More Liquorice Allsorts!

Uncle David came on Saturday with a box of Liquorice Allsorts. If you read an earlier post I was having a mardy after David kindly bringing me a box of liquorice allsorts instead of chocolate as usual. He walked in with with another box of allsorts, I politely said thank you and put them down. David said "aren't you going to have one"? I said no I'll have one later. At least open them he said. 'Oh no' I thought, who has told him? I opened them not to upset him, and out popped a box of Maltesers. I then had to ask who had told him, he said I had. But how? He had read my blog! It serves me right, I will have to be careful what I write in future. Having said that, I got my chocolates back. Thank you David.

Hot Flushes a Woman Thing.

I'm getting hot flushes, I hate it. It started a couple of weeks ago. I feel like a sweaty lump. I'm not taking it well at all, I'm not used to sweating. Even when I used to do keep fit and play squash I only ever had sweat on my head and sometimes neck. In the summer if it gets hot I tend to close down, my body just can't cope with the heat, and I end up with a very bad head ache. I learned if I wet my hair down or had a cool bath that would help, I suppose its like artificial sweat.
I've been looking on the web and they're lots of herbs and other concoction you can take for hot flushes. I think I will try the sage route. So we are off to the garden centre this week to buy a red sage plant, so I can make a sage tea. I will report back if it works.

A New Record 7 nightmares in one night

A long Dark Dark night
Where hell holds firm
And there's little light

Come close come close and listen
let me take you to the west
Where the light are low and you can rest

Come to me and follow
to see and not been seen
hold hands with me to Valhalla
and no more may you dream

I don't really want to talk about my nightmares, but I needed to put down the essence of them. I know the poem needs a lot of work, maybe one day I will finish it. I hope not, you can dwell on things far too long. I feel much better for putting it down. I think I will go back to bed now and try and sleep, as last night I got so I was too scared too.

Don't count your chickens before their hatched or Never take anything for granted.

As the saying goes, don't count your chickens before their hatched, comes to mind, or in this case maltesers. After a few days of chocolate fever David came with 'liquorice allsorts'. It's really good of him, but they're not chocolate and I really don't like allsorts they're far too sweet. I have been obsessed with a need for chocolate, but didn't give in I can wait until Saturday. David will come, he always brings me some chocolate usually Maltesers. Never take anything or any one for granted. I feel horrible I really should be grateful. But chocolate deprivation can bring the mardy side out of me, I feel like a child who's had their sweets taken off them. I think I have an addiction, I need help. But in the meantime Andy's gone to get chocolate, I do love him.

Misty Trees

John Hobson Photography
Misty Trees

Just had to put this up.
This photo was made while on a long hike from North Berwick to Dunbar. By my soon to be son in-law John. He said the whole way was really misty and particularly so at that point, towards the Dunbar end.
What a beautiful almost ghostly image, I can feel the quiet and stillness . The image seems to come up and immerse you with it, I love it.
John has a link on this blog if you would like to see more of his work.

Back on the road again

We are back on the road again. The reason it took so long is that when the fuel pump stopped working it blew the on board computer system. No wonder the mechanics couldn't pin point the problem. I'm just glad it's back and we can get out and do some visiting. We have been wanting to visit Andy's sister Debbie, her husband John and the little ones, as they have just moved to a new house.

Where's the butterflies? and bump goes the pigeon!

xxxxxxx
It's Fathers Day, and Andy started the day with a card and a Swiss army knife from Vivyan and John, which is something Andy has fancied for a while.
Jane, Andy, A Finlay and Amber came today bearing beer for Andy, something Andy is always pleased to receive. Then they took us out to the Butterfly farm at Anston near where we live. It's a lovely place with plenty to see as long as you don't expect to see many butterflies. You could count all the butterflies on one hand!
Back home in time for Ruth to arrive. More presents, egg poacher? ( Andy has trouble poaching eggs) goodies and ingredients for her to cook a evening meal. A very nice day, it didn't start that way.
Andy was playing his guitar. He had promised his self an hours guitar before Jane came. He was having trouble playing as well as usual. He's having a lot of problems with his hands and wrists, their giving him a lot of pain. It started with me, I was in a talkative mood, and the phone never stopped ringing for him. At last hes got about fifteen minutes before Jane gets here, the phone rings again, the guitar gets thrown on the bed. Five or ten minutes left, the guitar out of tune from its landings, Arrrrrrrrrrr. He starts tuning it, the phone rings, he gives up!

As I'm typing up my post, Bang a young wood pigeon hits our bedroom windows. We rush out, the poor thing broke it's neck, and died in Andy's hands. It was a beautiful young bird, not yet got all it's adult feathers. We looked at the bed room window from outside and you can see the imprint of its body and wings. Quite beautiful in a way, a ghost print, the spread of its wings are much longer than you would expect. After a few moments of sadness holding the pigeon, looking at it, what a shame it just gets to an age where its self sufficient, Bump and its gone. As Andy looked at it for the last time saying what a waste, I said may be not, can't you eat it? Andy inspected its breasts, no its too young not enough meat on it!

Three Peaks Walk

Peak experience: the view from Combs Edge in Derbyshire.
Photograph: Don McPhee.

My daughter Ruth, is doing a charity walk for Marie Curie on July 5th.
The challenge is to walk 26 miles over the three highest peaks of the Peak District in 10-12 hours. She personally would like to get it done in under 11. The views will be hard earned but fantastic. Plus she's just broken her ribs, but thankfully have three weeks to heal before she does the walk.

Please sponsor her www.justgiving.com/ruthleigh1
Thank you from Ruth

Have wheelchair will travel

We went to collect my wheelchair today, in Ken's crawl/judder car.
So I am one step nearer to visiting family and friends plus a walk in the countryside or should I say a push in the country side. All we need is our car back, its been a long month without it.

Travel in style

I've been to the pain clinic today, what a journey. The car we borrowed from Ken at the garage give us an interesting drive. We set off in plenty of time to get to the clinic for 1pm.
The journey was awful, every light at red, road works, very low on fuel, so had to go out of our way to find the petrol station, and only just in time. All this in a automatic that doesn't like changing gears. We finally arrived at the pain clinic nearly twenty minutes late.
The therapist seemed pleased with the little progress I am making, and gave me a few stretching exercises to do. So now I'm up to breathing and stretching. The good thing is I don't have to go back to the clinic, as she made me a telephone appointment. This means I can give her a up date of my progress over the phone, which means I don't use to much energy getting there, which makes a lot of sense.

Enjoyable Saturday

I'm still not sleeping well and thought I might be a little tired after a busy day, but I don't feel all that bad considering.
The postman came this morning with a book I ordered last Wednesday. Joy, joy, happy, happy, (Ice Age Britain)I've glanced through and can't wait to read it. Then Uncle David called with a box of maltesers, naughty, naughty, I'm on a diet, yum, yum, in my tum.
This afternoon Angie and Harry came with the girls, baring gifts a plant with deep red flowers, cannot remember whats it's called but very beautiful. We had a lovely afternoon catching up, we don't see enough of them with me unable to travel far, and them having to keep visits short. But that will change as soon as we get the car back and I finally get the wheelchair. There's no rushing the social services, Andy going to ring them once again on Monday.
A good day and I'm really tiered you never know I might sleep through to night, I did a few weeks back I had six hours straight.

Fish, Chips & Mushy Peas.

We had fish, chips and mushy peas for tea to night. I wished we hadn't bothered, for two reasons.
Reason Number one, I am supposed to be on a diet.
Reason number two, they were crap. Fish over cooked and anemic chips, the mushy peas were alright but we cooked them.
Andy had just come back from seeing if the car had been fixed yet, the answer to that is NO. the garage is having problems finding out exactly what's wrong with the bl****g thing.
They have loaned us a little automatic car, that finds it difficult to go up hills with any enthusiasm, but still it gets you from A to B. Having a car meant Andy could go and do the shop, having not been able to do a big shop for three weeks we needed a lot. This meant he wouldn't be back in time to cook.
We decided to have fish and chips for ease. The Admiral (fish & chip shop) have gone back to making poor chips and batter with fish. For a while the owner had left the cooking to some Serbian blokes, they couldn't half cook a mean fish and chips, wonderful some decent fries for once. The Admirals owner decided to retrain the fryers, big mistake, don't think we will go back.