This week, mostly

I’m reading…..

Falling Cloudberies, a world of family recipes. This is a wonderful cookbook by Tessa Kiros who was born in London to Finnish mother and a Greek-Cypriot father. When she was 4 the family moved to South Africa. This book is a melange of foods from the cultures which make up her family and she where was living and I love it for its’ simple Greek dishes and its’ wonderful photography. A great read even if I didn’t cook any of it!



I’m eating…..

Greek food. Trying to pretend it is warm and sunny even when it is snowing. I am finishing some Yiouvetsi, slow baked lamb with pasta and tomatoes. Next will be Yemista, baked vegetables filled with rice and aromatically spiced meat, redolent of cinnamon and lemon. I’m having Greek yoghurt and rose petal jam for breakfast too.



I’m wearing….

a wonderful old jumper from M&S which is just right for this frankly, flipping, freezing weather. It’s made from silk and cashmere and is really toasty with its’ high collar and its’ extra long length. Who cares if it’s last years (or even the year’s before) model?

It matches my new paintwork too!

One week on

I have now taken 7 of the much heralded Plaquenil. The experience is interesting to say the least. I need to take them with a quantity of food. A snack will not do, neither will my customary lunch of vege soup. The nausea has been quite overwhelming. I am stuck in a routine now of taking them when I have my main meal, with the first mouthful or the effects of the food are negated. Some 30 minutes later my eyes start to blur and stay like that for a couple of hours. I was warned about this, so I hope it is but a transitory phase.

This morning I saw my GP, having been summoned at the end of last week to discuss a letter from the hospital. She had finally received permission to start me on this drug I am already taking and needed to test my eyes. I had assumed that the hospital letter was from the chap I had actually seen. Wrong. It was from the woman who I normally see, quite unaware that I had attended 10 days ago and been seen by someone else.

Finally, the consultant suggests I call to make an appointment to be monitored in four months time. That appointment was already made for me by the other chap, I go on July 6th. No wonder the NHS is short of money. I now have 2 consultants for the same speciality, each of them thinks that they are the only one!

http://www.midwestarthritis.com/html/plaquenil.htm

Stone Cold Sunday

Sky grey, cold day.
Wind, wind ,wind
Winds round, round.
Whines through.
Whistles, whistles, whistles.

Boughs bow, branches bend
Down, down, down,
Stirring the sky.
Birds beat
Wings wearily

Grass grows wintery white.
Soft, soft soft,
Snow settles slow,
Slow, slow.
Blows, blows, blows.

Air crisp, cuts, burns
Stings, stings, stings.
Eyes run, tears tear
Rosy cheeks in two
Rivers of ice.

Wind blows, cold grows
Deeper, deeper, deeper.
Marrow bitter.
Fingers throb
White, white, white.

Door opens, heat hits-
A rush of blood.
Glow, glow, glow.
Bodies sigh
Ah, ah, ah.

The North wind doth blow

and we did have snow, although not as much as we had in November.

I'd just like another good covering so I can go and take some more photos, but only want it to last a couple of hours or so just to see it looking all white and sparkling without any of the inconveniences of a heavy snow fall!

I don't want much do I??

Kalimera Kalamos

In 12 weeks time we will be here. A sleepy backwater called Kalamos on the Pagasitic Gulf in Greece. This is the view from our terrace.

We will fly into Volos, collect our car, pick up groceries from "Champion" in Volos town then head off for the 2 hour drive to Kalamos, stopping only in Argalasti for some of the Nymphe local wine. That will be our last need of civilisation for 2 weeks.

We have been here before, last September, and thought we had died and gone to heaven. Arriving on a Sunday afternoon, not a sound could be heard other than the lapping of the waves and the distant put put of the little fishing boats. The only other inhabitant we saw for an hour or more, a kingfisher, using 'our' tree as a lookout post as he fished in the waters below.

It's a very Greek place almost untouched by tourists, no illustrated menus and display boards here. The single village taverna served what was in their kitchen, brought homemade bread in a basket and tomatoes straight from the garden. The neighbours arrived "Kalimerasas, Te kanete?" (hello, how are you?). They caught some fish, cooked and ate it, then packed up and went home to their main house up the hill.

In late May the temperature will be in the low 80's and cloud and rain will be forgotten in Greek skies until September. We can't wait, whilst days of rain and snow and bitter east winds fill our existence. Only 12 weeks for the promise of sun.

We fill our hours pouring over maps, making endless mental lists of the little places we missed last time and those places to which we must return, where they had the freshest fish, the sweetest orange juice, the spiciest walnut cake. Once we arrive all those lists will be forgotten as we slip into Greek Time and do nothing.

Scenes from a life past.....3

The dairy had been on the site since 1930 and had been modernised in 1959, 18 years previously. It was one of the most up to date in Europe and it had a good reputation for both its’ products and its’ workers. We must not let the company down. To that end we went on to hear about Health and Safety, mostly as it related to driving, parking and reversing milk floats, how not to lift a crate above your head, how full crates tended to be heavier, how easily the bottles smashed and lastly which side of the doorstep to leave the milk on. Ted asked one of the youngest lads where he would put a fresh delivery of milk.
“In the fridge I s’pose”
“No lad, when you take the bottles out of your hand-crate and leave them on the doorstep. Where do you put them?”
“Where there’s a space.” Someone suggested that pensioners often had a little crate with a numbered flag for the purpose.
“I bought my Nan one for Christmas once”
“Forget that........ Where do you put the milk on the step if there isn’t a little crate?” Ted was speaking more slowly and precisely now.
“What if they got one of them meter cupboards?”
By now Ted was almost exploding. “No, no, no!! ................. On.. the.. hinge.. side,” he ennunciated.
“Yer what?”
“You look at the front door, look what side it opens, you know where the lock is, and you put the bottles the other side. The side which stays still when you open the door.”
“Eh?”
“So your unsuspecting customer doesn’t come waltzing out of the door and go flying over the milk. Health and safety. See?”
“Does the supervisor come round and check where you’ve put them?”

Controversial or what?

I have just discovered that Hayseed Dixie are playing Exeter University on April 25th. Looks like two aging rockgrass fans will be joining the student masses and bopping the night away.

Hayseed Dixie are: Barley Scotch - singer, guitar & fiddle; Don Wayne Reno - banjo;Dale Reno - mandolin; Jason D. Smith - bass and originally started as a tribute band to AC/DC playing their covers in a Blugrass style. In more recent times they have released much more original material notably on their latest album A Hot Piece of Grass.

Promoting themselves as hard drinking, womanising Appalachian small-town hicks, however, does not disguise the fact that they are all accomplished musicians with a good musical pedigree. Don Reno, father to Don Wayne and Dale Reno recorded the classic Dueling Banjos from the 1973 Burt Reynolds flim Deliverence, releasing it with Arthur Smith, it's composer, in 1983. Don Reno is revered as legendary in American bluegrass history for his improvisations, technical skills and good-humored personality.

Granted some of the subject matter of their original material leaves nothing to the imagination as on I Wish I Was You So I Could F**k me, but other tracks such as Kirby Hill and I Married the Moonshiner's Daughter amuse and hint of a lifestyle still found in remoter parts of the hill country.

Listen to them if you dare, once you see past their obsession with liquor and bodily functions, you might even enjoy their music!

A good video interview of them can be seen here : http://www.cookingvinyl.com/ (although you will have to navigate to almost the bottom of the page).

This week, mostly

I'm eating.....

fruit and veg. The legacy of these massive doses of steroid I keep getting is hunger. So to combat that I am eating fruit, fruit, more fruit and plates of steamed vegetables. I have read that the Plaquenil I finally started taking has nausea as a side effect. The combination should be interesting. Watch this space.

I'm reading.....

the Sunday Times from last weekend. As I was out most of the day I didn't have time to read it, so will be plodding my way through when I can. Funny how you can read it on a Sunday in a single sitting but if you don't for any reason it takes the whole of the rest of the week.

I'm watching.....

to see if my daffodils are coming through yet. I have drifts of snowdrops, a riot of pale lemon crocus and several tiny blue iris but the daffodils seem to be hiding this year. Maybe if I cleared the leaves from last autumn it would help?

This year's model

I have cats. For the last 16 years I have had cats. Why I got one in the first place was a tale in itself but suffice to say after a long life of gardening, chasing them off, swearing at them and generally detesting the things I was hooked. My one cat turned into 4, not literally you understand, that one turned into 5, I kept one kitten and then another 2 came to join it. The cat population was set at 4. For a while.

Each year I seem to get another lodger, who will turn up, make themselves at home, ingratiate themself with the regulars, then just as we appear to be settled as a regular 5, suddenly clears off again. Goodbye.

The year I spent 4 weeks bedridden with 2 slipped discs, a black kitten moved in. Crawling to the bathroom in the middle of one night I realised that 2 beady eyes were peering at me from under WH's bed. He stayed about a month, had a marvellous time playing on the bedcovers, trying to pinch the lunch that WH would leave for me each day and scaring the older residents half to death with his pounces and attempts at thuggery. He went as suddenly as he had come going where we knew not. He never even had a name.

The summer we both had a flu bug that laid us so low we would collapse in bed at one house until, bored, we would change houses and bedrooms just for a change of scenery, Honey Bunch arrived. He was a big male with a beautiful honey coat and a lovely manner. He was polite too. Waiting under the kidney beans, he would rush up as soon as the back door opened so long as the coast was clear, talking to us with his deep, throaty purr. Feeding Honey was the only task either of us completed other than absolute essentials like feeding the residents and preparing restorative drinks, for almost 3 weeks. Several weeks later when it seemed Honey was here to stay he surprised me by jumping into my arms one morning and licking my face all over. It was his way of announcing his departure, we never saw him again.

The spring I lost my job and my Godfather died in the same week, Twilight appeared. She had been living in an old Devon hedge opposite the house and used to thieve food when the back door was open. After months of skulking in the shadows she moved in, lock, stock and barrel. She commandeered the back bedroom, WH's room, and when he worked nights and slept days and our world was upside down she sat guard-cat on his side as he slept. Her eyes remained open all through her vigil and when WH turned over and she was thrown to the floor, she jumped straight back on to her post. Sleek and silver lined, a true mackerel, she had white eyeliner and a superior expression. Strangely she had no voice, just a strangled clipped little Mi-ow of two separate syllables. She was damaged and nervous and was spooked, her previous life had been tough, we could tell. She came to claim the whole of the upstairs and woe betide anyone who tried to challenge her authority. She loved Goggins to bits and they chased and they played and fought over an old box and spent hours in companionable slumber. She stayed 4 years until poison damage from a previous existence finally claimed her.

Two weeks after Twilight died, Herbie arrived from the garden behind ours. Black and white, bold as brass, a kitten on a mission. He was all of 6 weeks old. Living with dogs, he thought he was one. He hated his owners with a vengeance and refused to go home, sneaking out of windows and barely opened doors when his owners weren't looking. He terrorised the neighbourhood for 3 years, chewed my hair and sucked my ears, sleeping down the bed on my knees which he fastidiously washed for me each night. He took over as Top Cat but he still needed his surruptitious comforts. He aquired a taste for travel and now lives round the corner with an elderly couple who worship him, an only cat. I had to buy a hot water bottle - my poor knees still miss him. Every morning he appears at our front, just to check we are still here.

The year we were trying to move house Sweety Pie took up residence in the top of the garden. Tiny, pretty and nervy as Hell she was a feral cat who came to accept us providing we bore gifts of food. She was dainty, well mannered when she ate and Goggins adored her, allowing her to sit under his garden chair so long as he remained on top. She had 6 kittens under a bush and brought them down to the house to us when her nest got waterlogged in a thunderstorm. She allowed us to care for her kittens indoors when the weather took an unseasonal turn and 2 weeks of rain gave them all flu and sore eyes. She would venture into the kitchen and call for them and one by one they would appear from their hideout behind the bookcase. By the end of her stay she was sleeping on the sofa, when she thought we hadn't noticed, with Nelson, her pride and her joy. She had no time for Misty and his constant misbehaviour, she would look disdainfully at him, "Oh no, no son of mine, not like me at all." Eventually she was tamed and rehomed to a more select environment than our rowdy establishement leaving two of her sons behind as a lasting reminder.

This year we have Vertically Challenged Cat. He arrived around New Year, a big bodied black cat with a cheeky expression and inquisitive eyebrows who looks out from the bushes and peers in the cat flap when it's quiet. Only when he stands up and walks do you realise that he is half the height you would expect for his length and his girth, his belly brushing the grass and impeding his progress as he tries to dart away unseen. Only time will tell us his personality and whether or not the indigenous population will make friends.

A rush of steroid

Or why can't I feel like this everyday?

On Friday I had a large dose of cortisone in each shoulder. My arms now actually move. My hands no longer feel like wood for three hours each morning. I know WH is a carpenter by trade but this is taking empathy too far. Best of all that searing, yet gnawing, pain has gone. For a while.

I had all this in November after it was realised that what one doctor was treating as two frozen shoulders was really a maninfestation of the RA-like disease. Thank goodness I saw that second chap. " I'll give you some now" "Whaaaat?" I was sitting in his private 'Rooms' and was no doubt paying by the second for the plush cream carpet, the original lithographs on the walls and the snooty, look down her nose, vision in Jaegar and pearls who had let us in the front door. I panicked. I asked WH to come and hold my hand, I said I don't do injections very well. They thought I was being a real wuss. What was really going through my mind was that the last time I had had that treatment, the needle had hit a nerve or something deep in the joint, I had a sudden adrenaline rush and I threw up all over the doctor only then to pass out cold.

The room was swimming and all I could think about were those cream carpets and Oh My God the bill if I was sick. I braced myself, and took a deep breath, I nearly broke WH's thumb gripping it so tightly. I hardly felt the first injection. We all changed sides. The second was OK too. "I think I'll just pop some in your wrists as well, it will help your hands." First one done I sat back, this was a breeze this time, no worries. The last one went in on my right wrist alongside those big veins, it was a slightly different place to that on my left wrist. the needle hit the nerve, an electric shock shot out of my finger tips and rebounded back up my arm. "Oh shit" I shouted at the top of my voice. WH looked away. The dapper little consultant beamed, "All done now, wasn't so bad was it?" No, not if you're used to having a hand where the wiring diagram had gone crazy, had shocks from everything you touched, the feeling of your flesh being on fire and the pain to accompany it. I felt like one of those space aliens who have killer sparks coming out of their hands. Oh yes, a piece of cake.

The following morning I could have done the Olympic Shot Put. My shoulders felt like they were floating. My hands moved in the early hours of the day. For the first time in months I could brush my hair properly, have a shower, dress myself and tie my shoelaces and all before twelve o'clock. WH said it was reminiscent of the film "The Awakening". It was worth it.

The treatment did not live up to it's promise however and after 6 weeks all the strange little symptoms started creeping back. In early January whilst WH was away skiing I painted the kitchen. By the the end of the month I could barely move. I had been promised 8 months of freedom, I had barely had 8 weeks.

A long awaited NHS appointment beckoned, and I finally went last week. Another new man. He was great though. Was horrified I have still not started the disease modifying treatment I was prescribed by the chap in November. Was mystified why the GP seemed to need a name for this strange fast moving condition. "It doesn't matter what it's called at this stage, the thing is to stop it from getting worse. I can't leave you like this. I'll put some cortisone in your shoulders." I was on my own this time. I told him I was a bit wary of needles. "Well don't look then." Oh if it were only that simple.

After the two painless, incident free shots I told him the real reason I was wary. "Well you did that all wrong" he replied, "You should have been sick over the nurse."

Scenes from a life past.....2

The next month passed by in a frenzy of activity. I managed to speak to Mr Graham on the phone, who said he was sure he had offered me the job but now he came to think about it he had never actually seen a copy of the letter. He began to be quite a pest at 6pm on several occasions phoning me to tell me of his master plan for this laboratory of his, how I was to be the first of a series of Super Techs appointed for their potential as management material and how he and I were going to sort the rest of the staff out. Golly, my only experience of lab work previous to this was cutting up frogs at university and a twelve month spell in a vinegar distillery which had literally turned sour as the work increasingly interrupted my evenings and weekends on the basis that I lived the nearest. I knew nothing about the Dairy Industry and even less about Management unless you counted supervising two teenagers in a flower shop. After the third phone call the same week Corporate Macho Husband began to say I was out, in the bath or visiting the sick. In reality he was waiting for his dinner.

The letter offering me the job finally arrived along with a hand-written note that said the contract would follow in due course as all company contracts were being revised. The terms and conditions seemed reasonable and all in all I was quite happy with it.

I handed in my notice at the flower shop and worked my last two weeks. They gave me an unexpected bonus, a large bunch of flowers and told me to go straight back when the long drive to work started to get me down. I had 2 weeks before I started the new job. I got my garden in order anticipating longer working days and went shopping for new clothes.

My usual attire in the flower shop had been last year’s cast offs and various old jumpers stuffed under a voluminous blue nylon overall atop a pair of thick soled desert boots and two pairs of socks. It was all designed to keep me warm. Obviously what suited in the freezing back yard of a flower shop in February was not going to fit my new role as a technician and potential management candidate. Accordingly I purchased some skirts, some business- looking tops, a jacket and three pairs of smart shoes.

The other problem we had to address was the thorny subject of my ailing Triumph Herald which had a great propensity to stall at lights, for the bonnet to fly up as the driver’s door flew open and had no synchromesh on first gear so I was constantly double declutching in traffic which I frequently messed up and so had to keep re-starting it. That was when it did start. I would be driving 19 miles each way to work in considerable traffic for half of it, stop start for at least 8 miles so driving the Herald was out of the question. Well according to me it was. The husband did not agree.

“You’ll be fine. Just as soon as you get used to the drive you’ll handle it better. You can always phone me if there’s a problem” Funnily enough I’d tried that before and after a walk of half a mile in driving snow down a dual carriageway in the near-dark his secretary had said he was in a meeting and must not be disturbed. The AA took 4 hours to come.

CMH had to go to the USA on business during this time so, seizing the opportunity, I advertised the Herald in the local paper and sold it to the first taker. All its’ little idiosyncrasies happened on the test drive but the man whose girlfriend was to buy it kept telling her that you had to expect such things with such a classic vehicle. They paid the asking price without a murmur and I waved them off with the fistful of notes.

I went and fetched CMH from the airport in the Scimitar which by then had been repaired after his altercation with the garage door. Driving down our road in the dark even jetlag had not blurred his sense of something missing.

“Oh my God you’ve crashed the Herald. I just knew you would do something like that whilst I was away!”

“No I didn’t. I sold it for £50. I just have to get a new car for next week now.” Our reunion after 10 days apart was not as sweet as it could have been but CMH’s joy at having had his Scimitar re-sprayed softened the blow.

“Oh it’s a beaut, lovely job. They even got the lines dead straight down each side. Look how it shines in the sun” and so on ad nauseum. I pointed out that we could buy me a very decent car on half the cost of the paint job.

He finally gave in and the following Friday night he went to the car auction with my cousin who was ‘in the trade’ and purchased a much more reliable vehicle. They phoned me from a phone box outside the auction as they filled it with petrol for the drive home.

“Yes, we got one. Cheap too, you’ll love it.”

“Is it a Ford?” I had had my eyes on the Ford Escorts in the local small ads and was keen to get one of those.

“Yes, great, lovely runner, cheap to maintain as well”

“What colour is it?”

“Oh you’ll really love it when you see it, I promise”. Ah, blue then. Good.

Heartened, I put the kettle on for coffee and waited for their return whilst I watched Bodie and Doyle fighting crime and driving around in their Ford Capri pleased to think that I was getting a smaller car so parking and traffic would be a lot easier. I was quite lost in the episode when I heard a tractor turning round outside my window.

“Odd,” I thought, “He must have taken a wrong turning,” then the sound of a key in the lock. I went to the front door and there was CMH and my cousin grinning from ear to ear.

“Come and see it then” I raced outside and there sat on the drive was a huge Ford Mark 3 Cortina, the really ugly one with a high back, only 2 doors and a roar like a stock car when it started up.

“Exhaust needs fixing of course but it will be great when it’s done.”

It was starting to get dark by then, I couldn’t quite see the colour. It looked like a sort of primer on the front wing. They thrust the documents at me and said “Look, all yours, just what you wanted.”

The colour description read ‘battleship grey’.

In the light of day the next morning it was the ugliest car I had ever set eyes on.

It's all happening in Outpatients

Yesterday afternoon I went to see my Rheumatologist, nothing remarkable about that per se it's just that I had been waiting since last August. No being seen within 13 weeks in this area. I do of course understand because for about the last two years, since another one retired, there has only been one Rheumatologist in the area. Did they not know he was due to retire, he was ancient after all? Why did they not recruit sooner? Even if they started when he left, it can't take 2 years can it? Well it can when the new appointment decides on the day he is due to start that actually he didn't want the job after all. So my lady has carried on stoically alone whilst they advertised yet again.
Anyway back to my visit. The lady I was due to see had not arrived I was told 30 minutes after the clinic had apparently started. Ho hum, another flick through the rapidly decaying mags in the waiting room with the TV turned off. "Not everyone likes it on". There were only 2 of us there and the other chap appeared to have not heard a thing since the Second World War. A few other patients eventually appeared and all looked at me strangely, wading as I was through "Health Choices" with 2 pairs of gloves on and no coat because I was hot.
After 20 minutes or so the deaf chap's driver came to fetch him. He asked at the desk how long he was likely to be. "What's he waiting for?" asked the receptionist. "Your clinic I presume, I'm only the driver, I've got another two like him round the corner." "How long has he been sitting there then?"
A student nurse who had been told to sit and watch how a good clinic was run took matters into her own hands and asked the deaf chap if he had his letter, very loudly I have to say. "Oh yes," he said "I was waiting for someone to take it off me." He beamed a gummy grin at this sudden attention. Turned out they had been looking for him for half an hour elsewhere and the consultant from the morning clinic was just about to leave and give him up as a non attender.
Suddenly a hive of activity, half past one came with a gaggle of nurses whose enormous circular badges proclaimed "University of Plymouth, Nursing Student", patients booked in and green clad Health Care Officers rushed round with wads of notes and checked out examination rooms. "General tray needed in here Theresa". One doctor appeared then disappeared into a room labeled Reproductive Health Clinic. Obviously some medical miracle was going to take place in there, the hapless patients sat along it's outer wall had been collecting their pensions for years.
At 1.45 I was called or rather my surname was called followed by a muttered "Don't know what your first name is supposed to be." I spelled it out for the shrew-like, older nurse. "That's what it says here, never heard of that before" My address was checked, my 'sample' handed over and I was told to sit and wait again. The whole room had a good look and a snicker whilst I dropped my shoulder bag, my gloves and my coat and then dropped my bag a second time. I sat down. I had still not seen any doctor go into the rooms where my clinic was being held and I had been there by then for 45 minutes.
I never did get to see my lady. Five minutes later I was called again. "Dr will see you now." I was ushered in to the room which I had been sitting outside the whole time. The doctor was indeed in there. It was the long awaited and much heralded new appointment.
I can only assume he had got in through the window which was wide open at ground level and afforded a marvelous view of the car park.

Scenes from a life past..... 1

Looking back on it, it was a strange way to receive a job offer and I still didn’t know when I would be able to start. That Monday had dawned badly anyway, macho, corporate husband had woken up with a searing sore throat, a raging temperature, a blinding headache and a temper that made King Kong look like a kids toy. He had refused my offer of staying home and driving him to the doctors so I had gone to work and was plodding through the usual quiet Monday jobs in a small town flower shop, cleaning, tidying and the endless washing of vases.

At 12 o’clock the telephone had rung and a croaky voice announced that he had some sort of currently fashionable bug, had gone to bed and by the way he thought he’d smashed the garage doors. I decided to go home in my lunch-break and investigate.

I had only been in the house 5 minutes, long enough to minister a glass of squash to the by now ‘dying’ patient and to extricate the Scimitar from the garage doors where it had indeed come to rest, victim of a simultaneous dizzy spell and sneeze as the patient had arrived home from the surgery. When I answered the telephone I had trouble understanding the caller. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it was Mr Muckerjee calling from Midlands Dairy where I had attended a job interview some six weeks before.

“I’m ringing for Mr Graham, Laboratory Manager, he wants to know why you did not come in this morning?”

“Sorry…”

“Well he thought you wanted the job”

“I did. Was I supposed to come for another interview? I’m sorry I didn’t know anything about it.”

“Well he said you’d had interview”

“That was ages ago. Look, I didn’t hear anything else and now you’re ringing me. There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding here, he must have written to me and I didn’t get the letter. Can I fix up another day?”

“Oh yes we must. He was quite adamant about that. When can you start?”

“Sorry?”

“This job, when can you start?”

The penny finally started to drop. “You mean I got the job?”

An exasperated sigh came down the telephone line. “Yes of course that is why I ring you now.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I told this gentleman that I had had nothing whatever in writing and asked if I could speak to Mr Graham myself.

“No, sorry, he’s not here today”

“Well could you ask him to phone me then please?”

“It’s not a matter for him now, I am dealing with this.”

It dawned on me that this chap who was speaking very precise Indian-style English must have been the personnel manager. I apologised for my vagueness and assured him that the call was so out of the blue I was not really with it.

“So will your personnel department be sending me details of the contract, salary etc then?”

A little chuckle down the line. “Oh I can not answer that one, I am Lab Supervisor”

Again I apologised. “I’m sorry I don’t remember you from the interview”. This was going really badly now.

“You wouldn’t. I only start today.”

Back in the office

Today I finally feel at home again. I have been camping so to speak since 1st January when I had to completely empty my bedroom and put the entire contents elsewhere prior to a major decorating/refurb project. Out went the 20 year old carpets, all my old university books and a load of other junk. The furniture went in Worst Half's room. Out went Worst Half to sleep at his own house..... Since when I slept in my bed, in an empty room with no curtains and no frills. On Monday it got even worse. The bed had to go, in pieces, some of it even in the bath.

My cats nearly left home. They thought I was going too. Nelson shrieked and cried and needed extra cuddles at night. Mr Naughty played with all his new toys...holes in the floor, bits of old wiring, a couple of abandoned woodscrews. He found a catnip tablet and a green Smartie he had lost several months ago under the chest. Oh! The joy of reunion. Malmesley ignored it all mostly, as is his wont, until he saw a suitcase. He left home for several hours. When he came back I was still there, bemused, he settled back on his chair, didn't know what the fuss was all about. Goggins took a rare trip upstairs, looked for WH in his room, decided there wasn't room for himself let alone WH and retreated to an old anorak behind the sofa for comfort. At least that still smelled of his hero.

The painter arrived and promptly said he'd only be working 4 days and then he wouldn't be here for another week as he had another job. He was in his 50's, morose, depressed and over-mothered. He was a brilliant decorator. The week he was absent I missed his cheery statements of how depressed he was each morning and how his mother had had another turn in the night. One day Mother had asked what he fancied for his tea, frozen pizza and chips he had said easily. "Well you'll have to go and buy it then; we're right out" came the reply. I asked if he had ever lived away from home, "Never had the chance".

My brilliant new lights were fitted. All starry sparkles over the bed. A girl needs a few bits of glitter. "Looks like Medusa's head" said WH and his daughter agreed. I had nightmares of snakes that night. The telephone line was re-routed, the hall wall repaired, the floor was re-levelled and the creaks banished. The paint was mixed specially. "What sort of a colour is 'String' meant to be then?" My sort of colour actually.

Monday afternoon saw the beginning of the transformation; new carpet in the bedroom, down the stairs and in the hall. Monday night WH moved most of the furniture back. Tuesday we spent a cosy Valentine's evening putting up shelves. I handed out the metal bits and held the vacuum nozzle close to the drill, essential for avoiding brick dust on new carpets apparently. Yesterday I filled my shelves with box files and assorted paperwork and realised I needed more. The desk was reinstalled, Mr Naughty spent most of the night bouncing an india rubber under it. Today the PC is in place and Hey Presto it worked first go. No leads in the wrong place. The printer printed, the speakers spoke, the broadband internetted, only the glare on the screen from the window behind me tells me that I must move it all around again.

This week, mostly

I'm eating.....

ice-cream on account of having mumps. Not bad to be asked to be a Godmother and have children give you a wonderful present on the day.

Then you're sick for a fortnight!

I will never forget my Goddaughter or her brothers!


I'm reading.....

Not a lot. Just on the last lap of a decorating revamping session so have had no time. Usually I have a couple of books on the go. Ah well there's always next week.


I'm watching....

Siskins and Goldfinches in my garden. They are having a great time on the niger feeders. There is a real little flock of about 10 Siskins who Bill Oddie once described as 'acrobatic little birds'. Today 3 Goldfinches joined in and were having a lovely time flitting from feeder to feeder until Big Daddy Greenfinch came along and shoved them all out of the way. He didn't want the niger anyway. Peanuts are more his style. He was just flexing his muscles. He didn't notice the little Willow Tit though did he? sneaked one of the peanuts and flew up in the tree to eat it in peace.....

Well this is it...

today is the first day of the rest of your life....
what goes around comes around....
your life goes on in distinct cycles....
got the seven year itch....


I suppose all of them a bit and some of them not. I escaped to the country 21 years ago and what did it get me?

4 cats, good friends, a mad partner, some great 'step people', a wonderful job then.......... 3 illnesses.

ME, Fibromyalgia and Rheumatoid arthritis. In that order.

This blog will try to make sense out of confusion and order out of chaos.

I hope.