Happy Christmas

A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS

AND A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR

TO YOU ALL!!!



Don't worry - I'll be back in the New Year with more Wonderings from the (rather less) Warped Woman.

Wine boxes and duvets

I got to wondering after my last entry, if there are so many ways to empty a wine box, then how many ways are there to change a duvet cover? I used to be one of those who held on to the duvet corners and cover corners and stood up with my arms held high above my head and (hopefully) the cover would drop down over me and the duvet in one easy action. The problem with this is that if you have rubbish balance, you usually fall over in the process, the cover and the duvet both conspire to roll you into some kind of knot and then you end up in a major panic ‘cos you can’t find a way out. So, unsurprisingly I gave up doing it that way….

These days I am much more sensible, although unless I remember to shut the bedroom door, I get a lot of cat related help. Bugalugs in particular (no, I keep telling you, that’s one of the cats, not hubby!) loves freshly ironed sheets and as soon as a fresh sheet goes on he’s on the bed rolling over and over as if to say “you didn’t iron it properly mum – look at me, I’ll help!”. I do love him, but fresh, furry sheets are not really the thing, are they?

When it comes to changing the duvet cover he is even more helpful, wriggling inside the cover then getting a good grip on the corner of the duvet as it goes into the cover. Now, once he has that grip, he calls his sister and then she will get in there with him. That’s it, one of them under the duvet and one on top, both inside the cover – it’s usually at this point that they forget that they are supposed to be helping and they start to squabble over which of them wants which bit of duvet and a minor scuffle ensues. Now this usually involves trying to turn the duvet into some kind of a sausage shape that they can hide inside and swipe at each other …and me, if I am fiendish enough to want to get them out!

At this point, I usually give up, go downstairs, pour myself a very stiff drink (or at least a glass out of the aforementioned box) and then rattle the cat crunchy box. As soon as they arrive I try and rush out the room before they notice and get the door shut really quick so that I can go back to un-knotting the duvet in peace – something that will take another 45 minutes…

I don’t know, and people ask me what I do all day….

Wine boxes – empty or not?

We often have a wine box on the go in this house – I often like a glass and it saves me being forced into drinking a whole bottle in one go (of course apart from when the BUF is here – its almost compulsory then!).

Well, the FNG^*1 was here and the conversation turned to wine (I don’t know how… how does alcohol ever get into a conversation?) and the subject of wine boxes came up. I mentioned that there was a glass left in ours and then another one once I had worked my magic to get the last glass out. This involves doing a kind of mouth to mouth thing to the valve and blowing into the box. You then open the cardboard top and as you turn the tap you squeeze the bag – the extra air pressure forces out the last few drops. I call this my ‘blowing up the bag’ trick and it works every time!

Now I thought the FNG would be horrified that I was so impolite (mind he knows me so he’d hardly be shocked) but he went on to tell me that he too has a trick for emptying the bag. It’s not quite so uncouth as my version (and probably a lot more manly) – as he just opens the top of the box, takes the bag out and cuts the corner off with a pair of scissors – boring but effective!

I have since discovered that many of my friends (even the ones who have enough money that they don’t need to be grubbing around for the last glass in the box) have their own tricks for getting it out. I sometimes wonder why we all bother though – it’s the last glass, it’s the oldest and it usually doesn’t actually taste that great!

^*1Friday night guy

The mystery of food groups

Since I travel a bit with big groups of people I get the chance to look at lots of peoples eating habits (some more disgusting than others) and it never ceases to amaze me at they way people eat.

For myself, I eat quite normally I think, but I always save my favourite mouthful for last – and I never eat the last few chips (french fries) on my plate. ^*1. Hubby always puts a bit of everything on his fork – not for him eating all his peas first (or whatever)! The VNSO does exactly that though , he eats in food groups - but I have a sneaky feeling that he too saves the best for last. Someone else I know just shovels everything in until they get hamster cheeks and then if whatever food they have stored in their hamster pouches turns out to be bony, then they just do the old spittoon thing with the stuff that’s indigestible (Yew!)!

In addition to that you have all the stuff that we do, or don’t eat – the stuff we like and dislike. For myself, there are probably more foods that I won’t eat because I dislike the texture than those that I dislike the taste. EO is the same (but worse than me) as she doesn’t like grainy food, squeaky food or rubbery food. Hey, I’m with her on the rubbery – oh yes, and I can’t abide jelly – fine with ice cream, but on meat? Ack!

Isn’t it all very weird?

^*1I blame my mother for this, always telling me that I couldn’t get up from the table until I had cleared my plate even if I hated it. She also used the ‘think of all the starving children in India’ thing on me and I was forever telling her to ‘pack it up in a box and send it to them’…I was precocious, even as a 5 year old!

Selective hearing I guess…

We were in bed recently and hubby was apologising for not doing something that I hadn’t asked him to do (how bizarre is that?) and I mentioned that I hadn’t asked him to do it.

“Ah” he said “but I want to help you – I don’t think I do enough to help” …

…which anyone who has followed this blog from the early days will know is patently not the case.

“But I didn’t ask you to do it” I said “So that’s fine – if I’d have wanted you to do it I would have asked and then if you hadn’t done it I’d then have had reason to complain”

“You never complain” said he…

…which again is patently not the case……

I’m guessing here that he doesn’t realise that I complain all the time, its just that once a man has been married for more than 5 years his hearing starts to go (but only in a very selective kind of way^*1 as mention of food, alcohol and hobbies all elicit a response^*2) – so how would he know whether I complain or not?

^*1 like any time I am talking?
^*2 actually, spending money also elicits a response, just not the same kind…(OJ - dear!)!

Groaning, moaning and complaining…

So, last weekend, PTV and HLW and YS^*1 came down to stay and we all went to a car rally special stage which took place inside the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. It was a pretty good evening all in all and I think everyone enjoyed themselves – lots of smoke and the occasional car running into the (plastic) barriers – you can’t complain at that.

For me, the only thing that marred the evening was a (not so) small child who was sat up on the back of the seat behind – his parents decided to leave before us and as he tried to get up to go, he slid down off the back of the seat extending both feet straight out in front of him. Whomp! Straight in the middle of my back! My first thought was ‘OMG, what if he bent my rod, I’ll be stuck in this position’ before I decided that really no great harm had been done apart from a bit of soreness. He, in typical uncouth youth fashion didn’t even stop to say sorry or to see if I was alright. Anyway, without wishing to sound too crabby about how I felt about his (complete lack of) manners, I just hope he gets acne when he reaches his teenage year, that’s all I can say!!

Anyway, I woke up the next day stiff (expected after so long on one seat) but mostly OK. By Monday I was feeling a bit bruised. By Monday night I couldn’t lean back against a hard chair I was feeling so tender and on Tuesday I took an hour to get out of bed. Wednesday I was getting grumpy as it wasn’t improving and Thursday I felt like I was getting there…. Today I am still sore but its now liveable with so…..

…I shall add that to the list of things I have discovered you shouldn’t do with a rod in your back^*2 like:

• Fall backwards out of your wheelchair at speed.
• Sit over the rear axle of a vehicle on a road with pot holes.
• Endure more than 1 hour of turbulence in an aircraft
• Get kicked in the back with both feet by a ten year old

…now they never told me those things in the hospital along with no white water rafting and no roller coasters – I must remember to enlighten them!

^*1Youngest son ^*3
*2 An expression commonly heard by my close friends which goes “You try doing that with a rod up you’re a*se!”
^*3 They also have ES (Eldest son), who has left home (see PTV’s blog) and MD (middle daughter) who is a star in her own right.

The perils of not reading the packet

I saw DG last week and she was asking my advice on how to tie a toga since she had been invited to a toga party. Well, my only efforts at such things have mostly been back in my student days and then only in a mad drunken moment so I wasn’t really too much help. I muttered something about wrapping a sheet around you like a towel, pinning it to your underwear (just in case!) and chucking the excess fabric up and over your shoulder so that you look delightful and Roman like – completely unruffled by your experiences of pinning, wrapping and generally getting in a knot. Anyway, DG seemed pretty happy with the response and went away muttering things like “buy a sheet” and “make sure I’ve got safety pins….”

I went home and so did she (opposite sides of the country) and then on the day of the party I received a frantic text:

“Help! Disaster! I bought a fitted sheet!”

Ah, DG, always bound to surprise and amuse you, just when you least expect it.

BTW, just in case anyone out there has found this blog because they really do want to tie a toga – this is how you do it.

A case of mistaken bovine identity…

Following on with a very tenuous link (you’ll see why later) from my last entry I thought I’d tell you a little tale from when hubby and I were on our recent holiday….

One day we hired a car – the island was only about 10 miles by 11 miles and so we figured we could probably see most of it (!) with one day’s car hire. Hubby drove and we set off to visit the famous local harbour and then went off to explore the interior of the island. We started driving up this hill, crested the top and then swooped down the other side following the bend in the road^*1. I saw something in a field on the right hand side of the road and as we passed it I looked at hubby, he looked at me and he said “What’s an…?” “…Elephant?” we both burst out….”doing in the middle of a field in the Caribbean…!” !!!

That was it, we were both certain that there was a small elephant – something about young elephant size, in the field, behind the hedge. How bizarre and random is that?

Well, we had to stop and double check, I mean, it was just so odd that we both thought and said the same thing at the same time….Anyway, hubby stops the car, grabs his camera and trots back up the road. What does he find? Well, by the time he got back to the ‘elephant’ it had lifted up its head and was idly chewing the cud, regarding curiously this odd tourist charging up the road towards it. You see, it was a cow, a grey and rather wrinkly cow whose head had been down at feet level and who had rather broad shoulders that looked like the ears of a small elephant….

…I guess you had to be there, but it was funny……

^*1 Plainly following the road is a good idea….

A byword on being an optimist

I was out a little while ago and met an old friend. Now I’d been out all day and so had taken my chair and as I pushed along next to her going down the street she mentioned that it was the first time she had ever actually seen me using my wheelchair. I responded by saying that that was because we normally just met in coffee shops where you could park outside and I didn’t have too far to walk. “I’m really lucky”, I said, “I have the best of both worlds really, being able to walk but having the chair when I want it”.

“You’re not lucky”, she said, “as you have to use the chair”.
“But I don’t have to...” I protested
“Yes you do” she said. “You have to use it today because you couldn’t cope with being on your feet all day”
“But I can manage without it”
“No you can’t”, she said firmly.
“I can!”
“OK, let’s say you can. Could you manage without it today and then go home and cook tea?”
“I’d manage somehow” (At this point I’m getting a bit shirty)
“OK then, can you manage without it, cook tea and then do the hoovering?”
“I’m sure I’d cope somehow” I said sullenly....
“OK, can you do all that and then do the ironing afterwards?”
“Sure – I’m sure I could” I said (but without too much conviction).
“Ah, but could you do all that and then get out of bed the next morning?”
“Um, no?”

“That’s what I mean”, she said. “You see, I can do that just fine and be fine tomorrow – therefore I think that I am lucky but you are not” ^*1

Well, maybe she’s right, maybe I do need it, rather than just wanting it to make my life easier, but despite all that, I still think I am lucky to have the choice. You see, (and I’m sure my surgeon will be able to confirm this) if you cut me in half I’ll have optimist printed right through, just like a stick of rock.

^*1This makes the poor woman sound like a right cow when it wasn’t that kind of conversation (and went on for much longer in a much gentler fashion). She was not being nasty (she is a friend after all) but she is really quite well known for calling a spade a bloody shovel…

More wonderings

I was reading this blog recently written by a scolio friend of mine from over the pond and it struck me that we have more in common than just the shape of our backs. We are both bloggers, but both of us agonised over whether to set up a blog in the first place because, in our own ways, we are quite private people.

Now you may wonder how any private person could be a blogger, but I get round it by actually being quite vague about many things in my life and the only detail I’ve ever really gone into is my internal workings! Now, I started blogging for a very specific purpose – I had scoliosis, was facing an operation and thought no one knew how I felt until I started reading a blog by someone else who had been though exactly the same thing as me. I was an avid reader and realised that if I too told my story then maybe I could help someone else in turn. So, I wrote my story (and am continuing updates too) but as you may know (if you follow my blog) that I have drifted off into …ah…other subjects – both wide and varied in nature. I wonder, why I continue with it all really, if I am such a private person, but mostly I write about stuff that amuses me in the vain hope that some of it may amuse you too.

You see, I actually think that lots of great and nice stuff happens to us all, all of the time. I was talking to hubby some time ago and he said he could never write a blog because nothing ever happens in his life but I just don’t think it s true. I think funny stuff happens all the time, its just that most of the time we are so busy and so wrapped up in our own little lives, that we just don’t recognise it and enjoy it.

Now, you’re going to think I’m going way off subject here, but stick with it, there’s a point to it really…

Some years ago I had some problems with anxiety. In fact, I became so anxious at one stage that I thought the lounge ceiling was going to collapse and I wouldn’t even sit in our camper van (I have no idea why, I was just afraid of it) – I had nameless anxiety. Not nice at all and very frightening even when you know it’s stupid and irrational. Anyway, the worst time of day for me was at night before I went to sleep. I would lie awake every night and worry. Worry about what I had to do the following day. Worry about the lounge ceiling. Worry about worrying etc…you get the idea. Anyway, I knew someone who suggested that I started following the Ten Good Things programme (or at least that’s what I call it). Basically every night before you go to sleep you must think of 10 good things that happened to you during the day. This is actually pretty hard to do to start with because you always try and think of BIG things. You always think you must only consider only important things when that’s not what it’s all about. D’you know, sometimes you get someone at a checkout who offers to pack your bag (and does so with a smile), you get an e-mail funny which makes you smile, you enjoy your lunch, you wake up and the sun is shining – little stuff like that. These are all good things and all these little things happen to each and every one of us every day – it’s just that most of the time we are so busy and so wrapped up in our own little lives that we just see can’t see them. Trying to remember the things means that we often examine what has happened to us in more detail and try to see the good in our day, rather than the bad. It makes us ‘slow down and smell the coffee’!

Well, I don’t want to start getting all preachy about this – I’m not trying to use my blog to start insisting that the whole world starts trying to spot their 10 things! I’m just trying to explain why I write my blog and why things amuse me. You see, every time someone says something funny, I try and stop and appreciate it. Then, because I did that I remember it and then I tell you guys because I thought it was amusing and hopefully it brings a smile to your faces too.

Maybe it’s all part of being an optimist, but I like to think it’s all to do with appreciation of life…

Ah well, we had to come home sometime…

So, I’m finally home and back to the blog. I’m fairly brown from all that lovely sunshine with just a few white bits to prove that I started out pale (and interesting). I think I have spent too much time in the last week or so on a hammock though, as last night in the supermarket I sank (not so) gracefully to my knees to look at the cat food on the bottom shelf and (embarrassingly) then couldn’t get back up again. Thank goodness for hubby eh?

Anyway, we had a fab holiday all ways round and came home pretty relaxed by it all (which is what it’s all about). We went on an all inclusive package which is great if you like to eat and drink (or drink and eat depending on your priorities of course) and I tried more cocktails in a week than I have in my whole life before (discovering a new found love of Margaritas^*1!).

So, we’re sat at breakfast (or was it lunch? In all inclusive all meals tend to blur into each other) and hubby and I were discussing how much we really needed this holiday after some of the events of the past couple of years (like umm, my surgery, the FIL’s illness etc) – things that on occasion have been pretty stressful. As usual I was doing most of the talking whilst hubby nodded and tried to look interested as I expounded on (yet again) my plans for 2008 (and beyond) after our nice rest.

“I don’t know sometimes though why I stick with it all” I said, “ I guess I’m just tenacious”.
“Aha!” said hubby with a flourish “That’s it, we have to get you a t-shirt now – and on the front of it - Tenacious P!”

That’s why I love hubby – he always makes me laugh…..

^*1 Especially the frozen blended kind ............ mmmm alcoholic slush puppy.....

Oh dear

Since I got back from my travels (and my 12 hour flight), my back has been pretty stiff and sore and I have had a couple of sessions with my physio to try and get it all unkinked. It is now starting to improve and she is very pleased. I did have some news for her though this week since she’s had to work so hard on me:

Me: “Um, I can’t come to see you next week as I’m going on holiday with hubby”
PT: “Oh yes, somewhere nice?”
Me: “Oh yes, hopefully guaranteed hot and sunny..”
PT: “Ah, and how long is the flight?”
Me: “Er, 8 hours?”

D’you know, I’ve never actually heard anyone say “Hrumph” before…..

Cats and their tricks

So, while I was away Grace (our lady cat) seems to have learned a new trick. It’s probably not true to say that she learned it while I was away, as its to do with the washing and hubby didn’t do any while I was away^*1 but I’m sure she must have been planning it for weeks because she is very good at it.

I did the laundry yesterday and being a nasty damp time of year it didn’t dry outside. Now we don’t have a drier (as our only attempt at owning one turned into a minor fire) so its airers and radiators in our house that get to do all the work over the winter. In this room with the PC we have a big radiator^*2 and over it at the moment are several t-shirts and polo shirts.

So, Grace reaches up inside the neck of a shirt, gets a good grip and tries to squirm her way inside. Mostly they fall to the ground as her weight is just too much and so she curls up inside a warm, dark, damp nest. I tried to catch her at it and thought (in my wisdom) that if I grabbed the shirt and held on, that she would fall out the neck. Right? Nope, wrong! She wedged herself in, bridging the neck hole with her feet down each arm and laid out across the shoulders – now I have her in a kind of hammock and I can tell that she doesn’t want to move. I shook and shook the shirt but she just hung on in there (no doubt getting her very own mini version of Alton Towers) until I finally managed to dislodge her. She ran away then but has been back since and is as I type this looking at first me then the shirts sideways as if to say “Fancy another go?”

^*1Although he did clean the house for which I am supremely grateful
^*2In fact we have BIG radiators all over the house here – some of them are about 10 ft long I think – I think the previous owner got them off the back of a lorry and mixed up imperial and metric measurements or something. Anyway, they are ridiculously large!

More airplane stuff….

So, hubby and I were sat watching the news on the goggle box last night and I was manfully trying to keep my eyes open when the announcer stated dee dee dee deet breaking news…..breaking news….(Actually I lie here as there was no dee deeing at all, no ticker tape and nothing exciting really, he just looked at a piece of paper instead of a teleprompt so that was noteworthy in itself). Anyway….

“Breaking news, there has been a collision between two aircraft at Heathrow Airport” (he is handed another piece of paper), “We are receiving news that people are being evacuated from the aircraft”.

Evacuated! No sh*t! What else are they gonna do? Is the pilot going to say “Hey, let’s just take to the air and see if the wing falls off, shall we?” Is he going to say “I wonder what’ll happen if we try and get this baby up to 35,000 feet today then?” or even “Ah, never mind, it’s only a little dent – it’ll be fine…!”

I just love the news – always guaranteed to make a statement of the bleeding obvious…!

Well, hello there…!

Well, as you can see, I am back. Although I am thoroughly jet-lagged and still fighting the urge to drop off to sleep at 8 o’clock in the evening. I have discovered that two match sticks, strategically placed between my eyelids is doing the trick at the moment!

It seems incredible to me sometimes to think that we can travel around the world so fast, although the barmy world of time zones completely befuddles me. When I left it was Sunday lunchtime and I arrived at 10pm Monday night (boy that’s a long day!). I emailed hubby to say I’d arrived OK and he got it Monday lunchtime – supposedly 8 hours before I’d sent it. Is this making any sense to you? Yes? Well, lucky you ‘cos it confuses the hell out of me!

On the way back, I left at 6 am and finally arrived home at 10pm the same day – how does that happen(?) – especially when according to my watch I’d been travelling for a straight 24 hours – how do you fit in 24 hours between 6 am and 10pm? I know they say that time flies when you’re enjoying yourself, but it wasn’t even as if I was having a good time.

I so do not recommend long haul flights if you have any amount of metalwork in your back. They shape airline seats to fit tall people with bendy backs, not short people with rigid rods…and what makes it worse is that I have such short little legs that my feet don’t reach the floor properly. Woe betide if they give me a seat with extra legroom, all I do is slide forward and down off the seat when I sleep and end up having to be rescued from the most undignified of positions. Give me a seat where your knees are in the back of the person in front any day. Wedge me in – please!!

Now, before I go, I just have to tell you about turbulence – imagine (if you will) a 12 hour flight where there was turbulence for about 10 of the 12 hours. Now I was told no roller coasters, no white water rafting and no hot air balloons (!!! ...yes, that’s what I said…) when I got my rod fitted – but they never said anything about turbulence – but I reckon now, if I can do 10 hours like that then its Alton Towers here I come…^*1

^*1Well, maybe not really, as I wouldn’t recommend it from a pain level point of view….but hey, nothing broke (I hope!)

Will you miss me?

So, here I go again – off deserting hubby and the pussy cats and heading for the far side of the world. I shall be gone for the best part of two weeks and hope it’s a good trip. I can honestly say that I am looking forward to it very much apart from the flight – long flights play havoc with the metalwork. I know most people find they get a bit stiff sitting for all that time so just imagine how it feels if you’re pretty rigid to start with. Still, every time I think how much fun it is (not) I remind myself that before surgery it was agony due to the seat arm sticking in my side (or to be more precise my side sticking into the seat arm). Anyway, it should all be good fun!

Now, we’ve known I was going on this trip for ages and although the dates kept changing, they were all within a fairly small time frame so you wouldn’t really think it would have crept up on me- but in a way it has. I guess that’s why I’m packing today (or at least I should be if I wasn’t sitting here typing this (oops!)). Seriously, I have been very organised and prepared and packing has just been a case of chucking stuff on the bed and then into a bag or two. I even know that I am going to go over the weight limit but don’t care. Does it weigh too much? Yes! Do I need it? Yes! There, not worth worrying about, is it? As they say, its only money. Actually the people who say its only money are usually those who have it, but still, sometimes life’s just to short to get your knickers in a twist (I think this should be adopted as a new proverb, don’t you?).

So as you can see I am quite laid back and chilled about the whole trip. I was even calm when I went to pack my Mp3 player and discovered that that cat has eaten my ear buds (again!). I wouldn’t mind apart from the fact of the ‘again’ part – he loves them….I have no idea if he likes the long tangly cable or if he is just addicted to ear wax, but either way, he chomps his way through them if I don’t lock them away!

Have fun when I’m away….

I love wine you know ....

..and this just says it all really.....

and just to prove that I am really addicted to LOLcats (and intelligent to boot) - check this out