I'ts not binging

It's self-medication!

oh for goodness sake

I had to run snapped awake by dog barking, kicked laptop across the room. Then for some reason brain decided I had to run downstairs. 2 small blood injuries (and various attackers by furniture and fittings) later and I'm really starting to get fed up with this!

luckily laptop only cosmetically damaged, or else I'd not be able to moan about it all

Knighthood

it's gone!

Over the past few weeks as you may know I've become rather fond of knighthood ... but about an hour ago it disappeared ... it's gone

I've heard cold turkey is bad ... now we get to see ... as if I've not got enough withdraw already!

luckily there is support group , well it's a start.

door frames = evil

It has often been commented that "door frames are my natural predator" which is, unfortunately, harsh but fair.

I went out for lunch yesterday where the internal environment conspired against me.

I was attacked by a table, which grabbed my spasming foot sending me backwards, on my chair, into the door frame, door went nowhere, and was therefore just there to spite me, waiting to pounce!

one small lump came from the edge of the frame, however the door had glass panels, which I missed by not much, so not all bad.

next, and this is where the big bump comes from, fall sideways, in to the bobble near the base, on the top of the skirting board, ow!

Being unconscious at the time I have no actual evidence that it was a fiendish plot, but I'm sure they had blue prints and everything! Furniture being well known for it's vicious tendencies.

did scare the living daylights out of the little old ladies ... so not all bad!

still have a headache though, rubbish

missing phone

I lost my phone, found it again so all is well.

How ever my trip from the bedroom (upstairs), to the kitchen (downstairs) was a little to exciting for my liking ... as outlined below

1) get up from seat on bed, loose balance, sit back on bed.

2) get up again this time using chest of drawers for balance

3) scrap arm on aforementioned chest of drawers, check for blood, is none.

4) step forward, loose balance, bounce into door, then from door bounce in to door frame, still no blood

5) take a deep breath, step to the top of the stars, have a think, step back, send Ulrick down first.

6) back to top of stairs, brace arms, on on wall, one on ceiling

5) start to step, checking location of feet

6) get to bottom of stairs, take another big breath

7) walk towards kitchen, feeling still a bit dizzy so use wall for support

8) open the back door for an over excited Ulrick

9) forget what you were looking for that made you come downstairs

10) turn round to go back upstairs, see phone on the side near the pumpkins

easy! (& no major damage)

as an aside the reason I'm up is the new alarm clock, pricey but effective

New alarm clock

I have a new alarm clock, it works! (Thanks to Da Josaphine.)

Unfortunatly I had a bad fit yesterday, slept very badly and feel rubbish.

More sleep needed

Things not to happen at 70mph

EMB is fine and well, safe and sound, having established this you are free to read on ...

I got a phone call at 17.20 today, started with the ever reassuring "I'm ok, I'm not hurt ... but there's been an accident"

Look left, that would be a blown out tyre, not a good thing at the best of times, this is the reason for the phone call.

Below is what happens when you combine Armco barrier and Ovlov, scary stuff

MEET THE AU PAIRS

I just watched this program on the ever reliable More4.

I can honestly say that I have put more time and thought into getting someone to look after Ulrick and the chickens for a short holiday than was portrayed by two of the three families when looking for a long term live in help for their children.

Is this now normal? place an add, have a phone conversation, then pick your new family member up at the station? emb & I spent more time and effort finding the right dogs than was represented by the families looking for child care.

One line was "they need to start in 10 days" if they need to start that soon then why were you not looking earlier? (having said that you don't know how it was cut, if something else fell through, but still surely it's better to find the right person rather than the one that is there?)

Anyway, there's another one on next week!

Blah Blah Blah

and again ...

why can't I think of the good things to say at the time?

well it's all about practice, apparently

heroes

I've had a worrying discussion with emb, about heroes. Superheroes in fact.

He, incorrectly, doesn't think that Batman is a superhero. This is obviously wrong, so wrong in fact that a major attempt to lighten his foolish assumptions was made. But my logical and true conclusions fell on deaf ears.

Batman is my favorite, and I think the best hero to come from comic books, even though he's a sociopath

emb is just wrong

Insomnia

Lack of sleep, bad. Shouldn't have had that nap yesterday.

However, at 5am I accepted that sleep was not going to happen after a lion (or next doors cat) tried to invade. Luckily Ulrick was there to scare the evil invaders away.

So I got up, and started on my mammoth, and fairly stupid, task. that's what happens when I make decisions after sleep deprivation.

thought I'd feed the chicken and Ulrick.

Once I got outside I decided the chickens needed to be moved on the the grass, to do this I had move the coop and the run, no mean feat, the run is 4by8 foot and 6 foot high. the Coop it 4x5 and also 6 foot high.

After which I did their feed and water, and fed Ulrick, as it was now about 6am. I also had some breakfast (raisin wheat's)

Then decided they needed cleaning out, which I then did, stupid decision making processes

monday morning feeling ...

on a Friday night

You know when you're got something really important to do and then once it's done you just feel awfully.

Like every time you open your mouth you went "Blah Blah Blah Blah", and by so doing confirming the worst of fears.

All in all, rubbish.

having said that only time will tell if I'm justified in my depression and lack of confidence or mealy suffering from early stages of psychosis and paranoid delusions triggered by aspirations of grandeur

oh happy day

Down But Not Out

I took Ulrick for a walk.

On my own.

Lead to unexpected events ... like me falling on my face

Being pulled onto my face to be more accurate, I'll set the scene.

lady, dog, stick ... a stick which Ulrick wanted to play with. they were in front of us as such didn't know we were there.

Stick was thrown, Ulrick went off to get that stick, leaving me lying on my face.

ow, doubel ow, oh so ow.

Got him back, shouted at him, was so not happy, hurt myself, not just my pride.

little bugger ...

It's a Small World After All

And not just in a Disney/Winnie the pooh kind of way.

Much to TPG disgust I've been taking photos of random things that remind me of not here. I'll explain, when you turn on to the complex there is an A&W which does root beer floats just like I remember. (They melt faster there than in Colorado though).

In the mall downstairs there's a Starbucks. Not just a Starbucks but the other day it had saffron clad Buddhist monks enjoying a latte. We couldn't work out a way to photo them with out being hugely disrespectful, so we didn't. Still saw it though.

We went to a "Mega Mall" It had a GAP, and even more frighteningly a Dorothy Perkins. Dotty P for goodness sake, they're a well respected brand over here apparently!

More Small World photos.

*****************************

Multi Lingual Danger Sign

Mondays, Blah Humbug

I don't like Mondays, well the having to be some where through necessity rather than choice, and the getting up part, and the caring about silly things, and the waiting for someone else to do things so you can.

rubbish

I get to play with a knitting machine tomorrow, so it's not all bad.

snow

Snow, frozen precipitation, it falls from the sky, it gets cold, it gets wet, and it gets slippery. I know these things, I am not a meteorologist, I have no training. The BBC gave at least 4 days notice that it was likely to snow. So why did it take me 4 hours to get home?

The train was 30 minutes late. There’s a Trans-Siberian Railway (Trans-Mongolian line) it goes from Moscow to Beijing, through Mongolia. It gets cold, these are cold places, for February, in Moscow the average maximum temperature is -6, it’s not hit that here, in Beijing it’s 4, for Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia, it’s -13, where we are unlikely to hit until global warming really hits.

Why can they get a train to go? Practice I guess, that line is over 4 736 miles long, I needed to go less than 5, but it took 45 minutes to get to town. Waiting for the bus in the snow was unpleasant, the snow had soaked my shoes and my feet were cold, but that was the worst of it. The thick coat, gloves, lovingly knitted scarf and hat helped a lot with that.

So on to the bus, 45 minutes into what is normally a 60 minuets journey. I’ve been to Prague, when we arrived it was -10 (much to DuLa’s trauma) the bus was one of those bendy ones, took us from the airport to the town, no problems, traffic at 50km an hour.

I spent over 2 hours on a bus that got me ½ way from town to home. The emb, who had walked to the bus stop to meet me than called to say that the buses couldn’t get up the hill by where we live, so he came to get me, bless, we then spent an hour and 10 minutes in the car, trying to get home, on the plus side he brought supplies and we had the heat up to 27° with heated seats.

I was glad to be home, but 4 hours is silly to go under 10 miles.

Bird flu in the UK

Bird Flu is back this is not good, if H5N1 virus doesn't get them then DfRA might.

Maybe we should get the chickens masks ...

benefit humanity - without the hard work

Right now my computer is taking part in the FightAIDS@Home project, helping to find new drugs. It may one day help in one of the other projects, it is all part of world community grid which means they use the bits of my computer that I don't.

It's not a short term project, in my case it's been going for 15 minutes and is 1% complete, but just think, my computer and by proxy me is helping to kind a drug to combat HIV/AIDS (or identify drugs that don't, which is just as important, but less exciting)

There are other projects on which they work, and you can choose just one a few, or like me just tick all, working on the principal that they know better than me what needs doing when.

If you're worried about it slowing you’re computer down (which is unlikely unless you're playing a very processor hungry game, or encrypting top secret files). You can set it to only run when your screensaver is active, so while you go make a cuppa, your computer is helping to one day save lives.

We’re on day 17, and this morning seems better.

Email from Number 10

as some of you may recall in the post "me too" i asked you to read and if you agreed sign up

Well guess what, I got an email from the government, the prime ministers office no less, responding.

OK so it's not exactly what we asked for, but it's a start

the page response is here

I never thought I'd ever actually get a response, I know it is a mass mail appeasement, but it's better than nothing

(Brain Still Jam)

Happy New Year

That’s about it really, I’m thinking of having resolutions, all of which involve diet, exercise and stretching or garden. But not sure if that’s the right way to do it, maybe I should just do these things with out a resolution. Or should I set quarterly objectives with a reassessment point every 3 months. Maybe clear and specific goals are better?

Less like a resolution though …