Z

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I might as well tell you what I got for Christmas.

This isn't a complete list, so I don't want anybody feeling slighted that I didn't mention their gift!

I got these sets of Playmobil. Yes, I know that it's meant for kids, but I've always loved Playmobil and still collect it. Also, being very interested in Romans, you can imagine how excited I was to find out about the new Roman sets...

We got a set of place mats and coasters, for using on our new dining table, that have photos of pebbles on them - they're really nice.

Chris got me a Pirates of the Carribbean 3 DVD, the QI Annual, and this game for my DS. :)

My parents also gave me a Buffy board game. We tried playing it, and once we sorted out all the confusing parts it was quite good fun.

Colin gave me the sonic screwdriver and psychic paper set, and yes, I did have it by my side while watching the Doctor Who Christmas Special!

I love my Haiku Fridge Poetry set, and I also love the rat-shaped handbag and the hot water bottle with a piratey-knitted cover. :)

Nettie sent me the Pirateology calendar, and Tru sent me a cuddly armadillo. Thanks, you two!

However, by far the most original present I got was the set of laminated Bill Bailey jewellery, made by my imaginative and 'special' sister!

Unpreparedness

2007-12-15T01:08:00.001Z

I don't really have much to say, but I felt like writing a post so here you go.

Christmas seems to have suddenly jumped out at me, leaving me somewhat unprepared.

Things I Have Done

1) Done most of my present-buying
2) Decorated the tree
3) Opened fourteen windows on my Doctor Who advent calendar

Things I Haven't Done

1) Written Christmas cards for people at work
2) Written or sent cards to other people to whom I really should
3) Made cards for family (not necessary, I know, but I like doing it)
4) Finished buying presents
5) Finished decorating the house
6) Figured out what I'm going to bake for Christmas
7) Bought wrapping paper or gift tags
8) Sent off presents for people overseas (sorry...)
9) Made my mum's birthday present, even though her birthday is next Thursday
10) Probably lots of other things..

Oh, buggrit.

Rats!

2007-12-07T22:56:00.000Z

Since Jonas died, it's been too quiet in the house, not having the little scurrying noises. We mentioned to a friend that we were hoping to get new rats once we were settled in, and he said that he had been breeding his rats, had a litter of new babies and would keep us two little boys. Last week he called us to say that they were old enough to come and live with us, so Chris went to pick them up last Sunday.

They're so cute! I'd forgotten how sweet baby rats are, with their little pointy faces. :)

They're quite a bit smaller than they look here, only about the length of my hand, not including tail.

We spent a couple of days trying to work out what to call them, seeing what their personalities were like. I've been reading a lot of novels about Romans recently, which I suspect influenced my ideas for names...

The brown one likes exploring new territories, so he's Julius Caesar.
The white one prefers to find somewhere comfortable to sit and think, so he's Cicero.

Here's Cicero sitting on Chris's head, the first night we had them.

I love our rats.

Settling In Update

2007-10-23T22:41:00.001Z

So far things are starting to work out. As of yesterday, we have the central heating working, so the house is lovely and warm, and we have hot running water - two things I really missed in the five years I lived in the flat.
I've got all of my fiction books unpacked and in the bookcases. Somehow they seem to have managed to breed while in the boxes, since I had trouble fitting them all on the shelves, despite having bought another bookcase...
Some of the ornaments are unpacked too, which makes the place look like home. Following the whole washing machine saga, they're coming to fit a replacement on Friday, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one actually working.
My dad was round tonight, getting started on building a set of shelves that will take my stereo, reference books, videos and DVDs. Hopefully he'll finish that on Thursday, so I can get a lot more boxes emptied on Friday evening. My mum also shortened all the curtains, so most of them are hung now too. Thanks, both of you. :-)
On Sunday we should be going to buy a little dining table and chairs, which we have to get assembled before both of my grandmothers come round for dinner next Tuesday night.

Finally, it's Chris's birthday today. Happy birthday, sweetie. I love you. XXX

We're In!

2007-10-15T18:09:00.000Z

The moving day went pretty much as planned - we had most of the army that we'd assembled, and enough vehicles. We were down at the house until 1 am on Friday night, trying to get the last bits and bobs done, and didn't really get much sleep that night.
I hadn't realised how much crap we'd managed to accumulate until we had to actually move it all! Mind you, when I was unpacking all the kitchen stuff today, I came acros things that Chris had had before we got together - old appliances that don't work and an entire box of mugs and glasses that had been wrapped up and put away at the back of a cupboard.
I've got the kitchen mostly sorted out now, though, which is a good thing - we're getting our new washing machine installed tomorrow and I don't think that the plumber would be very happy to find the place still full of boxes and bags...

The decorating is all done, although we haven't got the curtains up yet. The ones for the bedroom need to be shortened, and we have only one set for the living room, as when I went to buy the new ones I bought one pair, forgetting that we have a window at each end of the living room. Of course, that particular colour is now out of stock so we'll have to wait until the weekend to get the other pair. I know, I'm a bit of an idiot!

Decorating Delights

2007-10-10T10:23:00.000Z

Y'know, I'm starting to realise why so many of you say you hate decorating...

We started on Friday night, and we're still only halfway there. So far, the bedroom and the living room are finished, except for varnishing the skirting boards. The kitchen still needs another coat of paint on the walls and the ceiling, and I still have to paint the melamine cupboard and drawer fronts.
We haven't even started on the bathroom yet - I didn't get any 'before' pictures of it, but at the moment the tiles round the bottom half of the room are pink marbled ones, then there's a border of narrow tiles that patterned in pink too, but not a shade that goes with the lower ones... The upper tiles are white, but with the occasional one that has a Greek statue in a floral wreath. It's bloody hideous!
We've spent half of the last few days trying to get our electricity connected, since there's problems with the meter due to the last tenants leaving it in debt, so we've been painting by the light of battery lanterns, which doesn't make it any easier. Chris is down at the house at the moment, hopefully being met by someone who's going to get it sorted out. *crosses fingers*
I'm going down there now, and with any luck we'll have the painting finished today. Chris is going to spend the next two days packing while I'm at work, and on Friday we'll put up the curtain rails and assemble the new furniture we bought at the weekend. Saturday is the big day. I just hope everything will be done by then.

Wish us luck, we're going to need it!

We got a house!

2007-10-06T19:06:00.000Z

First things first, the antidepressants are really starting to kick in now. I woke up this morning feeling excited, happy and content, which was lovely. I also had a glimmer of excitement about Christmas. There's a long way to go yet, but I think I'm getting there.

So, the really exciting bit! They offered us the second of the houses we didn't think we were getting. It's a proper house, with a garden.

It's got a little lawn at the front, and a really big garden at the back. It's all slabbed at the moment, but I've got far better ideas about what to do with it...

This is the back of the house from the garden.

This is the garden seen from just outside the back door.

Here's the living room. The first photo is looking towards the front of the room, and the second towards the back.

We don't need to do much to the living room, other than painting it. We're going to put in some shelves too, for the stereo, our videos and my reference library...

The kitchen leads off the living room. It really needs decorating- dark coral is most definitely not my thing!
It's got lots of storage room, though, and space for a washing machine. *gets overexcited*

Since our stove is green, we're going to do the kitchen light green, with the cupboard fronts a slightly darker shade.

The house has two bedrooms, one bigger than the other. This is the larger room, that's going to be where we sleep. It's currently painted cream on the top half and bright red below, with a little stripe of green where the dado rail used to be. We spent today putting up lining paper since otherwise the red will show through the mid-purple we're going to paint it.

Tomorrow we're going to buy the paint and get the bedroom finished, then start on the living room. Did I mention how excited I am? ;-)

Not much news, really...

2007-09-21T21:00:00.000Z

... but I thought people might like an update.
I'm not sure if the antidepressants are having much effect yet. When I started them I had a few days of assorted unpleasant side effects - severe nausea on the Saturday, panic attacks and claustrophobia on the Sunday, and extreme jitteriness for the first half of the week. Fortunately, that's all gone now. I don't feel noticeably better, although I've been finding that I have more energy in the evenings. I'm going back to see the doctor on Monday, for him to check how I'm doing.

As far as house-hunting goes, we've applied for two nice houses so far, and been turned down for both of them. We've put in for another one, but we're not holding our breath.
We think that, when we do get accepted for one, we'll be very busy with cleaning and decorating the new place. So, considering that, we've been doing a lot of packing this week - obviously not things likie clothes, toiletries and kitchen stuff, but we've got most of our videos, DVDs, CDs, board games and comics boxed, as well as my jewellery-making supplies and a lot of ornaments.
The trouble is, the more packing we do, the less this place feels like home and the more weird I feel about it.

I'll let you know if we hear any more about a house.

Something that made me smile

2007-09-10T20:04:00.000Z

Whilst wandering aimlessly through YouTube, I came across this video. It made me smile, and I really needed that today. I thought I'd share it with you.

(Green Day/Oasis/Travis/Aerosmith/Eminem)

Brain update

2007-09-07T19:22:00.000Z

Well, I finally went to see the doctor today. I was really worried that I wouldn't be able to explain just how bad I've been feeling. As it was, I got one sentence out and burst into tears.
My doctor was really nice and helpful. He gave me a little questionnaire to fill out, and then added up my scores - I have high levels of anxiety and depression (I kinda figured that out already...). Since the antidepressant I took a few years ago worked very well, we decided that I'll go back on that. It'll take at least a couple of weeks for me to start feeling any benefits, and I'm to go back to see him then to check how it's doing. I'm also to go back immediately if I have any thoughts about harming myself.
I have a pile of printouts to read as well, mostly about techniques to cope with the depression and to help calm the anxiety.
I start taking the pills tonight - possible side effects for the first few days include sleeping problems, headaches, nausea and anxiety, but I have all those already, so I shouldn't think I'll notice any additional effects.

I just want my brain working again.

My brain doesn't work

2007-08-28T22:37:00.000Z

I thought a lot about whether to write this post. I don't talk to many people about my feelings and my fears.
However, I came to the conclusion that maybe talking about this might help. To be honest, I don't think that it could make me feel any worse.

I've been treated for depression a couple of times in the past, and I think it's time I went back to the doctor. I've been having ups and downs over the last eighteen months or so, but I've got to the point where I can't carry on like this.
I feel like I'm drowning.

I'm terrified about the future - I've got to the point where I don't think that things are ever going to get any better, that I'm never going to have the life I want. I just want a nice house and the chance to have children, but I don't see it happening.
We have to move house soon, and the thought of choosing a new flat and actually packing everything up is paralysing.

I feel anxious all the time. There's nothing in particular at work to cause worry, but I'm on edge the whole time I'm there. I'm not sleeping, I have nightmares, I have headaches almost all the time. I enjoy very few things, I can't look forward to anything - I really didn't care that it was my birthday last week, I couldn't get excited about Christmas last year.

I've spent very little time with friends recently. I think that they're going to see the me that I see, the me who can't understand how other people think or be most of the time. It feels like I'm watching people through a big sheet of glass. Every time I meet up with my friends, I'm expecting that they're not going to like me any more, mainly because I don't like me.

I feel so fucking stupid and self-indulgent writing this, but what the hell. Like I said, I couldn't feel much worse.

Overheard On The Bus

2007-08-18T20:50:00.000Z

The following is a conversation between a couple of teenagers on the bus, overheard by Chris...

Teenager 1: He's a total grass!
Teenager 2: Yeah.
1: But I'm not a grass, and they tried to get me to be a grass.
2: Uh-huh.
1: But I wasnae havin' it. There's no way I'm gonna squeal like a canary!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

Translation (for the foreigners)
Grass - informer, especially to police
Wasnae - wasn't

Finally, My Holiday Photos!

2007-08-07T20:56:00.000Z

At long last, here for your viewing pleasure is a selection of photos from my holiday in Wales last month.
They're not in any particular order, mainly because I can't remember on what days we went where...
So, here we go -

This is Criccieth, the town where we stayed,

and here's my parents sitting outside the house we rented.

There's a fairly well-known shop there that sells kitchenware, and I was delighted to see their window display. Obviously, the thing that goes best with spatulas and colanders is a Dalek!

And, to keep it company, a Cyberman hosting a barbecue...

The weather was pretty horrible for most of the fortnight, as you can tell by this picture

but we still found plenty of places to visit.
We went to a lot of our favourite castles, etc. Here's some photos from Harlech Castle, just down the coast from where we were staying.

This is the castle itself.

I found these in one of the rooms, which I've decided are a collection of dragon eggs. Unfortunately they didn't hatch when we were there; maybe they need Smerk to incubate them...

My youngest brother Huw looking surprised

and Chris looking cute!

Me being happy exploring the castle.

Oh, and The Fringed Avenger!

I love wandering on beaches, finding shells and other interesting things. There were a lot of jellyfish around this year, probably because of all the recent storms. I saw some types I recognised, and a couple I didn't, including this one.
(Chris stood next to it to give an idea of size.)

I really liked its iridescent shimmer.

I also found this on a beach. Well, I didn't really find him. He was there all the time.
This is my older younger brother, David.

On one particularly rainy day we went to Llanberis, where there are old slate mines. This is a little lake in (I think) old mine workings. The water really is that colour.

This is a brief glimpse of Snowdon that we saw from the car when driving through the mountains

and this is a collection of stalactites growing inside Sygun Copper Mine. Chris, Huw and I went on a tour through the mine on one of the rainiest days we had. It was fun, especially with the water streaming into the mine...

The mine only became disused about 100 years ago, so the stalactites have grown since then.

The middle weekend of the holiday had better weather. We went to Shell Island, and found a samba band performing there. It's always good to meet other drummers and hear different styles being played. I went to talk to them afterwards, and hopefully if they come up here sometime our bands can play together.

We went to Beaumaris Castle for a 14th century re-enactment event.

This is the castle,

here's a shot of the battle performance,

and here's Huw, Boo and Matt watching.

On another nice day, I went for a walk up by a series of waterfalls in the woods. It was lovely up there, very peaceful.
This is part of the biggest waterfall.

We saw a lot of ants on the path at one point. My mum was saying 'I wonder where their nest is?' when I saw this right behind her...

The nest is about four feet high!

Ok, a few odds and ends to finish up with.

On Anglesey there are a lot of ancient ruins, burial mounds etc. We walked up to see one of the villages, which, as far as I can remember, dates back to pre-Roman times.
I like this photo of Chris and my dad.

Being a long-term 'Buffy' fan, I just had to get this picture!

I got a new tattoo while we were away, from the same shop where I got my last two (on our previous two holidays in Wales).
Obviously the seahorse is the new one.

Finally, as you may have heard, we made another horror film while we were away. The shambles that was our previous attempt made us realise that one needs a storyboard when making a film, to avoid the horrendous continuity errors. We did that this time, but now we also know that we need 1) a script, since we've discovered that none of us can adlib lines, and 2) a shooting schedule. We spent the whole first week talking about making the film, and ended up filming it late at night for the last five days of the holiday, finally wrapping at about 4am on the last night.
We had to be up early the next day to get our stuff loaded and clean the house before leaving, so this is how we looked that morning...

The film should be ready for posting sometime soon. I asked David how the editing was going, and if there were any terrible continuity errors this time. He said, "No, the continuity's fine. There's only one huge problem - the quality of the acting..." What can I say - there's a reason that none of us are professional actors.
Oh, by the way, even with all the time we spent filming, the new film is still going to be only about 12 minutes long - at the present rate of progress, we might manage a full-length film in about 30 years...

Pinged by a Ferocious Nettie!

2007-07-30T19:33:00.000Z

Right, since Nettie so kindly(!) pinged me on her blog, I thought I'd better try to compose a list..

This is proving more difficult than I'd thought it would be. Up until my early twenties my list of friends numbered exactly zero, and I think it's because of this that I've always considered my belongings to be so important to me. I'm a hoarder, I find it very hard to throw (or give) things away.
My possessions have always made me feel safe, stopped me from feeling that I need other people, reinforced my sense of identity. This might sound stupid to some people, but believe me, that was about the only thing that kept me sane-ish.

So, the things that are most important to me...

1) My cuddly panda. Granny and Grandad gave him to me when I was a few weeks old, and he's always been my favourite soft toy. I cuddled him in bed almost every night, which is why he's so threadbare, stained and squashed.

2) My wedding and engagement rings. I know, they're a rather obvious choice, but I spent so long thinking that no-one was ever going to want to marry me, or even manage to put up with me. I'm so glad that I met Chris, and I love having that reminder of him with me all the time.

3) My photographs. Pictures of people and places I love. If I'm feeling down, looking through old photos usually makes me feel better.

4) My wedding album. Mostly for a combination of reasons 2 and 3.

5) My contact lenses. This choice might seem weird, but my sight is awful!
I really don't like wearing my glasses. They're not too bad when I'm indoors, but when I'm outside there's a horrible amount of distortion at the edge of my field of view. It looks like the ground around me is undulating and makes me feel thoroughly sick. Add that to not being able to see properly in the rain, the glasses steaming up when going from outside to inside in the winter and when cooking, and that every light source at which I'm not directly looking has half a rainbow at one side and the other half at the other side, and you can see why I love my lenses!

There's a lot of other things I could include, but for the sake of brevity I'll stop there.

Now, other people to tag. Almost everyone I can think of has already been bagsied!
Ok, if no-one else got there first, I'll say...

LaMa and Thundy!

Jonas

2007-06-12T20:03:00.000Z

On Saturday night, Jonas was a bit quiet, and by Sunday evening he was obviously ill. Chris took him to the vet on Monday. They said he had an infection and was very dehydrated, and that they would keep him in overnight for treatment. This morning we phoned them to be told that he'd got a lot worse.
We hurried down to the surgery to see him, and he looked awful - so ill and miserable. We knew that euthanasia was the only kind option for him. The vet left us alone for a while to cuddle him and say goodbye, then they took him away to put him to sleep. We were both crying.

We've had him since March last year. When he was a baby he would spend ages snuggling up on the back of my neck. He once fell asleep there and was so relaxed that he fell right off. He was a playful and affectionate rat, and we loved him.

It's too quiet here now.

Here you go, Nettie

2007-06-08T22:15:00.000Z

I just realised that it's been quite a while since my last post. (Yes, Nettie - I'm writing one!)
I haven't really had anything I wanted to write about.

I went to a work party a few weeks ago where I felt more uncomfortable than I've ever felt, as far as I can remember. I spent the whole evening watching the others chatting and dancing, and realised that I have no idea what makes them tick. It was like being an alien observing humans. I just don't know why people are what they are, why they do what they do, and I don't think I have ever done. I've never been more glad to leave a party before.

The samba band has had a few gigs this month, and tomorrow we're having our annual barbecue, which should be fun. Hopefully, I'll get some photos and do another post about that.

Ok, I can't think of anything else to include here, but hopefully it'll be enough to satisfy certain impatient people...

Beltane

2007-05-15T20:27:00.000Z

Ok, for any of you who are interested, here's what happens at Edinburgh's Beltane celebrations.

Beltane is a fertility festival, and involves a lot of fire. The event begins with torches and burning shapes being lit upon the Parthenon-like monument at the top of Calton Hill.

A group of drummers dressed in black come forward and start playing, then the May Queen appears.

She is accompanied by her entourage of White Warrior Women, who are there to protect her and provide a sense of order.

They are the opposite of the mostly-naked Red Men and their drummers, who are there to create chaos, scaring and sometimes kissing members of the audience.
(These Red Men are dressed slightly differently from the ones this year, as this photo is from last year's event. I didn't get any good pictures of them this time. They are also still wearing the cloaks that they have on for the earlier part of the night.)

The Blue Men are the wise Elders, who guide the procession and create the necessary space by using their bunches of twigs to sweep people aside.

Also with the Queen is the Green Man, who, at this point, is the aged Holly King of winter.

The procession comes down from the monument, and follows the path through a fiery archway, which leads to the place of the elemental spirits.

The May Queen and her party visit each of the elements in turn, where there is a short performance, after which the Queen is given a gift.

The first element to be visited is Air. Here's some of the warriors doing battle here, and a huge dragon puppet.

Next is Earth. These are two of the performers from this area.

They visit Water next, and this picture's of some of the people in this space, before the procession arrives.

This is a lovely sea-dragon sort of puppet.

Lastly, they visit the spirits of fire, but we didn't see that part as we wanted to get a good spot from which to watch the final ceremony.

I know this picture is somewhat blurry, but I hope you can get the general idea. There's a stage, where the White Women dance before stripping the Green Man of all his foliage. He is then reborn as a young, virile king, who can now wed the May Queen.

After this, the main procession leaves the area. The court drummers and the Red drummers have time to perform now - they were excellent. (And I love their badgery makeup!)

Part of me wants to join the group so that I can take part, but the whole night has a certain kind of magic to it, and I think that seeing it from the inside might spoil it somehow.

The other Red Men join the drummers, juggling with fire, and using flaming poi. I love these next two photos, which only worked so well because I was too far away to use flash.

I really enjoy Beltane. Even though I don't share in the beliefs of quite a few of the people attending, the atmosphere is so amazing that I almost can, if only for one night, and that feels really good.

Lolrat

2007-05-05T17:36:00.000Z

Recently I saw this...
'The Trouble With Tribbles' done lolcat-style!
I laughed so much I nearly wet myself.

I then spent quite a while looking through this site, which prompted me to have a go myself. I'm somewhat lacking in the cat department, so I used what was available.

Sorry Jonas, but I couldn't resist!

Lizardylizardylizardy!

2007-04-27T23:19:00.000Z

This morning, while I was walking down to work from my parents' house, I found a dead lizard. Being me, I thought it was really interesting, and I decided to take it home so that I could look it up in one of my nature books and find out what sort of lizard it was. I needed something to carry it in, so I put it in an empty cigarette packet that was in my pocket.
I forgot about it after that, until I went to look for a cigarette and pulled out the empty packet by mistake. I remembered that I'd put it in there, and tipped it out to show Chris. At this point, it started crawling around my hand...
That's right, I'm a lizard-napper!
I felt so guilty, and kept apologising to the poor little thing. It seemed healthy enough, although really pissed off! (Well, you would be, wouldn't you?)
I did a bit of online research, and found some photos here. The fourth picture down is most similar to how mine looked, but since adult Common Lizards grow to between 10 and 16 centimetres long, and mine was only 7cm, I think it was a baby. Apparently, young ones are very dark in colour. It had an orangey-yellow underside with black spots, so it's a boy.

Here he is...

We decided that if we kept it, it would die, and I felt bad enough about taking it anyway, so we took it down to the stream near here, and tucked it safely down on the bank. I hope it'll be ok.

The Bee Gees Vs. The Harlequin

2007-04-16T21:49:00.000Z

We've just had our second Easter weekend, due to our parents having visitors from France staying over Easter.
On Easter weekend itself, Boo, Matt, Chris and I went to the beach for a picnic. A traditionally bracing Scottish picnic, of course...
Boo and I spent a happy hour or two hunting for bones. I needed lots of tiny ones, because I want to make my own mummified/fossil fairy. That one on ebay, while cool, was just too expensive, so I decided that I needed a Project. I found quite a few bird bones, and Boo found 3/4 of a somewhat dried out frog, and gave it to me. Its tiny little foot bones should come in handy. (Pun most definitely intended!)
It was nice to have a couple of days holiday from work. We didn't do much, except for some tidying round the flat. We also sorted out some videos and DVDs to sell at a car boot sale. Since we'll have to be moving house soon, it seems silly to pack up things we don't really want...
Chris and I went to the Pixar exhibition at the museum too. It was really interesting, although I would have liked more information about the technicalities of animation, and a bit less of the 'look at us, aren't we great?'
The 3-D zoetrope (bottom right picture) was absolutely amazing!

This weekend, we all went through to my parents' house for a belated Easter dinner, and an Easter egg hunt. We each wrote a series of clues for one other person to lead them to their eggs. My dad used to write them, but he says that we're all old enough to write good clues, and he can't be bothered anymore! Everyone found their eggs... eventually.

However, the most anticipated part of the day was the premiere of the film we made a few weeks ago. Most of you will have heard of 'The Bee Gees Vs The Harlequin'. The weekend we spent making this film was one of the most fun times I've ever had, I think. Pretty much everything that could go wrong when making a film, did. We spent less than £10 on props (as is plain to see) and were basically making it up as we went along. Try to ignore all the continuity errors - we did!
Here's your chance to finally see it. Enjoy!

Books I Bought (and some I borrowed...)

2007-04-12T20:58:00.000Z

The books that I've most enjoyed reading recently (in the last several years, actually) are the 'Callahan' series by Spider Robinson.

The series consists of:

Callahan's Crosstime Saloon
Time Travelers Strictly Cash
Callahan's Secret
Callahan's Lady
Lady Slings the Booze
The Callahan Touch
Callahan's Legacy
Callahan's Key
Callahan's Con

I love these books! As soon as I was a little way into the first one, I was looking forward to reading some more - it's like knowing that soon you get to meet up with some old friends. I really hope that he writes more in this series, and that I can get my own copies.
Oh, and *hugs* to Colin for introducing me to this series!

As soon as I could, I went out browsing charity shops hoping to find some of these books. I didn't find any, but I did find Telempath. It's not part of the Callahan series, but very good nonetheless.

I also borrowed Night Of Power. It's very different from his other books, but since I like his writing style, it was ok.
Spider Robinson often refers to other writers who have been a big influence on him, and someone frequently mentioned is Robert A. Heinlein. I've never read any of his work, but I thought that it would probably be worth taking a look.
While I was at the charity shops, I found three of his:

Space Cadet
Revolt In 2100
Podkayne Of Mars

I've borrowed a copy of Variable Star too, a collaboration between Robert A. Heinlein and Spider Robinson.

Ok, so on to the other books I've bought.

Other sci-fi...

Isaac Asimov - I, Robot
Ray Bradbury - The Small Assassin ( a book of short horror-ish stories)
James Patterson - Maximum Ride
Doctor Who books -
The Price Of Paradise
The Art Of Destruction
The Nightmare Of Black Island
William Nicholson - Slaves Of The Mastery and
Firesong
(these are the second and third parts of a children's fantasy trilogy)

Crime fiction -

Patricia Cornwell - At Risk I was disappointed by this one.
John Harvey - Ash & Bone This was ok.
Kathy Reichs - Break No Bones I always like her books.
Ian Rankin, 'Rebus' books
Fleshmarket Close
A Good Hanging
Dead Souls I'm really glad I got into reading these.

Non-fiction -

Tony Hawks - One Hit Wonderland and Playing The Moldovans At Tennis He's a funny man!
Torey Hayden - Beautiful Child She works with children who have psychological or emotional problems. Her books are very interesting.
Is It Just Me Or Is Everything Shit? I love this book. It's one huge rant about a lot of the things that annoy me! I need to get the second one...
March Hares And Monkey's Uncles This is a book all about the origins of some of the funny little phrases people use.

So. There we go. You now know more about the soon-to-be contents of my bookshelves than you ever thought possible!

Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, Oh My!

2007-04-04T21:27:00.000Z

I know that I tend to be somewhat tetchy about a lot of things, but the standard of English these days really annoys me. I have severe doubts about the state of modern education.
When I was at school, we did worksheets that were all about using the right version of words and using punctuation correctly. Apparently, these aren't used any more. The emphasis is now on trying to get children to write at all, without putting them off with technicalities like spelling. Don't get me wrong, I think that encouraging creative writing is a great thing, but without accurate spelling and punctuation, the meaning of a piece of writing can be completely lost. Most of the people working with me frequently make basic spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. I don't point these out, because, if I do, I'm accused of being fussy (me?) and bothered about things that don't matter. The thing is, it does matter!

When the wrong version of words such as taught/taut, there/their/they're, where/wear, rein/reign/rain, etc. are used in books and magazine articles, this contributes to the idea that spelling doesn't matter as long as other people know what you mean.
Punctuation is used randomly, when at all. The misuse of apostrophes is especially bad. I've been known to rub misplaced apostrophes off chalked signs in pubs and shops. A pub where I occasionally drink has a chalked menu for the restaurant area which has such announcements as;
'Please take a seat and a member of the waiting staff will take your "order"'
and, on the dessert menu
'Ask us about today's "special"'
Once, when somewhat tipsy, I ended up removing all the offending punctuation...
Thankfully, signs in a cobbler's shop that I pass regularly have recently been replaced. Every time I went by, I would cringe at signs including;
'Key,s copied'
Bag,s repaired'
and 'Shoe,s Mended'.
It would be bad enough if they had apostrophes that were in the wrong place, but the commas almost made me want to stick labels on the outside of the window, correcting them.

I think that misuse of words is often caused by people's desire to appear more intelligent or educated than they really are. There is this idea that long words are automatically more 'right'.
Some of the magazines I read have a page for readers' household tips and hints. Recently, there have been two tips which particularly annoyed me.

'After having my guttering replaced I wished to recycle the old pieces...'
and
'I wished to liven up my old and redundant fireplace...'

No! No, you didn't! You wanted to do these things. Unless you have a DIY genie, perhaps living in an old watering can or an empty paint tin, you don't 'wish' for these things - you want to do them. To me, this is a subtle but important difference.

'Required' is a word that is being used more and more often, almost always wrongly.
When some building work was being done on the roof of the building in which I work, a sign was put up to inform visitors of this fact.
It read 'As the bank is having work done on the roof, the builders will be requiring to put ladders up to the roof.'
Again, no! The builders need to put ladders up to the roof. Almost every time 'require' is used, 'need' would be the right word to use.

A few weeks ago, a sign appeared in my local station which went one step further than the usual misuse of words.

They could have said 'when asked by a police officer'.
They could have said 'when requested by a police officer'.
If they want to sound like they mean business, they could have said 'when told' or 'when ordered', but instead they went for the option that sounds like the police patrolling the station really need a drink every now and then. The wording that they chose could be argued to be technically correct, but to me it looks clumsy and irritating.

Woohoo!

2007-03-11T21:44:00.000Z

Yup - I have my Blogger access back!
*does a happy little dance*

It took them long enough, though. Ah well, I'm just glad that I can read everyone's posts again.

Sodding Blogger!

2007-03-08T23:06:00.000Z

Ok, I'd better explain my last post. A few days after I upgraded, I found that I couldn't see my blog, or anyone else's on Blogspot... I can write posts, but that's as much as I can do. I can still see your comments, though, as they also go to my e-mail. At first I thought that I'd done something stupid to my computer (as happens fairly often). I tried to look at the help section of Blogger, and found that I can't see most of that either. However, I did find a link to a blog on another blogging site where I discovered that it wasn't anything I'd done at all - apparently, there are quite a few people across Britain having the same problem. It seems that Blogspot has randomly and accidentally blocked the IPs of various users. They're working on a fix for the glitch, and I really hope that they get it sorted soon!
*crosses fingers*

Testing

2007-03-06T19:35:00.000Z

Testing one two three

Synchronicity

2007-02-25T20:22:00.000Z

I've just finished reading one of Ian Rankin's 'Rebus' crime novels. In the book there's mention of a newspaper headline pinned to the wall of a journalist's office. It said 'Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Were Atrocious', and referred to the result of a football match. It didn't occur to me that it might have been a genuine headline.
Last night, an upcoming match between Caledonian Thistle and Celtic was mentioned, and I told Chris about the bit in the book. Today, we turned on the news to see a report of the match in which that headline was quoted. Now, I'm not that surprised to find out that it's a real headline, more that I had never heard of it before, then came across it twice in a couple of days.
Ok, it might not be interesting for most of you reading this, but I love it when things like this happen.

Oh, and here's another quote from the same book which made me fall about laughing...

'...in a voice which, had it been any more of an undertone, would have leapt up and broken into the chorus of 'Teenage Kicks'.

Warning: Approaching Rant

2007-02-13T22:31:00.000Z

A quick question for you all - which do you think is the most annoying regular event on my way to or from work?

a) Seeing rabbits frisking in the fields.
b) Finding that they've run out of the free newspaper at the station, or
c) All the annoying, ill-mannered little brats on the bus?

Ok, I never said it would be a difficult question...
I'm sure that when I was younger it wasn't considered socially acceptable to play games involving the throwing of sweets down the length of the bus, or to sit on the back of the seats and perch on the shelf at the front of the bus.
No-one would be trying out all of their most irritating ringtones, or screeching to their friends sitting only a few seats away about their alcohol-fuelled antics the night before.
However, all of this pales into insignificance beside the latest teenage obsession. For some reason, teenagers seem incapable of amusing themselves for even the shortest of bus rides without playing music through their phones, at a volume that is clearly audible to all of the other passengers. It might not be so bad if they were playing music that was vaguely tolerable, but it's usually dance music that's been speeded up so that it sounds like it's being performed by chipmunks on speed. What I really want to do is throw all of their bloody phones out of the window, but they'd beat me up if I did, as I'd be severely outnumbered.
If I've got my MP3 player, then it's not too much of a problem, but I tend to forget it *sigh*

Fire and Vikings

2007-02-04T19:57:00.000Z

As promised, here's some photos from the torchlit procession on December 29th. It was led by a contingent of the Up-Helly-Ah Vikings, parading behind a longship. The procession started near the top of the Royal Mile, then went down the Mound and along to Calton Hill.

Some of the Vikings lining up ready to go.

Chris and me with our flaming torches. Yay, fire!

A look back at the rest of the procession behind us.

The longship burning in a huge bonfire. We threw the remains of our torches into the fire, as did most other people. The trouble was, we then had to try and pick our way back down the hill without the torchlight. Had I thought about it, I'd have brought an electric torch with me. Oh well...

Finally, here's me posing with two of the Vikings. I really wanted to run away with the axe, but the Vikings wouldn't have liked it.

It was a great evening. There's something very satisfying about marching with thousands of other people all carrying burning torches, although I really wanted to be carrying a large sword too!

In Memory

2007-01-21T19:36:00.000Z

Aunty Jean, my great-aunt, died last week. We only found out that she was ill at Christmas, so it was all very quick.
Aunty Jean was a funny, intelligent, warm lady who was great fun to be around. She was always so happy to see us, even though it was only once a year or so that we got to visit. I wish I could have seen her more often, to have known her better and to have spent more time enjoying her company.
Her husband, our Uncle Jimmy, died a few years ago. I always saw them as an extra set of grandparents and I miss them both.

Aunty Jean at my wedding, enjoying a tipple.

Random Christmas Photos

2007-01-16T21:36:00.000Z

My Christmas was pretty good. I spent some time with my family, and got a lot of great presents.
Here, for your entertainment, is a selection of photos...

This is a costume that I made for the Nativity play at the nursery where I work. The little girl playing Mary had to be 'riding' on a donkey, and pretending to knit at the same time, so I (stupidly) volunteered to make a donkey costume that she could wear hung from her shoulders. It took ages to make, but it worked really well in the end.

This is one of the rather lacklustre Christmas decorations near my work. Chris dubbed it the 'Heather Mills Santa'...

We tried to make Jonas's cage a little bit festive by hanging a bauble in it, but he wasn't impressed. In fact, he thought so little of it that he decided to gnaw on it. We swiftly removed the slightly-shredded bauble...

For those two of you who wanted to see, here's our Christmas tree (with presents from a certain Aussie underneath). We don't go for a colour-coordinated look, but just put up decorations that we like, usually getting one or two new ones each year.

Finally, here's me wearing the t-shirt that Nettie sent me, displaying the wonderful assortment of piratey gifts that I was given!

Next post - photos from the big torchlit procession on 29th December. Lots of fire and Vikings!

Halloween Party Photos

2007-01-02T23:09:00.000Z

Ok, here's the long-awaited photos of our Halloween party! It was a good night - yummy food was eaten, alcohol was drunk, bad horror films were watched, and an assortment of weird costumes were worn...

A redneck psycho

The Invisible Man (also of MoH)

Aharrr! 'Tis a pirate with a rat on his shoulder!

It's difficult to talk to someone dressed as 'V'...

Boo declined to pose for a photo.

And finally, here's the bloody dragonfly wings that took me ages to make and nearly drove me mad. I really like them, though, and I'm going to hang them on the wall.

I hope you like the photos.

Spam

2006-12-21T23:02:00.000Z

I thought that, in case any of you were in need of amusement, I'd share with you a piece of spam that landed in my e-mail inbox the other day. It was for a - shall we say - 'performance enhancing drug', and I loved the customer recommendation which accompanied it.It went thus...

'see what our customer said:
"I am truly enjoying my sexual rebirth. No more excuses, no more frustration, no more having to solely satisfy my girlfriend orally. I just pop 10 mg, and before long, I am a sex machine. Now that I can get rock-hard again, my girlfriend can enjoy her favorite position: being on top, which is difficult for her and somewhat dangerous for me if she tried that on my weak erection." Mr Jovan Nick from Toronto, Canada'

Maybe it's just my weird sense of humour, but that had me laughing for ages.

Nope, not photos...

2006-12-15T21:22:00.000Z

I've still not got the Halloween party photos on the computer, but it shouldn't be too much longer.

I'm feeling really quite festive all of a sudden. I think that it's because I'm a lot more relaxed about getting stuff done. I've got nearly all my presents bought, although a few of the things ordered online haven't arrived yet. Oh, and I managed to miss the last posting date for anywhere other than Britain, which was clever...
I'm planning to put the Christmas tree and other decorations up tomorrow, and I really need to write cards for people at work this weekend too.
Bugger, I'm feeling less relaxed now...

Accorted Item

2006-11-15T21:49:00.000Z

Last weekend, I won a prize in a tombola. Now, before you get excited, it was only a little set of stickers - female shapes and clothes to dress them in. The stickers themselves aren't really worth the ticket price, but the instructions on the back more than make up for it.
My grandmother spent a happy few minutes trying to guess what words the writer may have meant to use.

1) Take a personal place stick on sticker album or stage.
2) Choose any kind of adornment you like it and stick on personage.
3) Re-adhere any kind of accorted item or ornament.
4) Remove & re-adhere are possible.

I liked the 'stick on personage' part best...

Not so much a magpie than a squirrel

2006-10-13T21:10:00.000Z

This, right now, is my favourite time of year. I like the summer because I can wear fewer layers of clothing, and winter when it's snowy, but this particular stage of autumn (or 'fall' for all you foreigners) is beautiful.

I love the pinkish-grey light that overlays everything just after the sun sets...
the slight chill in the air that makes me think of snuggling up under a fleecy throw with a good book...
seeing the leaves change colour, and the way that different types of trees go different colours...
watching the fallen leaves drift on the canal and the loch, on a day when the air is almost completely still...
the smell of damp, trampled leaves and grass, and the frosty crunch underfoot in the mornings...

I always start hoarding at this time of year. Even though I know that I don't really need to stock up on supplies for the winter, I love the feeling of satisfaction that I get from filling the cupboards with tins of soup, baked beans and other comfort foods. I also get rather excited about 3-for-2 offers on other things I use, and on things I don't use, to be honest. I even spent a while this morning collecting conkers to dry and scatter round the house, as their scent repels moths, and that was the most fun I've had for ages.
I suppose it isn't really all that long since we did have to lay in supplies for the winter, so I'm going to blame all this on instinct - if I was a squirrel, I'd be behaving perfectly rationally.

Mouse's Fringe Review Part 3 - 'Return Of The Mouse'

2006-10-11T19:28:00.000Z

First of all, apologies for my procrastination. It's been a ridiculously long time since I last posted.

Ok, so here's that photo of the Space Cowboy that I promised you last time...

My memory of the shows may be a little vague, but here goes.

Monday 21st

That night, we went to see Bill Bailey's punk tribute band, Beergut 100. It was a great show, and I really enjoyed it, even though I was ill. While we were waiting to get in, I was feeling like I was going to fall over, but as soon as Bill came on stage I forgot all about it. The band were much better musicians than I had thought they would be, and to make the whole thing even better, they opened with 'Das Hokey-Kokey' - Bill's Kraftwerk tribute.
(Oh, and when we were on the way in, Boo spotted Rich Hall in the bar of the venue, so we went and got his autograph. He was very nice...and very tall.)

Wednesday 23rd

Not actually Fringe-related, but it was my birthday and I went out to dinner with quite a lot of my family. We went to International Starters, where we ordered lots of different things and tried bits of everything. It was all yummy.

Friday 25th

Boo, Chris and I went to see The World Stands Up - a stand-up comedy show compered by Fred Macauley. We saw Kitty Flanagan, who was very funny (as usual), and got her autograph afterwards, also Steve McGrew, who was fairly funny. The highlight of the night, for me at least, was Mitch Benn. He sings satirical and generally mocking songs and I think he's very funny. After the show, he was selling copies of one of his CDs in the foyer. I was glad that it wasn't the one we've already got. We had quite a long chat with him and got our CDs signed too.

I spent the next two days having bouts of being all star-struck and giggly. Chris has a lot to put up with.

Sunday 27th

The last show we saw this Festival was Jump - describing itself as 'martial arts comedy'. Chris was very keen to see this, but I wasn't so sure that I'd like it. As it turned out, though, it was brilliant. It was really funny and the moves that the performers can do are amazing.

I'm sure I could have written more about the shows, had I got round to writing this a bit sooner. Sorry...

Mouse's Fringe Review Part 2 - 'The Mouse Strikes Back'

2006-08-20T21:33:00.000Z

Saturday 19th
I spent the afternoon watching various street performers in Hunter Square. First up was the Space Cowboy, who I'd also seen at Fringe Sunday. It was exactly the same act, patter and all, but he's so entertaining that I didn't mind. As well as having a very good act, he's got some really nice tattoos and some implants under his skin that I find very interesting.

Next, there was Dave McSavage. His act mostly involved singing songs about random people in the crowd or anyone who was unfortunate to walk past. On a theme that may be familiar to some of you, one song was about how hilly Edinburgh is, and that this is the reason why local women have such muscular thighs! I thought he was really funny, and his show was over far too soon.

A New Zealander calling himself 'Basketball Jones' was the next performer. He was juggling and balancing basketballs (as you may have guessed from the name), ending up by juggling three basketballs while riding a three metre unicycle.

I was going to say 'why do all these performers ride those giant unicycles', but I know why - because they can, and it looks cool, of course.

I was very unimpressed by the next act. They were called 'Acro Buffo', and their show involved a little bit of juggling, some acrobalance, and a lot of rather unfunny clowning. I'm not that fond of clowns at the best of times - I just don't find them entertaining and they're freaky. These two were also wearing slightly grotesque masks, which creeped me out. The whole act gave the impression that they thought they were much funnier and cleverer than I did. A large proportion of the audience drifted away during their performance, and at the end of their act when they asked us to give money if we'd enjoyed the show, I didn't give them anything (and I usually would, even if I thought an act was so-so).
I think that my main problem with them was that if I'm going to spend my time and money on seeing a particular act, then I want the performers to be doing something that I can't do, e.g. fire-eating, swordswallowing, unicycling, juggling more than three items, making up funny songs on the spot, etc. Nothing about this act was at all spectacular or memorable, and I don't think that's good enough.
*aaaaand relax*

The last act that I saw yesterday was a man calling himself 'Silver'. For the rest of the year he does a kind of robot act to music, sprayed all over in silver paint, usually on Princes Street. As he said, he's probably the only Festival street performer who's actually from Edinburgh. The act he did was a combination of playing with the audience and mime done to a soundtrack from his ipod. I generally have very little interest in mime, but he's very good and funny too, so I enjoyed what he did.

Ok, this is going to be a three-part review so the last bit will be written once I've seen the rest of the shows. I've got some photos of the Space Cowboy on his giant 'suicycle' as he calls it, so I'll put them in the next instalment.
See you then.

Mouse's Fringe Review Part 1 - 'Fringe Mouse'

2006-08-18T22:27:00.000Z

This year, I'm going to more Fringe shows than any other year. I don't know if there's better shows (or better suited to me, anyway) but I've found far more to see this time. I didn't manage to get tickets to Bill Bailey's new show, Steampunk, which was rather disappointing, but we've seen - or have got tickets for - five shows so far.

Saturday 12th
So, we started by going with Boo and Matt to see a play called 'Dark North', about a psychic. It wasn't bad, although it got very hammy in parts. There were points where I was laughing but I wasn't sure whether they meant it to be funny or not, which made me feel a bit awkward. My two favourite parts were at the start, when the psychic came onto the darkened stage area and stubbed his toe on the only piece of scenery they had, and the bit where the psychic got beaten up and Boo went 'Yay!' All in all, it was ok, but I'm glad it only cost £10 for the two of us - if it had cost much more I'd have felt slightly miffed.

Sunday 13th
Today was Fringe Sunday, when there is a large selection of performers from various Fringe shows doing snippets of their shows in the Meadows (a large park-type area). There were tents for comedy, music, cabaret, etc as well as lots of the street performers doing their shows and some stalls. I found the stall run by 'very nice Australians' where Boo bought her ammonite ring. I succumbed to temptation and spent some leftover birthday money on a ring with an iron pyrite ammonite in it. Boo's right, they are very nice Australians.
We watched the Space Cowboy, who did sword-swallowing, and blindfold juggling with sharp/burning things atop a three-metre high unicycle. I was very impressed.
We then saw 'Arizona Jones', supposedly Indiana Jones's cousin... He was climbing up a four and a half metre high pole to balance at the top and crack a burning bullwhip enough to put the flames out. I liked him too. I would really, there was fire involved.
There was also a man called something like Steve Mischief (which is a crap name) who was lying on a bed of nails, and standing on it while juggling. He was fairly impressive.
Chris especially liked a group called the Trans World Orchestra who consisted of one bloke with a drumkit and one with a didgeridoo playing techno-ish music. He went to see them later that night, but there was a lot more guitar and singing, and that made it lose a lot of its appeal for him.

After dinner at Boo's, we all went to see the Nofit State Circus show, ImMortal. I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this. I decided to go based on their float in the Festival Cavalcade, which had a woman doing somersaults in midair, and their name, which made me nearly piss myself laughing when I first saw it.
The show was amazing. There was a storyline, but I wasn't really following it because I was too busy staring at the acrobats and going 'oooooh!' They were doing all kinds of trapeze work, swinging on ropes, bouncing on giant elastic bands... A lot of it was done along with the performer being raised and lowered by another member of the cast acting as a counterbalance. I absolutely loved the whole thing, and I was sorry when the show finished.
On the way out, we got talking to one of the performers, and it was really interesting to find out more about the behind-the-scenes aspect of the show.

Wednesday 16th
Tonight we went to see Adam Hills, one of my favourite comedians. We saw his show two years ago and loved it, so we were very happy to find that he had a new show this year. It was really good - at one point he found a man in the audience who did Scooby Doo impressions (really good ones) and had him doing punchlines etc.

We've got tickets for a few more shows, so there'll be another review after that (Mouse's Fringe Review - The Bitch Is Back! ...or maybe not)

What the hell?

2006-07-24T19:49:00.000Z

Here's a quote from a Playstation 3 promotional site...

'Playstation 3 is a console that screams digital carpe diem and will redefine reality as you know it'

What, in the name of all that is sane, are they talking about! Do marketing people just link random words together to write this crap? (No offence, Boo!)

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and try to get my runny, melted brain back into my head with a mop and a funnel.

I am cowless

2006-07-23T00:55:00.000Z

I suppose all good things have to come to an end, and the Cow Parade finishes tomorrow. I spent a happy afternoon today going round Edinburgh, taking photos and ticking the last few off my list. (I know, I can be a bit obsessive about this sort of thing.) There were only four cows that I couldn't see - ones that have been removed because of the amount of damage done to them.

Some that were less damaged were taken away to be repaired (in the cow hospital, of course) and then resited indoors - one was rehomed at Boo's work. Unsurprisingly, most of the vandalism was to cows put in areas with lots of pubs and clubs, presumably by drunken numpties thinking it's funny to swing on them and pull bits off.

Another good thing about the cow parade is that it's got me to go to parts of Edinburgh that I've never visited before. It's been a bit like being a tourist in my own city, which is an interesting feeling. I think I'll have to go exploring more often.

By the way, I'm in the process of putting all my cow pictures up on Snapfish, so if anyone wants to see the cows, let me know and I'll send you the link.
Or possibly you've all got lives...

Hi, honey - I'm home!

2006-07-18T20:42:00.000Z

So, I'm back from my holiday. Did you miss me? Back in Edinburgh, back to work... I hate having to go back to the same old routine. I'm planning some fun things to do, though, such as a weekend's camping and some trips to the beaches near here.
Jonas was very happy to see us again, although he got spoilt rotten while he was staying with Al (Chris's best friend). He seems to have got even bigger while we were away - Jonas, not Al - but he's as lively and overexcited as usual.
Well, I think that's about all for now. There'll be another post soon with a selection of photos, as soon as I can clear enough room on the computer to upload them. See you then.

Normal service will be resumed shortly...

2006-06-17T20:42:00.000Z

I'm tired. Partly because I had to get up early for a samba gig, but mostly because we were kept awake last night by idiots having a party in the flat just along from ours. If the numpties had stayed inside, it wouldn't have been a problem, but they spent most of the night out on their balcony, which is only fifteen feet or so from our bedroom window. They were arguing, calling to partygoers inside the flat and screeching at people they knew down on the street, twelve floors below. Not only did we have problems actually getting to sleep, but I kept waking up from dreams where I was being accosted by groups of people to find that the shouting from my dream was still going on.
I had a nap when I got back from the gig, so I wasn't too tired when Boo and Matt came up for a barbecue this evening. Plenty of food was eaten, we watched Doctor Who and Coneheads, and now I'm writing this and getting sleepier by the minute.
Tomorrow we're either going cow-spotting or going to see X-Men III, depending on whether the weather forecasters lied or not, (they usually do).
So, all in all, not a particularly exciting weekend, but we're too broke to do much else.

Chris is improving. He got the stitches out yesterday so he looks a lot less scabby and horrible now, and most of the swelling and bruising has gone down too. The concussion is taking a while to clear up - he's still quite dizzy, especially if he leans forward, but it's a lot better than it was. We still haven't heard anything from the police about whether they're anywhere close to finding the thugs who attacked him.

Note to self: find more interesting subject matter!

A difficult weekend

2006-06-11T22:02:00.000Z

I was having a pretty good day on Saturday. That is, until I got home. The phone rang, and it was the police to say that Chris had been 'given the wrong incident number'. When I asked what had happened, the officer would only tell me that Chris had been the victim of an assault earlier that day. She said that he was at the hospital, but he was OK so I didn't need to worry.
Of course, I was panicking, so I phoned the hospital and was put through innumerable switchboards until I finally got to the department where he was and got to speak to him. Chris said that he was all right except for a small gash on his head, and explained what had happened.
He told me that he'd gone to a local gala day. Some idiot threw a rock at him and Chris hit the guy (not hard, and usually he wouldn't react like that - he says that he just saw red). He hoped that would be the end of it, but when he was leaving the event, he saw the man who'd thrown the rock standing with another guy. Chris thought that if they tried anything, he could handle it. But, at that point, a third man hit him from behind. Chris fell down and they all started kicking him in the head. He doesn't know what happened after that, as he was knocked out. The next thing he knew, they were gone and two passers-by were with him, trying to stop the bleeding, then an ambulance came and took him to hospital.
By the time I got to the hospital, he'd been x-rayed and examined, and the doctor was in the middle of stitching him. As well as the local anaesthetic, they were giving him laughing gas - it's probably the only time I'll ever see Chris intoxicated! It made him talk very loudly and slowly. When the doctor said that he didn't need any more of the gas, because she was finished, Chris wouldn't give the mouthpiece back and I had to take it away from him.
They let him go home, because I was there to accompany him and to keep an eye on him in case he developed any more symptoms relating to his head injuries.
He was very dizzy for a couple of days, but he's beginning to feel better, apart from the headache. However, he looks worse now, as all the bruising and swelling took a while to fully develop.

He's got four stitches in the gash on his forehead and three in the triangular cut by his eye, as well as the black eye and assorted bruises and scrapes. We hope that the forehead one will heal quite well, as the skin there doesn't move around much, and the doctor pointed out that, in a few years, the cut by his eye will be disguised by the crows-feet!

The whole incident scared the crap out of me, and as well as feeling sorry for him, I'm also a bit mad at Chris because, if he hadn't hit the guy and had just ignored him, then this wouldn't have happened. I'm also scared that they might try to finish what they started, although Chris says that he won't be walking anywhere in the estate again, except for the very short path to the bus stop. This morning I started thinking about how easy it would have been for the thugs to not have stopped and for me to have come home to find that I was a widow. I suppose it'll stop dwelling on my mind soon.

There's nothing like a relaxing bath...

2006-06-02T20:27:00.000Z

...and tonight's attempt was certainly nothing like a relaxing bath.
I like to have a nice long bubble bath on a Friday evening to unwind after a week's work. We decided what to have for dinner then Chris went to start cooking while I got in the bath with a magazine.

Now, those of you who've seen Bill Bailey : Part Troll might remember his description of an accidental train announcement.
"Dave? It's burning...what are we going to do?"

You can probably guess what happens next. Chris comes running into the bathroom brandishing the fire extinguisher, yelling "How do you make this thing work? The wok's on fire!" I assume he's overreacting and say "What, really on fire?", he goes "Yeah, there's flames coming out and there's smoke everywhere" so I jump out of the bath and sprint nakedly through to the kitchen, leaving a trail of bubbles behind me, soak a teatowel and throw it over the (now-not-very-on-fire) pan, send Chris out to the balcony and pass the wok out to him. Then we open all the windows because most of the flat is full of smoke and put Jonas out at the far end of the hall, worrying that he might suffocate.
I then decided to try to continue with my bath, as the bathroom was the least smoky room, but unsurprisingly it wasn't as relaxing as it had been, so I gave up.
Dinner was really nice when we eventually got it, though.

Sigh

2006-05-22T22:39:00.000Z

I'm feeling a bit strange today, all twitchy and anxious. I don't know why. I'd expect to be feeling like this before a dentist's appointment or that kind of thing, but I haven't got anything like that coming up. I'm worrying about getting packed for my long weekend in Whitby, whether we've left it too late to get train tickets, and if Jonas will be OK without us ( even though he's a very self-sufficient rat).
I'm also worrying about whether I'll ever be able to afford to get to Australia for the next MoH gathering, because I'm really missing you all already.
Oh well. Maybe tomorrow I'll be back to as near normal as I get.

Pointing and Whispering

2006-05-05T23:51:00.000Z

Why do people feel the need to shout at me in the street? It's not as if they have some sort of deep insight into the nature of humanity or a new discovery about the origins of the universe.
What they shout is 'You've got pink hair!'
Oh Good God! Do I really? When did that happen? How could I not have noticed?
They all seem to think that they're the greatest wit ever to have walked the earth, that no-one could possibly have said that before.
No. Lots of people have got there before you, you're not big and you're not clever.

I tend to just ignore them - they want a reaction and they're not going to get one. Last summer I was waiting for a bus when I saw two teenage boys walking towards me. They were pointing, whispering and giggling so I thought they'd say something. After a minute one of them came over to me and said 'excuse me, have you always had pink hair?', I lied and said yes. I assume that they must have had some oh-so-cunning joke planned for when I said no, because they just said 'oh, thanks' and skulked away, looking soooo disappointed. I almost felt sorry for them.

I love watching children's reactions, though. They're so honest and just say what they think, and that can be interesting. Often when I'm in a supermarket I'll hear a small child whispering (as loudly as only a child can) 'Mummy, look! That lady's got pink hair!' This is usually followed by frantic shushing by the mother and copious apologies, at which point I have to reassure them that 1) I really don't mind, and 2) I work with children so I'm used to it.

The best one I overheard was on a bus last autumn, when I had blue hair.
Child: Mummy?
Mother: Yes?
C: Look, that lady's got blue hair!
M: Yes. It's nice, isn't it?
C: But people don't have blue hair.
M: Well, that lady does.
*Child sits deep in thought for a minute*
C: Mummy?
M: Yes?
C: I think it's ridiclius!
M: SHHHHHHH!
Me: laughing as quietly as I could so that the mother wouldn't be any more embarrassed than she already was...

Things That Make You Go 'Ewwww'

2006-04-29T00:29:00.000Z

Here's an article that appeared in the science column in the 'Metro' newspaper.

If you think giving birth is painful then spare a thought for the hyena. Their birth canal narrows to about 2cm in diameter, and often rips as a cub squeezes through. The narrowing is caused by androgen - a male sex hormone - in the female's body during pregnancy, scientists have found. The mothers give their babies high levels of the hormone to make them more aggressive when fighting for food. US experts said; 'Giving birth through a penis isn't a trivial problem'.

I never thought I could feel so sorry for hyenas...

Clubbing and Chocolate

2006-04-18T20:08:00.000Z

This is going to be a long post (because I can put photos in now!), so you may want to get a cup of tea before you start reading...

So, my weekend started on Thursday night, when we went to see Laugh Like Pa. They were great, and a lot better than the other bands playing that night. One of them looked and sounded like a performance at a church youth group, complete with tambourine and rather dodgy dancing. We wouldn't have had to see the other bands at all, if it wasn't for a confusion with the scheduling, not helped by a text from my mum which went thus...
Guy on Eighthsi
ring of nun
I had to phone her to find out what it was meant to say.
Me: What the hell did that text say?
Her: Well, isn't it obvious? Work it out!
Apparently it translated to 'Huw on eightish, ring me, mum'
She insists that the phone wouldn't let her say anything else.
Afterwards, we went on to a club called Genetic. My evening ended well when some man who tried to ask me out was enormously disappointed to find out that I'm married. It's a shame for him, but a much-needed ego boost for me!

On Friday Chris and I went down to play with Boo and Matt. We all went to the park to play football and frisbee. I won the 'throwing a frisbee over a traffic cone at very short range' competition but I really suck at football...You can have a surprising amount of fun with crisps too. (We're so grown-up, aren't we?)
Chris went out on Friday night, but it was to a club that I don't really like - the music's too roary and shouty for my delicate sensibilities (don't laugh) so I stayed home and played on the computer instead.

On Saturday I slept far too late and ended up feeling all tired and grumpy so I went shopping. Note to self: next year, don't leave it until the last minute to buy Easter eggs, because the shops are clearing the shelves by 6 o'clock on the Saturday, and you have to chase the shelf-stackers around to grab eggs before they put them away...
That night we went out to the Mission, a rock/goth club that's just up the road from Boo's house. I got all dressed up, in a long velvet dress with a satin corset over it and my high-heeled boots, which I don't wear often because I'm crap at walking in them. The smoking ban might actually turn out to be a good thing, as I only smoked three cigarettes during the night, instead of the 12 to 15 I'd usually get through and I didn't end up with a sore throat by the time we got home. We ended up spending most of the night upstairs at the gay-oriented club, so the only two songs I danced to all night were Erasure and Madonna. It was a lot of fun, though.

On Sunday, we got up in time to have lunch and go through to my parents' house for dinner and general Easter fun. They usually make clues for us to find our Easter eggs, but for some reason, this year they hadn't, so we wrote clues for each other. Then we also wrote clues for our parents to find theirs too. Trying to get a sensible answer from our mum can be like getting blood from a stone, especially when it relates to technology. We wrote a clue to lead them to our dad's mobile phone, and while he was checking, our mum got very confused. 'How did you get a clue near the phone?', 'Ooooh, are you going to call it? Oh, you're all in here...', 'What, have you put a piece of paper in the phone? How else could there be a clue there?' It took her ages to remember that there is such a thing as text messaging...

This is the box of mini Easter eggs we gave my parents. I liked it because the text underneath the egg/spoon bit says
4 milk chocolate eggs and 2 spoons*
*Spoons not edible
I love warnings for idiots!

In the evening me, Boo, Chris and Matt went to DKY. It's the reunion night of a club that's not on regularly any more. I'm very fond of the place because Chris and I got together thanks to Boo and Chris meeting there. It was a good night, and I bumped into some people I haven't seen for ages. We got them to play Laugh Like Pa, and we danced even though most other people didn't. I asked some friends what they thought of the song, and they seemed quite impressed.
On Monday we finished off our extra-long weekend by going to the cinema to see Ice Age 2. It was absolutely brilliant. I was laughing out loud most of the way through.

Since I can include photos, here's a picture of my hand that shows all the stamps from my weekend's clubbing.

OK, so this post has taken a lot longer to do than I had originally thought it would, due to my computer being about 300 years old and my own technological ineptitude. The only good thing about all this is that I can post a picture of Laugh Like Pa's gig a few days ago.

Right, I think that's all I have to tell you. After all that, I hope someone actually reads this...

My weekend

2006-04-09T21:14:00.000Z

I've had a pretty quiet weekend. Yesterday I went to the children's activities at the International Science Festival. My friend was taking her two children, so I said I'd go along to help mind the kids, and because I wanted to have a go at the activities too. It looks a bit funny, going by yourself.
We all had a good time, except for the younger child, who had a rotten cold and was all stuffed up, tired and grumpy. Sebastian (6) had great fun. He got to try out forensics while doing a CSI activity, and discovered how much fun soldering is when he made a lie-detector. Boo and I wanted to do the CSI thing too, but there weren't enough places. (Not that we minded, honest!)

Today we went shopping. I bought a t-shirt and a hoodie that I've had my eye on for some time. I probably can't afford them, but what the hell! We also got some more of my gran's birthday present. It's her 80th in June so we wanted to get her a big present, but we're rather broke, so what we're doing is making up a hamper of things relating to her interests. So far we've got birdfeeders and some little gardening bits and bobs. We also plan to get some nice teas, jams and biscuits, things like that.

So, as I said, not a desperately exciting weekend. Next week should be better - I've got time off work so we can go out more.

Latest book buys
Predator - Patricia Cornwell
A Necessary Evil - Alex Kava
Mortal Engines - Philip Reeve
Hippo Eats Dwarf - Alex Boese
The Starfleet Survival Guide (I know, I'm such a geek!)

Books and more books

2006-04-03T20:23:00.000Z

I like books that can teach me things, so it's not surprising that many of my favourite authors are experienced in the field about which they write. Obviously most authors can write accurately about topics by getting information from people who are in the field, but there's usually a disclaimer saying that details may be changed to fit the story, or due to author's error. The thing is, I like to know that what I'm reading is actually true, at least for forensic procedures and scientific facts, that kind of thing, but maybe that's just me...

Kathy Reichs writes about a forensic anthropologist who mainly works in Montreal, and lives in Charlotte, North Carolina. The author is also an expert in this field and lives in those places.
Linda Fairstein runs the Sex Crimes Unit of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Her heroine is a prosecutor within that department.
Jillianne Hoffman and her main character both work in the State Attorney's Office, Patricia Cornwell's heroine is a Chief Medical Examiner, as is she, and Jonathan Kellerman is a child psychologist, and this often comes into his books (slightly too much, if you ask me).
John Grisham is a lawyer, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park and many other scientific/medical thrillers (and creator of ER) is a doctor.

Nevada Barr writes about a crime/mystery solving ranger working in various US national parks. She describes the scenery and job very well, which makes sense, considering that she is a park ranger herself.
Abigail Padgett's main character is a child-abuse investigator who has manic depression. The author used to be a court investigator and is now an advocate for people with mental illness. She also has a strong interest in the deserts of the southwest USA, and this features heavily in the books.

One of my all time favourite series of books are the Earth's Children novels by Jean M. Auel. These books follow the adventures of a prehistoric woman travelling through ice age Europe. The best thing about these stories is the amount of detail in which everything is described, from animals and plants, to art and tools. She does an enomous amount of research for each of the books, contacting experts in every aspect of life in prehistoric times. I find all of her books (much as I hate this word) unputdownable, and I tend to get completely lost in them.

Latest book buys

Kathy Reichs - Cross Bones
P.J. Tracy - Dead Run
Tim Severin - Viking : Sworn Brother
Lee Child - One Shot
and two Buffy The Vampire Slayer books, Afterimage and Carnival Of Souls, but I won't mention them too loudly.

Shopping

2006-03-27T20:38:00.000Z

Usually, when I go shopping I know pretty much what I need to get. The only thing for which I frequently make an exception is books (well, you never know when you might find a new book by a favourite author) but yesterday I managed to impulse-buy a baby rat. We'd gone to a big pet shop to see if they sold mice, since my last one died a few weeks ago. I was rather tempted by a hamster, but then we saw a little ratty face looking at us. I'd always kept rats in pairs before, but he was on his own anyway and looked a bit lonely.

He's incredibly sweet, with very fuzzy fur and is white with a light brownish-grey head and stripe down his back. The only problem is that we can't choose a name for him. I've never found it difficult to name pets before (and I've had a lot of them) but anything I think of, Chris doesn't like, and vice versa.

If anyone has any ideas, let me know. Hopefully you might be more helpful than the kids at my work. One of them suggested 'Jasmine'. I reminded her that it was a boy rat, so she thought for a bit, then came up with 'Miss Billy'. It's an interesting idea, but I think not...

Underwear and other unmentionables

2006-03-19T21:03:00.000Z

Last night I went to an Ann Summers party. I wasn't too sure about going, but since I haven't been out for weeks I thought I should at least try to have some sort of social life.
I went with my sister and a friend, and we got there eventually despite our friend's 'interesting' method of travel. This involved working out what bus we needed to get, finding out that we would have to wait 5 minutes, then catching the next (wrong) bus because "it'll probably go the right way" - no, it didn't.

The bizarre games they make you play weren't too bad this time, then we got to see various bits of lingerie, some nice, some strange and as usual, some tacky, (all of which my sister refused to model). I hadn't been planning to buy anything, but I fell slightly in love with a purple velvet basque, mainly because it pushes my bosom further up and out than I had ever thought possible. I managed to justify buying it because it was reduced if I bought it that night, and I'm a sucker for a special offer...

After that, we got to play with quite a lot of vibrators. The oddest one was a little egg-shaped thing whose vibrations were strong enough that it wriggled from one person's hand to another, rather like holding a geriatric mouse, and the scariest item was an enormous tongue-shaped object, which thoroughly unnerved several of us. And no, I didn't buy any of them.

So, that was my exciting Saturday night. I really should get out more.

Reading Matters

2006-03-17T22:05:00.000Z

I keep entering competitions with monetary prizes with the intention of paying off my debts if I win. However, I know that if I do win any money, I would just buy books. It seems strange that some people brag about never reading, when I rate books slightly higher than even chocolate. Maybe reading is just a habit, but it's one of my better ones.

I'm currently reading Jeffrey Deaver's 'The Blue Nowhere' (which has a lot of very technical computer stuff in it that I just pretend to understand) and I think I'll go on to 'The Devil's Teardrop' after that. (It's another of his very good books.) A large proportion of my books are crime and forensic-based novels, although I have a lot of sci-fi as well.
The most recent book I bought is called 'B**locks To Alton Towers: Uncommonly British Days Out' - I think I'm going to enjoy that...

If anyone has any recommendations for my future reading, please let me know.