wagwaan?

Can it really be nearly November?

I don't know about you, but this year seems to have flown by. Hospital took up a chunk of it, of course, and then I've been home convalescing, so no summer holiday, no trips away, to break up the year. It's hard to believe the clocks go back Saturday night and it's Halloween on Sunday. Gosh, I love this time of year!  After Halloween we have Guy Fawkes' Night to look forward to and then Victorian Evening in Rickmansworth.... and the countdown to Christmas. Such fun!   Having said that, I don't think I will have the energy to stand out in the cold this year for either of those two evenings, sadly. 

Well, not to worry. There's plenty to think about right now. Such as, what on Earth am I going to do for Christmas presents for the family? They know I can't afford much, and I do rather enjoy making things, but then they have to be light enough to send by post without breaking the bank.  Otherwise, I have told Claire she should book a return Eurostar ticket so she can see the "vitrines" and Christmas markets, and deliver my presents to the family. I'm quite serious!!  That way, a couple of large tins of Quality Street and some Christmas tubes of Twiglets will do the job, ha ha! (Family: your comments welcome here!)

Remember when I went up to Queen Square for tests? Well I have had a call from the young Doctor doing the research and she says I performed well above average and they are very interested in my case because although I am extremely fatigued, my reflexes are very, very fast. This research covers "risky behaviour" and they want to do an MRI of my brain to see what is going on in there.  By risky behaviour, they mean gambling, and I'm really not a gambler, however, I AM fiercely competitive and always want to be the best at everything. It's a trait I'm not always proud of but it has its uses!  Anyway, they are just checking which MRI machine I can go in with my titanium clips in my head and crowns on my teeth. I mean, they don't really want metal bits to come flying out of me to stick to the very large and powerful magnet that will surround my head. Hmm, that reminds me of a recent episode of House...  

Well, I suppose I should get off the computer now and have some lunch. I'll just leave you with a rather topical picture, from last year's Halloween celebrations. 

Boring!

Just a quick update from the iPhone to say that, having got a new PC up and running we now have no Internet connection. We had an intermittent fault with our cable and since the lovely repairman came the broadband has stopped working altogether. At first we were told we'd have to wait three weeks for someone to come and pull new cable, but I've hopefully managed to get a slot this week instead - although I won't quite believe it till I see it! Thank heavens for 3G on the iPhone :)

I hate to mention the C word but I keep getting told there are x shopping days till Christmas. How can it be??? It doesn't seem ten minutes since I was preparing for my birthday in February and now it's nearly November. Crazy! I've sadly come to the conclusion that a trip to spend the holidays in France with my family is out of the question. I get tired on a trip to London to see the doctor, and that's without even thinking of lugging suitcases and crossing the Channel. Maybe I can plan an anniversary trip over for my next birthday instead? Must remember to talk to my other half about it...

Well, I'll keep it short. Typing on the iPhone with one finger is not conducive to long rambles :)

Miracle healing

I came across this very inspirational blog recently, written by a guy called Tom Pauley. Following on from my previous post, I just thought I'd post what he said about fatigue because it says it all, really!

Oh, and when I say exhaustion I mean total physical and mental exhaustion. Overwhelming, debilitating, can’t-do- squat, doesn’t-go-away-sometimes-for-two-or-three-days exhaustion.  Regardless of the cause, mental or physical, “stroke fatigue” means your whole system shuts down.  You must rest.  You can only rest.  You can’t even read.  Forget physics and Psi books.  Even Dan Brown’s new novel is out of the question.

Lord God Almighty!  How much television can one human watch without going as crazy as whoever writes that stuff?

You can check out his blog here. 

 

Wednesday

I'm sitting here looking out of the window at the most brilliant blue sky, sunshine and autumnal colours. It's just a shame it's so coooooold.  How on earth did we keep warm before fleece jackets and jumpers? Probably not the most fashionable items in my wardrobe but certainly the snuggliest. 

Talking of snuggly warmness, I actually did a spot of shopping last week when I was looking for a present for baby A, and I saw this (below). I immediately thought of the boyf and his work-in-progress of a basement. When it's finished it'll be a fab spot without a trace of pink (unlike the ground floor, ahem) as his favourite colour is green. OK, so it might not be this exact shade but lime is very in right now. I love these and think I might have to go back for more:

Yesterday was Tuesday arts & crafts again and we went over to help out. The people who run the activity are wonderful artists, and this week we helped the kids make pointy black witches' hats. There was lots of "sticky-backed plastic" involved and I am afraid I had to utter the immortal words "here's one I made earlier" more than once. I know, not very original! (for those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, check out this link here).  They also taught us how to make spiders' webs out of telephone wire and I brought mine home to finish. I find it rather pleasing to the eye. 

(blurry iPhone pic - sorry!)

I was totally and utterly shattered when I got home. I do not know when I'll be able to do something without saying that, and I'm sorry if I'm being repetitive, but I can't pretend everything is back to normal when it's not. Even though most of us bloggers like to portray a perfect life and home, well, that's not real life, so I try to strike a balance between a totally edited, perfect version of my life and one that won't bore you all to tears. Well, that's the hope, anyway.

One little exciting snippet is that the little blonde girl I had the pleasure of photographing recently with her baby cousin is doing her "acting" debut as a walk-on on Law and Order today. Her mum's Facebook account has pictures of her in her dressing room with her name on the door. She has her own dressing room!  She is such a pretty little thing, maybe she'll be picked up by an agency, who knows?  What fun. When she's famous I'll be able to say "Claire and I took her first official photographs" lol :)

Right, I know I totally had other stuff that I wanted to blog about, but can I remember? Nope, not a word. So I'll sign off now. Enjoy your day! 

Aren't I lucky?

Well, as you know, the PC died last week, which was most unfortunate.  Especially as I hadn't yet worked out how to do online backups to Virginmedia... so I lost all my photos etc. Luckily a lot of them are on my blog, flickr or emailed to people. As soon as I've finished this post I'm off to work out just how to do my backups. Let this be a lesson to you all.

Anyway, I say I'm very lucky because my lovely friend the doctor had a spare computer she has given me to tide us over. The only thing is when you set up a computer again, you've lost all your passwords, drivers, bookmarks, the lot. So I've been working at that over the past couple of days.  

Otherwise, I'm still struggling with the tiredness. This week I've had something on every day, and I have really felt it. Monday was an emergency trip to the dentists to sort out a chipped tooth; Tuesday Claire and I did the arts & crafts in the afternoon which wiped me out; Wednesday I had my friend and her newborn over for a snuggling session/adult conversation; Thursday I helped do a bit of filing and had to do some photocopying for my benefits appeal; and Friday I had to go and drop off said photocopies at the CAB. Then, in the afternoon I went round to my friend's house to give her a little comfort blanket and all-in-one "snowsuit" for baby Alex and also to give her the photos that Claire had printed for her. Another stroke of luck there: Claire gets a substantial staff discount for printing photos.  She's kept the memory card with her, but on her other card I found these two, which are adorable, aren't they? They're all her own work ;)

Now, I know mum was a bit worried about the "flakiness" of his little newborn skin,
and normally I'd cheat and Photoshop it,
but I haven't loaded that software yet, so here he is in all his glory.

This is another one I love - look at his little hands, and that milk everywhere. Gorgeous.
That was me giving him a bottle...

Anyway, today I'm trying to rest and read on the sofa under the pink thermal blanket. It was a bargain from Primark last year and I love it very much. I have seen another couple I would like, and as gas prices are rocketing methinks wrapping up in blankets is going to have to replace putting the heating on this winter. Ahem.

Well that about wraps it up from me.  I hope you are all having a lovely weekend and that the sun is shining....

 

Arts 'n crafts

Claire and I have been roped in to help at the new Tuesday craft sessions at the Community Centre and today was our first day. 13 children aged 5 to 10 attended and it was noisy, boisterous fun. I loved seeing the different personalities: there were a couple of really quiet ones, two extremely loud ones, sone whiney ones, some helpful ones.. I loved it. I wasn't sure how I'd handle the noise levels because I've had trouble with that since the aneurysm, but it was manageable. I needed a rest when I got in though, and I'll be going to bed very shortly, but it certainly makes a change.

Right, well I hope you are all fighting fit. I'll blog some more tomorrow. Nite :)

Grrrrr

Just a quick post to say the PC crashed yesterday. To say I'm gutted is an understatement as I have all the recent baby pics on there except the ones I'd emailed or uploaded to the Internet. I'm hoping we can get it mended but I won't be doing any long blog posts until then!!

A few photos for your viewing pleasure

Hello there. First off, I thought I'd show you how lovely it is to get baby snuggles. Claire took this one the other day when baby Alex came to visit. He is SO snuggly, and seemed very content on my (ample) chest. Bless him!

He's still a bit jaundiced and he was a bit blotchy that day, but then the poor wee soul had just had a couple of days in hospital on an antibiotic drip! Just a precaution, but not something a new mum wants to go through.  He's fine though, thankfully.   I'm taking pictures of him later and I can. not. wait.

When I went to London for my hospital tests I took some iPhone pics, just because. These are straight out of the camera, so they might not be brilliant quality. 

First, a reminder of where we were:

I think it was quite strange and emotional for Claire, because the family were up visiting me almost every day for a month, and it was her first time back there since it all happened.  Across the square from where the tests were is the main part of the hospital where I was admitted, although I was at the back in a modern block:

During the lunch hour, we went for a short walk to get Starbucks, and I just love the old streets around there. By this point it was getting rather grey and dreary, which is a shame. 

Anyway, that was our little jaunt. Tiring, but a change from the usual.

Oh, and how could I forget? The other day Claire, who had a week off, decided she was going to bring me French toast for breakfast in bed. How's that for service??! I love that girl very very much!!

Well, it's getting late. I only came on the computer to send a few photos of the Community Centre AGM to the coordinator as she needs them for publication in the local paper!  Claire is very proud that her old mum is is going to be a "published photographer" as it were, hehe.

Just before I go, I'm sending healing vibes to various friends and family who are going through difficult times at the moment.  If nothing else, my little scrape earlier this year taught me that life is precious and that good health is not something to be taken for granted. Big hugs to any of you who need them, from me, with love xxx