Just that.....
...I hope that it is truly happy, healthy and wealthy for you all.....
...I hope that it is truly happy, healthy and wealthy for you all.....
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Merry Crimbo....!
Hi everyone
Just wanted to say thanks to you all for reading my blog and your comments and support.
Nothing else except....
Merry Christmas to you all! 
Nothing else except....
Merry Christmas to you all! 
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
...the goose is getting fat...
I love Christmas, always have – it’s not just the presents and the decorations, but for me it’s all about being able to show people how much you care for them, in a world where we don’t often take the time to say it. Somehow I always seem to be too busy to meet up for lunch and while away the hours just chilling out with the people I love best. I admit it too, I am a busy type of person who finds it hard to just ‘be’ – I always seem to have the next thing to be done on my mind and it’s hard to find the things that entice my nose away from its grindstone. Friday nights with the BUF make me do that ...and so does Christmas. As a family we usually don’t turn on the telly on all day, we just spend our time, playing games and spending (what I see as) special time with each other.
This year though, I know will be different from normal and I don’t know how everyone else is going to feel. To start with, mother has gone away for Christmas to friends in Canada so that will be the first time ever that we won’t see her over the Christmas period. Then of course, there’s the big spectre – my achalasia. I don’t want to sound depressing but I just have no idea how it will affect other people over the dinner table (let alone how I feel about it). I was recently asked what I would eat for Christmas dinner and I flippantly said pureed carrots and bread sauce. Flip it may have been, but its not that far from the truth and the whole idea is odd – I am not looking forward to the food aspects of Christmas but isn’t that often a strong focus of the season? I am going to MBP and the SIL’s as well and feel bad already as I know I won’t be able to eat what she has made. I feel guilty about my medical condition which is nuts...I guess you just don’t realise what a focus food is in people’s lives and how much we all take it for granted until it becomes a problem. What’s worse is I know how much it upsets hubby as he is reminded every day, every meal, that I have a problem and one that really upsets him whenever he tries to imagine what it would be like to live with it.
For me, I just think this year will be odd and different but that doesn’t mean that I won’t still enjoy spending that special time with my family.
This year though, I know will be different from normal and I don’t know how everyone else is going to feel. To start with, mother has gone away for Christmas to friends in Canada so that will be the first time ever that we won’t see her over the Christmas period. Then of course, there’s the big spectre – my achalasia. I don’t want to sound depressing but I just have no idea how it will affect other people over the dinner table (let alone how I feel about it). I was recently asked what I would eat for Christmas dinner and I flippantly said pureed carrots and bread sauce. Flip it may have been, but its not that far from the truth and the whole idea is odd – I am not looking forward to the food aspects of Christmas but isn’t that often a strong focus of the season? I am going to MBP and the SIL’s as well and feel bad already as I know I won’t be able to eat what she has made. I feel guilty about my medical condition which is nuts...I guess you just don’t realise what a focus food is in people’s lives and how much we all take it for granted until it becomes a problem. What’s worse is I know how much it upsets hubby as he is reminded every day, every meal, that I have a problem and one that really upsets him whenever he tries to imagine what it would be like to live with it.
For me, I just think this year will be odd and different but that doesn’t mean that I won’t still enjoy spending that special time with my family.
Monday, December 22, 2008
EEEEking Ebay....
I am currently waiting from a response from an EBay seller after asking them if I can cancel my bid. I just bid for an item but forgot to insert the decimal point at the appropriate place in the amount I wanted to bid and find myself with a possible £582.00 to pay for a £5.00 item.
I think my senior moments may be starting....
I think my senior moments may be starting....
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Fishing for cats
Well, Christmas is nearly on us again and hubby got the trusty tree down from the attic. For days Grace was eyeing the box, trying to get in and today we opened it up – cue one excited Grace and one rather bemused looking Clumsy (eh?? what’s this and what’s it doing in my house??) – Clumsy looks slightly bemused much of the time so I wasn’t too worried there – and Grace obviously clearly remembered her very own climbing frame that was stashed away in the attic after too few weeks of play time..
That was it; we plugged in the branches and waited for ...ooh....about 25 seconds. She was up the tree, down the tree, jumping in, jumping out (whilst Clumsy looked on in bemusement (predictably) being much too clumsy to even think of trying such antics)...well, plug in wire branches are not made to take the weight of 4 year old cats, however graceful and light-footed they are and before long the tree of 36 branches only had 34, then 32, then 28 and so on....
We muttered and huffed a bit and came up with a solution – a real tree with nasty spiky branches and dense growth close to the trunk to deter her and so toddled off out to buy one (real tree being much nicer anyway and keeps the poor Forestry Commission guys in work in these times of credit crunching!).
Having found a fine specimen, Hubby duly lugged it home and we set it up in its bucket of water in the lounge. “Top up daily” said the instructions “and it may be helpful to float some pieces of polystyrene in the water to easily see when the water level drops”. That seemed sensible, so we did. That was it, Grace comes in, investigates (Ow! Spikey!) tree and then spies the polystyrene beans and starts fishing in the water for them...
...ooo, bobby beady thing...
....ooo, wet....! ...(shakes paw)...
...ooo, bobby beady thing...
....ooo, wet....! ...(shakes paw)...
Repeat ad infinitum.
Well, it entertained us....!
That was it; we plugged in the branches and waited for ...ooh....about 25 seconds. She was up the tree, down the tree, jumping in, jumping out (whilst Clumsy looked on in bemusement (predictably) being much too clumsy to even think of trying such antics)...well, plug in wire branches are not made to take the weight of 4 year old cats, however graceful and light-footed they are and before long the tree of 36 branches only had 34, then 32, then 28 and so on....
We muttered and huffed a bit and came up with a solution – a real tree with nasty spiky branches and dense growth close to the trunk to deter her and so toddled off out to buy one (real tree being much nicer anyway and keeps the poor Forestry Commission guys in work in these times of credit crunching!).
Having found a fine specimen, Hubby duly lugged it home and we set it up in its bucket of water in the lounge. “Top up daily” said the instructions “and it may be helpful to float some pieces of polystyrene in the water to easily see when the water level drops”. That seemed sensible, so we did. That was it, Grace comes in, investigates (Ow! Spikey!) tree and then spies the polystyrene beans and starts fishing in the water for them...
...ooo, bobby beady thing...
....ooo, wet....! ...(shakes paw)...
...ooo, bobby beady thing...
....ooo, wet....! ...(shakes paw)...
Repeat ad infinitum.
Well, it entertained us....!
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Things happen in 3’s
As a quick add on to the last entry we went to the pub quiz again and lo and behold there was nothing special going on. We thought the questions were really hard and thought we hadn’t done very well until we added up at the end – 91 points didn’t sound so bad....especially since he announced that second place had tied at 90 points. We had won!
Now each question is worth 2 points so you have to ask how our score was an odd number and it’s all down to the fact that the SIL remembered something about a serial killer called ‘maybe the panther?’ – Turns out it was the Black Panther, but whoever marked our paper generously gave us 1 point for getting half the answer. Thanks guys....
Now each question is worth 2 points so you have to ask how our score was an odd number and it’s all down to the fact that the SIL remembered something about a serial killer called ‘maybe the panther?’ – Turns out it was the Black Panther, but whoever marked our paper generously gave us 1 point for getting half the answer. Thanks guys....
...so we won the princely sum of £15 which I am going to save for when I can eat again and treat us to a pizza!
Monday, December 08, 2008
Quality Street and quizzes
So, PMB and the SIL go out with us once a fortnight to the pub quiz and we have a lot of fun and suddenly find out just how competitive we all are...!
It always comes to the end of the night, we’ve totted up our scores and we wait with bated breath to see if we’ve made it into the top three. The quizmaster always calls the teams ‘in no particular order’ but leaves the best 3 until last and we are gutted if we don’t get close...it’s a cash prize (a proportion of the takings) but for us it’s not about the money at all...it’s about the winning!
So, the other week we went and when we arrived we found out that it was a pink night in aid of breast cancer. All the people (apart from us, because we didn’t know) were wearing pink and there were special prizes and a raffle etc. We did the quiz as usual and although not especially happy with our score (especially since for some stupid reason we failed to realise that there was a character called Maria in the Sound of Music) we sat waiting for the scores as usual. It was at that point that the phone rang (or at least it buzzed around on the table a bit because it was on silent) and it turns out that it was mother who had arrived at the station early having just come back off holiday and wanted a lift. The original plan was for her to arrive about 30 minutes after we left the pub but there you go, that’s public transport, late if you’re in a hurry, early if you’re busy!
So, we decide to rush out the door to get her and Alan (the quizmaster stops us) – “You can’t go” he says “you’ve tied for first place and there’s a tiebreaker question.” Now bearing in mind this was the first time we have ever got to first place (even if it was a tie), mother or no mother*1 we were going to stay for the next few minutes....anyway, well, you know that thing where they ask a question and the answer is easy because you know it, well it was like that. As an avid watcher of Top Gear and a bit of a closet petrol head, when they asked how long the new Fiat 500 was, I confidently picked a number and was only a few inches out...so....we won...and because it was a special night, we got a box of Quality Street (what's in your tin?) and no money!
Next time we went to the quiz, it was another special night, this time for Pudsey Bear and Children in Need. People were wearing pyjamas and just like last time, we didn’t know about it so turned up in regular clothes (that’s the problem with going every fortnight, the announcements of what’s happening next week aren’t much use to you!). This time, mother was at home so we had no worries of urgent phone calls and we were all armed with Barclays Bank pens *2 and were ready to go. At the end we knew we’d done well too – no silly Maria answers and we only dropped 6 points in the whole evening! Amazingly for the second time we found out that we’d come joint first and had another tie breaker. Eeek! It was a football based question (no help from me here or hubby, we only watch rugby) so it was all down to PMB who doesn’t really watch football either. Anyway, he conjured up a figure out of mid air and won again...another box of Quality Street!
Ah well, I guess that’s Christmas taken care of and besides which with all my not eating proper food (unless its been 'sloppified'), I could do with the extra calories!
*1Mother had come all the way back from China via Russia on the Trans-Siberian express and now we were going to be late meeting her at the station – that’s pretty poor really, isn’t it. I think we are very bad children...
*2The SIL takes it very seriously that every time she goes to the bank and reads the sign that says please take one of our pens - she does!
It always comes to the end of the night, we’ve totted up our scores and we wait with bated breath to see if we’ve made it into the top three. The quizmaster always calls the teams ‘in no particular order’ but leaves the best 3 until last and we are gutted if we don’t get close...it’s a cash prize (a proportion of the takings) but for us it’s not about the money at all...it’s about the winning!
So, the other week we went and when we arrived we found out that it was a pink night in aid of breast cancer. All the people (apart from us, because we didn’t know) were wearing pink and there were special prizes and a raffle etc. We did the quiz as usual and although not especially happy with our score (especially since for some stupid reason we failed to realise that there was a character called Maria in the Sound of Music) we sat waiting for the scores as usual. It was at that point that the phone rang (or at least it buzzed around on the table a bit because it was on silent) and it turns out that it was mother who had arrived at the station early having just come back off holiday and wanted a lift. The original plan was for her to arrive about 30 minutes after we left the pub but there you go, that’s public transport, late if you’re in a hurry, early if you’re busy!
So, we decide to rush out the door to get her and Alan (the quizmaster stops us) – “You can’t go” he says “you’ve tied for first place and there’s a tiebreaker question.” Now bearing in mind this was the first time we have ever got to first place (even if it was a tie), mother or no mother*1 we were going to stay for the next few minutes....anyway, well, you know that thing where they ask a question and the answer is easy because you know it, well it was like that. As an avid watcher of Top Gear and a bit of a closet petrol head, when they asked how long the new Fiat 500 was, I confidently picked a number and was only a few inches out...so....we won...and because it was a special night, we got a box of Quality Street (what's in your tin?) and no money!
Next time we went to the quiz, it was another special night, this time for Pudsey Bear and Children in Need. People were wearing pyjamas and just like last time, we didn’t know about it so turned up in regular clothes (that’s the problem with going every fortnight, the announcements of what’s happening next week aren’t much use to you!). This time, mother was at home so we had no worries of urgent phone calls and we were all armed with Barclays Bank pens *2 and were ready to go. At the end we knew we’d done well too – no silly Maria answers and we only dropped 6 points in the whole evening! Amazingly for the second time we found out that we’d come joint first and had another tie breaker. Eeek! It was a football based question (no help from me here or hubby, we only watch rugby) so it was all down to PMB who doesn’t really watch football either. Anyway, he conjured up a figure out of mid air and won again...another box of Quality Street!
Ah well, I guess that’s Christmas taken care of and besides which with all my not eating proper food (unless its been 'sloppified'), I could do with the extra calories!
*1Mother had come all the way back from China via Russia on the Trans-Siberian express and now we were going to be late meeting her at the station – that’s pretty poor really, isn’t it. I think we are very bad children...
*2The SIL takes it very seriously that every time she goes to the bank and reads the sign that says please take one of our pens - she does!
Monday, December 01, 2008
Aaaah bless....
When I saw the manometry doctor we were talking about my condition (funny that, normally I go and see the doctor to talk about sport 
) and I mentioned that I had lost a lot of weight and was finding it impossible to gain any.
“We see that a lot with this condition”, he said. “People lose weight and generally just fail to thrive”
I felt like he wanted to pat me on the head and go "there, there"*1....failure to thrive indeed - sounds so odd, doesn’t it?
*1I like this version from Jools Holland Show....
) and I mentioned that I had lost a lot of weight and was finding it impossible to gain any. “We see that a lot with this condition”, he said. “People lose weight and generally just fail to thrive”
I felt like he wanted to pat me on the head and go "there, there"*1....failure to thrive indeed - sounds so odd, doesn’t it?
*1I like this version from Jools Holland Show....
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