Sorry...couldn't resist!

I am worried about swine flu.
I heard that the first symptom is that you come out in rashers.
Another is that you get the trotts.
But, I woke up with pig tails this morning ... Should I be worried?

• The doctor asked me how long I'd had the symptoms of Swine Flu. I said it must have been about a Weeeeeeeeeeeeeek!
• Apparently my mate's got Swine Flu, I think he's just telling porkies, though.
• The only known cure for Swine Flu in humans has been found to be the liberal application of oinkment.

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed at home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
And this little piggy had influenza A virus subtype hemagglutinin protein
1 neuraminidase protein 1

• Swine flu, however, is not a problem for the pigs because they're all going to be cured anyway.

News Flash .... this just in. The world's religious leaders have issued a joint declaration that the swine Flu pandemic is the start of the aporkalypse.

• Swine flu has now mixed with bird flu. Scientists say they will find a cure when pigs fly.

I just heard on the news that, "Swine Flu could potentially be a threat to
every single person in the world". Well it's a good thing I'm married then, isn't it?

• You've got to hand it to the Mexicans. Even Osama Bin Laden didn't scare this many Americans

Crash bang wallop

Some time ago, hubby told me that we had a leak in the bay window at the top of the house (in hubby’s hobby room^*1) and I suggested that we should get a roofer to look at it. In fact, I asked hubby to go next door and get the name of their roofer so that we could get it done. I then promptly forgot about it because:

1. I have been away a lot
2. It’s not my room and I hardly ever go in there (even when dust bunnies roll out the door when it’s opened) and
3. I have been away a lot.

Some time passes…

Hubby tells me that he now has a bucket in the room to catch the drips and I should go and look at it (which I duly do). I am a little concerned at this point as the ceiling appears to be sagging in exactly the way that you wouldn’t expect it to^*2 and I ask about the roofer’s number. It seems that hubby doesn’t have the number (although to be fair, he did ask for it but then his phone ‘ate’ it on saving). It was another visit to next door and then we had a visit from Russ the Roofer.

Russ sucked air in over his teeth (as they do) and quoted a price which seemed reasonable to me (not being a roofer). He told us he could start in 2 weeks (after his summer holiday) and I booked a space in my busy schedule.

Tuesday after yet more rain, hubby tells me that he “needs a bigger bucket” and the drip has now expanded to three. Wednesday I go away and come home Thursday night. Friday we go out for a while and we come in to find a smallish section of ceiling has detached itself from the rest and has landed partly in and mostly around the bucket. The weekend passes without incident and after an exhausting Sunday we go to bed after a nice glass of red.

2a.m. Sunday night there is a loud bang…..

…it’s the ceiling…

…it’s now on the floor…

…we now have 6 buckets on the floor and are awaiting the plasterer as well as the roofer …we need a new carpet and since all that’s going on I think a bit of re-decorating will be called for.. Any volunteers?


^*1Try saying that after 4 glasses of Merlot…

^*2Something akin to the way that spaceships hang in the air in exactly the way that bricks don’t…

It’s true I tell you!

I was recently going to the nearest big town and (as you do) went up the slip road onto the motorway (that would be an interstate or autobahn depending on where you live in the world!)

Anyway, I pulled out into the inside lane just to see some car in front of me start to pull in to the remaining section of slip road (which was by this time starting to narrow) – and I thought maybe he was heading for the hard shoulder with a breakdown or something. He then stopped pulling in, and ended up straddling the dotted line of the inside lane and the slip road and proceeded to drive along this section, while the lane on the left got progressively narrower and narrower. Now, call me untrusting, but anyone who seemed to have so little regard to where his car was actually positioned in the carriageway always needs a wide berth in my opinion and so I pulled out into the middle lane to do just that!

I accelerated past him (my little car may be old but it can outstrip a lot of stuff on the road^*1) and as I cruised past I glanced left to see what kind of idiot was driving. I found myself looking squarely at a dog who was peering intently through the windscreen and in the left hand seat next to him was a man wearing sunglasses! Now, just stop for 2 seconds and imagine what went through my mind.....

....it took me a little while to realise that this was a left hand drive car and therefore the dog was in the passenger seat!

Mind, given the rotten driving it may be that the driver really was blind – and maybe the dog was giving him directions??

^*1 ..which is great fun at traffic lights with 17 year old boys in ‘souped up’ Vauxhall Novas thinking they can burn off the old bird in the even older car!

Some thoughts on wheelchairs.

I apologise in advance for the length of this post and the philosophical nature of it all, but hey...it's been raining and somehow that gets you thinking about deep and meaningful stuff...

Last weekend, I was at an airport and it got me wondering about wheelchairs. Now, this time, I was with a single friend, but normally I am in my chair with a bunch of other people – themselves largely wheelchair users. There’s a group of us, some full time chair users (like E2O), and some not (like me), but all of us relish the freedom that a wheelchair gives us. In an airport it’s the difference between being able to go to the shops, nip to the loo, head out and look out the window, nip back for coffee and then get to the plane feeling fine. The alternative to all this is – arrive at airport, find somewhere to sit down, struggle to boarding gate picking up coffee if you pass one then sitting down at the gate to wait (probably in pain) having hopefully found somewhere to sit down on the way, if you need to be at Gate 103. Hmmm, which would you do then? Which is better, which gives you more independence – more freedom, less pain?

It sounds an easy answer doesn’t it? So why are people so determined to struggle in these situations? What is it about the human condition that makes us say ‘at least I can still walk’ – ‘I can manage!’ Manage, yes, but at what cost? This has been a really hard lesson for me to learn, but I wish I had learned it years ago and now when I look back I think that I was stupid in some of the ways that I struggled to keep up and made myself stay on my own two feet just for the sake of pride.

Wheelchair dancer wrote some stuff on this and she commented on the way that people seem to regard a wheelchair as robbing people of their independence and I hope she doesn’t mind if I cut and paste....

The saddest thing for me is, however, the bog standard wheelchairs. Have you ever noticed that no one who does not own a wheelchair to begin with ever pushes themselves? The chairs are heavy. Yes. So heavy .... I know they're industrial. They're supposed to be functional for everyone. But they aren't freedom machines. They aren't independence devices. They are transport things, designed for the pusher. Everyone in them has this kind of blanked out look.


This is so true – once in a chair people seem to expect to be pushed. They become one with the chair and not in a good way. They are the chair – the chair is a symbol of being incapable, of being abnormal and yes, that is really sad to be that way.

I find that I say to people that I hate my chair when it sits in the corner of my room and looks at me, telling me that I am disabled but I love it when I am in it. I love that freedom. I too am part of my chair (or it is part of me) but I love it. It gives me ‘legs’ that work properly, it gives me speed and balance. It helps me manage my pain – I can go further, I can go faster, I can carry things – it gives me so much I can’t begin to explain...

Another poll...what fun!

Another poll for you...search it out on the right hand side.