wagwaan?

Tomorrow is another day

Ho hum, not feeling particularly cheerful today. Although I got the great news yesterday that my surgery has been brought forward to next Thursday, I'm actually more worried about it than I admit to myself. Also had a little financial set back that I could have done without. Plus, don't bother coming to my house, because the poor cats are covered in fleas (ok, slight exaggeration). We use Frontline on them and due to the postal strike we hadn't received the new supply. Oh boy - I've been bitten like you wouldn't believe. I must be very sweet and tasty. DD and OH have about 2 bites between them while my legs look like I've got chicken pox :(  Luckily, the parcel arrived today and within 24 hours we should see the difference.
On a happier note, I got my first CHEQUE as a photographer!  Little baby L's mum and dad were so thrilled with their pictures they insisted on paying me, and said to use it either for the business (sounds so grown up) or to buy DD something nice.   Well, as said DD's birthday is this coming Monday I might very well do the latter. I'll have to pop to the shops on Saturday, but sshhhh! she reads this blog.

Designing, cooking... that's what weekends are for!

Housework? What's that?  Well, I was determined to get the house ship-shape this weekend, but somehow being creative was much more fun - can't imagine why!  So yesterday was spent designing the flyer, and today was spent designing correspondence cards for my etsy shop and baking Martha Stewart cupcakes. 
I'm really pleased with the cards but I left it too late to take the photos so there was really bad light. It is especially bad for the pink/brown cards which are much prettier in real life (I can always upload better pictures next week).  I haven't finished putting all of them in the shop, and I also have some covered notebooks to upload - I used some cute Japanese fabric on them and they look smashing.   Oh, and I made some personalised notecards for my colleague whose birthday it is on Tuesday because I'm broke; hope she likes them!
The cupcakes are delicious - I printed out loads of Martha Stewart recipes a while back, and DD very kindly put them all in my recipe folder. I have to halve the quantities because the MS version makes squillions of cupcakes and we'd just end up eating them ALL.  These ones use egg whites instead of whole eggs, and we replaced the vanilla essence with orange essence. Before sticking them in the oven you pop a bit of dark chocolate in each cake case - we made sure the mix covered up the chocolate. When you first take them out of the oven the choc is all melty, but now they've cooled down each cupcake has a solid chocolate filling in the middle. They are really yummy. Don't ask me how many calories - who wants to think about a thing like that?

Anyway, it's getting late and I really should get to my bed. Nite all.

New song

... well actually, who knows if it's a new song, but my friend Cath told me about this and it's lovely. Click here

Some more holiday pics and my PhotoJenique flyer

Just being a tad patriotic here - a photo of the flags by the memorial at my mum's beach. They also have other flags, but these two were side by side and represent my dual nationality!

This is why we didn't actually SWIM in the sea this year

Ewww!  Jellyfish are just plain weird.  We saw a wildlife programme while we were on holiday, and there was a scientist who raised jellyfish for research. He loved them, but no, I still couldn't see the attraction. They don't have a brain and the sperm of the male jellyfish swims into the mouth of the female leading to fertilisation of the ova - see? told you, they are weird.
I just love the composition of this one (*pats herself on back*), with the bike carelessly abandoned by the edge of the dune. I can't explain why I like it....  I also like the seascapes, because their vastness makes me feel happy. I can't stand being hemmed in in town.




The last one is a pic of the "cabines de bain" a bit further along the beach, where the lifeguards are.  There were people around so I just lifted the camera up and took the top of them, with the lovely blue sky. Sigh. Wish I was back there now....

Now for my flyer. I have been trying to put together a little "carte de visite" of some pictures, and it's so hard to choose - and I hardly have any yet lol.  Anyway, I don't want to put prices or anything else on there, just pictures and contact details.   I'd rather have the black background, but if I'm printing them at home it uses up all my ink!  So I've also done a white one.  What do you think? (still a bit wary about  putting my actual contact details on here! I'll do that when I have a website).

or

I think I prefer the one with the 6 pictures, but I thought I'd try with 5 photos too. Choices, choices.....

This morning I've just finished  "Suite Française" by Irene Némirovsky and I must say I've enjoyed every bit of it!  I saw it in a bookshop ages ago, because of the cover, which I knew was a photo taken in front of St Lazare station. I should know, I used to go by there daily...


Anyway, when I picked it up and checked inside and found it was translated from the French, I vowed to wait until I could get it in the original.  On holiday, I picked up the Folio version in the local Carrefour:

As soon as I finished the novel I was reading I started this one, and honestly, I couldn't put it down.  The author was a Russian Jew who had already had to flee one regime and ended up in France. There, of course, she was persecuted by the Nazi regime and died in Auschwitz before she could finish the book. Her surviving daughter was typing up the manuscript as a memory project when she realised it was a book and not a diary, and decided to get it published, although it is unfinished. What a good job she did.  From a review on Amazon "Ms. Nemirovsky was a keen observer of the French. All of their quirks from the 1940s are present here, often lampooned into very funny extremes. Those quirks are first beautifully displayed as a large number of characters are followed while they flee Paris at the last minute before the Germans arrive to evade what they fear will happen to those who stay. With the roads clogged and resources running out, each must cope in her or his own way to find food, lodging, and a safe haven. Not everyone succeeds. In those moments where the realities of the uncivilized aspects of human nature are exposed, you'll feel a chilling presage of the author's ultimate fate."     Very good read - I recommend it!

Summer might continue a bit longer after all!

Well, I didn't think this would turn into a "what's the weather doing?" blog, but it certainly does have us looking at the sky and discussing it every day!  Officially the forecast was rain today, and although we had a lovely storm last night, this morning dawned bright and fresh and it was quite lovely all day. I'm just glad we have the freshness with the sun, not the leaden heat of the last two summers. The last thing you want if you are a Tube commuter is hot weather!

Anyway, enough of that.  The big news is that I got a date for my surgery today:  6th September on the NHS. I could probably get it done sooner privately, and indeed I've been recommended a surgeon at the Royal Marsden whom I am supposed to be seeing tomorrow (is that correct grammar? Who knows.). Unfortunately, I've since discovered my PPP healthcare cover may leave a shortfall, and I just can't afford to have to pay anything towards this treatment that I can get for free in 4 weeks' time.... So it looks like I'll just have to wait for the NHS.

Now, if you clicked on the link to that hospital you may have got a shock, but in fact the thing that I have, and that I need an operation for, has only a 5 - 10% chance of being cancer, so I can afford to be really upbeat about it.  Whatever happens, I have several wonderfully positive, beautiful women friends who are cancer survivors, and the word really does not have the ominous sound it once did. Well, with a bit of luck this is all a moot point anyway.

ETA:  Now I'm confused as to which step to take, because the man I've been recommended is a specialist in this field:

Quote:

Pioneering Research to Detect Breast Cancer at the Earliest Stage

A new technique to detect breast cancer is being tested at the Royal Marsden's London site and has attracted widespread national TV and press coverage.

The research aims to identify when women move from being at a high risk of developing breast cancer to an imminent risk. The ductal endoscopy technique involves the insertion of a tiny fibre optic telescope – the size of a pinhead – into each of the six milk ducts of the breasts to identify any minute changes in the lining and a build-up of the tiniest early cluster of malignant cells.

The Royal Marsden team is lead by Mr Gerald Gui, Consultant Breast Surgeon with Dr Ros Eeles in the Department of Cancer Genetics and is a joint collaboration with the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre.

It is hoped that the research will lead to dramatic improvements in treatment and could even change how surgery is performed, so that tumours can be treated directly through the telescope. Unquote.

Well, that's it, I'm off to bed. Hopefully I'll get more sleep than last night :)

Well, it looks like we've had our summer!  Yesterday dawned bright and sunny, and although I'd slept badly (although I'd gone to bed and left the OH and DD to go off to see Harry Potter without me), DD "needed me" to come with her to the Innocent Fete in Regent's Park.  Off we trotted, after a detour via the osteopath to fix my back, neck, jaw, ankles..... Anyway, we found the place easily enough, after a long treck from the Marylebone Road. Only to find they had sold out and weren't letting anyone else in!!  What a shame - lots of people were leaving, you could tell who they were because the entrance tickets were on lanyards round their necks. They could easily have let more of us in. Instead, we sank down on a bench in the shade and people-watched.  We also counted the Croc wearers. I wanted to take pictures of all of them but DD was too shy and I was actually too knackered!

After that we decided to go to Selfridge's to check out the piercing parlour. DD used to have her lip pierced, but decided that it was in the wrong place so she took it out. I was secretly quite pleased, but she has since announced she actually always wanted "snake bites" and wants to have her lip re-pierced. In two places. I have told her I don't think it'll be pretty and I think it'll reduce her chances of getting a job, plus people will get the wrong idea about her. But she's nearly 17 and she'll go ahead anyway!  To be honest, she did always say she wanted snake bites, but I'd hoped we'd kind of talked her out of it. Oh well.

Today was another hot, hot day, although I believe it's going to turn wet tonight and last for a few days. I just had to get out the strimmer as the garden has gone completely wild what with all the rain we've had.  It's done my back in and I'm off to have a bath in a mo. DD is watching Educating Rita on BBC2 and loving it - I'm so glad!

Nite all!

Aw, what a sweet boss!

Well, it's quite weird going back to work after two weeks doing NOTHING, but it's ok.  And I had to email my boss about something yesterday, so I told him I was going to need time off to have surgery following my hospital appointment. He wrote me the sweetest email back: first he said "I hope you had a wonderful holiday", and then he said just make sure you do everything you need to do to get better. Everybody go "awwwwwwwww"!   I'm trying to get back in the swim of things, and I'm glad he's away, because that way I can ease back in....

Otherwise, my day-job is REALLY getting in the way of my social life and hobbies!  I want to spend more time taking photos, resizing, playing in Photoshop, scrapping - but I just don't have that time during the week. 

Meanwhile, I have decided, not for the first time, to try and improve our social life, because we always seem to end up letting life/work/worries take over, and don't have time to see our friends. It's not good enough!  I also want more photo opportunities lol.

Talking of photo opps, DD's summer project is to shoot 2 rolls of 36 b&w photos to develop when she gets back to College.  It is called "The Event" and can't be holiday pics or a family reunion, so we have decided to go up to London this weekend to see this   It looks a whole lot of fun!  I'll also take the digi, of course, because we'll want a colour record of the event too.

Well, I'm determined to get to bed earlier tonight, so I'll just go and resize some more pics for my flickr, and I'll be off.  Nite all!