I've just got in from visiting my mum in hospital. Thankfully the operation she had today went very well. I didn't want to mention anything before as I am strangely supersitious about these things.

It is interesting to see my mum in hospital mode. I think she has been in and out of hospitals a fair bit, mainly because she got something called rheumatic fever as a child and it damaged her heart. So she started with that, and then had open heart surgery back in the early 1960's to unblock a heart valve, followed by regular annual checkups and then two new artificial heart valves on her 70th birthday in 2003, and a pacemaker just over a month ago.

Ever since I can remember my mum told me 'not to get too used to having her around', this was because of the heart thing. But today I've come to the conclusion that she must really have the constitution of an ox.

Despite artificial heart valves and a pacemaker, and having had a general anaesthetic (to say nothing of the actual operation), she was bright and alert and chatted on for a couple of hours. No problem. You'd think nothing had happened if it wasn't for the intravenous drip thing!

I'm just so impressed really.

justbloggin

The harvest festival season approaches. As with most things there is always more than one, this is a new feature of my life brought about by children, one event is never enough. There is the school harvest festival, then the church harvest festival. As the school is a church school the two are not that different.

One has a play involved, so there are words to learn, as well as a donation to produce. The other requires a donation of some kind and a few more well known hymns.

As with all things charitable it is hard to know what to give. Whilst veg is lovely stuff today's recipient of the harvest vegetables might not manage to eat them before they go off.

The nicecest part of the school version seems to me to be the fact that a couple of children are dispatched to the nominated people to deliver parcels and maybe have a bit of a chat.

Personally I rather like the songs, 'we plough the fields and scatter' as it reminds me of being the small child at the assembly with the vegetables. I don't really feel like it was that long ago that I was sitting cross legged in assemblies myself.

But I have started to notice that where I used to get quite sentimental at school services and similar child centric productions I've now started to observe the clock and wonder when the tea and biscuits will be served.

Gotta be quick the battery is nearly flat

Well Im working on trying out the wine club's first delivery. It came in handy as the students who have been working for us during the summer have all gone back to University, with plenty of gifts, not limited to a bottle of chardonnay.

We decided to shut the second office as there isn't really anyone to sit in it at the moment. Closing the office has meant that we were rather oversupplied with IT equipment. Said 'stuff' is now relocating itself to student residences, parents houses, and our other office which is likely to look a teeny bit full up when we finally squeeze everything into it.

It has resulted in a major IT swap round at home as I refuse to let the kids have computers or televisions in their rooms. So I just had to go to Ikea to sort out the storage. Where I noticed that the staff have kindly located all the desks in the till area ready for the influx of 30,000+ students into the Tyneside/Durham area in the next few weeks. Which saved a lot of traipsing round the isles. Similarly Tescos are doing the same thing so my search for PC speakers (for the kids interactive games) and CD cases (for the games CDs) was rather easier than expected as everything was in the doorway. So despite the shops being packed it was a very painless experience.

The kids now go to the PC rather than the TV, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. They were playing some Viking board game on the computer tonight, looked a bit like chess. I've seen all their videos about ten times each already so it makes a change.

Thanks to the wonders of Ikea we now seem to have more space in the room, despite having added more furniture. Kind of makes me want to move to Sweden :-)

Everything happening at once

I'm not too sure about Murphy's Law, which I think is the one that says 'if something can go wrong it will go wrong', but I think there should be a new law of 'if something can happen, at least 3 other things will also happen on the same day'.

A case in point. Who would have thought that DFDS the ferry company would sell off their vessel the Princess of Scandanavia just as we are due to go to Goteborg (aka Gothenberg) for the festival of lights in November?

DFDS are cancelling the route completely which means that any trips to Sweden via ferry from Newcastle have to take place before the end of October. Equally who would have expected that the only week we are available to go to Sweden is the week before the ferry service ends, and that it clashes with a school field trip week.

This would not be quite so odd if it wasn't for the fact that normally (ie every other year up until now) 8 year old pupils were not permitted on the week long residential field trip. But as a special concession this year they are allowed to go. A fact which we only discovered last week when a letter came home inviting said 8 year old to go to the trip, causing much excitement and sibling rivalry.

On top of which it is also my birthday in the same week, and I had decided that all things being equal said daughter should go on the field trip! It is a special birthday (with an '0' in the year) when one is meant to make a fuss, although I hate the idea of organising my own birthday 'do' which means that it ain't gonna happen. Unless someone hires someone to organise it, so it definitely won't happen.

Now the dilemma is which of the three possible events takes precedence. As I see it my options are;
1.Book the trip to Goteborg and cancel the field trip (wrath of small child forever)
2.Change the trip to Norway or Holland on a different date (new opportunity to locate clashing events, but more of the year to choose from as not restricted on dates up to the end of October)
3.Get my money back (means no autumn holiday :-( and everyone is unhappy)

I will consult 'she who must be consulted' on option1 and refer to 'him upstairs' for options 2 and 3. Unless anything else happens we'll probably end up in Holland...but the way things are going it could be next year!

My life would be so much easier today if someone hadn't thrown the toothpaste tube down the toilet!!!!!!!








This is a great example for performance management goal setting (think positive, whilst trying to find packet of mints for the morning). It meets all of the criteria;
1.Specific - toothpaste required
2.Measurable - one tube would do as there are only four of us in the house
3.Achievable - if I could be bothered to go to the shops at 9.45pm
4.Realistic - toothpaste is widely available
5.Timely - I need it now

Sadly this is beyond the current performance objectives of the small person responsible for flushing the toothpaste. But he did do the artwork.

The odd image on the left is an ultrasound of a bladder polyp.

I was checking out the prognosis (as you do) because my mum seems to have developed one of these.

As a regular warfarin user it turns out this little thing got detected a lot earlier than it would normally have done. The trouble now is that nobody really likes to operate on people who take warfarin (aka rat poison like substance that can cause excessive bleeding, but also helps to thin the blood if you are prone to getting blood clots).

This is not 'the' polyp, the NHS only give you copies of certain scans and I don't think they do one of your bladder polyp to take away yet. I am hoping that the real one is much smaller. This will also be my mum's second operation in 6 weeks if they continue to run according to the current plan.

Some things to worry about

In no particular order...just off the top of my head
Bird Flu (thanks to the FT magazine this weekend for reawakening this one)
Mega volocano erupts on west coast of America (nice BBC program on volcanoes last week!)
Mega volcano erupts in meditteranean (ditto)
Global warming (seems to be happening)
Sea level rise (bound to happen if there is global warming so I'm happy to live on a hill)
Political instability when everyone is forced to stop working for the UK government, as we all seem to do either directly or indirectly!
Cashflow (immediate)
Cashflow (medium term)
Children (your own)
Children (other people's ...and their impact on your own children)
The state of society in general (respect, manners etc)
Care of the elderly (or lack of)
Schools (level of attainment, expectations and the differences between public and private schools)
Pets
Traffic (and the likihood of traffic, pets and children colliding in some form at any point in the future)
Crime
Terrorists
Lack of oil
Lack of water
The state of your car
The condition of your house (winter is coming)
Fuel prices (petrol, gas, electric)
Leaking gutters
Leaking bathroom roof
Lack of curtain rail in child's bedroom
Politicians (general ineptitude and appearance of their distance from reality)
Benefits culture and overdependence on handouts
Political correctness, and why it hasn't helped anyone
Inexplicable legislation and enforcers thereof - ref those who are about to be fined for not using their recycling wheelie bins enough
Wheelie bin collection dates (hence worrying about fine)
After school activity timetabling
Cleaning (no time)
Shopping (no time)
Health of parents
Prospects for business growth
Lack of spare time
What to feed the family today
What to put in a packed lunch for tomorrow
Upcoming social events
Parent with imminent hospital diagnostic tests (and their results)
Side effects of medicines (prescribed to said parent)
Fitting in work when there are so many other things to think about

Must go to sleep

Just one last thing

Just discovered that the new version of a certain well known software program is not entirely compatible with an earlier version. Ironic considering the program is for file sharing...hmmm The rest of the beta version of wotsit 2007 looks promising so far.

My payroll program refuses to find the backup file...always does..always will. It does this every tax year end when I run the updates, so I'm not particularly surprised. I have paper files around the place to compensate for this known issue. Not that they are necessarily in order, but they are in the files. I only really swear at the computer when I need the paperwork for tax returns and the software plays up as well.

Fortunately the current tax year is on different software and on a different computer. The new software is much more user friendly, and about half the price AND it does multiple companies.

Still I've promised myself that this is the last thing I will update on my newly rebuilt laptop for the moment, as it is now 1.30am and all the chocolate has worn off! Well probably worn 'on' in a more permanent way by now.

In praise of the charity shop..

Never has so much fun been had by two children for so little outlay...well cardboard boxes excepted. On a budget of £2 per child we now have a show jumping arena and a whole haulage yard/firestation setup in the respective bedrooms. I also got 16 Key Words Ladybird books all in A1 condition for 39p each, you can't beat that, even on Ebay.

Soo have now had 3 hours to catch up on paperwork as the kids have been heavily occupied with their new purchases. Paperwork is now in boxes waiting to be processed, but at least I have looked at all the paperwork now. It was developing into two worrying heaps (we have two limited companies) and I wasn't too sure what was in each one as the summer holidays have got in the way of anything like a weekly review. This should mean that I can zip through all of it on Monday when the kids go back to school :-)

My new hard disk is quietly formatting on my old laptop. The laptop has been dying for the past month or so. I finally got round to getting the hard disk and then left it for 3 weeks as the kids demanded my attention whereas the laptop could only beep and ask silently to be rescued (soundcard is off too).

The tax man is writing me letters chasing payments that I've already made. Their phone doesn't seem to work in Cumbernauld, and neither does their email, so I've resorted to a letter quoting bank reference numbers and dates. That took me an hour to sort out. I should start adding up how much time I spend on admin for the revenue people. If only I could charge them for the time I spend filling in forms. They are very nice on the phone, if you ever get through to them. I hate overdue notices though, much better to be able to deal with them immediately. Hence I find it highly frustrating that I cannot get an instant result and have to resort to the post.

It has taken 4 mini bars of chocolate to get through the afternoon. Good job I only have mini bars available. My balanced diet today = 1 large latte and 4 x 40g bars of chocolate and a snack sized Cadburys Twirl (which was breakfast). I am convinced I could lose weight this way. Trouble is everyone else in this house seems to expect an actual meal three times a day. I did once lose over 2 stone by just eating chocolate, fruit and diet coke!! Hey ho those were the days.

Turns out I turned off my counter

Well anyone can do it. In a previous attempt to make this blog look pretty I fiddled about with the counter settings....it looked nice on the screen..but it turns out it wasn't counting anything!

Happily I spotted this little problem whilst waiting to find out what is going to happen at the end of 'The Cassandra Crossing', so much for having an early night.

I've checked out the stars on the web (Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardener, Richard Harris, Martin Sheen, Sophia Loren ...who always looks the same age irrespective of the decade the film was made), but at the moment I can't figure out if they all go over a cliff or not. In the good old days this would have been on the telly on a Sunday afternoon and I wouldn't be sat here are one in the morning.

Did I help - probably not

I was on my way back to my car today, I'd left it in Jesmond, a nice part of Newcastle upon Tyne, kind of Knightsbridge of the north east I suppose..but quieter.

Normally I'm reasonably immune to pleas for money but today, a lady asked me for money just as I was about to get into my car. She was polite, and I had saved money all week by parking on the street, rather than in the more expensive and heavily monitored card park. So I fished in my bag and gave her my whole bag of change (that I keep for parking), I don't know how much money was in it, not more than £5 I expect.

Initially I supposed I was going to find £1, but I thought it was mean to count out coins. She said she had been trying to get £7 to stay in a hostel for the night and had tried the police, the probation service and lots of other places but I wasn't really listening.

It did strike me that I had never seen anyone so thin standing up. Her eyes were hollow and her skin very pale. I know she will spend the money on drugs or drink. I wish that wasn't the case, but my judgement is that is what will happen - unless it rains I guess. I just hope she gets some peace from whatever she uses the money for.

It troubles me that people end up asking strangers for money. I would like to think that someone would help me if I was in that situation. I feel guilty that I don't have the courage to engage in a longer conversation, but I doubt that I could help, and I didn't want to sound patronising. It was clear that whatever she did need the money for, her need was significantly greater than mine.

It makes me grateful for what I have. I am credit worthy so I can borrow money. I am employable so I can work and I am blessed with my health, and my family.

Join the club

Turns out I have joined a wine club. Funny how that happens when you use a discount voucher and don't quite read the small print. I guess that companies are now wise to women seeking a bargain and stick all sorts of things in the small print.

I think something similar happened with the mobile phone insurance, at least I think that is what the £4.99 direct debit is for. I know I should check it/cancel it, but it is getting round to DOING something that is the problem. After all I won't go bankrupt because of £4.99 a month will I? OK I'll do it....this weekend, probably.

Anyway I got the friendly letter from the wine club today telling me that I am about to receive my mixed case (lucky me) unless I DO SOMETHING to cancel it. So off I go onto the website to cancel the thing I didn't think I joined in the first place. BUT...SHOCK...the other half thinks it looks like a good deal. Which I think is approval not to cancel the wine.

I'll give it a go, just this once, fully aware of the fact that once these things start they are very hard to cancel. Just becuase cancelling involves making an effort, how to you think book clubs suck you in.

I tell you these sales guys have totally cracked the purchasing psychology thing. Wish I was as good at selling stuff.

It isn't asleep!

Well I have just removed a dead weasel from my daughter's bed. Not something I expected to be doing on a Sunday afternoon. I had heard whispering, but thought that it was something to do with avoiding piano practice, or sneaking additional children into the house whilst I wasn't looking (like it normally is).

The garden is looking more garden like, and less major excavation works. So the kids are spending more time out there. However one of my neighbours must have put some rat poison down, hence the dead weasel.

I was admiring the new decking when Jason asked if the kids had shown me a dead animal, he thought it was a weasel or something similar. Hence the following conversation with a small child, ostensibly sitting sewing in her bedroom, oh so cute!..

'Where is the weasel?'
'Oh, Mum, who told you?'
'Ok, where is it then?'
Child goes to bed, lifts duvet, and extracts dead rodent, which has been wrapped in a tea towel.
'It isn't asleep you know'
'Oh'
'It will start to smell'
'Oh it smells already' holds dead weasel to mum's nose - yuk

Chairoplanes

Back from hols, duly collected cats and dog, washed mountains of clothes and did the grocery shopping. Transported children to various swimming and sporting courses and visited newly pacemakered parent. So another normal day really.

Looking back on the holiday I think that a real highlight was our visit to Hollycombe Steam Collection in Liphook, on the Sussex/Hampshire borders. What a wonderful bit of nostalgia that was. I'm sure Elinor and George think I was around when the rides were first built, bless 'em they are convinced that anyone more than 20 years old can remember the olden days. In Windsor Elinor even suggested that I might have actually seen Queen Victoria when I was younger. Thankfully we used that as an opportunity to try out some mathematical skills to work out that I really couldn't have been there by a gap of some 60 something years.

Thought I'd pop in some pics of the steam powered funfair rides.
Yes there are real steam engines powering these things.


I didn't get the name of the ride in the first picture, so I'll just call it the spinny thing. It looks rather innocent at rest, but when it rises up, spins round and tips 45 degrees it is rather a different matter. Our ride was somewhat overwhelmed by the screams of George who wailed as soon as it tipped up 'I don't like it' and continued to sob the same thing until it stopped. I didn't like it that much myself, mainly because it felt too much like being in a tumble drier, but rather worryingly with a steam engine underneath, and I did wonder what would happen if the spinny bit flew off. Poor George was so pitiful I couldn't help but laugh (not terribly sympathetic I realise) but there was no point in joining in the panic.
Then there were the Chairoplanes, which seemed to have more safety straps than I remember. Jason and Elinor had two goes. Elinor would have continued spinning all day, but Jason developed a headache at that point.

George really liked the Austin Car ride though. These I do remember, somewhere there is a picture of me on one of these when I was about two years old. To see more on Hollycombe have a look at the website on www.hollycombe.co.uk. This beats all other funfairs hands down as far as I'm concerned.

Only in England

Well we've spent the past few days visiting Norwich. Our hotel looked out over the cathedral gate, and we spent a peaceful few days exploring the city centre while the kids stayed with their grandparents in Lowestoft.

So after a nice day out utilising the old National Trust membership at Blickling Hall (excellent second hand bookshop) and Felbrigg Hall (got totally lost in the woods!!) we got back to the hotel and spied two sets of what appeared to be morris dancers jigging away outside the local pub.

It is a bit blurry in the picture but there were around 30 of them in two groups doing rather complex footwork, some in clogs, some in bells and some with rather large leafy arches. It turns out that they turn up and dance outside a different pub every Monday night, so if you happen to be in the area you never know you might just spot them.

New gadget

Gadget of the week is the new mobile card for this laptop. I can now check my email anytime, anyplace, anywhere. So benefits of the new gizmo are that I can spend time deleting junkmail anywhere I choose....who are all these exotic people who keep wanting to involve me in their latest investment wheeze anyway...despite coming from lots of different countries and continents they all appear to be sending the very same email. I do wonder if anyone ever responds.

Anyway I'm sure that there was a legitimate reason for the new electronic expenditure. I just can't think what that was at this precise moment.

justbloggin

Sometimes I wonder why I never seem to have any time. I always think 'ah next week will be quiet and I can catch up then' trouble is next week is never quiet, and I never do everything I intend to do. The ironing is so far down my list of priorities it is amazing that anyone in the family ever looks human, let alone groomed.

So last week kicked off with one resignation and one period of notice being proferred, thus reducing staff numbers from 6 to 4 in one fell swoop. The informal team is more informal than ever, and I am fairly guilty of being informal myself, ie. hardy ever there in person. Which means that I have now hassled everyone to get their Skype phones and email sorted out as I haven't managed to master long distance telepathy yet.

The kids kicked off the holidays with an assortment of kids club events including karate and squash, trips to the cinema, trampolining and arts and crafts. Elinor headed off to a sleepover and a day out. George did Yogabugs and more karate. He has also developed a very strong interest in snooker thanks to our 10 year old neighbour and some men he met in a pub while Elinor was at a birthday party...yes he is only 6...yes he was in the bar playing snooker for an hour!

My mum went off for her regular heart checkup and has been advised to get a pacemaker. This would be fine if they hadn't had a disaster the last time they tried to give her a pacemaker. Last time it turned out the scar tissue from her original valve surgery (back in 1963) prevented them from getting the wires in. You might think a bit of prior investigation would be sensible on someone that had a history of early open heart surgery...or is that me...oh well. Anyway the solution then was to implant two new artificial heart valves and to postpone the pacemaker. The valves have been ticking happily ever since but the pacing problem hasn't gone away. With the usual gung ho attitude of those not having surgery the medics are claiming that the whole thing can be done in a lunch time and all will be hunky dory. Sadly my mum isn't so sure, especially after last time. I'm not sure what the stress is doing to her, but it can't be good.

Still this Thursday is the pre-op checkup so with any luck they will manage to calm her down. I don't think she knows what type of pacemaker she is getting, two wires vs one. I'm assuming it might be two.

All the internet info I've looked at is very positive, apart from the references to 'twiddler syndrome' which is the rather unfortunate side-effect whereby sufferers develop a tendency to do a nazi salute if the wires get attached to the wrong thing. I won't be mentioning this AT ALL.



justbloggin

Giant darts big success at school fair

Not that I saw much of the rest of the school fair. I spent the afternoon on the school field with my box of sweeties and a dish full of change and raised £14.75 for school funds.

Picture to follow when I work up the energy to re-inflate the inflatable darts board. But if you are looking for a simple stall to run then pop along to your largest Te*co and give them a whirl.

I recommend taking a friend or like me you will find yourself glued to your dartboard by the seemingly endless stream of kids who want to have a go. It has to be said that I wasn't particularly strict with the rules. But then 10p is a fair price for a lolly, and my kids get a new game for the garden - until the dog eats the darts!

Let the parties begin

It was 7am on a sunny July morning and Elinor had stirred into action (remarkably early considering the fact that she went to bed very late). Somehow a bag of cards and presents had been left on her bedroom door handle, nobody knows how they got there.....