The Happy Salmon

Winter walk

2012-01-23T13:25:00.001Z

Just a quick update; I've been very busy with work at Disability Rights UK since new year. It's good to be busy though, keeps me out of mischief.

I was at Moorfields hospital again last week for a follow up appointment. Since Christmas my eye has been less painful but not completely pain free. I'd also been experiencing a strange type of double vision which appeared like ghosting on an old TV set. It was particularly bad around bright things like when at the cinema or street & head lights. Anyway my consultant said that it was caused by internal inflammation of my eye caused by bits of lens debris (the stuff I had removed last year - except some escaped.) I've got to take steroid eye drops for the next couple of months and if the lens matter doesn't get reabsorbed by the eye then I'll have to have another op. Ho hum.

Yesterday I decided to go exploring across the public footpaths that lead virtually from our front door across the fields. I took the photo below of a tree I passed on the walk, I've only seen it from a distance from our bedroom window before :-) It was a lovely winter walk though a bit blustery.

Bread baking and cat update

2012-01-15T19:58:00.003Z

I felt a bit rubbish this morning when I got up. I've been over sleeping again. I really need to get a regular routine going. Anyway as I felt a bit rubbish I thought I'd do some baking and cooking. So I baked some bread, following the Fabulous Baker Brothers' instructions for a perfect crusty white loaf Their method didn't differ too much from how I usually make it but the knead it for twice as long and throw a cup of water onto the baking tray before going in the oven. The bread turned out great and I have to say the dough was fantastic after 20 minutes kneading by hand!

With it being so sunny today I popped out into the garden to take a few pictures. I've really just left the garden to its own devices over the last few months not sure what to do with all the pots. But below is a picture of one of the winter baskets I bought back in November.

Cats update

Lumpy and Kasumi have been living with us now for nearly 3 weeks, although it seems a lot longer; they have settled in so well. Jason has taken some great photos of them playing and wrestling with each other which I hope to link to on the blog very soon. I have to say Lumpy can be a bit rough with his sister, even throwing in some WWE Smack down moves, but Kasumi seems to love it. Their personalities are really coming out now.

Let's start with Kasumi pictured below hinting that she would like some food! She seems to be the greediest of the two and even ate some duck egg omelette today, which had fallen off Jason's plate. She always finishes any food her brother leaves behind. She is a little minx always up to mischief, whether she is chasing after her brother, hiding inside her play tunnel ready to pounce on her bird toy which I dangle for her or just tearing up tissue paper. You can see said tissue paper in front of her in the picture. She loves attention but it's always on her terms. She adores Jason, snuggling up with him on the settee at night when he's playing Skyrim. I think she's a secret gamer.

Kasumi hinting that she would like some food

Lumpy on the other hand is far more laid back, though he loves to play and stalk his sister. When he catches Kasumi he'll wrestle with her for ages. Lumpy likes to know what's going on in the world, he loves sitting in the window of my study watching the world go by. Although we are trying to keep them indoors until they have had their second lot of vaccinations in 2 weeks time, he has been out in the garden twice. Both times he made his way home by himself which was a relief. The last time he went out he jumped on to the shed roof and miaowed to me to show me how brilliant he thought he was. I'm sure that when he's allowed to go out and explore he will be King of the neighbourhood! At night though he likes to sprawl out on my lap whilst I'm knitting and watching TV. He seems particularly fond of Clint Eastwood films!

Lumpy hinting that he would like to go out.

Lastly I took a photo of the single lavender flower which bloomed on the day we got the cats. Rookie's ashes are beneath the lavender bush so I saw it as a sign that she approved of us getting two new cats :-)

Cats Christmas and New Year

2012-01-06T13:10:00.001Z

Cats Christmas and New Year, a set on Flickr.

I've just uploaded these photos of our new cats to flickr. The photos were taken during their first week with us and I think you can tell that they have really begun to settle in with us.

Lumpy is still the braver of the two but Kasumi is a lot less skittish now, Last night she even sat with Jason on the settee as he played on the PS3. She spent the whole time head butting him and kneading him with her paws.

Lumpy has sat on my lap now a couple of times but he tends to roll about and let his head fall of the end of my knees or the settee. Although I wasn't keen on the name Lumpy he is a big lump of a cat and such a softy that I think the name suits him well.

We are having hours of fun playing with the cats and watching them play with each other. They are totally devoted to each other, spending a lot of time grooming each other and play fighting.

Giving up broadcast news

2012-01-04T20:12:00.001Z

After saying I don't like New Year's resolutions I'm now setting myself a new year challenge to give up watching the news on TV and listening to it on the radio.

Why?

Well more and more I find myself being angered by how the news is reported and what media outlets consider to be news worthy. I've wondered for a while if watching the news was making me more anxious and unhappy. So I'm going to see if it's true. By giving up watching and listening to the news.

My news habits

I've always watched and listened to the news. I grew up with Radio 4 on the radio and my parents watch the news almost religiously. As many people do, including me. As a child and teenager I I prided myself in being "well informed" and really didn't understand why some of my friends showed little interest in the news.

For a long time now I've been media aware enough to question what I see on the news. My unease at how the news is reported and how what is "news worthy" is decided, has grown recently.

But it's for more personal reasons that I'm going to cut out the broadcast news. I just think I watch and listen to too much news and it's making me unhappy and anxious.

News junkie

I start my day by listening to the news, then I usually listen to 5Live radio for a lot of the day whilst working from home. In the evening I'll watch the 6 o'clock news, the local news and sometimes even the channel 4 news! Then at night there's the 10 o'clock news and News Night. That's a lot of hours being devoted to news. Way too much.

I mean that's an extreme case but I reckon that on an average day I consume at least 2 hours of broadcast news.

The trouble with broadcast news is that unless you switch off you have no choice in which stories you want to follow. If I rely on the Internet for my news consumption then I pick and choose what to read.

The challenge

I am to forego all broadcast news for a month I will only get my news from Twitter - where I follow many different news outlets from around the world. So I can still be "informed" but I choose what to read and when I want to read it. If I find I'm spending 4 hours looking for news on twitter then I'll rethink this but I have a feeling my twitter consumption will remain about the same.

I'll keep you updated as to how I go! I think I'll miss Drive time on 5 live the most. I love grumpy Peter Allen :-(

Happy New Year!

2012-01-03T13:53:00.003Z

I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year!

2011 was a tough year for me but also a fantastic year;

I had 2 eye operations and around 6 weeks of not being able to see out of my left eye which was a hard thing to cope with, but

I also got married and went on a fabulous honeymoon!

So 2011 was challenging and rewarding in equal measure so I'm now looking forward to a change in 2012. Maybe a quieter year...

I'm not one for new year's resolutions, why only make changes at this time of the year? But this year I think I will make some resolutions. I don't like negative resolutions where you say I won't do this I won't do that. So I'm trying to make positive resolutions.

I will eat more healthily and exercise more

I will spend money more wisely

I will be more thankful for all my blessings

I will relax more and take things more slowly

I will write more often on my blog and creatively

Those are my resolutions, I'll come back to them later in the year and see if I'm sticking to them.

Cat update!

I'll finish my post with a photo of our two new cats Lumpy and Kasumi. I took the photo a couple of days ago. They still like sleeping at the top of the stairs at night. They have really settled in well. Kasumi has come out of her shell and loves having a fuss made of her, she was ever so brave when Jason's friend Mike came round on New Year's Day, she came straight up to him for a stroke and a tummy tickle! Lumpy greets us with a little chirruping miaow and follows me around the house in the day. At night the two cats play in the living room often chasing each other as well as their toys!

Cats

2011-12-30T14:18:00.006Z

As friends and regular readers will know we lost our beautiful little cat Rookie to cancer back in the summer. She was 19 so had a long life full of love and happiness. We wanted to wait a while until we thought about getting another cat, especially as we were getting married in the autumn

and going on honeymoon.

When we got back from our honeymoon in early December I got in touch with a local cat rehoming and adoption charity called RATS The lady from RATS came out to vet us in our home, always stressful even though I know we have a lovely home in a very quiet location. Anyway, she said we could adopt a cat from them but they weren't taking many cats on over the Christmas period so their fosterer could have a break. We'd need to wait until the New Year.

Then on Tuesday night we got a phone call from Stuart, Jason's brother to say he had two lovely tabby cats who needed a home would we be interested? Yes of course we said!

So pictured left are the 2 gorgeous tabbies which Stuart and Vicky brought round for us on Wednesday. The picture was taken on Wednesday when the cats had not been here too long. Once we let them out of the kitchen to explore the downstairs and upstairs hallways they decided that they liked the look of the top of our stairs where the hall turns down to the bathroom!

They are brother and sister and under 2.

They were originally Vicky's brother's cats but he needed to re-home them due to family circumstances. We are just so pleased that we are able to give them both a good home!

Jason has had his heart set on finding a beautiful sleek cat and then giving him the ironic name of Lumpy (I can't say I was keen on this name one bit!) The lovely larger male tabby certainly fits the bill being handsome and sleek so he is now Lumpy. (I sometimes call him Lord Humphrey Lumpyton; he's very distinguished looking as you'll see from the photo of him below, stretched out on the end of the bed!)

He is the braver of the two cats and loves exploring and climbing on things, he also loves watching out of the windows.

He really looks after his little sister though, even

licking her face sometimes :-) On the first day they curled up together in front of the bathroom door for the afternoon and had a well earned nap as you can see above!

Lumpy's little sister was harder for me to name. I really wanted her to have an unusual name which summed her up. After two days of wracking my brain and rejecting "Estella" (It would only work if Lumpy was called Pip) I decided to call her Kasumi which is Japanese for misty or hazy.

As you can see from this picture Kasumi is a misty colour and certainly can appear and disappear as quickly as sea mist!

Although she is slightly more timid at the moment than her brother she still loves exploring and in the evening will appear on the rug in the living room to play with her catnip toys. She loves stalking the mouse and then pouncing on him and throwing him about in the air. She also loves being stoked and having her tummy rubbed, though she'll grab your hand and hold on to it fast if you let her.

Today we opened up our smallest spare room for them to explore (we're just introducing to them to new rooms very slowly so they don't get overwhelmed.) It's my laundry room usually so has a clothes horse in it which they both enjoyed exploring. Lumpy likes the wide window sill - which he can spread out in and watch the garden from.

Lumpy is already King of the living room, rolling on the rug or guarding the french doors as you can see in the picture here. Both cats are really loving and although they are still getting used to

us and the new house they want lots of cuddles and fuss. I can tell that they are gong to provide us with endless fun and affection and I feel privileged to share our home with two such beautiful and loving animals.

Not blogging for a while

2011-12-19T13:24:00.002Z

Sorry for not having blogged for a while. It's not as if I don't have a lot to blog about. There was the last week of our honeymoon in Miami and then our wedding celebration with family once we got back. Unfortunately I've not been feeling very well over the last 2 weeks.

My left eye, the one operated on twice this year, flared up again both red and painful. My consultant saw it and put me back on the steroid eye drops. But the real problem is depression. To be honest I've stopped looking for reasons why my depression and anxiety flare up. I know that the last time we got home from a big holiday I was very unwell. In fact it was that bout of anxiety and depression which caused me to finally seek proper help, which in turn lead me to change my life style. I started working part time, I then started up my own business so I'd have control over my work and we moved house out of London to somewhere quieter.

I certainly don't regret those changes I had to make the changes. But now my anxiety and depression seem to be focussed on the fact that I don't have any structure to my life, that I'm working from home most of the time and not interacting with others. I feel isolated not having a car and living outside of London with out a car is difficult for me. Many of the places I'd like to visit around here can't be accessed by public transport and those that can the public transport stops running at 5PM! I think having a car and Jason being able to drive me around to places at the weekend has really made me realise how different things would be for me if I could drive. Something up until now I have never been bothered about. In London you're better off with out a car!

But I don't want to moan and make my blog an unhappy place. I've been very open on the blog about my mental health so I thought it was only right that I explained that the reason I've not been blogging lately is because I am feeling anxious and depressed again. I'll just have to ride this one out for a while I think. I'm seeing my CBT nurse on the 9th January.

Alligators and Thanksgiving

2011-11-26T22:41:00.001Z

Earlier in the week we went on a trip to the Everglades to see alligators and a boat trip around Miami. We were driven about all day in a little mini bus.

We went on a airboat trip around the Everglades and saw a few alligators including babies out in the river. (The Everglades aren't a swamp as such but a series of rivers apparently) the airboat went quite fast in places and I was a bit scared.

We then saw an animal show, which basically involved a bloke showing us a scorpion, toad, lizard & alligator. I've got more photos on my actual camera but I can't upload those until I get home. Below there should be a photo of a baby alligator. For lunch I had the alligator tail platter. It was like KFC but more chewy. Yep like just about every kind of unusual meat, alligator tastes a bit like chicken!

We were then driven back to Miami to go on our boat trip. The boat took us to see various islands including Fisher and Star island. It was mainly to see the homes of the rich and famous. Jase took lots of pics which I'll link to when we get home. But below is a photo I took of Miami Beach Marina.

When we got back to the hotel we had champagne and chocolate strawberries waiting for us in our room as a honeymoon gift from the hotel.

The next day I unfortunately got food poisoning, probably from the raw eggs in a chocolate mousse I had at a steak restaurant. So spent 24 hours in a lot of pain and unable to eat. The first meal I ate was Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday evening at the hotel. I couldn't eat a great deal but managed to enjoy the Thanksgiving fare especially the mac and cheese. We then watched Charlie Brown, a Thanksgiving TV tradition.

On Black Friday, we went to Macy's shopping. Black Friday is like the US version of our January sales. Anyway Macy's on South Beach wasn't busy and I picked up a few bargains, a red handbag, purple purse, and two pairs of jeans for less than £60!

I still wasn't feeling 100% until today when we went to the News cafe and I managed to eat a lasagne and share a slice of Key Lime Pie with Jase.

Sunset walk

2011-11-21T23:14:00.001Z

We've had a few lazy days over the weekend and today. We spent Saturday on the hotel's beach. We had sun loungers and umbrella plus waiter service which meant I got to eat a huge hotdog on the beach. We have done a lot of walking around South Beach most days.

Our hotel is hosting the annual NASCAR awards ceremony tonight after this weekends NASCAR final in Miami. I've probably been sitting next to NASCAR drivers maybe even this year's champion but I wouldn't know it! This morning there were NASCAR cars parked out the front of our hotel along with a big broadcast truck.

This evening I went for a walk at sunset through Lumus Park and took the photos below of the view to our hotel, the beach and Ocean Drive.

Tomorrow we're off to the Everglades and a Miami boat trip.

Miami

2011-11-18T23:41:00.001Z

We arrived safely in Miami 2 days ago. We had a marvellous flight out. The Concord Lounge at Heathrow was very fabulous - waitress service & lovely food. We saw Elvis Costello in the lounge too.

First class on the plane was wonderful the food exceptionally good. I changed into my BA pjs and watched the Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

We arrived in Miami early and had a smooth journey through immigration. The hotel is fantastic. Our room has a private balcony With chairs and table. We overlook the pool and beach. Below are some photos of the beach and views from our room.

My first thought and experiences of Miami Beach and the USA are:

Everything comes with cheese
I saw a fire hydrant shooting gallons of water into a street, just like in a cartoon or US comedy!
The TV is hilarious totally unintentionally - my favourite advert is for "Forever Lazy" a fleece romper suit for adults. The ad says it has "front and back flaps for your convenience!"
Everyone says "You're Welcome" automatically which my niece Lucia would approve of as she always says that too!
I've been in a "yellow taxi."
I've never seen so much art deco in my life - I love art deco so I'm in art deco heaven!
I've eaten a twinkie bought from a drug store and proper American burger from a place called 5 napkin burger (unlike other burgers you need more than one napkin if you eat a burger from 5 napkin - that's right you need 5 napkins!)

After gorgeous weather yesterday we've had rain and wind today. I made the most of the bad weather and booked into the spa for a massage, which was great really relaxing!

Tomorrow the weather is set to improve so it's back to sunshine.

America

2011-11-17T21:48:00.001Z

I'm writing this while on the plane flying out to Miami so won't upload it until I'm there. I've been very excited about going to Miami. I've been listening to salsa & Latin music to get me in the mood. I've been planning what I'm going to wear on the beach & when people watching. I even got in the mood by drinking mojitos.

What only struck me a day or so ago is that this is my first trip to America, well to the USA part of North America. I decided to make myself a playlist of my favourite US music which has stirred up some interesting feelings and thoughts. The playlist contains 70 songs all guitar based & mostly alternative rock or country / blues. There are reoccurring themes within the songs of motorbikes, travel, oppressive small towns, cowboys, drinking beer and the American Dream. Bob Dylan has the honour of having the most songs on the list. 2 featuring him, one cover (Hendrix's All along the watchtower) and a song by his son (one head lamp.)

Listening to the songs has made me think about what it means to be visiting America? American culture is hard to escape anywhere in the world but in Britain it's almost second nature. I grew up watching Sesame Street and the muppets as well as Scooby Doo and the Flintstones. American music was and is everywhere, as are American films and TV programmes. I even studied American Cinematography at University, my favourite term was the one devoted to the Western. I didn't study British Cinematography the next year. I love British cinema, I wanted it to stay that way so chose not to study it.

I have a Pop culture view of America, formed by the X Files, Buffy, Twin Peaks, The Simpsons, sitcoms like Roseanne, cowboy films and Stephen King novels. I know the reality will be far more prosaic but I can't wait to eat fruit pie in a diner. I'll be disappointed if the waitress isn't called something suitable like Darlene!

I want everything to be bigger, louder, quirkier and more colourful than in the UK. I'm expecting a country of extremes, a marmite place full of things I love or hate. I'm hoping for more of the love though! I think visiting Miami will be an interesting glimpse of America, one watered down by the Latin and European influence. The perfect appetiser for my one day longed for road trip along the west coast and into cowboy country!

Wedding bells

2011-11-13T17:37:00.001Z

Jason and I got married on Friday! We had a wonderful day. Even though we had a very small wedding it was a long day. I was at the hairdressers by 8:15. My hairdresser did a fantastic job, even sweeping my hair back in a "Victory roll" which looked great!

I was 5 minutes late to the register office but that seems to be a given for the bride. After the 2 minutes silence our wedding kicked off. It was a lovely ceremony though I did get the giggles when saying my vows.

We then went to the Black Horse pub to have a wonderful meal. Below is a picture of my desert both Jason's and my desert had congratulations written in chocolate on it.

We'll be off on honeymoon to Miami soon but for the first few days of married life I'll be on holiday just relaxing.

I can't quite get over how generous and kind our friends and family have been since we got married. We've had such thoughtful messages, cards & presents.

My wedding day was so magical I cant wait to get all our family together in December and celebrate again!

Below are some photos from our "big day"

Something more happy - wedding plans and Christmas

2011-10-28T19:22:00.000+01:00

Not wanting my blog to be mired in doom and gloom and my general moaning. I thought I'd write a bit about my forth coming wedding and Christmas.

Usually I'm moaning about the shops being full of Christmas produce at this time of year but not this year. Not when I worked out that 3 out of the next 8 weeks to Christmas I'm not going to be available for Christmas preparations! This is because of my wedding and honeymoon!

Wedding
Jason and I are getting married on 11/11/2011 yes at 11 O'Clock. We couldn't resist the date :-) We are having a very small wedding with just our witnesses and their partners at the actual wedding. After the short ceremony we are going to have a nice meal at a local gastro-pub type place. Although our wedding is going to be small I have made sure that a few traditions are kept to:

I've ordered a lovely, very natural bouquet of flowers
I have a lovely dress, not too formal but special enough for me :-)
I am going to have my hair and make up done on the morning
And I have made sure I'll have something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue.

A few days later we are going on honeymoon to Miami for 2 weeks. We'll be in Miami for Thanksgiving which I am really looking forward to.

It's when we get back from Miami that we are going to get our families together to have small celebration at a local hotel / pub. So I get to wear my wedding dress twice! It means that the next 6 weeks are going to be taken up with wedding stuff and honeymoon. If you include my hen do last weekend my celebrations are spanning over 2 months!

The down side is that Christmas will be almost upon us when we have our wedding celebration in December! So it won't leave me much time to prepare!

Christmas

So I've been very organised. I've booked my Ocado delivery slot for Christmas :-) I'm making my famous boozy mincemeat this weekend. It's famous to me anyway and it is boozy with both cider and brandy in it! With us getting close to Christmas I thought I'd just remind you of my cherry bun recipe. This cherry bun recipe entry is by a long shot the most popular page on my blog! So if you want to try them for Christmas here's the link back to December 2009.

Disappointment

2011-10-28T17:55:00.003+01:00

I don't deal with disappointment well, in fact I deal with it about as badly as I deal with needing to be patient about something. So when I'm impatient for something and then let down I don't cope very well at all.

Eye problems
As you'll know I've had two lots of eye surgery this year. The surgery was to correct a problem which was similar to a cataract. Basically bits of the old cataract I had as a baby which wasn't completely removed back then had moved into my line of vision and gradually over the last 10 years my vision had got steadily worse. You'll also know that the first op went wrong and I ended up losing most of my sight temporarily in my left eye. But the second op back in July corrected it.

It left me needing a new prescription for my glasses and my contact lenses. Moorfields being a very busy and successful hospital I had to wait 6 weeks for a optometry appointment for new glasses and 10 weeks for my contact lens appointment (and I was lucky to get that so soon!) But you know I was prepared to be patient and wait.

Optometry
Well 5 weeks ago I had my appointment to get my eyes tested for new glasses. My prescription has changed considerably - but I could tell them that. My vision with out any correction from glasses and contact lenses is very different to what it used to be. Not better if anything worse. Wearing my old glasses and contact lenses my close to vision was a lot better than before the op. I can read news paper print again something I've not been able to do for many years. But my distance vision was terrible. So I knew my sight could be corrected with glasses and lenses but just that my old prescription was clearly wrong now.

This was proved by the optometrist who said that the magnification of my left lens in my glasses had reduced from a +15 to a +11 but most surprisingly my astigmatism had moved from something like +9 to +1. I don't really understand what this means but I think it has something to do with where you focus. I don't have a lens to help me focus or change focus as my lens was removed with the cataracts when I was a baby.

So my glasses were ordered, unlike the last time I ordered glasses I had extremely limited choices to what frames or type of lens I had. Also there seemed to be an issue with having a particularly powerful bifocal. I was told it could take 3 weeks to get my glasses. I wasn't happy with the idea of waiting that long but what can you do? When 3 weeks had come and there was no sign of the glasses I called the hospital. I was told the lenses were still being made by the manufacturers, and not much more.

I was at Moorfields last week getting my contact lenses sorted out so I popped down to optometry to find out what was happening with my glasses and was told that the manfacturer had been called and they had assured them that my lenses would be sent to Moorfields early this week and so I'd get them by today. They didn't show up.

After trying for 2 hours to speak to someone at Moorfields I was finally told they were at the hospital, so I said I'd come and collect them rather than wait for them to be posted out. I was then told that they had already been posted to me yesterday. OK I thought they should get here on Saturday. I was then contacted to be told that a mistake had been made and my glasses were not at Moorfields and the lenses still hadn't arrived from the manufacturers. As the manager wasn't there today I was told I'd have to wait until Monday to get the situation sorted out.

It'll be 5 weeks next week since they were ordered and it will be 5 months since I last had a pair of glasses which I could see out of! I am not happy.

Some good news though
I did get my new contact lens today, it took 5 days to get here! Now why can't Moorfields spectacles department be as efficient as the contact lens one!

So I very excitedly put my new lens in. It was wonderful at first. I looked out across the fields and could see so much more clearly than I've been able to for the last 5 months. Could I see better than before the op? Well its hard to tell as it was 5 months ago and the main issues I had before the op were around very specific situations like reading small print, seeing in the dark and navigating steps etc. I think that for the navigating steps these new lenses will be great. I'll be able to tell more about the distance vision when I go to London and see if I can read the train departure boards and signage on the underground. I suspect things will be sharper, but its not going to mean I can see more but what I can see will be sharper and clearer. I'm always going to be partially sighted nothing is going to change that.

Reading glasses
But seeing close to when wearing my contact lenses seems to have changed considerably. I've always supposed to have worn reading glasses when wearing my contact lenses. The old prescription was +4s. At school I used to love having fancy frames for my reading glasses because I can't with my normal glasses. But over the past 10 years I found the reading glasses didn't make that much of a difference. Probably because of the changed to my vision. Now I certainly need to wear reading glasses if I want to be able to read anything close to or in less than 14 point font. I found going round the supermarket without reading glasses today a nightmare!

But I'll get some reading glasses sorted out and hopefully I can get some prescription sunglasses as well before we go on honeymoon so I can read on the beach. Never been able to do that before!

Confused
How my eye sight has changed has confused me a lot. It isn't how I expected it to change and I still don't really know what it will be like, not until I get my glasses. Although my contact lenses give me better all round vision my glasses give me my best vision distance and close to. It is so frustration that it is taking so long for the hospital to sort them out.

The last straw
Any way today having to deal with Moorfields about my glasses and the mixed information I was getting from them and getting used to my new vision with the contact lenses has left me feeling rather fraught, confused, impatient, and disappointed. Its as if I could put up with all the problems with my vision earlier this year and the two lots of surgery and all the time I've had to cope with limited vision knowing it could be corrected. I coped with all of that but now at the last hurdle I've just said NOOOOOOOOO I can't do this any more!!!!! I've been in a right state all afternoon. I'm sure my blood pressure must be through the roof.

I thought that blogging about it would probably help get it off my chest!

So the positive side is I have new contact lenses which enable me to cross roads with out fearing for my life - the first time in 5 months I've been able to feel confident crossing the road! It also means I'll get to buy some cool, trendy reading glasses. But I'm going to have to get used to not being able to just do with my contact lenses like I used to. I may have to resort to little half moon glasses to peer over like a Victorian spinster :-) So I can work at the computer and be able to read with out taking my glasses on and off! Little half moon glasses will probably suit me, in a saucy librarian kind of way or I'll just look like Mrs Tiggywinkle instead ;-)

Hen weekend

2011-10-24T14:34:00.001+01:00

Hen weekend, a set on Flickr.

I had the most wonderful hen weekend in Brighton; great company, fab food, loads of fun, karaoke, zombies, mojitos, sea, sun and shopping. I'll blog about it all properly later but you can go to flickr to see some of the photos from the weekend.

The Owl Killers review

2011-10-14T12:32:00.001+01:00

The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read the company of liars by Karen Maitland earlier in the summer and found it very haunting. I was really looking forward to reading the Owl Killers and I wasn't disappointed. The novel is set in the 14th century like company of liars and draws on some similar themes. The harshness of medieval life is illustrated in all it's gory detail yet Karen Maitland also shows a real human and humanitarian side to her characters which doesn't feel out of place.

The owl killers focuses on belief and power as the church clashes with paganism and non conformist Christians. The realities for women in the harsh 14th century and those of disabled people are shown unflinchingly. The story has multiple narrators which brings variety and a freshness to the book and the plot is generally moved along speedily by the different voices.

I look forward to reading Karen Maitland's latest book the Gallows Curse.

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Promised catch up

2011-10-12T18:54:00.000+01:00

Banana and pear loaf

I've not felt much like writing my blog lately, I've just been very tired and with more problems with my left eye I've been trying to cut down computer use. But I did promise a catch up. Over the last month I've been quite busy with work and in my spare time I've been doing some baking including the banana and pear loaf pictured above as well as bread.

Heat wave

A couple of weeks ago we had a heat wave - temperatures of 29 C at the end of September and beginning of October. We made the most of the weather on the 2nd October by having a picnic in Chicksands woods - pictured below. It was a glorious day of hot sunshine and our little picnic was lovely.

Chicksands woods

Whizz Kidz

About a week before the heat wave I was asked to volunteer on a Whizz Kidz project at Heathrow Terminal 5. It was filming for a training DVD for BAA security staff. I had great fun being filmed going through security. The training is to help staff provide a more inclusive service for disabled people who are using the airport. The staff we were working with were fantastic, really keen to be involved. I was also lucky enough to work with Fran Williamson the paralympic swimmer. (She's won 12 world championship medals and 6 paralympic ones!)

Volunteering for Whizz Kidz made me think more seriously about volunteering more regularly locally, so I'm in the process of applying for a few positions.

Knitting

I've also been keeping myself busy knitting. I've finished a scarf I'd been working on for a little while this weekend which is pictured below. The wool is a fantastic wool cotton blend from sirdar called Crofter. My friend Lorraine bought me a ball of it earlier in the year so I ordered up some more and I'm about to knit Lorraine a similar scarf for Christmas.

Wedding plans
The other thing which has kept me busy has been organising my wedding and celebrations. I have a hen weekend in Brighton coming up. Then there is our wedding on the 11th November, we are having a small ceremony with just our witnesses and their partners. But even so I'm making sure that I'm booked into the hairdressers and have just ordered a small wedding posy for me to carry. It wouldn't seem right with out flowers. We're booked into a local pub for a meal afterwards.

Our real celebration isn't until we get back from honeymoon though when we are getting our family together celebration meal. Our nieces and nephews now add up to double figures so I'm planning stuff to keep them entertained all afternoon at the meal! Most of that is now organised which is a relief. It will be nice that the celebration is close to Christmas so we will have a Christmas meal and themed celebration of our marriage with our family including mulled wine - my favourite!

Catch up posts

2011-10-06T09:28:00.000+01:00

I have to apologise for not blogging properly recently although I have been adding my book reviews from Good Reads website. It's a great website to check out if you love reading and want some inspiration about what to read next.

I have been keeping myself busy with work and I'll blog about work stuff a bit later today.

Last week I ended up back at A&E at Moorfields as I had a lot of eye pain - in the eye that was operated on twice earlier in the year. Anyway it turned out it was internal swelling so I'm back on the steroid eye drops. Just finished a week of taking them every hour and now down to the more reasonable 6 times a day!

Anyway I will blog about work and what I've been up to out of work a bit later today.

The woodcutter by Reginald Hill

2011-10-06T09:23:00.002+01:00

The Woodcutter by Reginald Hill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed the Woodcutter. It is a modern fairy tale with twists and turns and many layers but at its heart it is really an ageless story of a hero overcoming a set of trials. I really loved Reginald Hill's book the Stranger House but the woodcutter some how lacked something that the Stranger House had. I can't quite put my finger on it, but don't let that put you off, the Woodcutter is a fantastic thriller packed full of memorable characters, locations and suspense. There's some interesting symbolism in the story too, which you'd expect as one of the main characters is a psychiatrist. There are wolves, fairies and elves, dark woods, castles, woodcutters, betrayals, evil queens and benevolent Kings. But don't worry you can enjoy the story with out even bothering to think too deeply about the modern fairy tale imagery.

Also if you love Cumbria and the Lake District Reginald Hill describes his native county exquisitely I really felt that I was back there when reading some of the Cumbrian scenes.

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Book review - the Crossing Places

2011-09-25T18:11:00.001+01:00

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Although I did enjoy this book there were a few things that prevented me from really enjoying it. I found the narrative style, a very active, present tense, third person narrative, a bit distracting. I found the style quite unsettling in some parts of the story I couldn't ever quite relax into being swept up in the story. Plus I worked out "who done it" as soon as it was possible to. But I enjoyed the archeological detail which was very interesting though I most of it was familiar from Time Team!

I don't mean this to sound like a dreadful review - I did enjoy the story and the character of Ruth. I will look out the second book as I feel there is potential for a good developing series.

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Book review

2011-09-22T20:43:00.001+01:00

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I really loved this book. I visited Dorset's Jurasic coast earlier this year and visited a fossil shop and bought an amonite. Sadly I didn't get the chance to fossil hunt myself though I have done in the past on the north east coast near Whitby. The novel is about the lives of two very different women in the early 19th Century who are drawn together by fossils in Lyme Regis.

The characterisation of the two women was vivid and believable and the story engaging. What I loved most about this novel was how it evoked a real sense of discovery and excitement in learning experienced by the two women. This desire to learn and understand is tempered by the restraints of the age which prevented women from an equal education and is really sobering.

The two narators and many of the other characters in this novel are real historical figures. I was left with a feeling of extreme gratitude and admiration of theses pioneering women who persisted in their own quiet ways to push the boundaries of what was "acceptable" for a woman to learn about and engage in. They both made sacrifices so that they could continue to study fossils in their own unoffical ways whilst formal study was denied them. The novel also examins class and religious issues which interfered with opportuities to study I feel very privileged to live at a time when I can study on equal terms to anyone else.

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Rookie

2011-09-21T22:23:00.001+01:00

Rookie, a set on Flickr.

I've collected together some photos of Rookie and put them on Flickr. Rookie passed away on Monday after being unwell for some time. She was a little cat with a strong personality who loved to tell you exactly what she thought. She was also an incredibly loving cat who always wanted to be made a fuss of.

The house is not the same with out her. She is dearly missed by Jase and me.

Pigs and stargazing

2011-09-11T14:03:00.001+01:00

The last couple of weeks have been quite busy for me as I started a new contract working for Disability Alliance and specifically the work which Skill lead on with education and disabled people. Sadly Skill closed in April but thanks to Disability Alliance and Lord Low, the Department of Business Innovation and Skills has funded the work of Skill to continue managed by my old colleague and friend Andrea Lewis who was working at Skill when they closed in April. Andrea worked tirelessly with Lord Low and others to ensure that Skill's vital work, like their helpline continue.

I'm working on policy stuff and responses to the Government's FE consultation. It's good to be working again after all the time off in the summer.

Yesterday we went over to visit friends who have just moved down form Edinburgh to Cambridge. We went with them and their two little girls to a farm which has a selection of shops and a cafe. The picture above is of some pigs who seemed very happy to be wallowing in mud. Below is a picture of Rupert and Jen's lovely ginger cat. She decided to sleep between Jason and I on the settee with her head on my leg resting on her paw!

We stayed over in Cambridge quite late and Rupert decided to look for the new supernova which has appeared in the pin wheel galaxy just north of the plough. Rupert has a small telescope but we had some difficulty trying to find it. We may have seen it or it may just have been a very bright star. We did certainly get a good view of Jupiter though and 3 of Jupiter's 4 largest moons. I could only see 2 of the 3 but that is certainly more than I've seen before! I can't believe that it was the first time I'd actually looked through a telescope at stars and planets! We didn't get home until mid night but it was a long and enjoyable day.

Today I picked up some lovely begonias from Homebase which I've put at the front of the house as you can see in the picture above.

I have another busy week ahead with probably 2 days working in London, so I'm trying to rest this Sunday.

Bank holiday weekend

2011-08-29T18:54:00.002+01:00

Rookie

I was really looking forward to this bank holiday weekend. Mainly because I've actually been working for the last 2 weeks which makes a holiday seem so much more worth while. Whilst I was waiting for my second lot of eye surgery and not working, weekdays and weekends just blurred into one really. How ever much I don't like to admit it, I do really like routine on some levels.

So any way, I was looking forward to the weekend but we had to take Rookie to the vets on Saturday morning. She's not really been well for the past 9 months, she's lost a lot of weight and is sick increasingly often, particularly over night. But until very recently she was happy and as active as a 19 year old cat can be. She's been treated for a thyroid problem for the last 6 months but all other tests have come back normal for her. About 3 weeks ago she was very sick one morning and just looked so weak I made an emergency appointment to see the vet, and really thought that if she didn't get better she would have to be put to sleep. But she had an anti sickness injection and antibiotics and seemed to rally.

Last Friday she was sick again one morning and as she was due another check up we made the appointment for her on Saturday. She was quite dehydrated but not as bad as she had been the time before. The vet however found a lump when he examined her. The vet says it is most likely cancer, I've suspected it for some time now but as she hasn't been in any pain I hoped maybe it was just the thyroid problem making her poorly sometimes.

It's strange how quickly she has gone down hill in the last couple of weeks. She still doesn't seem to be in pain but she has had anti sickness and antibiotic jabs. She just doesn't seem her normal self, its as if she can't settle or get comfy so I'm guessing she must have some discomfort. She is due back at the vets this Friday as long as things stay as they are, any deterioration and she's back as an emergency sooner.

This weekend I've had to come to terms with the fact that we will have to do the kindest thing for her soon. I don't want her to suffer in any way so I know that it won't be long until the vet has to put her to sleep. The thought of it at first horrified me. Just the thought of her not being alive was so upsetting. But I know that it will be the right thing to do if she starts being sick again and gets dehydrated and weak again or if she starts to be in pain.

So this weekend ended up being quite upsetting as I came to terms with having to say good bye to Rookie. She's a very eccentric cat, very demonstrative always letting you know how she feels, and always wanting attention and love. Sometimes she is more like a dog than a cat. Very loyal and always wanting company. In fact that's one of the ways we have been able to tell that she's ill over the last couple of days. She wants to be made a fuss of but seems to not be able to settle. She won't climb on to Jason's tummy like she always used to nor on to my lap. She is spending most of her time sleeping on the rug in the living room.

Rookie is a very affectionate, loving cat who has been through a lot with me since I got her from the cats protection league 7 years ago. We're making the most of the time we have with her right now.

Today we took a short drive out to the garden centre at Willington. I wanted to get some plants to make a autumn/winter hanging basket. I'd forgotten it was time to plant bulbs. So I ended up buying daffs, narcissi, tulips, crocus and snow drop bulbs, as well as basket plants. I spent a couple of hours gardening when we got back. Repotting a few asters that haven't yet flowered - I'm hoping they will now, and planting some of the bulbs in containers. Then at the front of the house under my study window I've planted snow drops and the daffodils and narcissi. I'm hoping they will come up ok in the spring. No doubt I'll be buying a few more bulbs before November!

We also went to Simply Oak for lunch, I had the roast beef and Jase sausage and mash. e both had the plum tart and custard. So my healthy eating was put on hold today. I'm back at the gym tomorrow for a work out and then yoga so hopefully it won't set me back too much.

Garden 20 Aug 2011

2011-08-21T11:56:00.001+01:00

Garden 20 Aug 2011, a set on Flickr.

Just some photos of the flowers in our garden at the moment. lots of dahlias and marigolds, the last of the lilies and a surprise return of the fuchsia.

RSPB Sandy Lodge

2011-08-21T11:39:00.001+01:00

RSPB Sandy Lodge, a set on Flickr.

Yesterday we took the car out for a spin, and drove to the RSPB reserve at Sandy. We had a lovely walk in the morning sunshine. The reserve has 5 miles of walks but we probably only did half of that.

We saw some interesting sheep with horns lazing under the trees. There were plenty of insects including dragon flies and bees. We even saw and heard a bird of prey. Still not sure what it was, I guess a buzzard. Its cry was very high pitched and a bit like a cat mewing.

The landscape is a mix of woodland and heath which is lovely as you get to walk through shady trees, some of which are very old, as well as walking through open sun drenched heaths. The old heathland was full of beautiful heather.

2011-08-08T13:16:00.002+01:00

Just a quick update.

Above is a picture of the Asiatic and Oriental Lilies which are growing in a nice wooden tub in the garden at the moment. They smell gorgeous too and seem to be a real hit with hover files, butterflies and moths.

It's over two weeks now since my last eye surgery and so far so good. I certainly haven't had any set backs. My vision hasn't got back to normal yet though. I can see close to ok but distance vision is still very blurred. I have to wait 3 weeks and then go to the opticians at Moorfields to get my eyes tested for new glasses. I also have an appointment with the contact lens department in September so I can be tested for new contact lenses as well. My consultant was confident that my vision could be helped by a change in prescription for my glasses and contact lenses.

This weekend my parents visited and we went for a nice meal on Saturday at the Black Horse at Ireland (that's the Bedfordshire hamlet not the country!) Then on Sunday we went over to my brother's for his birthday. Baby Tilly is now 2 months old and has grown a lot in the last month since I saw her last.

clouds like fire

2011-07-30T15:29:00.001+01:00

clouds like fire, a photo by Happy Salmon on Flickr.

I took this photo earlier in the week - if you click on the link to flickr you can look at the whole set which I took of the sunset. I took them on Sunday last week I think. It was definitely when Jason's parents were staying with us. We had just had dinner and looking out of our dining room window at the front of the house I noticed some pink clouds. Within a few minutes the pinks had turned to reds. It was quite spectacular.

I might try and do some art work with my pastels based on theses pictures of the sky.

I was extremely glad that I was able to take these pictures and enjoy the sky whilst being able to see again after my op last Friday.

The eye surgery went well although it was another very long day at the hospital. Nearly 11 hours of waiting. This time I found the anaesthetic a lot worse. Not sure why but I felt more groggy and found it harder to get over it at the weekend. The actual trauma to my eye was a lot less this time though. I have had very little eye pain and have been able to get on with most day to day stuff.

I'm still waiting for my vision to settle in my right eye. Its great close to but anything more than 3 feet away from me becomes increasingly blurred the further away it is. Watching the TV is a bit hard even with our huge screen! But I can read a news paper again and books so I'm not having to rely on my Kindle with super size text.

The experience of suddenly losing my sight in one eye has taught me a lot and I hope to write about it more on the blog in the coming days. But for now I just wanted to let people know that everything went well and I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that it stays this way.

Last time I began to notice that something wasn't right on about day 12 after the op so when I get 2 weeks out of the way i will feel a lot better. I'm at day 8 at the moment!

Garden July

2011-07-30T15:17:00.001+01:00

Garden July, a set on Flickr.

I haven't been able to devote as much time to the garden lately - due to my eye sight not being too good and the weather being lousy for much of July. But the weather has picked up and after my op last Friday I can see more. So I took these pictures earlier in the week as a record of where the garden is now. Since then one of the Lilies has flowered - the pinkish red one called Maru. I'll post pictures of that later.

The garden is just brimming with insects from the bumble bees and hover flies which love the lavender, dahlias and flowering herbs to the ladybirds and there lavae which love keeping the green fly at bay off my roses and tomatoes!

This week I've even seen a few white butterflies which has cheered me up no end. I'd had quite a few very pretty moths including those beautiful pink ones but no butterflies. The insects seem to be attracting more birds now including swifts, house martens and even small sparrow like birds. Being a new development its going to take a while for the birds to realise we are here!

A weekend of theatre

2011-07-14T10:36:00.007+01:00

Last weekend my Mum visited and we embarked on our annual theatre weekend in London. The theatre weekend always involves at least one production at Shakespeare's Globe, and this year we also went to the Old Vic to see Kevin Spacey's last production as artistic director at the Old Vic, Richard III (pictured below click here and you're taken to the Evening Standard's review of the play.)

Richard III is quite a controversial play with some of the disability rights movement, seen as a cultural and artistic example of negative stereotypes about disability and disabled people. Not the earliest but one of the earliest examples of a disabled person as villain, long before Bond baddies. Self consciousness of this has lead to some interesting interpretations of Richard III recently.

My Mum and I saw Kenneth Branagh as Richard a few years back. Kenny played Richard as a tortured soul, who had turned to manipulation and murder because he is shunned by the people around him because of his impairment. You could feel sorry for Kenny's Richard on some level and see that such rejection and downright hostility had led him to become devious and resourceful.

Kevin Spacey played Richard slightly differently. You could not sympathise or forgive his Richard, and although the opening speech of the play makes it clear that Shakespeare thinks Richard's behaviour is partly to do with his disability, Spacey's Richard presented this as a kind of "so I'm disabled - get over it" speech. Here's an extract from that opening speech:

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one against the other:

But this is Shakespeare and nothing is as it seems, Richard says that he can not be a lover due to his "deformity" but he goes on to seduce the wife of one of his murder victims and persuades her to marry him!

Anyway I shan't spend any more time dissecting Shakespeare and his character's motivations. I think most people know that the play is a piece of Elizabethan propaganda, historically inaccurate in many ways. Shakespeare uses disability as a device within his play. It illustrates how the Elizabethan's viewed disability but as always in Shakespeare all is not as it seems. Just as racism is rife in the Merchant of Venice Shakespeare still manages to write the "if you prick me do I not bleed?" speech for Shylock. In Richard the III society's assumptions around disability are aired, reaffirmed and contradicted in terns. That does not mean however that the overall message about disability is a comfortable one in the play. Shakespeare is a man of his time where disability was feared and loathed in equal measure.

But away from Shakespeare himself and to Kevin Spacey and Sam Mendes' (director) interpretation of the play. It was great, I really enjoyed it. I saw shades of Gregory House in Spacey's Richard, in some mannerisms and also in the gleeful delight he took in being an evil genius. You could not sympathise with this Richard but you could enjoy watching with horror his manipulations and total lack of morals.

The supporting cast were excellent too, the direction effortless and seamless. Margaret was played as a warrior, witchy, bag lady, who took solemn pleasure in counting up her curses as they came true. Interestingly the queens did not come across as strongly as they do in some productions when they have their famous scenes together but instead came into their own when dealing with Richard directly.

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing experience!

The next day we went to see Anne Boleyn at Shakespeare's Globe. Anne Boleyn is a play by Howard Brenton, which swaps between the time of James VI Scotland as he becomes James I of England and Henry VIII. It is the story of Anne Boleyn but not quite the Elizabeth Gregory The Other Boleyn Girl story (though I heard a number of theatre goers talk about the book and the film!)

There is an interesting article here in the Guardian about Howard Brenton's inspiration for the play which is a revival this year, so successful was it last year. Like all the Howard Brenton plays I've seen it was superb, irreverent, darkly comic. tragic and thought provoking. It was acted superbly. Thomas Cromwell was delightfully scheming, King James was wonderfully idiosyncratic as the real life King apparently was. Anne herself was both steely and fragile, serious and frivolous full of the depth the historical Anne was denied for so long.

Anyway the weekend was a success - we had to travel around London by cab, because of my reduced vision at the moment. Yes, it would have been nice to have seen both plays properly ( or at least what properly means to me) but I could see enough to enjoy both immensely. I always prefer the spoken word of a play the most anyway.

Garden July 4th

2011-07-04T19:24:00.001+01:00

Garden July 4th, a set on Flickr.

I'm having a few Internet issues, so I hope this entry makes my blog! Just a few pictures from the garden I took this afternoon. I'll try and blog properly later.

More eye surgery

2011-06-30T05:47:00.003+01:00

Let's get the good news out of the way first. I have a date for my eye surgery! It's 22nd of July so just 3 weeks away. I have to say that my consultant at Moorfield's has been great. He is hopeful that this surgery will be successful but if not there is another operation which can be performed so this isn't my only option.

I am relieved that the wait won't be too long, the thought of even another 3 weeks with my sight like this is bad enough. This whole experience has really given me a valuable insight into what it's like to an acquire an impairment. As I was born with mine I've only ever known being partially sighted. I've also always known that my sight is fairly stable. Even the initial problem they tried to fix with the surgery that lead to this, happened so gradually I had time to get used to it. But this sudden loss of sight is something else.

I never realised that if you can't see well enough to read an eye test chart or in my case last night see where the chart was with my left eye, there's another test they do! The nurse got a piece of card with a big black x on it and walked towards me. I couldn't see that either with my left eye. She then tried how many fingers am I holding up, her hand about 6 inches from my face. No I couldn't pass that either. All I can see out of my left eye at the moment is light & vague shadows. The light I do see causes such glare it's painful sometimes.

But at least my other eye can see better. The trouble is, it's not great either. Reading isn't easy, even huge size text isn't great. I can see it but somehow not clearly and the sense of what I'm reading is hard to grasp some how. I find that I have to limit computer use to about half an hour to 40 minutes a day. Any more and the glare and the reading difficulty sets off headaches. Reading food labels and cooking instructions is impossible in many cases. Crossing roads is hard and I'd not dare attempt it somewhere unfamiliar or without a pedestrian crossing. If Im in a busy place or even just in our local supermarket I dont see people to my left causing more than a few trolley collisions! Plus I've noticed that I'm just a bit more clumsy than usual.

I've tried to use different addictive technology on the computer but I'm struggling -I'm sure with time I'd master it but hopefully I won't need to.

This has really made me aware of how much I rely on the sight I have. I may be used to having impaired sight normally but I know how to live within that impaired vision. Now I feel like I'm having to learn how to do or not do lots of things again. I'm lucky that this should only be temporary. I've been surprised by how it has effected me emotionally. It has given me a better understanding and respect for those who lose their sight and the Emotional and practical issues and barriers they overcome.

2011-06-23T11:31:00.002+01:00

Just a quick update. On the eye front, there has been little change in my left eye. In fact if anything its got worse. I really can't see anything out of it now, it's like looking through a steamed up mirror or heavily frosted glass. But I have been trying to get on with things. I have to pace myself if using the computer or trying to read anything. I can manage about half an hour but then I begin to get a head ache and my weak right eye just gets too tired. It is getting to the point where I sometimes don't notice that I can't see out of my left eye but in the evenings when I'm tired and particularly if I am trying to use the computer I notice it a lot.

Some good news is that I have an appointment to see my consultant next week so should know more in a weeks time. Hopefully this time next week I'll be letting you all know when I'll be having more surgery. I never thought I'd be so happy at the thought of surgery!

I am getting quite bored though as many of the things I'd usually do to fill my time just aren't feasible at the moment. Travelling is very difficult as I don't feel very confident especially crossing roads, reading of course is difficult, and using the computer. I have made excellent progress with the scarf I'm knitting myself though! I can knit with out looking closely at what I'm doing you see, unless I make a mistake!

One thing I can get on with is sorting out some of the unpacked boxes upstairs so we can get our spare bedrooms sorted out for July when we have parents visiting! I'll post some pictures when we get the rooms sorted. The middle bedroom has a stripy theme!

soup

2011-06-15T19:20:00.002+01:00

To help me keep my mind off things, this afternoon I did some more baking and made some soup. There is a picture of the loaf above, I made it with organic malted strong flour. I let it prove once in the mixing bowl and then again in the bread tin, and baked it for 25 minutes.

I decided to make chorizo and broad bean soup. I took a picture of the vegetables below which are the base of the soup, because I thought the colours were pretty. In the pan are carrots, red pepper, broad beans, onion, and wet garlic. Later I added cherry tomatoes and chorizo then the stock. I pureed most of the soup but kept some beans and meat back to add to the soup once mixed.
The whole thing didn't take very long at all, as I cooked I listened to the radio.

Some good news

2011-06-15T11:22:00.002+01:00

I am pleased to say that I do have some good news to report. But first I would like to thank everybody for their kind words and thoughts over the last couple of days.

My consultant got in touch with me yesterday evening, which was a very pleasant surprise. I know how busy consultants are but it was a real relief to hear from him. He is very surprised that this has happened to my eye, it's quite unusual to have the same problem twice. He is however hopeful that there is something that can be done. My appointment to see him is being brought forward, and after he has taken a look at my eye he will be able to decide what action to take. It will probably be more surgery, a similar operation to the one I had before. He is pretty certain that my eye can withstand another operation very soon.

So I am a lot more relieved than I was yesterday. Particularly as the doctor I saw at accident and emergency also spoke to my consultant yesterday, so as well as my report he also knows what the doctor observed on Monday. So it's just a matter of waiting for my new appointment to come through. I will give them a call at the hospital to make sure that the appointment has been rearranged, I'm not leaving anything to chance.

With everything that has happened after my eye surgery, I have forgotten to write on my blog about being an auntie again. My brother and his wife Sarah have had another little girl called Matilda or Tilly. I visited my brother on Sunday and got to see Tilly at eight days old. She is a very sleepy baby apparently sleeping through most of the night. Her three big sisters and big brother are really looking after her. Antonia had dressed Tilly, that morning all in pink! I got to hold her for about half an hour and she just slept, she has dark hair and I think looks like Sarah but sometimes like my brother as well.

Some bad news

2011-06-14T13:56:00.003+01:00

Those of you who read my blog regularly, will know that just over two weeks ago I had surgery on my left eye. As I wrote earlier on my blog, initially the surgery was a success. The surgery was to remove old lens remnants and scar tissue left over from the operations I had as a baby to remove cataracts. Last Wednesday I visited my consultant, who was very pleased with my progress. Unfortunately over the weekend the vision in my left eye began to deteriorate. My eye became misty and then cloudy. At first I thought it may be a side-effect of the steroid eyedrops I had been taking. They can cause blurred vision and even tunnel vision so I decided I would call Moorfields Hospital on Monday morning. By Monday, however the cloudiness in my left eye had got worse to the point that I was unable to see clearly out of my eye.

So early on Monday morning we went down to Moorfields again. As ever I was seen very quickly at accident and emergency because I am an existing patient who has recently had an operation. After various tests including an ultrasound scan the doctor that I saw, confirmed that my vision is being affected by yet another piece of lens debris. It appears that as one piece of debris was removed another piece has moved into its place. This is giving me the symptoms of a cataract and this time quite a bad one.

If you imagine looking at a large clock then my left eye is completely cloudy from about five o'clock through to 12 the section between 12 and five is misty. There is a section at around seven o'clock towards the middle which is very cloudy to the extent that I can seem very very little through it. As it is worse at the bottom of my eye it is making it very difficult for me to read and to negotiate steps.

My left eye, the one affected is my best eye which means I am using my right eye which does not see as well. Except now my right eye is the only one I can see through. When I'm using the computer I have to enlarge everything much bigger. I'm also having to get used to not being able to see as much when just getting around generally.

Although it is very disappointing that this has happened, I was aware of the risks involved with the surgery. The ultimate risk was that my retina became damaged which would lead to complete blindness in my eye. Still it doesn't stop the feeling of disappointment and frustration. I am trying to just get on with things and make the most of what I can see and can do. I'm using the Dragon text software again to write this blog entry, where I just dictate and it types everything for me. I've also looked into the access technology on my iPhone and iPod at and I need to make more use of that.

I have sent a message to my consultant and hopefully I will hear from him shortly about what can be done to correct it this time. The doctor at accident and emergency said that the only real option would be surgery but as I have only just had surgery on my I it may be a while until they can operate again. I also need to know how likely it is that this will just happen again. Hopefully there should be a procedure which can remove more of the lens debris but I won't know until I have spoken to the consultant.

I'm trying to look on the bright side and be positive about it all but it may take me a while to get used to it. What is worse is not knowing what can be done right now. I wish I had happier news to report.

Garden update 11 Jun 2011

2011-06-11T16:53:00.001+01:00

Garden 11 Jun 2011, a set on Flickr.

I've taken a few more pictures of my garden. click on the title or any of the photos and it will take you to my flickr page.

The mustard is a plant bees love which is why I planted it as part of a wild flower batch of seeds. Obviously the mustard is rather robust and has taken over the whole tub!

Baking

2011-06-05T17:32:00.002+01:00

Above is a picture of the bread rolls I baked during the week. It was my first ever attempt at baking bread. They turned out ok though they look a bit misshapen! I wanted long rolls for sausages! They were also very crusty because I brushed them with boiling water before popping them in the oven.

Today I decided to make a loaf, using the same recipe as before. As you can see my loaf came out ok! We had the first warm slices with some home made chicken and vegetable soup.

Catch up!

2011-06-05T16:46:00.004+01:00

I meant to write this entry back in May!

I met up with my friend Ruth back in May in London on a Sunday. We decided to go to Covent Garden, where I've not been for ages. We got there before 12 so it was relatively quiet for that part of London. Below is a picture of the band who were playing a mixture of lively folk tunes and classical. They're pictured below dancing to one of their folk tunes.

The picture below is one of the indoor market at Covent Garden, the band are by the stairs.
It was a really lovely day spent around Covent Garden. We went to the Victoria market on the opposite side of Covent Garden where I picked up some bargains including a lovely glass necklace.

We had lunch at Cafe Rouge and spent some time mooching around Waterstones. In Waterstones I came across a book by Karen Maitland called Company of Liars. I didn't buy it but when I got home I downloaded it for my kindle. I read it in a few days and found it incredibly haunting. Its set in 14th Century Britain during the first outbreak of the plague. The characters in the book are travelling away from the outbreaks across England. It wasn't the most historically accurate nor the best written book I've ever read (by a long shot,) but it was fascinating and I couldn't put it down!

From Company of Liars I came across a book on Amazon called a Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness which is one of the silliest and frothiest books I've read in a long time but I couldn't put it down. Here's a good piece in the guardian about the book. It was the perfect piece of escapism to read whilst I was waiting for my op in hospital and recovering!

Eye surgery

2011-05-29T09:25:00.002+01:00

On Friday I had eye surgery at Moorfields Eye Hospital. It's a long time. Since I had any eye operations, the last one I had was when I was 4 to correct a squint. This operation was to remove scar tissue which has been in my eye since the operations I had as a baby. Over the last few years that scar tissue has moved about in my eye and block my vision slightly. My symptoms are like getting a cataract, which was a little ironic as I was born with cataracts which were removed when I was a baby, lens and all, meaning there's no way I could ever have a cataract again!

The surgery - anterior vitrectomy, is a fairly straight forward op but it isn't performed very often just on it's own like I had. I only had my left eye operated on as it's my best eye I chose to just go for it with my good eye first. A bit of a gamble but I hoped it would be worth it. The main thing I worried about was having a general anaesthetic!

I arrived at the hospital at 12 and was admitted to the ward very quickly. Being a patient at Moorfields since I was a baby, the nurses who have worked there a long time always want to gossip about the Drs and nurses I've met before. Once I was admitted I had a long wait for the op. I wasn't sent down to theatre until after 5. As I'd not eaten since 6:45 am nor had water since 11 I was really beginning to flag.

I was very nervous about the anaesthetic but it was fine. One minute I could feel the anaesthetic move up my arm, then taste it in my mouth, the next second I was in the recovery room after the op, having a drip removed. I'd got quite weak from my fasting so they'd given me some IV fluids. I then had oxygen, but I spent most of the time babbling away to the nurse about Doll House, the TV programme and ninjas, I don't think the nurse knew what I was going on about!

Back on the ward, Jase arrived really quickly and I had a sandwich, muffin and tea. Eventually after 8pm they let me go home! thanks to Jase's friend Andy we got a lift home to Bedfordshire. We were home by 10 pm and I was exhausted. I had a pirate patch on my eye over a dressing which had to remain until the next morning. On Saturday morning I was able to take off the patch and see through my left eye for the first time after the op.

Although my eye was quite light sensitive I could see out of the eye which was a relief! When I put my glasses on and looked around things in the middle distance looked blurred and that was worrying but I turned to look at Jason and he looked so clear and sharp and bright I couldn't believe it! I looked at my face in the mirror and for the first time in years I could see my freckles! I don't know if I've ever seen things as clearly close to. My plants in the darden when I get close are so much clearer and the colours so much brighter and fuller.

I'm not sure if the blurriness of my distance vision is due to swelling still in my eye or that my glasses aren't right now and I'll need a new prescription. I'm back at the hospital in 2 weeks so will know for sure then hopefully.

In the mean time I have to take it easy for a few weeks and take 3 lots of eye drops 4 and 5 times a day! I have to sleep like a pirate in an eye patch for 2 weeks. Full recovery for the surgery is 6-8 week but with in 3 I should be back to work and stuff!

As long as the distant vision is sorted out by a new prescription of glasses & contact lenses then I'm going to want my other eye operated on as soon as I can!

Garden

2011-05-11T18:13:00.001+01:00

Garden 11th May 2011, a set on Flickr.

I've been planting more container plants in the garden today. The pictures are on Flickr just click on the link to see them all.

I can't get no sleep

2011-05-02T02:40:00.002+01:00

I really can't sleep at the moment. Ever since I stopped taking the anti depressants just over a month ago I have had real problems sleeping. Sometimes I just can't get comfortable but I drop off eventually only to then wake up in the night, sometimes it takes me hours to get to sleep, sometimes I'm waking up early. Tonight takes the biscuit though. It's 2:40 AM at the moment. I went to bed at 11:30 I got up again at 1:30 having not got to sleep. I know I shouldn't leave it that long, I know all the advice, don't lie in bed tossing and turning, get up and do something constructive, don't get anxious about not sleeping.

It's not easy though. My mind was just so busy tonight - thinking about different plots for books I'll never write, thinking about work, thinking about too much really, but I wasn't worrying. It was only when it got to 1AM that I began to think this isn't right? I'm supposed to be sleeping.

I wouldn't mind but it then leaves me exhausted the next morning. I even read a book all evening in an attempt to make myself more tired before bed time.

One positive thing is that my mood seems better. I think tomorrow night I'm going to have to try a lavender scented bath or something before bed, and a cup of Horlicks!

Royal wedding & goodbye to Cornwall

2011-04-29T09:29:00.002+01:00

It's almost a week since I came back from Cornwall, so here are a couple of pictures from the last day of the holiday. Above is a picture of the view form the garden again and some boats.

Below is photo of my Dad and me sitting outside the Edgecumbe Arms at Cremyll on a another lovely hot day.
Below is photo of the sunrise on the morning when we left. We set off around 6:30 and I took this picture at around 6:15 as the sun rose.
Today is the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. I'm not a fan of the Royals but I think like any British person, even staunch republicans, the Royal's are like the wall paper of this country. Love them or hate them you can't get away from them. I remember watching the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana back in 81. I was 7 and drew a picture of the couple and stuck it in a scrap book which I still have.

So I am watching the wedding coverage on the telly this morning. In fact although I'm no royalist I've been having really vivid dreams about the Royal Wedding over the last few weeks. I hope they stop now! I can only imagine that I'm dreaming about the wedding so much because I'm getting married later this year. My wedding will be the antithesis of this Royal wedding. Just Jason, 2 witnesses, 2 guests and me. So 6 of us at our local registry office. We are getting married at the same time as Wills and Kate though at 11:00 am I thought the time would be handy for having lunch afterwards in the pub! And of course I have to say we got engaged and set our date before the Royals!

Four seasons in one day

2011-04-21T17:08:00.002+01:00

We are having exceptionally warm and sunny weather at the moment in the UK. Here in Cornwall its gorgeous. The last 2 days there has been a lot of heat haze out to sea which has affected visibility for ships and photographers. As its a bit clearer today I took the photo above of Drake's island with Plymouth in the background.

Mount Edgecombe Country Park is beautiful but with the current weather and setting it feels quite surreal. You see this morning I was walking with my Mum through woodland bursting with bluebells I could have been in surrey except the sea was the back drop to the view and the temperature felt more like June, some trees were bare others in full leaf. It was like having 4 seasons all at once and all my favourite locations, woodland, the sea side, formal gardens. It is all just too splendid for words.
Above is a picture of me standing next to the bluebells with the sea in the background between the trees! Below are more bluebells. As well as bluebells the grounds have primroses, white bluebells, some of the camellia are still flowering and I even found a couple of simple single roses beginning to flower in the rose gardens. The smell of the bluebells and the cow parsley as you walk through the woods is sublime!
My Uncle and Aunt have now left for home so its just me and my parents now for one more day before we head back home on Saturday. If only I could take the view of the sea from my bedroom window here with me home! I am glad that I came down for a few days, I think some fresh sea air and walking was just what I needed after being unwell in March.

Rame Cornwall

2011-04-20T18:06:00.004+01:00

I decided to make the most the wonderful weather we're having at the moment by joining my parents and Uncle and Aunt in Cornwall. My parents have rented a cottage for a week, in the Rame peninsular in Cornwall. The peninsular is south of Plymouth, jutting out from Plymouth sound. The cottage over looks Plymouth Sound and Drake's Island pictured above. The photo was taken from my bedroom window. I have the best views!

We are staying in Mount Edgecombe Country Park, which includes a stately home, formal gardens, woodland and deer park as well as the southwest coastal path and secluded beaches and rocky bays. They're the type of beaches you have to scramble down steep ground to reach. My Dad and uncle have been fishing from our nearest rocky beach. My uncle has had some success whilst my Dad has so far come up empty.

Today we walked to the twin villages of Kingsand and Cawsand which are a couple of miles along the coast. On the way we came across this lovely view of gorse bushes and Cawsand bay in the distance. Below is a picture of Kingsand beach. The shingly beaches were fairly busy with paddling children, kayakers and at Cawsands the ferry which picks up foot passengers and takes them to Plymouth. The ferry comes right on to the beach using a temporary boarding ramp.
Tomorrow I intend to explore the Mount Edgecombe country park gardens and park land. I'be already climbed one of the follies in the grounds.

Snow Ball Me

2011-04-12T17:54:00.003+01:00

I've been talking to a few friends recently about mental health stuff and my blog and realised that I haven't written much about mental health on my blog in a long time. That's not to say stuff hasn't been happening as it certainly has.

Those of you new to my blog I started writing about my mental health experiences - that's a new way of putting it! ;-) - about 18 months ago when I had a real rough patch and had some time of work. I've had mental health issues over the last 15 years really on and off and up until 18 months ago only managed to get small amounts of help through medication and paying to see a therapist.

18 months ago I got referred to see a psychiatrist at South West London's St George's hospital and that really turned things round for me. I saw him regularly and attended a 13 week "telling my story" educational recovery course. That was life changing. I wrote a creative piece of writing about "my story" as a final aspect of the course which I put on my blog a year ago.

So much has happened since then its hard to believe that was only a year ago! Interestingly I think my story would be slightly different now if I wrote it, but only slightly. After moving house (twice) last year I had to leave St George's behind and seek out CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) in Bedfordshire. After a nearly 6 month wait I got an appointment to see Amanda who I have been seeing regularly now since November.

I have found the CBT immensely rewarding if not hard work. I was pretty sceptical about it working at first but determined to give it a go. From working with Amanda I worked out that my mood swings and depression all stem from anxiety. I was able to accept that anxiety was the root of all my mental health issues. Yes, I'll always be someone who has mood swings and who feels things very strongly - lets just put that down to an artistic temperament (did I hear someone say diva?) Seriously though I have mood swings but they become very difficult to control when I am anxious and under stress.

I have found it impossible to relax for the last 15 years. Seriously, for 15 years I just could not switch off, I didn't want to even if I could have. I was terrified of letting go of my anxiety. Part of the problem was that I felt as if I had to be super vigilant at all times, vigilant for attack of some sort. It's like post traumatic stress disorder. I just kept re living the stressful times in my life and my body was programmed to be constantly on alert.

I was able to see a big chain which linked everything that was going on inside me together. The anxiety linked to negative thinking reinforcing the anxiety which caused physical symptoms which caused more anxiety which just exhausted me to the point of collapse and depression. I was worn through to the very bottom. I also accepted that outside factors had lead to me getting into this mess and how I dealt with them.

The CBT helps me challenge my feelings and responses to stress and anxiety and although it is hard going to begin with I have found it really works for me. I had to be ready for it, and if I hadn't approached it first through the creative writing therapy I wouldn't have had the success I have experienced now.

My anxiety and depression scores are getting back to normal (my depression score already is!)

It isn't just CBT and medication though, I have had to make real life style changes. I gave up work for a while and now run my own business where I can work part time and take as long as I have to to deliver work. (well within reason.) We've moved out of London and I travel a lot less now. We live somewhere with more space and peace which has really helped and I have a garden now to potter in which is fabulous.

As I have been doing so well and it is over 2 years since I went back on to anti depressants I have over the last 3 months weaned myself off them. It's not been easy as I have also given up caffeine during that time as well! I am beginning to feel the benefits and realities of being off the medication though over the last couple of weeks.

I have started to feel a lot more emotional. The antidepressants always have a kind of numbing affect on me. I tend to not feel bad feelings as strongly but neither do I feel good feelings strongly either. So now its like my banks have burst and I have been feeling all kinds of things lately. It's a bit like being a teenager again! Pretty scary for me at 37.

I've been feeling excited and filled with wonder at things like sunsets and cherry blossom. I've felt quite melancholy and dreamy on other days. Not in a bad way just feeling wistful and sad in a nostalgic kind of way. Maybe its also my hormones, maybe I'm going through a mid life crisis - I want to buy a pair of Doc Martins and be in a band. But importantly at least I want to do something, I want to feel things and I can feel stuff.

So its all a bit overwhelming but in a good way not in an anxious way. I have also found myself day dreaming, something I haven't done for ages, not for years and years. I always used to daydream an awful lot. You know the kind of thing world domination, being in a great band, travelling the world. I told you I feel like a teenager again! I have even written 2 poems today. One of which relates to mental health so I thought who cares, I'll put the rough unedited yet, version of it on my blog. So please be aware that I usually sit on a poem for at least a week until I edit it or discard it. But I haven't written anything resembling a poem for nearly a decade let alone 2 I had to share it! It's not good poetry but it is all my own and expresses how I feel right now and that it what counts. Just be thankful I didn't include the other one which goes on about battling stars and stuff.

Snow Ball Me

My life had become a Picasso painting

of sharp angled blades of weirdness
Elongated and drooling,

a life of nightmare creatures and pain.

"Let's dull the edges" my Drs said
"Lop off a few contorted limbs
Wipe clean the drooling lips.
You won't feel a thing."

I didn't; they set to work
And I was super frozen.
All the sharp quirky angles
Snapped away as brittle, broken.

I became Snow ball me.

As I spun inside my ice cocoon

century's passed, I was frost bitten

& stifled within an ice age within
A SSRI winter hibernation land.

Thaw was all I hung on for,
The time when I could let go
Slip from the cold with out fear
My nightmares deconstructed.

And at last it's here the ice is cracking
Spring is warming & I am emerging
A drenched & bedraggled Dragon fly

Escaping it's watery nest.

I glisten with new feelings
Tender with emotion, long frozen
I am heavy with love
Weightless with delight

I am one single point of feeling
All at once, over and over again
I am tiny yet I stretch on forever,
Fathomless.

sakura

2011-04-10T19:55:00.001+01:00

sakura, a photo by Happy Salmon on Flickr.

My new cherry tree has one blossom, one tiny White Sakura flower which is pictured above.

Rookie on the prowl

2011-04-10T19:51:00.001+01:00

Rookie on the prowl, a photo by Happy Salmon on Flickr.

Rookie seems to really love my little green house. Here she is prowling around it. I have a glut of tomato plants at the moment some already in the greenhouse the others on the window sill. Anyone want a tomato plant or two? I've just started some chillies and peppers.

Happy Birthday Blog and Me!

2011-04-04T11:34:00.003+01:00

Birthday Party

It's my birthday today - I'm just having a quiet day off at home today. Yesterday my parents and brother and nieces visited and we had a tea party to celebrate my nieces's Amelia and Antonia's birthdays and mine of course. It was just an added bonus that it was mother's day so I got to spend it with my Mum as well.

We had an eater egg hunt (a little early but its what they wanted), present opening, played tennis in the garden, blew up balloons and ate far too much! Great fun.

Below is a picture of the beautiful bronze sculpted hare my parents bought me and Jason (his birthday is later in the month.) I saw the sculpture when we were in Dorset on holiday it's by Paul Jenkins as part of the West Country's Frith Sculpture company. They had them in the National Trust shop at Corfe Castle - I hadn't realised that my parents has bought it for me though! Jason had the great idea of placing him half way up the stairs where he looks very happy.

Cheery Tree news

My cherry tree also arrived in time for my birthday - I'd ordered it a few weeks back. Below is a picture of it planted in the garden. Yes those are tights tying it to its small stake! Apparently tights are the best thing to use. We have got a proper big steak to use but we need to put that in the ground with it. I really hope the tree takes, I'll keep you posted on that front.

Dot Cotton moan about my health section

The last few weeks have been odd ones. I was very busy work wise and still not feeling well. Since fainting I've felt a bit rough for a lot of time. Just under the weather, feeling weak and dizzy quite a lot. I have to have another blood test this week as my last one showed low white blood count this time. I can't win, it's either high or too low!

Eye Surgery

I've also been booked in for an eye operation at the end of May to remove scar tissue in my left eye. The scar tissue is left over from the operations to remove cataracts when I was a baby but over the last 10 years the scar tissue has built up into a clump at the lower part of my eye. It seems to be causing me trouble with glare both in the day and at night (from headlamps etc.) as wel as just generally making my vision worse so I actually can't read as much on the eye chart and I've noticed that reading is more difficult for me.

So the operation will remove the scar tissue - its not going to improve my sight dramatically but should if successful make managing stairs and reading a little easier.

Lastly its just over 3 years since I started my blog so I need to wish my blog a very happy 3rd birthday!

Southend and last weeks trip in an ambulance

2011-03-22T21:02:00.003Z

I'm delivering training for a couple of days in Southend, this evening after training I walked along the sea front and took these pictures of the sun set. They are in reverse order here though!
I really wish I had my proper camera with me but i had to make do with my iPhone.
It's been a funny week really. This time last week I had just been released from A&E. Last Tuesday started out pretty average. I had a bit of a head ache and felt a bit sick after being on the train to London but it wasn't any big deal. I arrived at my meeting with the Met Police at 10:00 the meeting lasted an hour and a quarter. It was just a final evaluation meeting, noting stressful, very easy. My headache was growing worse and I began to feel nauseas so I popped into a cafe near the MPS office in Earls Court. I ordered mint tea and a breakfast. I ate some toast and egg but felt a lot worse.

I decided I needed fresh air so got up but as I walked towards the door I felt a lot worse. Outside I just felt even worse, I couldn't see properly, my head was swimming, I wanted to lie down, my face felt numb, my hands were tingling, I couldn't breath. I tried to call Jason but could hardly speak to him. I felt I would collapse any minute. I told him I'd call an ambulance. I sat on a chair outside the cafe and everything went black. The next thing I can remember I was slumped across the table. I felt like I was going to pass out again and I still couldn't see so I called an ambulance.

I don't know why I didn't ask for help, nobody asked me if I was ok and I must have looked a complete state sprawled out on the table. But hey its London weird stuff happens. I'm sure if I'd collapsed on the floor it would have been different.

The ambulance arrived and I didn't even notice, I was so out of it. The crew were fantastic, they got me on to the ambulance and to sit down. They took my blood pressure which was on the low side so they got me to lie down. within a few minutes of lying down it began to rise ever so slightly. I've never been in an ambulance before. I wish I could remember more of it but I don't, I was so out of it.

At the hospital I remember they said I was the "flat lady" who had to be kept flat. The paramedic assured me that they hadn't said the "fat lady!" I ended up at Kensington and Westminster hospital on Fulham Road. The nurses and Drs were great. I had loads of tests even one of those ECG heart things. Everything seemed normal apart from my blood pressure being on the low side but they then got my blood tests which suggested I had an infection of some kind because my white blood count was up. (though that could have been caused by the stress of fainting.) So after 5 hours I was allowed to go home but had to report to my GP for further tests re my blood pressure and blood work.

Consensus from Drs at hospital and GP is that it is some kind of virus but I have to have further blood tests on Thursday just to make sure. As I have been feeling faint, dizzy, achey and exhausted for about a week. Today I have felt a lot better which is brilliant so I'm really hoping it was just a virus that's clearing up now. I had been feeling pretty run down since February so maybe this was all just because I was a bit run down.

New Garden

2011-03-19T19:54:00.002Z

Having moved to a new build house in December I am faced with the prospect of starting a garden from scratch. Its daunting and exciting. I'm thinking of playing it slowly, seeing how the garden is through out the year and using pots and tubs to brighten up the garden until next year when I can plan a border. I have lots of ideas but have started small with the brightly coloured tub above and the panda planter below.
I also planted some tomatoes and onions into propagaters for indoors until the weather is better. I'll keep you updated with how the garden grows and develops this year!

Hope for Japan

2011-03-19T19:18:00.002Z

As regular readers of my blog will know I have been to Japan twice in the last 3 years, in fact it's nearly 3 years since my first trip to Japan and the start of my blog. Japan is a country of such beauty, peacefulness, and calm which is totally contrasted with the breathtaking bustle and business of Tokyo. Words can't really express the shock and sorrow I have felt watching the news of last weeks huge earth quake and tsunami and the destruction and devastation it has caused. On top of this natural disaster is the terrible nuclear crisis at Fukushima.

The picture above is of sakura (cherry blossom) which is a symbol of spring and hope in Japan. My thoughts are with the quietly dignified people of Japan.

Giving up caffeine

2011-03-10T11:51:00.003Z

Coffee: I love it. A nice cup of tea: I think I may love that more. Chocolate: my favourite thing in the world! I love cola, Dr Pepper, anything fizzy with caffeine in it! So imagine my horror when my GP suggested that I cut out all caffeine. I pointed out to her that I had given coffee up once for about 6 months in the past and it didn't help me.

You see my GP and many medical experts and sensible people know that caffeine is a major trigger for migraine and headaches generally. There is also a lot of evidence that too much caffeine can increase anxiety.

I had been keeping a diary of food, mood, headaches and activities for over a month and my GP surmised from it that I needed to cut out the caffeine, everything this time. Not cut out coffee and make up for it by drinking gallons of tea and consuming buckets of chocolate. This time everything not event green and white tea that contain small amounts of caffeine. Nothing.

What would I do!!! My only enjoyment in life (slight exaggeration) is popping into a coffee shop and having a latte and some chocolate donut or muffin. I couldn't even pop into starbucks or Costa for a hot-chocolate, chai tea or even one of those Starbucks herb infused green tea! What would I do in the summer I had only just learnt about the frappe in the last year and the Surfin Cafe in Biggleswade do a mocha coffee frappe to die for!

But I want to get better. I am sick of being plagued by headaches and anything that might reduce my anxiety is worth a go. I was advised to come off the caffeine gradually so I didn't get any withdrawal symptoms. But after cutting down slightly on the first day I got an almighty headache and I thought blow this for a game of soldiers I'll go cold turkey. So I had 4 days of headaches, feeling grotty like I had a cold and craving coffee, pepsi max, a nice cup of tea.

I had discovered that you can drink redbush tea with milk in it. I'd only ever had it black and usually drinking enough of it instead of normal tea would induce a caffeine deprivation head ache. But now I tried it with milk and it was lovely and really got me through the worst few days of withdrawal. And yes redbush tea is totally caffeine free!

After 9 days of no caffeine most people are officially "clean" from the stuff. I'm on day 14 now and I have noticed some improvements. When I get up in the mornings whether its at the crack of dawn as it was on Monday or after a lie in, I don't feel groggy and my head is far less foggy than it used to be in the morning. I seem to feel more evenly balanced through out the day energy and mood wise. Plus buying a herbal or redbush tea in a cafe is a lot cheaper than a latte! It's too early to tell about the headaches but so far head ache free for a week.

So I think I may stick with this for good.

What DLA has done for me!

2011-02-14T11:36:00.002Z

To counter act my last rather sad blog post I thought I'd write something positive about DLA and what it has meant to me.

I remember the DLA ads on TV very clearly, Ian Dury in his fabulously down to earth, no nonsense way, told you that if you were disabled you could get this new benefit. It didn't matter if you were in or out of work; it wasn't to do with work. This was revolutionary. This Disability Living Allowance was to meet the extra costs disabled people face in life in general. Ian Dury was cool so it must be good. Still I didn't want to apply - I would have been 17 or 18 in my final year of A-Levels when my Mum persuaded me to apply before I went to university. I reluctantly applied.

I was reluctant because although Ian Dury was cool, being disabled wasn't in my 18 year old head. I didn't even feel that disabled but the person at the DLA helpline reassured me that it was meant for people like me who are visually impaired. They pointed out that as I was leaving home for the first time I'd need the DLA for the extras I'd need to buy that in the past my parents had just provided for me.

Back then DLA was new and they even got in touch with me after a year to see if I should actually apply for more DLA now that I'd spent a year living away from home, had I encountered new difficulties or barriers in my life? Well I had so they upped my DLA. Can you imagine that now a days?

My vision is never going to get better and in fact it is slowly getting worse at the moment, so I've never been bothered by DLA for routine check ups, it would be a waste of their resources, as they know from my consultant that nothing is going to improve my sight. I can of course get in touch if things get worse. (Ofcourse the proposed reforms would change this.)

So what has DLA done for me?

Mobility - being visually impaired I can't drive so I have to rely on public transport, DLA contributes to public transport costs and in particular taxis. Where I live in Bedfordshire my nearest bus stop is half a mile a way and they only run Monday - Saturday 7AM - 5PM so taxi's are a must on dark winter nights or when I have heavy shopping. I also have to have shopping delivered. I can't manage to carry shopping the mile and a half home, not a big weekly shop anyway. So online shopping is a blessing but they charge. DLA can pay for that charge (not the shopping), or a taxi to bring the shopping home.

Care component - well DLA is never going to pay for a carer, but it does help me to pay for things which help me do day to day chores or just live normally. I have an alarm clock which lights up and has a large display. It's not dead expensive but I could buy a non accessible alarm clock much cheaper but it would be no good for me. Gadgets in the kitchen have to be accessible to me. The more accessible something is the more it will cost because it is likely to be bigger or more specialist. It even comes down to mobile phones. I could never use a blackberry or something similar so until Iphone's came out I couldn't use a smart phone.

The iPhone is just so accessible for me it has revolutionised my life. I'm not kidding. It has access features built in to it so I can see the screen, enlarge the screen, have it speak to me, I can talk to it. The most liberating thing is the googlemap with gps. I am never lost now. I was always losing my way not being able to read signs. I hated going anywhere new because I would inevitably get lost, I'd miss signs or just not be able to read them at all. Now I can enlarge the map so I can read it. I can switch to street view to see if I recognise the landmarks around me. I can follow exactly where I am on the map with the little blue flashing light. I can plan journeys in advance and feel confident. This one little device has given me so much freedom I don't feel disabled any more when it comes to finding my way around.

DLA allows me to buy these things which may be a bit more expensive than what I'd normally spend, but they make the environment more open to me, more accessible and give me so much more freedom.

I can't thank DLA enough!

Disability, government cuts and me

2011-02-14T10:49:00.002Z

I've been giving some thought to why I can't bring myself to write more about the government cuts and especially how they will affect disabled people. Through my musing I have noticed a generational shift in attitudes and approaches amongst disabled people.

The first thing I need to say is that I think the governments proposals to DLA are ill thought out and will do great harm to many people. Please see my entry "Who lives in a care home like this?" However I am relieved that Michael Gove isn't in charge of DLA or no doubt we wouldn't have had a consultation at all on DLA reform! But DLA reform of some kind is probably needed but not in order to make cuts. The DLA bureaucracy has always been ridiculous; it penalises some who really need DLA and accepts others who may not need the DLA as much, or who at least need support but not necessarily via DLA. How do I know this - from years of helping people apply for DLA and seeing who gets it and who doesn't.

I also don't agree with the government's policy of harsh public sector cuts. Yes the public sector needs to be more efficient but from years working in the public sector I've noticed that sometimes the more you constrain something the less efficient it becomes. You can't run public services on empty. There is also great inequality within the public sector. I've worked for some public sector organisations where budgets were not monitored as closely as they could be and I've worked for others where miserliness with money meant I couldn't do my job properly.

So why can't I feel comfortable at the moment speaking out and campaigning? I think it is because I fall into a narrow band of age where I can remember before DLA and the DDA. I can remember Thatcher's Britain and the early 1990s but I was too young to be a campaigner then. I didn't fight for the rights disabled people won during the 1990s and 00s but I benefitted from them. I see those under 30 who really don't remember anything other than DLA and DDA fighting valiantly to hold on to those rights, I also see those over 40 who fought the first time round to gain these rights stirring up action and activism again. I don't really fit into either group.

I am not filled with the hope the younger disabled people have though I share their indignation for what is being done. I feel jaded and cynical that the government won't listen. I had this same feeling during the Iraq war protests - I just couldn't see them winning over the government. Don't get me wrong I believe in campaigning and protesting and I will support the campaigners and the protesters all the way. I just don't have a lot of hope. The government aren't scared of disabled people in the same way they are scared of the middle classes, media and celebrities complaining about the forests being sold off. It just shows how cowardly the government truly is in my opinion, to take away support from disabled people and particularly those in care homes is easy, because the government are safe in the knowledge that these disabled people's voices won't be heard, and certainly not as loudly as the middle classes or the celebrities supporting woodland. Just like the coalition government ignored the students. They ignored the students because they aren't important. If hoards of angry middle class parents had taken to the streets with the students that might have been different.

I hate to think of myself as a defeatist, or a pessimist but I do have a "we're doomed" Private Fraser type mentality about things sometimes. So just ignore me, I'll grumble quietly in the corner here and just remind you that you have until Friday to tell the government what you think about their DLA reform proposals, just visit here

Holiday round up

2011-02-13T19:10:00.002Z

It's been a week since I've been back from holiday in Dorset, but I had a few more pictures to load on to my blog so here goes. The photos above and below are of Vineyard Cottage where we stayed. You can rent it from the National Trust. From my bedroom window above and the kitchen windows below you can see Corfe castle its self and the sheep grazing on the hill it is on top of. They were rather odd sheep with grey bodies and white heads. When it got to dusk, especially when it was misty the hill looked like it was strewn with floating, white, disembodied sheep heads!

There were plenty of birds around the cottage and in the morning we would put bread out for them. There were a couple of very brave robins who would eat the bread with me standing a few feet from them. I also saw some blue tits and coal tits and collared doves. When my parents were out walking one morning they ran into some roe deer as well.
On our way down to Dorset we stopped at the New Inn in the New Forest. The pub is renowned for its rustic lunches including, ploughman's, pork pies and quiches. My Dad and I opted for the pork pie (award winning themselves) my meal is pictured below with our round of drinks. I have to say it was the nicest pork pie lunch I've ever had.

A day by the fire

2011-02-04T16:53:00.002Z

Above is a picture of my Dad sitting by the fire at the Square and Compass pub, in Worth Matravers in Dorset. As yesterday was sun and sand today is dull and dark. We went to the Square and Compass for a mug of mulled cider and a look round the museum attached to the historic pub. The museum is a small room of fossils and finds from the local area.

We have one more day left in Dorset and then its back to reality on Sunday. So I'm off to carry on knitting my new pink scarf :-)

Sunny Studland Bay

2011-02-04T16:43:00.002Z

Yesterday was lovely and sunny but not cold. We went on a walk along Studland bay, along the sand and then inland back to Studland Village. Its easy to see why Sandbanks and this part of Dorset is the most expensive for housing in the whole of the UK. The views out to sea, across Poole Harbour and on to Brownsea Island are stunning. The picture above is taken on the banks of Poole harbour looking on to Brownsea Island in the distance.

The picture below is looking along Studland beach. Millie the dog loves walks by the sea, you can't get her out of the water, she lollops a long through the surf. At least it keeps her clean.

Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door

2011-02-02T18:18:00.003Z

Today we visited Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. We parked at Lulworth Cove just as a party of primary school children arrived, so we went into the shop there first to give the school children the chance to go on their way! Lulworth Cove is part of the Jurassic Coast which is a world heritage site for special geological interest. I always remember an episode of Coast which used sponge cake layers to explain how the different layers of rock were crumpled by the shifting of the earths crust to create the effects of the rocks on this coast line. The layers of rock are from different periods in time but have been crumpled and some eroded to uncover fossils and different rocks all in the same place.

Any way in the shop at Lulworth Cove there were loads of fossils and crystals and rocks on sale. Since I was little I have always wanted an Ammonite, after seeing a huge one at the Natural History Museum. Not having the time to fossil hunt on the coast this time I took the easy way out and bought an ammonite from the shop. I think its fabulous, it'll make an excellent paper weight on my desk. I also got a real dinosaur tooth for my friend Lorraine's little boy Ben.

So after the shop we headed down to the cove, you can see Millie dashing to the sea in the picture above. The cove is a beautiful horse shoe shape with a fast flowing stream running into the sea. Millie loves swimming but only if you throw something out into the water for her to fetch. (years of breeding to retrieve fishing nets in the waters of Canada no doubt) Millie had a great time swimming after stones, they were the only things we could throw for her!

We then walked to Durdle Door which involved climbing a steep hill which in the past wouldn't have posed a problem for me but being such a couch potato now I found it really hard going. On the way to Durdle Door we passed stair hole pictured below.It didn't take long to get to Durdle Door - below is picture of Dad, Millie and me with Durdle Door in the background.
After our walk we went to the Smugglers Arms in Osmington Mills - there's a great picture of the pub here. The pub was lovely and cosy and with it being out of the tourist season not too busy. I had scampi and chips - not the usual thing I'd have but delicious. For pudding I had a "new forest gateau" which was like a deconstructed black forest gateau, layers of sponge disks, cream and sour cherries. It was lovely.

We are just have a quiet evening in tonight which is good because it's pretty windy outside but earlier there was thick fog over the Purbeck Hills so at least that should get blown away!

Dorset

2011-02-01T19:01:00.002Z

I'm on holiday this week in Dorset with my parents and their demented dog Millie. We had a good journey down and the sun came out when we got here! So I was able to take this picture of Corfe Castle from a hill top opposite. As we don't have a great internet here - having to use a dongle - my pictures will have to be limited or uploaded in a small size.

We are staying in a lovely thatched cottage which has beautiful views and surrounded by the sounds of a babbling beck, bleating sheep and robins singing. Our walk was accompanied by slightly different noises, those of mortar and artillery fire. BOOOM! ratatatatata BOOOOM! We aren't far from MOD land in the Purbeck hills where there is obviously some kind of exercise going on.

I'll try and blog as much as I can this week to keep you all up to date. But for now - good night :-)

Who lives in a care home like this?

2011-01-26T16:28:00.003Z

I've been spending some time wondering why I haven't written very much on the disability rights front and more importantly about the Government's proposed changes and cuts to disability benefits. To be honest I think it's because I've felt utterly devastated by the proposals. But maybe that is what some in the government want, and many of their policies seem to be framed in a way which endorses the view of disabled people as passive recipients of care, benefits and help from the "Big Society." I don't want to fall into that trap. It's not quite that simple; that isn't the full picture because some in the Government are keen on personalisation and disabled people being at the centre of decision making - how can they support both things?

I'm not an expert on social care policy and I'm not much of a campaigner either. There are so many others who do this kind of thing better than me. If you are interested in finding out more about social care policy, disability and politics then I recommend reading Rich Watts insightful, erudite and entertaining blog Arbitrary Constant

If you are interested in campaigning, disability and politics then you can't go wrong by checking out the Broken of Britain blog

But after delivering 2 days of training on personalisation in Essex I feel moved to write about just one aspect of the cuts and changes to disability benefits.

Removing the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance from those who are in residential care.

Well you can see how this idea came about can't you. Some bright spark said "So if someone's in a care home they aren't going to be travelling about much are they? They probably don't event know what day of the week it is poor things. It's a waste of money to pay for "mobility" if everything is brought to them in the care home."

It's the kind of "thought" anyone might have if they:

A, don't think about it for very long - and hey who wants to think about old and disabled people living in care homes that smell of pee and boiled cabbage

B, haven't ever had to live, work or spend any time in a residential care home

C, have a very narrow view of who lives in a care home

D, has no concept of human rights (see A and the not wanting to think about unpleasant things)

So if you want to be narrow minded, bigoted and only interested in making a quick buck then yes stopping the mobility component for disabled people in residential care might make some kind of sense.

Who lives in a home like this?

So who lives in residential care homes? Here is a sample of some of the kind of people who live in residential care:

Armed forces personnel injured in Afganistan and Iraq - they live there whilst being rehabilitated but also because they can't find suitable accessible accommodation to move into or it takes 18 months to 2 years to sort out the funding and work to make their existing homes accessible
Someone who has a spinal injury or brain injury from any kind of accident they may be in residential care for all the reasons given above
People with complex impairments and health conditions such as MS, motor neuron disease - they may be living in residential care for the reasons above and because they need specialist medical services which aren't delivered in the community
People with learning disabilities who may want to live independently but the support package needed to enable this is seen as "too difficult"
Older people with complex impairments and conditions like Altzeimers

What is the mobility component of DLA used for?

On the training course I was just delivering, some real examples of how the mobility component of DLA is used by disabled people living in residential care were given. For example it pays for a taxi to take someone with their support worker to the shops, or to the cinema, or theatre, or to visit family rather than them always having to come to the care home.

So you ask why isn't the care home or social services providing this kind of service? It's just not the best way for social services or the residential homes to use their resources. They may employ a driver to organise trips away but they have to involve more than one person to make them efficient. So its expensive and it doesn't provide choice or control for the disabled person.

Having the mobility component of DLA allows the disabled person to have control over where they go, when and how.

If you were a young soldier back from Iraq with a spinal injury are you going to want to wait for the social services mini bus to take you to the pub once a week or would you rather go to the pub with your mates when they go?

What message does this send out?

What worries me most is that just the proposal to cut mobility allowance from disabled people in residential care sets a frightening example. It sends out a message that disabled people in residential homes are not part of the community like you or I. They are essentially defined by the home they are trapped in. They don't need to be part of the community, they are shut away and forgotten. They don't have the right to be mobile.

If you are able to I ask you to please use the tools on the Broken of Britain blog to contact your MP and respond to the consultation which closes on 14th February. It's not too late.

I chose the photo below which I took from my study window just before I started writing this, because I think it's both bleak and hopeful.

Guitars and stargazing

2011-01-16T18:50:00.002Z

Yesterday I bought myself a guitar. It's about 10 years since I have properly played a guitar, but I have been wanting to take it up again for some time now. I was delivering training in Croydon yesterday for Action for Children volunteers. On my way to the training venue I passed by a large music shop with a huge selection of guitars. I popped in just to see if there was anything I liked. The shop assistant (who had hair down to his waist, though I suspect it was permed, the spiral curls were just too perfect!) was very helpful showing me lots of different guitars. The one above which I bought seemed the easiest to play, the right size for me and had the best sound. The guitar is an electro acoustic Tanglewood, rosewood reserve. Its quieter than my previous guitar but a bit livelier I think. I've just got to go through the first few weeks of pain while I build up calluses on my finger tips and strength in my fingers.

As well as taking up guitar again I have been doing a bit of star gazing thanks to Jason buying some really cool binoculars which came with a smaller free pair so we have a pair each. We've had a couple of clear nights recently and I've been able to find stars I've not been able to see for years. Orion of course is incredibly bright at this time of year but with the binoculars I could see one of the nebula within the constellation of Orion.

A couple of weeks ago there was a partial eclipse at dawn which I was able to see. The photo before is of the sky just before the eclipsed sun rose. It was really quite beautiful.

Rookie

2011-01-01T16:25:00.004Z

I am dedicating the first post of 2011 to my very old but very happy cat, Rookie.

The picture above is of her in her younger days though when I got Rookie from the Cats' Protection League in 2004 she was described as an old cat because she was 11. The woman from the Cats' Protection League said that not many people want to take on older cats, but it didn't bother me. Rookie needed a home because her owners were moving into rented accommodation and couldn't keep a cat on any more. Her original owners called her Tootsie but I just couldn't bring myself to call her that! I just kept thinking of Dustin Hoffman in drag. so I had to think up a name that sounded like Tootsie but meant something to me. In the end I chose Rookie because it was the name of a bar/coffee shop in Amsterdam that I liked!

Rookie is a very demonstrative, vocal and quite emotional cat. She's part Siamese like the cat I had previously Mr Shoo. (The tale of Mr Shoo is a sad one so I'll save that for another day, but no finer cat than Mr Shoo ever lived and he came to a very tragic end.) Rookie likes to talk and tell you what is on her mind, she has a rather hoarse guttural miaow which means feed me, a sharper miaow that means I'm here, a pitiful miaow or wale which means make a fuss of me, and even a delicate mew which means thank you for giving me a catnip toy. Rookie also has a host of little grumbling and murmuring noises which mean all sorts of strange and unfathomable feline things.

Rookie likes being made a fuss of, tuna, cat nip, the sun, sleep, Whiskers supermeat, climbing in boxes and staring through windows. Rookie hates birds, dogs and other cats, with the exception of Oliver the cat below who she shared a house with for 3 years when she lived at my parents place. She didn't like Oliver at first but after she had bullied him into submission she tolerated him just fine. Now that Rookie has left to live with me again, Oliver is delighted. In the picture below he is doing a fine impression of hypno toad.
Rookie is quite old now at 17 and she has got very skinny, but if anything she has got more characterful as she has aged. She still treats the world with disdain, generally looking appalled by everything from the state of her food, to the weather outside. She is getting a bit senile I think and occasionally adds to her state of disgruntledness a measure of bewilderment. But every night with out fail she clambers up on to the settee to curl up between me and Jason to purr and snore. She's a very content cat who gets a lot of fuss and attention to a level that my Mum thinks is excessive but I do come from a family where my Great Aunt had individual hot water bottles for her cats. (And she lives in Australia!)

Farewell 2010

2010-12-31T17:14:00.003Z

I know that I have written before that I'm not a great fan of New Year's Eve. I think its the arbitrary nature of it. Every and any day could be New Year's Eve surely? Although it was the Roman's who started celebrating 1st Jan (or near equivalent some days after the winter solstice basically) as New Year in the British Isles, so it goes back a fair few years.

I'm not against New Year's celebrations though; I've had some lovely New Years', some raucous (I'm thinking of the 2 I spent in Weston Super Mare!), some boozy and cosy spent in Doncaster usually with my friend Lorraine watching music videos after the pub. I've had a couple of lost New Year's Eves in Nottingham one involving being dressed as a goth (although I really resembled a French mine artist) and the other a rolling stones tribute band called the Rolling Clones. I've also been lucky enough to have spent some beautiful New Year's Eve's with Jase last year at Hampton Court and the year before that in central London but away from the crowds. (our first 2 new years were spent at home watching fire works over the roofs.)

This year will be like the latter, we will be seeing 2011 in from our new home. So that will be very special and quiet although I do want to try a Drambuie and champagne cocktail, so maybe not that quiet!

The seemingly never ending onslaught of unpacking, acquiring new pieces of furniture for our new house continues. My office/study is nearly ready. Its so good to have my own space to work in. Ginny Wolf knew how important it was to have your own space, and she was right!

Before Christmas our dining table was delivered and there is a picture of it below.

Here's a picture of it with the runner and place mats which arrived yesterday. The colour scheme in the dining end of our kitchen diner is green and blue - quite a deep sea green and bright blue.

Well it just leaves me to wish everyone who reads my blog a very merry New Year's Eve and may 2011 be peaceful, joyful and bright! Cheers!

Boxing day

2010-12-26T14:20:00.003Z

My parents visited today - Boxing day, and we went for a lovely walk in the snow with Millie the chocolate Labrador. Above is a photo of my Dad and Millie. Below is a picture of my Mum an me before I took a tumble on the ice.
Whilst on the walk I took a picture of our house and our neighbours from across the first field.

We had a lovely Christmas day yesterday, with a lovely dinner, very quiet and peaceful. It's so nice to be settled in to our new house for Christmas. Most of my office furniture arrived on Christmas Eve and we, well I mean Jase built it for me so I spent a little bit of time unpacking stationery yesterday. We still have quite a lot more to do but we're getting there.

Cold December

2010-12-20T17:04:00.002Z

The cold weather has continued - we were so lucky that the weekend we moved happened to be in a hiatus to the weather. This weekend we had snow as I mentioned in the entry below. In the end we had about half a foot of snow which now has compacted somewhat and is about 4 or 5 inches deep. There are much deeper drifts of course. Today we went for a walk into Biggleswade across the fields in the snow. Although I was wearing wellies I found it really hard going. My back was killing me. In town I bought a pair of German snow boots, fleece lined and waterproof. They are the most snuggly, comfy boots ever. I totally love them!

In town we had a nice meal at the Maltings in Biggleswade which is really cosy and the food and wine were lovely and as a converted brewery malting house it is rather historic inside.

Below is a picture of Rookie contemplating the snow.
We also went back to our rented house today, the one which had all the spiders in the garden. We found these on the back gate. Very beautiful webs I just wonder how the spiders are faring.

You can find some more pictures here on my flickr page

House move and Christmas preparations

2010-12-18T15:41:00.002Z

Above is a picture of my cat Rookie who has come back to live with me now that we've moved in to our new home. Rookie is an elderly cat approaching her 18th year. Apart from from being very thin and a bit arthritic she is well and very happy to be living with us again. When I moved in with Jase 3 years ago she went to live with my Mum and Dad in Yorkshire because Jase's flat didn't have a garden. Anyway she seems very happy to be back and seems to like our back garden. Rookie is a talkative cat being part Siamese, she likes to miaow at every opportunity. For example like many cats she miaows when she wants food but she always says thank you after her food as well!

So the house below isn't our new home ;-) its actually for sale in our local bakers for £20 if I'd had means to get it home I would have bought it! A real gingerbread house is something I've always wanted! it was very Christmassy in town today, there were carol singers in the market dressed in Biblical fancy dress, there seemed to be more than 3 wise men but the more the merrier I suppose. I got a cup of free mulled wine when I bought a freshly made pancake. Even outside ASDA the Lions club had their Santa's sleigh parked and blasting out Christmas hits. As it started to snow I felt very festive even though it was absolutely freezing.
We moved into our new house last weekend - in the hiatus between snow and ice so we were very lucky. The move went really smoothly everything done in one day. Of course it was stressful and it felt like the packing and the boxes would never end. Now it feels like we've lived here forever. We still have a lot of unpacking to do but there's no rush. Below is a photo of our front door with trees I've bought and the light and number Jase fitted today before the snow came.
As below shows we have had snow here in Bedfordshire, after largely missing it last time its quite a novelty to have snow. It's still falling and we have about 2 inches which has fallen in about 2 hours.

Biggleswade Christmas Lights

2010-12-04T16:00:00.003Z

Last night was the annual Christmas lights switch on in Biggleswade town centre. The Mayor said that this was a spectacle which has been celebrated since 1962. It appears that the lights themselves date back to that first "switch on" as well. You can see some grainy pictures I took of the lights and towns folk last night.

As with the summer carnival, a fayer was present in the market square, and the Sea Cadets and choral society treated us to carols and Christmas tunes. I particularly enjoyed singing O Come All Ye Faithful and O Little Town of Bethlehem. The Sea Cadets rendition of Frosty the Snow Man was also a treat.
Staunch atheist Jason, didn't really enjoy one of the local vicars, Pastor Trevor, asking everyone to pray for the lights and Christmas in general. But the Mayor soon brought the focus back to consumerism by asking everyone to contribute towards the Chamber of Commerce's Christmas Lights fund! Everyone was then encouraged to stuff their faces with candy floss, hot dogs, chips and to scream if they wanted to go faster on the waltzers.

Jase and I beat a hasty retreat to the Stratton House Hotel to have a quick dinner. When we arrived everything was set out for Christmas dinner! I was ecstatic! There is a picture below of the Stratton's Christmased up restaurant and me looking ecstatic (and like a plump farmers wife, I think.) We got the only spare table, as the rest of the restaurant was given over to a 70th birthday party. I'd had my turkey dinner and Jase his steak before the 70th birthday got going though so we didn't witness the fun!

Today I've been mainly packing ready for our move. This time next week we should be - fingers crossed - safely moved into our new house. Today I packed books and ornaments. I'm glad I've bought so much wool lately as it has been invaluable for padding out boxes!

Met Police Disability Independent Advisory Group

2010-12-03T12:22:00.003Z

One of the projects I have been working on for the last few months has been with the Metropolitan Police. So I am very pleased to announce that today the Met have launched their recruitment drive for their Disability Independent Advisory Group. More information and how to apply are below. Good luck!

Advert for DIAG

Metropolitan Police Service, Disability Independent Advice Group:

Members

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) are recruiting a new Disability Independent Advisory Group (DIAG) and are seeking around 12 members.

The DIAG’s role will be to provide independent, strategic and specialist advice to the MPS on how disabled people of all ages and backgrounds are affected by the policing of London. We are looking for committed, enthusiastic people who can work well as part of a group but who can also express their views, specialist knowledge and experience as an individual at a high level within a complex organisation.

Your views and advice will support the MPS in making London safe.

The MPS will seek advice from the group through two methods: on line or through pre arranged meetings.

This is a voluntary role without payment. However, reasonable expenses will be paid and reasonable adjustments will be accommodated.

To request an application pack, please contact us:

Email : disability@met.police.uk

Tel no: 0207 161 2719 also for further information

Deaf and deafened people using a Textphone (minicom) should use the 18001 Text Relay prefix and dial 18001 0207 161 2719 or

SMS text: 07920768425

Closing date: 24th December 2010

All applicants will be contacted early in the New Year

Quick snow update

2010-11-27T18:01:00.003Z

After buying the pair of wellies above, for walking in the snow, the snow melted! Saying that it hasn't all gone and the temperature has plummeted again as soon as the sun went down. It's -1 at the moment.

Below is a photo of some holly I took looking very festive :-)

Snow, Dragons and my fab cousin

2010-11-27T08:27:00.003Z

Today we had snow! Although the north and east of the country have had snow for a couple of days, the snow has only just arrived in Bedfordshire. We haven't had much snow, just a dusting but it has made everything look really pretty. I went out early this morning to take some photographs of the back garden, above is a picture of my lavender plant. Whilst below is a picture of the front garden.
I'm looking forward to going to market this morning, I'm hoping that it will feel quite Christmassy with all the snow.

After the exciting news about our house move which is now only two weeks away, I'll be spending most of the weekend sorting out packing.

as I've mentioned in earlier blog entries my eyesight is getting worse, something that I thought wasn't likely to happen. So I've been thinking about ways in which I can avoid eyestrain and make things easier for myself. One of the ideas I had was to use some voice recognition software; in the past I'd worked with colleagues who used voice recognition software called Dragon. In the past Dragon was mainly used by people with dyslexia, dexterity impairments and by a few people with visual impairments. I'd heard that the actual technology had come on a long way in the last couple of years so I thought I might as well give it a go. So at the moment I'm dictating into a headset my blog entry. It's not quite like Star Trek where you just talk to the computer and it does what you say, but it's not far off. I'm hoping that this will really help me with long report writing and particularly where I'm in the planning stage, I'll be able to dictate my thoughts and initial ideas and then use that to dictate all organised report. The only thing I have to get used to with Dragon is speaking naturally but also precisely and also remembering to put punctuation in as I go.

Yesterday I had a very busy but exciting day. I went to Essex to meet with Essex Coalition of Disabled People, I know quite a few people who work there already. So it was nice to see where they actually work. I had a really productive meeting and it looks like I'll be doing some training with Essex in the New Year. Essex coalition of disabled people are based in Chelmsford which is where my cousin Helen lives. I got in touch with Helen to let her know that I would be visiting Chelmsford but didn't realise that her house is about 5 min away from Essex coalitions offices. So I had a lovely afternoon with Helen catching up, and hopefully in the New Year I'll get more opportunities to spend some time with her and her family.

Anyway I'm about to go out in the snow not that there's that much, visit the market and a bit of shopping. I'm taking my camera with me so made post some extra photos latest today.

Good news!

2010-11-24T20:31:00.002Z

I am really pleased to announce that we at last have a completion date for moving into our new home. If everything goes to plan we will be safely in our new home before Christmas in fact in just over 2 weeks! So it'll be packing all the way now until we start unpacking I guess.

I'll keep you all posted with progress. We have a "familarisation" visit on Wednesday to see round our finished home and find out some of the practicalities for living in the new development. I'll take my camera next week so I can post some "before" pictures on the blog!

The photo tonight is of some of the Christmas lights in Hitchin, outside the language school where I have my Japanese lesson. My learning is going well but slowly! The pace is good for me because it gives me time to reinforce my learning.

Just a quick update but I will try to keep up to date over the next few weeks.

knitting, work, house move and CBT

2010-11-19T17:15:00.003Z

The picture above is of some of the wool I have got at the moment waiting to be knitted into mainly scarves for Christmas presents. I just got some new wool today from Dragon Yarns that is absolutely gorgeous. Pure new wool, eco friendly dyes and untreated. Its beautifully soft and luxurious. I haven't been writing much at the moment on my blog but I will try hard to rectify this. The last 3 weeks have been very busy for me and not just because I have been knitting :-)

Work

After delivering the 2 events for RADAR I was asked to help with an event on the UN convention on human rights of disabled persons and health, which is really exciting. I am also working on an exciting piece of work relating to sustainable careers for disabled people. On top of that I am helping RADAR develop their work with associates and delivering a contract for the London Deanery on their Single Equality Scheme. It really has been non stop. Oh, and I mustn't forget the work for the Met Police which I should have some exciting news about in the next week or two!

Moving House

We still don't have a moving in date for our new house, though the good news is I have been inside our new house! Just over a week ago Jase and I got a tour around our house with the project manager for the site. The house was almost complete and flooring and just needing carpets and a few cosmetic things. It was really thrilling to be inside our new house. I can't wait to move in and have my own office! Of course we are now likely to move just before Christmas so getting the extra furniture we need and things like curtains is going to be a nightmare!

CBT

At last I've had some CBT sessions and they have gone really well so far. I will try and write more about this soon as I want to keep those of you who have been so supportive of my "mental health" journey over the last year, up to date with how I am doing.

So just an update for now but I will try to blog more over the next few weeks up until we move (fingers crossed) Next time we visit the house I'll take some pictures of the empty house it'll be great for us to look back to as we fill it with stuff and make it our own!

A visit to Moorfields

2010-10-31T18:15:00.003Z

I've written quite a lot about mental health on my blog - and in fact I may write some more soon as I have my first CBT appointment tomorrow morning, but I've not written a lot about being partially sighted. I guess this is because I've always been partially sighted so it's not really something I think about that often.

This week however I was faced with an issue I never thought I'd have to face - that my vision is getting worse. I always assumed that unless I developed something like glaucoma which I am monitored for annually, my sight would stay pretty stable. I thought this because as a baby I had both my lenses removed because I had cataracts. Back then they didn't have the technology to implant new lenses so I've always just used glasses and later contact lenses to help me see. Even with glasses or lenses my eye sight is pretty rubbish and I am registered as partially sighted.

I don't see well enough to drive and it is hard for me to explain to others how I see as I don't know what to compare it with, as this is all I've ever known. The easiest way to explain how I see the world is that it is like an impressionist painting (colourful, blurry, and quite beautiful) but as I don't have a lens I can't focus and so my sense of perspective or understanding of moving objects is totally impaired. With my contact lenses in I can read the top 2 lines of the eye test chart and that's it. Well that's what I could read.

Over the last 5 or 6 years I've been complaining to my consultant at Moorfield's that my night vision was getting worse. They thought it was due to the fact that my pupils don't dilate very much, so light doesn't get in to the back of my eye. I also felt that I wasn't able to read small print as easily as I used to, I get tired a lot more easily and get headaches from reading which I never used to.

This summer I complained that I was seeing strange brown or black shapes out of the corner of my eye - not like the normal floaters I've had all my life though they are getting worse too. So I was booked in for an ultrasound on my right eye.

On Wednesday I went for the ultrasound and then saw my consultant. Before I saw my consultant I saw a junior Dr who after getting me to read the eye chart looked worried. I wasn't reading as much as I used to and this was a trend. He looked back at the results for the last few years and it showed that steadily I was reading the letters less and less accurately and this time I couldn't make out the letters on the 2nd row at all. He looked worried.

My consultant explained that I had a lot of scar tissue in my eye from the operations as a baby and also "opacities" caused by the scar tissue on the back of the remains of the capsule in my eye which used to hold my lens. The symptoms I am experiencing are because the scar tissue does not allow enough light into my eye and also scatters the light in a strange way which is why I am getting so much glare from lights particularly at night. The less light that reaches the retina the less I can see.

I basically have the symptoms of a cataract! The one thing I thought I could never get. No lens then no cataracts again.

My consultant had his serious face on and asked if I'd like to see the low vision aid clinic. That made me realise that this was something serious. He also said that he could potentially do an op to help get more light into my eye but he'd rather monitor what happened for a bit. I've had this discussion before about the op to remove scar tissue - before it was causing me any problems. Its not as straight forward as usual laser op which takes 15 minutes. I have nystagmus which means my eyes wander about, using a laser on a moving target isn't my idea of fun! My consultant knows that I'm not keen on having other operations if I don't have to. There are of course risks with any op, and this one could end up making my sight worse rather than restoring it to what it was. What it was, wasn't much cop in the first place so is it worth the risk?

It turns out that my other eye also has this scar tissue and is also developing the same problem.

It's an interesting dilemma for me to face - I never thought that my sight could get worse so I never thought about what I'd do if it did. My consultant asked if I'd like to be referred to the low vision aid clinic. I explained to him my job and how I'd worked for the RNIB in the past and used lots of technology to help me. I'd helped others use low vision aids to help them remain in work.

The things that have struck me most after learning about all of this is the fact that I didn't make more of a fuss about the fact that I felt that my vision was getting worse. I'd mention it at the hospital each year but wouldn't push the matter. Sometimes I'd tell myself that it was all in my head and that my vision was the same as before but I just wasn't coping as well. I really convinced myself of this. I was hard on myself saying that I just needed to be braver about walking about in the dark etc.

Now I know that it wasn't in my head I actually feel relieved and I'm prepared to make changes now so that it's easier for me to get about. I've bought a small maglite torch to carry in my handbag and use at night. I'm more prepared to use taxi's and take things more slowly when walking about unfamiliar places.

I am just going to have to wait and see what happens with all of this.

Hallowe'en

2010-10-31T17:30:00.002Z

It's Hallowe'en tonight and it seems this year the country has gone Hallowe'en happy! Saying that, nothing could compare to how the Japanese celebrate Hallowe'en. The pictures on my blog today are from a year ago in Canal City shopping centre, Hakata. The quality isn't great because it was quite dark but I think it gives you an idea of how the Japanese shopping centre was decorated!

I've been too busy to blog again. I know it's a rubbish excuse but I really have been rushed off my feet for the last couple of weeks.I have been up to the following:

Being a good host - Jason's parents visited last weekend and took them to Cambridge last Saturday. It was a lovely sunny day and Cambridge looked lovely.
Being a good auntie number 1 - Jason's brother and nieces and nephew visited last Sunday which was lots of fun but kept me busy cooking, taking the kids to the park and trying to be a good auntie!
Star gazing - we had a couple of lovely cloudless cold nights last week and I spent some time looking at the stars particularly vega and the other bright stars of the "summer triangle" as well as marvelling at Jupiter's brightness.
Event organising - on Thursday it was RADAR's Future of Disability Equality round table discussion, hosted by Holiday Inn and chaired by Baroness Jane Campbell. I helped organise the event for RADAR which sparked some really interesting discussion and actions to take forward. I'll write more when the report is complete and link to it. The event was attended by former Ministers, business leaders and disability activists.
Being a good auntie part 2 - I visited my brother and his 4 children on Friday afternoon. I had great fun going to the park with them and Nanook the husky as well as being read to by my niece Lucia who is 6.
Reading - I've still not finished Inspector Imanishi Investigates on my Kindle and yet I've also started reading a book on psychology as well!

There has been lots more besides but I shan't bore you with it. Tonight Jase and I are cooking a roast dinner of roast chicken, roast veg, mashed turnip and sweet corn mmmmmmm. So I better go and par boil the tatties.

Work, work and Buddhist statues

2010-10-18T18:32:00.003+01:00

Yet another apology from me for not blogging often enough. I have just been so busy over the last few weeks with my work for RADAR organising their AGM and debate last week - which was a great success. I'll post when there is more information on it, there will be a blog entry and a report.

At RADAR I'm also helping them organise a very exciting round table event next week looking at the future of disability equality for the next 15 years. Should raise lots of debate so watch this space too for more information.

I'm also working for the Met Police at the moment another important piece of work around involvement of disabled people in the strategic work of the police in London. I will definitely blogging more about this and linking to their website once it all goes live.

On Saturday I was delivering training at the V&A museum for Action for Children, delivering diversity and disability training for their volunteers. It's always really good fun doing this training, the volunteers are always really enthusiastic and engaged. Holding the training at the V&A was a stroke of genius too. To get to the training room I had to walk through the gallery of Buddhist sculpture including the gold statue of Tara above. If you click on Tara it will take you to the V&As website with all the information you need to know about the statue and the photograph. I linked to this on facebook and a couple of my friends really enjoyed looking at the website. It certainly gave me a feeling of peace and serenity before the training. I went back afterwards and spent some time amongst the sculptures which was wonderful.

When I've not been working or looking at Buddhist sculpture I've been doing lots of admin for my business. I had my first meeting with my accountant and he really helped me. I have been doing a lot form filling, registering with tax authorities and filling out spreadsheets but it will all be worth it in the long run!

Hamlet

2010-10-07T17:05:00.004+01:00

I'm going to have to write a few catch up entries because I've been a bit slack blogging lately. I'll explain why shortly.

Hamlet

I'll start with Hamlet. A week ago I went with my Mum to see Hamlet at Sheffield Crucible Theatre.

I love the Crucible, it's a small, cosy theatre almost in the round. It is in fact shaped like a crucible and the alchemy on stage there always seems to entertain whether its Shakespeare or snooker.

The cast of this production is impressive:

Hamlet: John Simm

Claudius: John Nettles

Gertrude: Barbara Flynn

Just to name a few of the cast.

Hamlet is not one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. My favourite is King Lear I think it has everything you could ever want from a play. In fact I think I prefer MacBeth to Hamlet. Saying that Hamlet was the second Shakespeare play I ever saw and it was the Mark Rylance Hamlet of 1989 It affected me so much as a 15 year old that I thought no Hamlet would ever live up to it. I was probably right but, older and wiser I realise that there is room for a different interpretation of Hamlet.

With John Simm playing Hamlet it was inevitable that the critics would compare it to David Tenant's Hamlet. (David Tenant's Dr to John Simm's Master in Dr Who.) I wasn't able to get tickets to see David Tenant as Hamlet (though I tried and my phone bill was testament to this!)

I did see the televised version though at Christmas and within 10 minutes I wanted to slap Tenant's Hamlet and tell him to just grow up! This is my usual response to any Hamlet who isn't Mark Rylance.

But This current production of Hamlet made me think differently about the play and the character. It was an incredibly accessible version of Hamlet and Shakespeare. Some purists don't like that sort of thing but Shakespeare if performed right is incredibly accessible. I actually understood some aspects of Hamlet as a play and character I haven't before. The fact that Hamlet does doubt the ghost, and so his mind. Not in some grand way but in a very ordinary way.

John Simm's Hamlet was a bit blokey, and matey. He didn't swagger but unlike some Hamlet's he didn't slouch and sulk either. He was just a bloke. Yes a mixed up, grieving, stupid bloke but he was just a man. I liked that a lot.

The rest of the cast were all excellent particularly Polonyous, his fate was genuinely shocking and a bit sad even though he was a busy old fool. John Nettles was good too, and I did soon forget that I was watching the bloke from Bergerac!

So if you can get to see it in Sheffield I recommend you do!

Office Politics

2010-09-24T15:25:00.002+01:00

It's been a busy week this one. On Monday I met with the Met Police about the work I'm doing for them as a recruitment consultant. In the afternoon I got an email asking if I could possibly help out with some events at RADAR, so I said yes. I found myself on Tuesday at the RADAR offices agreeing to work up to 4 days a week at their offices for a month!

Then on Thursday it was the Inclusion London Seminar that I had been organising and also presenting at. That involved a 5 AM start and the stress of organising the morning registration, all the access requirements etc. We had the usual issues, a BSL interpreter was a bit late, the plasma screen wouldn't work and the speech to text typist was not happy at the amount of work she had to do. In the end the seminar went very well and Inclusion London have had really good feed back.

Then today I started work at RADARs offices. I haven't been in an office since the 12th May. So it was strange to come back to this kind of setting. It's made me realise offices all over the country are exactly the same though and already I feel like one of the ganag. In just one afternoon, the milk ran out but was promptly bought, the printer had an issue, someone printing a huge ammount of important stuff got interrupted and unhappy, cookies were brought into the office, I recieved a call from the Sun newspaper problem page and didn't know what to do with the call.

Yep that's right the Sun's agony aunt called wanting to speak to RADAR's media person - who I was able to track down with the help of a colleague.

It made me realise that once you've worked in one office you can just easily sink into just about any other office in the world.

Scotland & glad tidings!

2010-09-19T17:21:00.006+01:00

It's a week ago now that we arrived in Pitlochry after our 3 day stay in Fife with Jason's parents. Now that we are back home a week ago seems like a year! I'd only ever passed through Pitlochry on the train and I didn't really know what to expect. I've been to Inverness and Cromarty but not Perthshire or the Grampians. I was surprised most by the extraordinary diversity of trees and the large area of woodland. There are so many different trees all growing together, oaks and beech nestle beneath extremely tall firs and redwoods. Some of the countries oldest and tallest trees can be found in Perthshire. I'd love to visit the Yew tree which could be up to 2000 years old!

The picture I took above is of some woodland close to the hotel where we were staying, the Atholl Palace Hotel. The hotel was an old hydrotherapy centre for the Victorians, and later a school. It seemed just the place where Hercule Poirot would appear, waddling into breakfast to tell Hastings their had been a murder! As the Highland Tennis Tournament was being held at the hotel last week (the 2nd oldest tennis tournament in Scotland in its 115th year) it felt even more like the setting for an Agatha Christy mystery. So it was a very pleasant place to stay but not for those who love the ultra modern!

We stayed in one of the turret suites which is supposedly haunted by a Green Lady as http://scottishghosts.webs.com/apparitionsaf.htm reports:lace Hotel, Pitlochry

The Atholl Palace is a large castlellated Hotel, built in 1875, it is reputed to be haunted by a 'Green Lady', and her spectre has allegedly been witnessed by staff and guests in one of the bedrooms and the the corridor ourside the room. It is believed that this bedroom is no longer used by guests due to amount of complaints Management received the following morning!!!!

Another account however said the ghost actually haunted our turret room which had been put back into use as a guest room! Either way I didn't notice any spooky going ons and Jason of course doesn't believe in such nonsense :-) Anyway the room was lovely. I took lots of pictures including ones of our room and you can see them all on my Flickr page.

We did quite a lot of walking in Pitlochry around the town, to the black spout waterfall, through Faskally forest and around Loch Faskally. We also visited the Salmon ladder and "Salmon Viewing Chamber" which made me feel a little uncomfortable, but it was the fishy kind of Salmon they wanted to view not the happy kind :-) Over 4000 salmon have used the ladder already this year to get around the hydro electric dam. All very impressive.

Good News

The picture below is of a small waterfall in the grounds of the Hotel, near to a "Ducklings Crossing" sign which isn't really anything very special apart from the fact that it was where Jase and I decided it would be a good idea to get married! It wasn't so much a proposal by either of us; we're not very conventional, more just walking along the drive and talking and the next thing I know we've agreed to get married. So sorry to disappoint anyone who wanted tales of hot air balloon rides and down on one knee proposals. But for me it was the most magical thing in the world and it happened in a truly beautiful and extremely peaceful place.

Pitlochry was always going to be somewhere that I'd want to go back to and explore more, but now it will be even more special to both of us.

I can definitely recommend Pitlochry as a place to go on holiday, there is a theatre, great walking both through woodland and mountain, lots of water for those who like fishing and boats and loads of wildlife. The food was great too - the hotel did a fine steak and an amazing starter called the "wee beastie" which was small balls of haggis deep fried in batter. They were lovely. Because I've done my back in again I was on strong pain killers so couldn't really drink but I did manage a wee scotch, I tried the local Edradour 10 yr single malt. It was a lovely scotch, quite flowery with a bit of vanilla, very smooth but had a real peppery kick to it. When I need a new bottle of whisky it'll be a 10 year Edradour that I'll go for I think.

Home

Since getting back home I've been really busy with work. I have a new contract with the Metropolitan Police, as a recruitment consultant for their Diversity team. It's the Equality Act seminar on Thursday that I have been organising for Inclusion London, plus I have a few other things in the pipe line that I am working on. By the end of this week I'll need another holiday!

I'll leave you with a picture I took of the Firth of Forth.

Arthurs seat & kite surfer

2010-09-19T15:56:00.001+01:00

Arthurs seat & kite surfer
Originally uploaded by Happy Salmon

Click on this picture to have a look at my flickr photos from the 1st part of our holiday in Fife. These were taken just over a week ago.

Fife

2010-09-10T17:30:00.001+01:00

We arrived in bonny Scotland yesterday to glorious sunshine. We had a lovely journey, the section from Newcastle to Edinburgh is one of my favourite train journeys ever. Both afternoons in Scotland so far have been very sunny so I've been out taking photos on both afternoon. Below is a picture of Pettycur taken from the harbour.

One beautiful thing about Pettycur beach are the rose bushes that surround it; mixing the rose perfume with the salty smell of the sea. Refreshing, refined and it should be bottled!

I also went shopping today buying a grey scarf with silver thread running through it and a grey headband / fascinater thing, it looks better than it sounds :-)

Nanook

2010-09-08T18:49:00.002+01:00

Nanook

Nanook is my brother's new puppy. My nieces and nephew love him to bits. In fact my 6 year old niece Lucia took this photo of Nanook. He's a very calm, quiet but friendly dog so perfect for the children. Anyway I thought I'd introduce Nanook to the blogsphere!

Sent from my iPhone

Garden spider

2010-09-04T18:36:00.001+01:00

Garden spider
Originally uploaded by Happy Salmon

We have an army of web spinning, fly eating garden spiders in our erm, garden. This is the only picture to come out which was ok to crop and zoom in on. I didn't want to get too close to any of them!

September!

2010-09-01T10:04:00.002+01:00

I love September! For some reason I never feel good in August, I could understand it when a teacher because although on holiday I'd end up spending most of the time ill, I'd always come down with a cold or bad migraine. I've always worked through August since not teaching but this year starting up my new business meant that August was a barren month - everyone's on holiday. So I had to take time off and I just slumped into a big low.

Today is 1st September and I do feel a lot better already. I love September the shiny new school shoes, the misty mornings, the crisp evenings, the blackberries and the robin singing at my window this morning. The change in seasons. My dahlias are looking splendid after a heavy morning dew, pictured above. But I also have some new roses, pictured below. That's why I love September, summer is growing old but autumn promises a bounty of fruit, vegetables and cosiness! My favourite time of year is autumn. So I'm happy today!
When emerging from a period of feeling very low I always feel fragile and shaky, there is always the worry that this is a false start, that by tea time I'll be back in the doldrums and the turmoil. Fingers crossed though that this time I am well and truly out of the worst.

Weekly roundup

2010-08-22T19:21:00.003+01:00

Well I've had a busy old week. I decided to take some time off from my freelance work and so had this week as a "holiday."

My friend Ruth came to visit at the beginning of the week for a couple of days which was lovely. We just pottered about Biggleswade and Hitchin was nice and relaxing. I also made chilli which I always enjoy.

In the middle of the week I visited my parents and did a bit of shopping with my Mum and popped out for a meal.

Then on Friday my friend Selina came to visit with her two little boys Jack and Lucas. They have grown so quickly it is really quite astonishing. It was lovely to see Selina as it's been far to long. The last time we visited Selina was almost exactly 2 years ago!

Yesterday was a pretty lazy one so today we went to Cambridge for a bit of an explore. I only really know the river and colleges bit of Cambridge so we walked around that area to where the main shops are. We had a good wander and Jase got me two DVD's Kiki's Delivery Service and the Cat Returns both Studio Ghibli Japanese animated films.

We passed a Chinese supermarket on the way back and picked up some Gunpowder tea. This caused a lot of tweets on Twitter so tomorrow I shall blog about the gun powder tea with some photos of it and comparison to other teas I have!

Self employment and cake

2010-08-12T15:15:00.004+01:00

Lets deal with the cake first shall we? My twitter friends will know that I was making cakes last weekend for my brother's birthday party. Yes he was 32 and he wanted a proper birthday party buffet like you have when your a child! I have to say it was always my favourite food. Birthdays were great with cocktail sausages, sausage roles quiche etc. My Granny also used to make us a fantastic buffet lunch when ever we went to visit with pork pies, scotch eggs, quiche, the best salad loads of fresh water cress, big ripe tomatoes and always loads of cakes of course. I remember one year for my brother's birthday my Mum made a dinosaur cake resplendent with green butter icing.

So for my brother's birthday I made fudge muffins decorated in pink icing and smarties pictured below. The gorgeous cheese cake above was made by the English Cheesecake Co who I can heartily recommend! The biscuit base was just perfect! My brother's had little Crunchy style chocolate and honeycomb pieces in it and on top of it. Personally I like the look of the blackberry cheesecake the English Cheese Cake Co do!

I also thought it was about time I blogged about being self employed. It's 3 month today since I left my permanent job at the NMC. Its funny the 3 months have flown by but it also seems like a life time ago that I was having my leaving drinks in Regents Street.

I certainly didn't make things easy for myself moving house 2 days later and then going through the 6 weeks of navigation through the selling a flat process.

Work wise I have been lucky. I only ever intended to work part time and baring that in mind I have been very fortunate with the contracts i have won. I have only so far applied for one thing that I didn't get and that was a public appointment rather than a contract as such.

I've carried out two training sessions which both went well, did some policy and consultation work for my old employer and as you know, from me plugging it on my blog, I'm organising and co presenting a seminar on disability and the equality act in September. There are a couple of other things in the pipe line too.

So my work so far has been varied and really interesting. I still have moments of panic when I think I should apply for a "proper job" so I have more security. I still haven't got used to the erratic nature of being paid as a freelancer. Because I didn't plan to do this as such I didn't have a nice cushion of savings or anything like that to see me through the barren periods. My long suffering boyfriend Jason has been wonderful in helping me. I have had to make changes though. Gone for now are my arbitrary beauty treatments. I'm doing them myself now at home. (apart from pedicures which due to my lack of eyesight I really cant manage so I still get my pedicure as a little slice of luxury!)

The thing that I am finding most difficult is the lack of routine. There is no way that I want to go back to commuting every day! Those of you who do that hard slog on public transport or in your cars will not have a jot of sympathy for me lounging about in my pjs at 11AM. But seriously I know that our bodies like routines even if my mind rebells against it I do need a routine and I haven't as yet found one.

I'm sleeping late, eating late and generally not keeping to any kind of routine. Some times I work in the morning's. sometimes afternoons and sometimes all day or not at all, if I don't need to. I guess I should really stop worrying about it as long as I'm getting the work done and I'm happy. I just wondered how others who work from home or are self employed deal with it? I'd love to know.

So on the whole I think doing freelance work is great! I'd also like to say thank you to everyone who has been so supportive with my decision and with my work :-)

Grey Dagger Moth caterpillar

2010-08-11T17:14:00.003+01:00

I went out for the first time today after spraining my ankle. I'm glad to say that its not too bad so it won't stop me getting about but no more charging about the countryside for a few days at least!

So I've been catching up on some weeding in the garden. I came across the caterpillar pictured above on one of my roses. Its a spectacular looking caterpillar but apparently the moth it turns into isn't that exciting a bit grey and tatty looking! I know how the moth feels :-)

My lady bird army!

2010-08-10T11:21:00.004+01:00

I noticed yesterday morning that literally over night my chilli plant had become infested with little white green fly grubs! Yuck, the little critters were everywhere! Because the weather has been so bad over the last couple of weeks I hadn't been able to put the chilli plant out in the garden so I guess this is how it happened. Yesterday was surprisingly glorious though, so out went the chilli plant. I put it near another plant which has been colonised by lady birds.

I hoped that maybe a lady bird or two might jump on to the chilli plant and feast on the nasty little green fly larvae. Well the lady birds certainly found there way to the plant as did the little wasp things that love green fly. My own wee beastie army eating all the evil larvae!

For good measure before bringing it in at night I blasted the plant with a fine spray of water hoping that would knock off any left.

This morning I thought I'd inspect the plant back in its sunny position in our hall. I found one little white grub but before I could rub it off the leaf I noticed a lady bird heading for it! After closer inspection there are at least two lady birds still on the plant chomping away at any grubs they find!
I tried to get a couple of pics of them which you can see here.

I am very grateful to my lady bird army for keeping the green fly at bay. Nature truly is wondrous!