Hells bells....

....and little fishes! It's getting on for a whole week since I last darkened this door, ok, so I know it was probably a blessed relief for you all but just the same it's most unlike me! Whatever happened to the 'a post a day for a year' woman of the past??

She got busy is what...particularly busy this last week, very busy in fact!

Busy what with you maybe (or maybe not) wondering, well I still don't have the time to go into detail but I will soon I promise! :o)

What's in a name?

Yesterday as I went about my boring business I happened upon a small incident that caused me to laugh rather too heartily....it was the sight of an old neighbour,


this guy is not in my list of top 10 people...or even top 500 for that matter, but I spied him in the local town, having not seen him for years, walking his dog.

Sonny Jim fancies himself as a bit of a 'lad' and 'up for it' yada, yada, yada, he patently isn't (and never has been) but in an attempt to fulfill his own fantasy maybe, his dog is a very large, long haired German Shepherd. Ok, so each to his own, nothing wrong with the dog in the right hands and none of this so far had been particularly amusing.....what was amusing however is that this rather handsome creature, on attempting to effect an escape down the road ahead if it's master, was forcefully called back......by the name 'BUTTERCUP'!!!!

Well it made me laugh anyway!

Rain, rain go away!

Given the recent monsoon season we seem to be suffering of late here in the UK, this seems an appropriate response!

All done, dusted and drilled!

Today marked my final visit to the dreaded dentist and the completion of all the work that needed attending too, only a filling this time but a damn big one.

But what was special about this particular visit was something else....the fact that for the first time in my life I plucked up the courage and went alone, completely unchaperoned, no friend, no father, no partner...just me, all by myself and dealt with one of my biggest fears! :o)

TFIF!!!!!

Apologies for the suggested expletive up there but it's heartfelt on this occasion so I'm going to allow it this once!

It's been a bloody horrible, horrible week for one reason and another and I thought would never come to an end but it has and finally it's Friday, so I have every intention of spending the weekend escaping and trying to forget it!

TFIF!

Have a good one guys. :o)

Rockin' awards

Well, I'm astounded, I got an award for blogging! Someone thinks 'gemmak' is pretty bearable (blush) and gave me this beautiful pink badge to prove it....that someone is 'Justitia', she and me go back a fair way in the Blogger world, well back to our beginnings here at any rate. Thank you Justitia....my first ever award thingy! Ohhh. :o)

This is what she said about me:

Gemmak Heh, she'll probably kill me because now she has to choose 5 female favs! Gem was the first ever person i read on Blogger, and we've remained in contact ever since. I love her blog for the ever changing templates, gorgeous photos and sheer honesty :)

........So all that remains is for me to do the honours and nominate my own favourite 5 girl bloggers ......sorry guys, this one's just for the fairer sex!

Lisa: Because without her my blog would never have gone through so many transformations, design-a-blog would never have taken off and through her 'dog and cat' blogging years ago we became and remain the very best of friends....oh and it's still Lisa's blog that keeps me changing!

Anna: Because her blog is sometimes magical, sometimes sad but always full of 'Willow'....an inspiring lady.

Misadventurous Melissa: Because her blog is always somewhere between, hilarious, horrendous and informative and because she deserves a medal just for dealing with what she does professionally let alone writing about it too!

Idgie: Because under various guises she has always been one of the most well written and entertaining bloggers there is out there.

and finally Karine of 'Graybar'. This is posthumously awarded as Karine sadly died sometime back but her blog was probably one of the most inspirational pieces of writing I ever read and the lady herself was completely amazing.

Ok, off you go girls, you are duly awarded and have to take the baton now....post your pretty pink badge and choose your own favourite five women bloggers!

In vein!

(Clickable)

To foe

Swirling, black but lightening bright,
your choking, swirling tendrils wind,
numbing, in your silence you pervade, invade,
You are not friend, you are but foe.

All enveloping, unrelenting,
you touch the soul, you take your hold,
a fight forever fought, forever lost, forever won,
lost and won a thousand time or more.

You take no prisoner, you take but strength,
your distraction winding through and through,
days to decades in dark frustration,
each battle won for merely brief sojourn.

Silence is your ally, for no one sees,
there is no outward sign, there is no outward scar,
but you are there, you co-exist,
you warp with fear, all beauty lost to you.

A fight borne bravely, misunderstood, or understood,
not seen not heard you take control,
your stark frustration, your blinding strength,
in fear you move to blinkered, baying hold.

National Motorcycle Week

Yes I know, it seems to be 'national somethingoranother' week every week but this time it just happens to be one close to my heart, National Motorcycle Week.

The aim is to promote the positive aspects of motorcycling (though the government might have you believe there are no positives), to make it safer, to make it accesible and to highlight to those who aren't involved what the 'biking' malarky is all about.

I am not about to bore you further with the bike thing, it's just one of those things you love or you hate but I might ask you, if you have a few minutes spare, to take a quick look at THIS, which perhaps brings home quite starkly one of the biggest problems those of us on two wheels face. That is not to denigrate those in 'tin boxes', for I too belong to that group and have been guilty of a lack of concentration myself but maybe, if we just take a second or two longer and try to do as the clip says the likes of myself can breath a little easier out there and make it into old age!

Sunset in St Ives

Saturday night, St. Ives, Cambridgeshire......I don't think I've seen one as good as this since I left Scotland.

Amazing!




(Clickable)

Oh no.......

....not another Friday the 13th!!!! :o/

Maybe I'll just stay put in bed today, my record on this date isn't good but hey, doesn't any Friday hold promise of the weekend to come....I think maybe I'll hold that thought instead! ;o)

Bright, shiny and new!

Finally, after five years in the dental wilderness I can see a light at the end of the tunnel! It's nearly all over and in a weeks time I can heave a big sigh of relief that for a while at least I don't have to psych myself up on a fortnightly basis to lie prostrate and terrified sit in the dreaded black chair.

This afternoon was my penultimate appointment (hurrahhhh), this one was to have the temporary crown removed and the real one fitted. The job was duly done, and I might add with minimal anaesthesia, despite having a problem with a touchy nerve in the tooth in question, believe me, I would rather suffer the 'ouch factor' than have one of the '10 seconds in the roof of the mouth' jabs that it would have usually entailed! They hurt like hell, even the dentist himself is only to happy to admit they are no fun at all.

And that was that, 20 minutes later I was sporting a bright shiny new tooth where for at least the last ten years there has been some shambles of temporary repairs.


It didn't come cheap, the NHS will only pay for a gold one (ugh) which at £200 is
hardly a bargain but I needed wanted a white one which comes in at £300. Luckily for me someone very kindly helped me out with the extra bit that I couldn't afford (thank you, you know who you are) and so now I don't have to feel like a character from a James Bond movie each time I smile! :o))

I'm actually quite proud of myself, I have a real serious problem with the dentist and it's taken me years to get this done but at last I did it and although the problems with my teeth are ongoing at least I've got over one big hurdle with them.

Walk? What do you mean walk!

I don't 'do' walking, I do cars and motorbikes but not feet!

Yet again yesterday afternoon my ever failing car was deposited in the garage, this time to have some bearings replaced. Now usually in these circumstances my father chauffeurs me to work but this morning he was feeling a little 'inclement' and so other arrangements had to be made.

Bear in mind here that I live almost two miles from my place of white van torture and I have the pleasure of having to start at the un-godly hour of 06.00 hrs.

So the options were considered....and they were few, just two in fact, take a cab or walk. Well I would be damned if was going to pay a cab, I don't really know why I won't take a cab other than they seem to border on a form of legal extortion and oft times have less than savoury characters at the wheel but a taxi for just two miles I didn't consider an option, so I was left with using my 'own steam' as my only other choice. There are no buses at that time in the morning.

I was up with the lark (or something) at 4.45, and ablutions and breakfast dealt with I hit the pavements at 5.30 and you know what.......I really enjoyed it! So much so in fact that I decided to take a somewhat convoluted route to avoid any kind workmate passing me and offering a lift!

Mornings are not my best time to put it mildly, if a day is going to be a crap day it will have been decided in my head within two hours of waking but very unexpectedly the 'walking business' set me up for a better day than many, it was really good, it kind of cleared my head, gave me something else to concentrate on other than my usual worryings and there were birds, lots of them fluttering and tweeting, cats returning from a night on the tiles I could pass the time of day with and even a fox to keep me amused as I pottered along humming to myself. As I passed through the town centre at that early hour the market traders were setting up for the day and as ever the cheery bunch they are they all greeted me as I walked by with various forms of 'good morning'..... as opposed to the usual 'head down and don't meet anyone's eye' attitude it seems people later in the day prefer.

I arrived at work 15 minutes early having also managed a little window shopping along the final stretch of my journey, and sat on a wall for a while watching the town gradually wake up to the sound of the nearby underground, the traffic slowly coming to life and people beginning to emerge from front doors...... yup, very surprisingly I quite like this early walking malarky, ok, so probably I won't be making a regular habit of it but now and again I think I might just leave the car behind on a nice morning!

The dead bat sketch

(The title might be a bit lost on those not familiar with Monty Python, see HERE.)

On one of my sandwich calls yesterday morning I was asked by the receptionist if I knew anything about bats! It seems that my predilection for all things furry had gone before me but that she hadn't realised cats, not bats are my forte!

However, I digress. "Bats"? I said curiously upon which she produced from below her desk a small black creature about the size of a 10p piece and plonked it unceremoniously into my hand.

"It's dead!" she said...... presumably trying to explain what already seemed to be staringly obvious, it's complete lack of movement had already suggested as much to me but I thought better of pointing it out, "I found it on the office stairs this morning" she carried on with. So there I am, in the posh

foyer of a world renowned institution, trying to sign into the visitors security log, my white van of wares running outside and with a tiny dead bat in my palm, it was all rather surreal and I was beginning to question quite what she expected me to do with it.

"I wondered if you might know why it died" Mrs Receptionist woman continued. Ok, so flattered I might be that she even considered my knowledge to include bat physiology but in reality I was at a complete and utter loss of course, to give her anything in reply other than a resounding "no". All I could tell her was it was a Pipistrelle bat and that it was a baby. The little thing was tiny, perfectly formed and so cute but sadly all the cuteness in the world hadn't saved it's little life.

Enter Mrs Receptionists colleague, a man apparently known for his knowledge on birds and who immediately became more help than I had been. He suggested she call the Bat Conservation Trust and see what they had to say.....she found the number, did just that and at the end of an animated conversation replaced the receiver triumphantly announcing they would send someone to collect it soon. It would appear that they too would be interested in how it met it's demise and wanted run some tests to discover if it's fatality was as the result of a strain of rabies carried and suffered by bats!

Hmmmm....that little snippet of information might have been appreciated before I carted it around in my hand inspecting it for 10 minutes!

I hasten to add at this point we are talking a different strain of rabies to that we usually think of, a strain with extremely low incidence.... but loathed though I am to say it, in retrospect there is a part of me that is slightly relieved it was 'beyond' biting me!

By today said dead bat had been duly collected, we await further information.