The best cracker in the whole wide world

I had the pleasure of a cookery lesson from my five-year-old, youngest grandson yesterday afternoon. He had come round ostensibly to do some gardening but after we had re-arranged the bookcase, "The wrong books are too high up!" read the story of a very unseasonal Mr Christmas and looked for a picture of a bluetit, "My teacher doesn't know anything about them," we started to cut the lawn; a joint effort, me on the mower and him raking up the cuttings which was not too arduous a task given that the grass-box was dealing with ninety nine per cent of them. Within three minutes he had a splinter from the rake handle necessitating a large sticking-plaster and a drink of apple juice, not in that order. "I can put the plaster on myself, I'm very brave."

We then had a hunt for some garden tools which did not contain wood and found a small hand fork. It was deemed too hard work so he decided he wanted to do something else. The lawn finished, I suggested cooking some cakes for Grandad's lunch box. "Oh goodeee, I'm very good at that. I do it with Mummy all the time." That was settled then.

I got out the step stool and positioned it in front of the worktop. The Little Chef jumped up, then jumped off again when he realised he could not open the drawer if he stood in front of it. "Oh, and I forgot to wash the mud off my hands!" The stool was placed in front of the sink and he scrubbed himself and then me. We were finally ready, our mis en place all laid out. Into the scales went the flour. "You mustn't go past the 4, that's too much," the sugar was the same, so was the margarine. I got the eggs out of the box and absent mindedly cracked one into the mixer bowl, I was reprimanded for my trouble.

"That's my job. I crack the eggs, I'm the best cracker in the whole wide world. I'm good at it." Obviously another Gary Rhodes in the making here. I lowered the beaters into the mixer.

"When you turn it on, you do it slow then you go up a number but you always leave one number left 'cos that's too fast." I did as I was told.

Choosing the colours of the cake cases was tricky, mine were not so nice as Mummy's and the girly pink ones and the baby blue discarded in favour of green and yellow. We put one colour in one tray and the other colour in the other tray so we knew which was which. Little Chef spooned the mixture into the cases like a pro and soon we had 12 cases ready to go in the oven. Whilst they cooked we made another mixture, we put sultanas in this lot as Mummy likes them but sadly they were the wrong colour they should have been red. I was ticked off again. Nevertheless another 12 cakes were soon ready for the oven. Now for the best bit, licking the beaters like an ice-cream "My brother usually has the other one but he's not here so I get two. Yummy". The serious little blue eyes lit up like a beacon and he settled down to licking the mixture whilst I cleared up.

Cakes cooked and semi cool, we counted them out of the tins, fortunately we didn't have to go past twelve in each tin or we would have had trouble "Is it 15 or 17 after twelve?" he asked.

Little Chef then decided that bright blue icing was required and having tasted it to check my recipe he bent to the task of icing each cake, little blue tongue stuck out in sheer concentration. "Some of them escaped a bit, never mind." We carefully choose which cakes went in a box to take home to Mummy, naturally the biggest and those with the most icing.

As the last one was finished, Grandad's van drew up outside. The cakes were abandoned as Little Chef raced to the front window to look. He shot back into the kitchen, grabbed a sticky cake and ran into the front garden.

"Grandad, Grandad, look I made these for you." His eyes sparkled with excitement, "And I cracked all the eggs 'cos I'm the best cracker!"

Trouble with the lodger

Our little family has an interloper in it's midst. We have long had Napoleon living up the top of the garden and coming down for food when it suits him. This is a cat I have been monitoring for the RSPCA, they know who his real owner is; I don't. Latterly he been sitting under the garden table to get first pick of any food which might appear. Since the begining of this month however, he has been coming into the house on a regualr basis and has not been spitting and hissing at everything in sight. So long as he can eat he is happy. The other cats mostly have ignored him and just given him a wide berth until this last week or so with the exception of Misty who rattles the cat flap whenever he can see him, in the hopes of scaring him off.

Last week he got a little bolder and took root on the garden table when I was about to paint some skirting boards and slept in the warm in the sun only moving when the sun did, taking over Goggins's chair further up the garden.

This week has seen a subtle change, he is now ravenous and obsessed with food. He comes in every meal time and has fought with Misty and Goggins for their food. Nelson runs away and hides; he is terrified. We now have to forcibly evict Napoleon before each meal and shut the cat flap to stop him getting back in. He gets angry and bangs the flap for all his worth. Taking his food out to him he knocks the bowls from our hands, jumps up and paws our clothes , yowling all the while.

Yesterday I called the RSPCA, they are getting back to me, when I don't know. Meanwhile he was on short rations and I covered the cat flap for several hours so he could not see in. Eventually he gave up and cleared off, returning for a quick, well-behaved snack at bedtime.

He has had the last laugh though. This morning he was sound asleep on the floor beside WH's bed. He has obviously decided to move in full time.

My family and other animals

WH has a weirdo friend, well I thought he was weird but I find now he's actually quite normal for a weirdo. I first met Friend on Valentine's day about 4 years ago. I had been summoned to London for the big day and ended up staying in the facility in which WH was working at the time. Romantic? Not. Unless you happen to think that sharing the evening with 200 assorted German and Dutch students who set off fire alarms twice during the night, necessitating full scale evacuations of the building and standing on London pavements half clad at 2 am and 3 am is your idea of heaven. Anyway I digress.

Earlier in the evening we had been for a meal in a Greek restaurant. Unusually we had both been drinking wine, me rather more than my WH. Returning to our accomodation WH went into the lounge and was met by what looked like a tramp. He was about 60, with long straggly hair and grey dread-locks. He was smoking 'rollies' and WH cadged one which I though was a bit rich as the tramp didn't seem to have two halfpennies to rub together. I was introduced. Friend was very well spoken and extremely polite. The wine was having an efect and I thought afterwards I had imagined all this. After a few minutes of chat we left to go to bed.

WH has kept in touch with Friend over the years and they meet up when WH is working in the capital. I have come to know him too and to ponder what circumstances encouraged an extremely clever and well-off chap to leave his home and job and become a traveller. In the last 12 months he has ventured further afield in his shiny new estate car and we have phone calls and postcards from such places as Southern Spain, Budapest and Switzerland. When he first got the car he had not driven for 25 years. He went to Lands End to see what it was like, then followed that by a short trip to John O' Groats. When he got to Prague he thought he had got the hang of driving again.

An accomplished watercolour artist, he is now painting his way round the South West. Tonight he comes for dinner, will regale us as he does, with his latest exploits and have deep discussions of metaphysics and pure maths which even have me reeling and I did maths as part of my degree. It is at that point that I will retire gracefully and leave the 'boys' to their bonding and early morning talk of the meaning of life. Eventually Friend will take off in his jalopy and disappear into the mist only to return when he feels like company once more.

Just to remind myself

that it's only 4 weeks to go. Then we will be in the warm and away from all the pressures of modern life. Can't wait.

This week, mostly

I’m reading…..

Merde, Actually by Stephen Clarke. This is the story of Paul West one year after arriving in France. His first book A Year in the Merde was hilarious and this follows on his search for the perfect French girlfriend along with the opening of his English Tearoom. Real escapist stuff and load of laughs too. This book will brighten any day. Not for the politically correct, he touches on some very un-PC subjects.

I’m wearing.....

slightly thinner clothing. The warmer weather is creeping up, albeit extremely slowly. Yesterday I did not feel the need of an extra jumper and my feet were almost too hot, signalling the fact that I could get my regulation summer Moshulu clogs out of the back of the wardrobe. I went out on Sunday without a coat, the first time for about 5 months. Roll on summer.

I’m listening…..

to Hayseed Dixie. Off to their gig at Exeter University tonight so we will be standing with students at least half our ages for this feast of ‘Rockgrass’. Just hope there are a few chairs for us oldies.

Busy, busy day

So much going on here at the moment with one thing and another it is past 10pm and I still haven't done a post for today.

My brain is dead once again and I am tired but amazingly the good old plaquenil, for now it is good, is doing it's stuff. I get odd days when my hands are stiff on waking and I think Uh-oh, here it comes again, then the next day I'm right as rain. The dreaded frozen shoulders are wonderfully thawed too so it looks like I finally have a solution at last.

The fibro comes and goes, I've been overdoing and I know it, what with daughter's house move and all that, but for once I am quite optomistic. The warm weather is coming and I have to admit I don't feel half bad!

Kalo Pascha (Happy Easter)

You might think that this is a week late but the Orthodox Easter day is today. Greece will be awash with the smell of roasting lamb. MMM!

There is more about it here:

http://www.sfakia-crete.com/sfakia-crete/greekeaster.html

Chronia pola (Good wishes)

A trip to Gloucestershire

Today we moved my middle daughter and her partner from Devon to Gloucestershire where they both have new jobs awaiting. The move went surprisingly quickly, buying new appliances for the new house was what took the time. Catching up with them in a giant electrical warehouse we asked how they were getting on.

"Be quicker when the saleman has had a brain transplant,' was the whispered reply.

WH and I were studying maps meanwhile. There are several likely looking places for some fun days out in the vicinity, when the guest room is up and running. I may even get to fulfil a long-held wish to visit the Slimbridge wildfowl trust site which is in easy distance of the new abode.

Happy Birthday

Today is my only nephew's 18th birthday.

Happy Birthday D

You know who you are!!

There will now follow a short intermission

Whilst I visit rellies in Birmingham. Catching up on the shopping and stuff at Merry Hill and enjoying the local scenery.

Back Soon

Looking for ancestors

This is a picture of St Leonard's Church, Otterford where many of WH's ancestors were hatched, matched and dispatched. Unfortunately the church itself was locked, even on a Sunday afternoon, so we could not go in and investigate the inside. Shame as it looked like it had some lovely stained glass.

A wonderful gentleman called Roy Parkhouse has transcribed most of the Parish Records from here and put them on the net making it easier for us genealogists to find our ancestors. Thank you Roy.

This week, mostly

I’m reading…..

Homeland by Clare Francis. Set on the Somerset Levels in 1946 it tells the story of a Polish soldier who refuses to go back to Poland and finds work on a local withy farm during one of Britain’s harshest winters. Lovely descriptions of the Levels and the surrounding areas along with a poignant story. I love this are and the book is very evocative.

I’m eating….

turkey. Cooked a huge one last Saturday which had been languishing in the freezer since Christmas. Now it’s turkey with everything!

I’m listening…..

to the silence. WH finally fixed the incredibly squeaky bathroom floor which had squeaked and grated and wheezed when walked on for the last 20 years. The silence truly is golden.

Fibromyalgia and how the NHS has failed me.

This is really a follow on post from last Friday's and is related to Di's suggestion that I log the story of my illness somewhere. This in turn has caused me to think long and hard about what ails me and I find that had I had more sympathetic and informed help from the NHS in the earlier stages of my malaise I would not be the the frustrated and semi-incapable mess that I am now.

Fibromyalgia is still not recognised entirely by Rheumatologists here and I counted myself lucky that I had one who had even heard of it, even if I was not told of the diagnosis for a couple of years. The treatment however was sadly lacking, low grade antidepressants, "They act as a painkiller, dear" and graded exercise a la Wessely. No mention of two side effects which would shake my faith in the NHS to it's core.

From the start, the drugs gave me heartburn, I complained many, many times to my, then current, GP. I was prescribed a long series of antacids to the extent that my dentist began to suspect that the chewable tablets were rotting my teeth. I changed to the liquid form and still the symptoms carried on unabated. By this time I was also gaining weight alarmingly. "Exercise more" was the only response I got. Then the gut symptoms were attributed to my weight, I slept propped up ands still had no relief. I tried to lose weight but I just gained more.

Eventually the Rheumatologist did come to my aid. Annoyed that my GP seemed to be fobbing me off, I complained bitterly, I was sent for an Endoscopy PDQ. Result! But not the one I wanted. 5 years of attrition by these drugs had caused my oesophagus to scar and another diagnosis joined my previous two. I now had a trilogy and added Barretts Oesophagus which must be monitored for the rest of my life lest it turn into a cancer as it is wont to do. As for the Fibro, keep taking the tablets was the prescription along with some others to stop their unwanted effects. I was still unhappy about my weight and again and again I was told to exercise.

Seven years after starting the antidepressants I was feeling more and more frustrated, they were not giving me any pain relief to speak of, they were allowing me to sleep but I was foggy all day and had to awaken hours before I wanted to do anything to rid myself of the hangover I always had in the morning. Additionally I was sure it was causing me to gain yet more weight although every single time I had broached this subject I was told it was impossible.

Enter the Internet. I gained a computer at home and began a web search. Within 2 days I had a lever arch file full of articles and information. I discovered that the drug I had been taking had indeed caused me to put on the weight and so I discontinued it overnight. I started taking a supplement that numerous sufferers on numerous message boards had found to be effective. I slept even better and lost the brain fog. I was lively and more alert than I had been for 7 years. When I told my medics what I had done, they dismissed me as a self-prescriber who clung to half-truths and half-understoods of dubious information. They discounted my degree in Science and the fact that I might just understand some of this stuff.

A further 4 years on I saw the Pain Consultant. He too suggested I return to this same drug. I told him my reservations. "Ah yes, bad luck, it can do that." I couldn't believe my ears. If it had not been for the fact that WH was sitting there too, I would have thought I had imagined this whole converstion. Eleven years of my suspicions being discounted and now it was confirmed by an NHS medic in the same room.

No wonder I feel that the NHS has let me down.

An Easter Walk

Easter Sunday has remained dry despite it's earlier promise of rain and so we went for a walk.

These pictures were taken at Otterford Pools on the Devon/Somerset border.

Another sign that spring is on it's way.

Nature noted

Today our little valley is teaming with wild life in particular the feathered variety. Looking out of my kitchen window for our two, now resident, squirrels, I saw something move in the willow tree. It seemed to be moving along the branches, rather than flitting about and a quick squint with the binoculars showed it to be a tree creeper, the latest addition to my garden spotting list. I planted the willow tree as a sapling 20 years ago when there were no other trees around and certainly no birds to be seen. Now it is 30 feet high and to be truthful mostly in the garden behind mine. That household clearly loves it as much as me and has adorned their side with numerous feeders.

Earlier, I had taken an elderly friend to the cemetery overlooking the river and surrounded by miles of open countryside. Two large white birds flew slowly and gracefully along the course of the river like two enormous butterflies. At their closest point to us their long, thin, dangly legs could be plainly seen. These were two little egrets and were the furthest inland that I have ever seen them in this country.

Returning to my friend's farmhouse we heard a twittering as we walked around the garden. There on the telegraph wires above us were two swallows. These were soon joined by about half a dozen more and they took off, wheeling up and over the rest of the village below. Driving the three miles home up the valley I saw several more on wires or in the sky, chasing and diving as they flew. At home now, I can see 3 more, soaring in the air over the church and a row of old cottages.

It is said that one swallow does not make a summer, but today I have seen about two dozen. Summer must surely be on it's way.

What is ME? Who am I?

Something a friend said has given me cause to think long and hard about my illness and how it has affected me physically and mentally over the 14 years since it started.

Listing my symptoms has highlighted that there is no area of me that is not affected some way or another. Taking a simplistic view this tends to suggest there is an overall cause of all this, though no researcher has come close to explaining all this disease's vagaries. It seems like our whole hard wiring system is out of kilter. I described the overall feeling as being like a faulty wiring system, it's there but it doesn't work. If it does work, not all of it works at the same time. We never know which bit is going to play up next and we certainly don't ever know when.

At least I will never get bored.

Pole position

Now the household has settled down after the loss of Malmesley, the four legged members have rearranged their sleeping places. Goggins, downstairs as ever, no longer sleeps on the sofa at night, prefering the centre of the new living room carpet and the vantage point it affords. From here he can keep an eye on the hall door and thus anyone who happens to come down the stairs while simultaneously surveying the cat flap in the kitchen.

Misty wanders about half the night, in and out the cat flap for a pastime, skittering round Goggins in case that elderly gentleman should give him a quick smack as he passes. When he does settle down it is on what we have come to think of as Malmesley's chair. This is an old 'TV' chair I inherited from an aunt; re-covered it was just the thing to fill a space under the window. Fourteen years ago Malmesley claimed it and no-one else was allowed to get even near it. WH coming in from work would dump jacket, keys, odd tools, sets of plans, lunchbox on it, an ever changing assortment that Malmesley fiercely disapproved of and would reproach us for until the offending articles were removed. "Sorry Malmesley, I forgot you need to sit there". Misty has now claimed this as his own, the diminutive Top Cat in his own little kingdom.

Nelson, now freed from the annoyance of having Misty amd Malmesley competing for a space on my bed for part of each night has settled for the bottom right hand corner. After his nightly cuddle, he always was a Mummy's boy, he settles down undisturbed and mostly stays all night, only occasionally deserting this for the comfort of the washing basket on the nearby chest.

The outside cats, for once again we have two, compete for the dry space under the garden table. Napoleon, real name Merlin who is supposed to have owners nearby but who is always cold, hungry and bedraggled, sits there stoically, resigned to his fate, night after night; patient in case the back door should suddenly open and a bowl of food appear. Vertical, the young pretender, a massive but very short cat with seemingly no legs when he walks, has made a bid for the same space. Nightly now we have fights and skirmishes as they jockey for position. Napoleon usually ends up on the door mat alongside the catflap and hence has first claim on any emerging food. This morning though, he has a new outlook, sitting on top of the black recycle boxes, thoughtfully provided by the local council for old newspapers, now just the spot to look down on the rest of the garden and it's lesser inhabitants.

This week, mostly

I'm reading.....

the Kitchen Diaries by Nigel Slater. I have really warmed to this rather different celebrity chef, who freely admits he enjoys the odd fish finger, but mostly because he refused to have fireworks on Bonfire Night because they would upset his cats. I love his style of cooking too, simple, seasonal dishes that he dubs right food, right place, right time.

I'd love to know more about his cats though!

I'm watching.....

two diminutive grey squirrels which appear to have taken up residence in some oak trees behind my house, in the remains of an ancient Devon hedge. They spend all morning chasing each other up and down the branches performing their acrobatic feats with wild abandon. In 21 years in this house never before have we seen squirrels so regularly.

There was the baby that Goggins brought in about 10 years ago and who escaped by running up the house wall and over my neighbours roof, and the autumn squirrel who has been seen the past couple of years burying acorns from the trees at the front. Now at last it looks like we have a resident pair and I for one am rejoicing.

I'm wearing.....

a woolly hat and mittens and my thickest winter coat. STILL.

It is now the second week of April, Easter is upon us and it is still feezing out there. Just when are we getting our Spring? Or, joy of joys, are we going straight into summer this year? I have seen forecasts for another very hot summer. Watch this space.

Earthquakes

Not what I was going to post today but I saw this latest news and seeing as we are off to Greece again in under 6 weeks I thought it deserved some investigation.

The epicentre of todays quake was in the sea to the south of the island of Zakinthos so a long way from where we will be going to the Pelion. It registerd just over 5 on the richter scale and no damage was reported. However it is the latest in a week of earthquakes in the Greek islands. Lets's hope that this little outburst will be the last for a while.

In London some 4 years ago I was staying in a place directly over the underground. Awoken in the night by what seemed to be a very large train I put the experience down to the fact I was unused to the sensation of the trains below. Only in the morning did I find out it had been an earthquake I had felt.

We even had a sizeable earthquake in Devon once, 16 years ago. I was sitting at work on a wheely-chair when I felt as though someone had pushed me from behind. I was startled and almost fell off the chair . I felt really stupid in my goldfish-bowl-like office and it was sometime after that I realised what had happened.

I like to feel the earth move once in a while but an earthquake, not at the moment thanks!

Cold enough to kill a snipe

This was the expression used by an elderly friend on the telephone this morning. She has said it before and I think it must be a local Devonshire saying. I digress. In more familiar vernacular it's bloody freezing here.

Devon has been gripped in a series of icy winds with clear skies and brilliant sunshine for days now. Saturday's walk neccesitated several layers of clothing, a hat, scarf and gloves. My face still froze. A quick trip across the road to my neighbour's house needs a huge woolly and thick gloves. Even sitting typing this, my hands are frozen and blue. The rest of me is warm enough indoors though.

I am battling with Raynauds and I think the plaquenil is making it worse. I looked on Metcheck and these temperatures seem set to continue until at least the week after Easter. I have so many outdoor jobs waiting for me not least sorting out my garage after the decorating marathon. So what's a girl to do?

Well for a start I am making a Lamb Tagine tonight with some new Ras el Hanout spice I bought. That will surely warm me from the inside if nothing else. I might just get my handwarmers out too and sit with those in front of the radiator and just wait for all this weather to go away.

Growing wild

Saw these yesterday on a walk just outside our village. Lovely to think they must have been there for centuries. We were at least a mile from any house or road, came round a corner and they they were, just waiting to be admired.

Happy Birthday Isambard

Two views of Bristol's Clifton Suspension bridge built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel and finished in 1864 5 years after his death.

I know both of these views. The first one travelling down the Portway from the Hotwells direction you pass under the bridge on the way to the M5 and my home. By day imposing and majestic, at night it is lit by a million small lights which give it an enchanted look at you stare up into the sky above.

The second view is from the top and I travel over this each August on my way to visit Bristol Flower Show on Durdham Down. I pay my 20p and marvel at the countless cars, carriages and people who have passed this way and dare not look at the distant ground below.

I love this bridge. To me it is a part of the experience of going to Bristol and marks the point when I know my journey is ending. I pass it every trip and greet it like a friend. Amazing to think that the designer was only 24 when he won the competition to design a bridge to cross the Avon gorge from Clifton which was at that time a small village outside Bristol itself. Had it been completed sooner it would have been the longest single span road bridge in the world. Three minutes after passing under the bridge (traffic permitting) another of Brunel's triumphs can be seen across the Cumberland Basin, the SS Great Britain in it's own dock. I see this across the water as I drive along Anchor Road.

2006 marks the bi-centenary of Brunel's birth and Bristol is celebrating this: today marks the launch of the festivities.

http://www.brunel200.com/

Happy birthday Isambard and thank you for such brilliant designs.

Photos courtesy of Ade Broom 2003 and huntleyhedworth.com.

Too much information

You know when you sit in the doctor's waiting room and someone is talking very loudly about some intimate detail of their life and you just want to curl up and die? Well that was me this afternoon.

I was there with my neighbour who has pneumonia and should be in hospital but that's a whole other story. In walked an elderly friend of mine (all right close friend, she was my landlady many, many moons ago) and her fancy man holding hands. Sweet you think, she being 75 and he being 84. They are both a bit deaf and get on fine. Anyway in she barges, sits right next to my neighbour and proceeds to give me her life history in minute detail since I last spoke to her, yesterday afternoon, actually. She was talking very loudly and speaking across my neighbour who as I said is extremely ill and certainly did not have the patience for all that chat. I managed to indicate that it was not a good moment so she carried on talking to the long-suffering boyfriend.

Eventually my neighbour was called in to see the doctor, friend jumps up to fill her seat and to sit right next to me. " You know all that constipation I be 'avin' due to they tablets 'ee give en, well I thought I'd cure it" she started. I busied myself in Shooting and Gun Dogs November 1997 edition. I hate the thought of anything like that but needs must and I was in the company of a load of old farmers. " I ate a whole one of they bags of dried apricots my daughter got me, thought that would shift it." I coughed and studied a picture of couple of hunting hounds avidly.

"Well then I be up all night with the guts ache and rumbles and goodness I was pained, seemed to do the trick though. Like unblocking a drain. Drastic means for drastic problems an' all that."

I mumbled into the magazine. By this time the whole room was looking in our direction. Boyfriend was beaming proudly. She started again about 30 decibels louder. " Oh didn't you hear me dear? I said, you know that constipation........"

I won't be going back there for a week or so.

A letter to the Government's Nextstep agency

Dear Sirs,

This morning I received your letter from the government agency called nextstep. The first two sentences and I quote, “ We know that having to take a break in your working life because of illness can be a worrying and unsettling experience. However it does give you time to plan for the day when you are able to return to work.” are the most patronising crap I have read for a long time.

I understand that you want me to meet with a skills coach to help me to see what skills I already possess. Forgive me, but I already know that. I was a Production Manager, I am a Science Graduate and had to give up the chance of an MSc and possibly a PhD because government rules at the time would not allow me enough money to rent a bedsit to live in, in addition to paying my course fees. I would have had to sell my house.

Thank you but I do know how to write and update a CV after all I used to be the one hiring and firing, neither do I need a relaxed environment to help me focus on future goals. I have that already in my stress-free darkened room.

What I would like however is for you lot in your ivory towers to stop spending money on sending the likes of me fancy leaflets and reply paid postcards offering me services I do not need, not only for the reasons stated above but also because I don’t think I will ever be going back into paid work.

It pains me to write this but who is going to employ me at the age of 50, unsteady on my feet and not knowing whether I will be able to work today, tomorrow or even next week? Who will employ me when I am speaking all the wrong words and outsiders think I am drunk? Who will employ me on the day my hands won’t work, the days my balance goes and the days my vision is blurred, that is presuming I am sufficiently pain free to be able to get out of bed in the first place.

What I would really like is for your agency to take a whole box of your leaflets and go and see Prof Simon Wessely and to give them to him in a manner in which he understands that he is in full, painful receipt of the whole box. Along with his cronies, he is the reason I have inadequate treatment for my illness and the cause of my present predicament. If you could undertake that small service I am sure I could arrange to be there.

Yours faithfully,

An ME sufferer.

http://www.nextstep-cds.org.uk/

Those missing relatives

I am trying to do a bit of my friend's family tree. After waiting almost a month, a marriage certificate came for her great grandparents. Yippee I thought, until I read it. Now I am even more confused. The Bride had been divorced, very unusual in 1901, and was obviously living in high society judging by some of the addresses we have for her. The Groom was widowed, a fact we had established previously, so that was OK.

According to the 1901 census they were living together before they married, however this certificate gives them completely different addresses. I have searched all the censuses from 1851 to 1901 and found odd individuals of this family, but I have not found the Grandmother's birth and she keeps changing ages depending on which record you read. I have even searched a 15 year stretch of the GRO Indexes and still not found her.

You think that a certificate is going to help you clarify the information you already have, in point of fact it only muddies the waters even more!

This week, mostly

I'm reading....

a 90 page booklet from the HM Revenue and Customs (since when did that name change again?) entitled Construction Industry Scheme, guide for contractors and subcontractors. This is for WH's business and it is so complicated one wonders if it is worth having subbies at all. Of the first 21 paragraphs nine of them refer to later paragraphs for clarification. By the time you have turned the pages backwards and forwards you are totally confused as to what section you are supposed to be reading, but then again perhaps I should just read the 9 explanation sheets they have sent with the booklet.

I'm watching.....

for the first of the real summer visitors. The Times today says that Alpine Swifts have been seen in Devon already although our Swifts don't normally arrive until May. The Martins, however, usually arrive here around April 24th along with the Cuckoo. Not long to go now.

I'm wearing....

new bras. Years ago my physio told me not to wear one as much as possible due to having costacondritits (pain in the rib joints) Well obviously that was out of the question in public so I always have terrible trouble trying to find some which do not add to the pain and which stay on in the right places without the annoying habit of slipping straps. Last week whilst at my Mother's I visited a branch of Evans and Lo and Behold they have some new styles which I tried-on and found a couple which don't hurt.

"That will do nicely," I said, in the manner of that old advert, whilst handing over my credit card quickly!

The Pot Kiln

I have been watching a TV programme about the refurbishing of this pub and am fascinated. Hope I manage to get there on our way on holiday sometime this year. Sounds just the place for a great lunch en route to the airport!

Six weeks on.....

since I started the plaquenil and it seems to be working. My hands are a bit stiff in the mornings but not nearly so bad as they were 6 weeks after previous steroids. I have no real pain in them either. The nausea when I take it has settled so long as I take it before my main meal, a snack won't do as it comes back again then. Sipping flat ginger beer seems to help too. The eyes have settled down and I no longer have the blurred vision which is a bonus.

The only other side efect seems to be dark patches of skin over my knuckles. If this is the sum total then I am quite happy.

And guess what? there is absolutely no sign of the frozen shoulders returning. Hope I have not spoken to soon.

Paint everywhere

In a last gasp effort before the carpet fitter comes on Monday I have painted a cupboard under the stairs. There is now white emulsion all over the floor of the cupboard and all over me. Too late I discovered that my erstwhile complaining painter had not only diluted the paint he was using but the rest of the contents of the tin too.

I discovered as I started to paint the ceiling, within 5 minutes it was in my hair and running down my arms. Now it is my turn to be depressed.