How bloody wonderful!

Do you detect a note of sarcasm there in the title of this post? Today is not going well... Fletch is away on business and I have 24/7 alone to try and occupy myself. I don't know anyone in these parts, I don't have a job to go too and too much time on my own is NOT my forte. Now to add to that I have another and particularly well timed (not) issue. A clue is to be found in the format of this post perhaps. When I have all this time to fill I really rely on my computer to keep my mind occupied... And what has happened? My bloody internet connection has dropped off is what has happened..... and after much expensive time on the phone to the halfwits at the ISP's (un) helpline it would appear that it's not likely to be restored anytime soon! I am not chuffed to say the least. In fact I am particularly un-chuffed! The halfwits have fobbed me off with a new modem which will take days possibly to arrive and which I have to wait in to sign for... though of course they can't even tell me which day it might deign to arrive on, so I cant even go out! On top of that I have a sneaking suspicion that when it does turn up it's not going to solve the problem. Un-chuffed is an understatement!.... and the clue in this post? I'm reduced to blogging from my phone. :-/

Summers evening

Yesterday 9pm.



(Clickable)

Fat face!

Joy!

Now on top of everything else I have a tooth abscess! It hurts, I'm hungry, I can't eat and I've got the right hump!

The quack was finally persuaded to prescribe me some anti-biotics this morning after much ado and 'words' about dentists, which incidentally, even if I could deal with the financially motivated oral professionals dentist malarkey right now I can't find one yet again who has any places on a list,....but I've done the dentist issue here til I'm blue in the face so I won't start that one again!

Yup, I've definitely got the hump today....and I can't even eat any chocolate. ppfftt.

Is it Friday yet?

This coming week is one I am entering without much relish, it's one of those odd weeks where a number of difficulties and worrying situations have managed, in their inimitable way, to come together all at once and I am faced with a week of feeling I will very probably be picking my way on a daily basis, through a confusing maze of emotional contradictions and practical difficulties in an effort to get to Friday unscathed.

There is no guarantee of course that everything will be resolved by the end of the week, I am merely focusing on Friday in an effort to break down the possible time span into manageable pieces. Very few of the situations are within my control at all, within any one's control in fact, they are just the crap bits of life 'happening', I can only stand by offering support and hoping for the best outcome for those concerned.

One however is within my control to a greater degree and that one I am endeavouring to face full on and with a positive attitude. I won't go into detail, that would only serve to make it harder for me and in reality it is something many wouldn't find a problem, but it is something I have battled with for years and as a consequence I intend to approach it with a positive outlook and as a chance to prove to myself and others that I can 'cut it' when I really need to.

The post title 'Is it Friday yet'....I know I shouldn't wish my life away, one of this weeks issues brings that home to me very starkly and really I am not wishing it away, I hope I will make best use of the days, but when Friday gets here I can't deny it will be a relief!

Tongue tied!

I think in my dotage I am becoming completely witless!

We have all heard others use the wrong words when trying to articulate something or laughed heartily at someone else's misfortune when they get so tongue tied that absolutely nothing coherent comes out and we have all, I suspect, done the same ourselves on occasion, but as I get older it seems to be a slightly more frequent occurence, along with the inability to think of the right word I want at the moment I need it.

Friday I surpassed myself in the stupidity stakes!

Fletch and I were watching the news and a clip of Chinese president Hu Jintao making his Olympic opening speech. I turned to Fletch and in all innocence and without a trace of apparent confusion said "Oh...I like his rectum"! FFS!

The look on his face, along with a very slight niggle in my own mind, that something was not quite right in the claptrap that I had just uttered warned me I was about to become the butt (no pun intended) of much derision and amusement!

Please someone, tell me that the words 'rectum' and 'LECTURN' at least sound slightly similar!!! Ugh, what a donkey!

I suppose I should only be glad that it wasn't me in front of a lecturn!

The Olympics........1972!

You know how once in a while you are reminded unexpectedly of something so acutely you can recall every last detail, the sights, the sounds, the emotions, even the smells, well yesterday, as I perused the BBC's coverage of the Olympics this year I was suddenly transported by a short clip of video back to my childhood. This clip, as it transpired, was to literally change my life. (Below is a version of same but the linked BBC version is much better.)


It was 1972 and TV wasn't encouraged in our family (despite it being my father's lifetime profession) but the Olympics were apparently different and relatively unlimited viewing time was allowed.

By chance I was sat in front of the dreaded 'box' when Olga Korbut did her winning floor routine for the gymnastic finals and unusually for me (Ms.limited concentration span here) I was absolutely transfixed.

Almost immediately my mother found herself with the task of finding one small daughter a gymnastic club that would allow her to 'try out'. As mothers do she found one post-haste and I was given my chance to 'impress' them a few weeks later. Oh, the confidence of youth, bear in mind here I had not had so much as a moments coaching thus far and other than watching Korbut I knew nothing whatsoever about the sport.

However, my confidence was rewarded. As the club put me through my paces for a day and instructed me on each move it began to be apparent that I might just have found my niche, whatever they asked me to do I could, it seemed and I won my place already able to perform much that the long standing members could.

I can still now remember the feeling, the realisation that 'Ms Average 11 year old kid' had found something she excelled in naturally, the attention I got from coaches and onlookers that day felt tantamount to adulation at my tender years and I felt like I was famous in my little world!

And that was the start of it, the next however many years were to be spent in a gym every waking moment I wasn't being schooled, weekends and evenings were spent competing at various levels and I often made it home with a winning result to my name. Remember that we are talking the 1970's, gymnastics, like all sports, was in comparison to current standards in it's infancy, but to the those not familiar with the finer points, I would have appeared at least, to have mastered much that my inspiration Korbut was competing with by the time I had been coached for maybe only a year.

Unfortunately to those with a practiced eye, namely the judges, I had a way to go and my dreams of getting into the British squad were just that, dreams, and realitically it wasn't going to happen. Yes, for the era, I was good if I say so myself, but I wasn't that good and as the years progressed and I repeatedly started to place second or third or even lower in the competition arena, the obsessively competitive kid in me began to lose interest. Spending all my time in a gymnasium with a coach barking orders at me and with most parts of my body bruised, bumped, twisted or injured in one way or another began to seem something less than the fun my contemporaries were by then engaged in....namely the usual teenage interests of partying, discos, boys and booze.

I was sweating it out and they were out partying, they wore fashionable clothes and I couldn't even get my way too big and un-feminine calf and thigh muscles into the narrow jeans of the day, they were developing a girly shape while I was looking more akin to a short version of Charles Atlas and they were building stamina for late nights while I was building stamina for day after day bandaging torn muscles and ligaments!

You can see why the interest began to wane!

Winning awards and medals might have had it's pull once but the little perfectionist already in me felt it was pointless if I wasn't going to make the grade. This coincided with my losing my coach (long and not very nice story) and being unable to find another as good..... and so almost as fast as I had started the whole malarkey years earlier, I stopped it and walked out of a gym for the last time at around age sixteen. I spent a few years fending off those trying to persuade me to become a coach but somehow it wasn't the same, my time in a gymnasium was well and truly over.

But it did change my life, it filled much of those odd early teenage years, it gave me direction, it taught me stamina and it gave me confidence, at least some of the time and it's the reason my asthmatic lungs have thus far had the capacity to let me breath normally despite my smoking!

Annoyingly in the longer term it's the reason I have the painful joints now of someone much older, being uber bendy and pummelling ones body to within an inch of it's life for years eventually takes it toll and though I don't understand the physiology I will never give Dolly Parton or Jordan a run for their money, the only part of a gymnast's chest that becomes 'well developed' is the pecs! ;o)

Strange what one little video clip can bring back!

I'm weak....very weak!

It would appear that my ability to resist the temptations of any mindless pass time is sorely lacking!

You name it, Facebook, Twitter, Friends Reunited, each time a new way to 'socially interact' appears or a new 'lowest common denominator' TV programme is scheduled I promise myself I won't get sucked in...and each time I do, despite my best efforts to ignore them all initially.

I have had my mouse on the Facebook delete button a thousand times but I never quite manage to hit it. I stopped paying for Friends Reunited so I couldn't use it....and then they made it gratis and I got sucked back in and Twitter....hell Twitter is the real killer, Twitter have hit the spot, quick, easy and simple, completely irresistible and should one get bored with merely 'Twittering' there is of course all the different apps. to access it with to investigate and play with too!

I could go into the long, drawn out psychological reasons these things get us (or me at least) and how the marketing guys win us over but I won't, you know all that stuff already no doubt and the fact is simple, they have us by the balls, they know what makes us tick and they have powerful tools to infiltrate our psyche, it's pretty clever stuff really,it's more my ability to resist it, even armed with that knowledge, that annoys me!

However, it gets worse! I have a confession, I resisted for three whole years but I have fallen off the waggon again this year and have become victim to that which is the horror of all humankind....Big Brother! Another mindless carry-on and this one not even requiring the ability to do more than press the 'on' button and stare idiotically at a screen! Not even a mouse to take control of!

You know it's bad when you wake up on a Friday morning and mention with copious amounts of glee to a horrified partner that it is 'eviction night'....and worse still find you are having trouble understanding why that happily imparted piece of information doesn't fill him with the same glee and is met instead with a silent and pitying stare!

You know those days....

....where you can think of absolutely nothing constructive or positive to say?

This is one of them!

I'm in a bit of a funk, lots on my mind, not enough sleep, yada, yada, yada.....

Thwack!

This is an old one and I've posted it before but it still makes me laugh! :o)

Red boat

Despite having a camera in my hand much of the time I very rarely take a photograph that I actually like, in fact I can think of probably only three in my lifetime!

However, at Robin Hoods Bay last weekend, just for once I managed to take a series that I think are ok so I'm gonna blow my own trumpet just a tiny bit! That said, I was lucky, I happened to notice a scrap of evening sunlight hitting the red tarpaulin when everything else was shrouded in mist...and it hung around long enough to take a few pictures!

Here are a few of them:







(All clickable but big files)

Animal antics

I'm away down south again for a day or two on 'patient transport' duties, TP is still doing remarkably well but it's kind of an ongoing thing.

I should be back soon but until then I'll leave you with a couple of scheduled posts and two amusing stories from the news recently.

The first, a guy who thought his asthma inhaler was for use on the cat!! You have to wonder about some people don't you!

.....and the second, a sheep that got stuck on the roof of a house!


*PS. Um....anyone I owe email too...sorry, I will get to it!

Blogging award!

Thank you to Kate of Shambles Manor who has seen fit to bestow upon me a blogging award, complete with golden cup!

I'm not entirely sure why I should deserve it but it's kinda nice just the same.

Now it's my turn to present the award to my favourite five blogs/bloggers so here goes, in no particular order:

1. Lisa of 'Lisa's Place'. Firstly for longevity, her blog might not seem one of very long standing but that's only because she shifts it with regular monotony! In actual fact Lisa has been blogging for years, her posts are thoughtful, insightful and often times very funny. We met through our blogs and became firm friends, we ran a small design business together for a time and there are probably only one or two other people in the world who know me as well as Lisa does.

2. Mr Nighttime. A relatively new blog to me but always fascinating, well written and very honest. I like this guys style.

3. Bendy Girl of 'Benefit Scrounging Scum'. For highlighting many of the difficulties faced by those with a disability and promoting discussion by her 'pull no punches', open and honest manner of writing.

4. Jenny of 'Demob Happy Teacher' . Jenny and I go back years almost to the very first day we began blogging. I think we were probably about the first to comment on one anothers blogs, so again she gets this for longevity along with her highly amusing and appealingly cynical slant on issues she encounters in life.

5. Leesa of 'Peace of my Mind', again another blog of long standing but she gets a gold cup because her photography is fantastic and amazing and always makes me smile!

So...pick up your cup and go nominate your five! :o)

Squiggly sky

What......no coffee??

Yesterday morning, having only just staggered out of bed, bleary eyed and with a brain only functioning at minimum capacity things began to fall apart almost immediately and just how much we rely on the infrastructure that is the 21st century was bought into sharp focus!

Our level of dependence on modern day conveniences, things we take for granted without a second thought, but that millions of people throughout the world don't have the privilege of, is really quite concerning and our ability to function efficiently without them is even more worrying.

What am I talking about? Well in this case power, the items littered around our lives that rely on it and the fact that at an early hour yesterday we had a complete power outage.....before I had even managed to get the first coffee of the day organised, this was not a good start to the day!

So, coffee-less and grumpy I decided that as I had a doctors appointment anyway I would wander into town early and have breakfast and the much needed coffee at Costa. Things were to go further downhill. As I approached the town I was aware of umpteen alarm sirens ringing, a sure sign that the power outage wasn't confined only to our building, and sure enough as I turned the corner into the main street it was very apparent that no-one had power anywhere. Ugh.... still no coffee!

From there on in it began to dawn on me just how much we take for granted. Next I thought I would make use of the time and go check my poorly bank balance....nope, ATMs don't function without electricity. Ok, I'll go buy something to eat and drink from the supermarket...nope, point of sale equipment doesn't work without electricity. Right then, I'll get to the doctors early....and sit in the window-less waiting room in the dark, unable to even read a magazine, fun and still no damn coffee!

Next problem, the doctor can't access my notes, they are on the computer of course, computers don't work without power, ok, I refresh his memory, I need a prescription.....nope, prescription requires computer, computer requires electricity....you know the rest!

Finally an 'old fashioned' handwritten prescription pad is located. I go back into town to get the prescription filled....nope, the pharmacy can't dispense, dispensing is via a computer, the computer of course needs power, there is no damn power, they can't do it manually, they don't have the 'systems' in place.

I decided I might as well go home, still without coffee. The entire town was littered with the staff of shops and banks standing aimlessly outside their premises looking completely lost, unable to do anything without power and completely at a loss as what to do other than apologise over and over again to disgruntled customers for the inconvenience....that wasn't their fault in the first place.

At home I was stuck still. I decided to tidy up, our bathroom and kitchen have no windows, pitch black in there, too dark to do anything, right, I could catch up on the ironing....no I couldn't, irons need power, ok, get showered....nope, showers need power....and on it went, no power, no router, no computer and still no bloody coffee!

We know of course how much we rely on modern conveniences but we don't truly realise just how much until they all fall off at once but strangely, once I had gotten over the being frustrated aspect and accepted there was damn all I could do about it, it was actually quite liberating. I played with Hammy and I read a book and all without the guilt of thinking I should be doing something else more constructive, because there was nothing else I could be doing.....because it all needs power!

I got my first cup of coffee around late lunch time when the boffins at the sub-station got their act together, and you know what, I survived! ;o)

Funny old world.