Deck the halls....

....with not very much!

If I'm honest we had decided that this year anything in the Christmas tree line was a waste of money that could be better spent, we won't be here for the festivities in any case, but then last minute we considered something small might be less 'bah humbug' than nothing at all! As a result, yesterday we braved the pre-Christmas crowds in an attempt at securing for ourselves a small tree. Our efforts were thwarted though, the small Christmas tree cupboards were bare.....so not to be off put, I tied the one bauble we own (and that's only because my mother bought it for me last week) to a lamp and......voila, decorations done!

Are you impressed? ;o)

Hey, minimalist is good!

Saturday silliness!

'The broccoli kitten' Enjoy.

Mammography for the size challenged!

I was reading an article somewhere a day or two back about one woman's difficulties in having her routine mammogram performed and it reminded me of a painful but hilarious experience of my own some years ago!

I have to begin here by explaining that I am somewhat 'challenged' in the breast department. I have run the gamut of 'fried egg' and 'pimple' jokes ever since the days in my adolescence when I kept waiting hopefully for my chest to expand to the impressive proportions of my contemporaries, but as the result of my being a gymnast it became patently obvious I would be waiting forever!

So, at age about thirty and being in a high risk group for a particular type of breast cancer - which seems somewhat unfair considering their lack of proportion - when I developed a lump the NHS swung into diagnostic action and off I was sent for a mammogram poste haste.

Now for those of you who are not familiar with this carry on, one is required to stand in front of a rather large (well it was in those days, they might have changed by now) machine, naked from the waist up, with the arm on the affected side raised above the head and the offending breast placed on a kind of 'plate', above which is the working part that takes the pictures. This I promise you is not an easy position to adopt in my case for the following reasons.

Firstly I was too bloody short - no surprise there then - and having adopted the prescribed position of torture it transpired that the distance between the ground and my breast was insufficient for me to actually get my breast where they needed it! I was shuffled and moved and poked by a very kind radiographer but to no avail, I was just not tall enough and in the end, with much apology, she asked me if I would be offended if she asked me to stand on a box! Hell no, I have been standing on boxes all my life, so off she went to find a box and came back with something plastic and officey looking and on it I got. Success, I was tall enough! Or so we thought.

But it was not to end there. The 'plate' on which I then had to 'display' my breast had markers on it, they are to assist the radiographer in lining up the camera so that suitable images can be obtained but my breast didn't even make it to the first marker and no amount of her maneuvering me would persuade it up to the starting line.

At this point the radiographer became a little embarrassed, she now had the probably usually unenviable task of telling her patient that her breast was effectively so small it was presenting a real logistical problem, but despite my stressed situation of facing the possibility that I had cancer, I couldn't help but find the whole issue hilarious.... and to her relief I began to fall about with laughter at what was rapidly turning into something akin to a slap-stick scene from a carry on film!

The ice was broken, I explained that I had no issue with being small chested and she had no need to spare my feelings or pussy-foot around me so off she went again and returned with a colleague who was apparently more practiced in this malarkey and who without compunction stood me on a book (it was a medical book so that was acceptable I assumed) ontop of the box, jammed the back of the plate to somewhere that felt it had entered my chest cavity and then manhandled my by now somewhat sore breast, with a severe degree of someone who knows that the job has to be done at any cost, into a position that she thought might do the trick. She warned me that this was going to be 'a little more painful than usual' ( I didn't know what usual was but hey)and then squished my offending body part, rapidly and without mercy between the plates and hit the 'go' button!

She wasn't wrong, it hurt like the very devil! I don't think it is ever comfortable but by her own admission she had to 'squish harder' than the norm to keep my bits in place and obtain her images. I have never had it done since and I don't relish having it done in the future, it was truly horrible but it was as funny as hell and the three of us finally finished up giggling like girls and with the required pictures successfully obtained.

I promise you, if you are breast tissue challenged this is something of an experience and not one for the faint-hearted, or at least it was in those days. Hopefully by now the procedures and equipment have evolved to include those of us who don't make it to page three status but as I near the age where this stuff becomes routine for me because of my risk levels I can't say I relish the thought, despite the amusement factor!

The Clampett effect!

I really begin to feel like The Clampetts in my damn car these days, I seem rarely to use it at the moment, but whenever I do it doesn't fail in it's ability to disappoint one way or another!

In the knowledge that yesterday I was visiting my parents, which involves a 180 mile drive, I decided on the previous day that I should take the crap car out 'just to check' it was in working order....and what I had intended to be a half hour outing turned into a whole day's debacle of hassle, stress and aggravation. Was the crap car in working order??....was it hell!

I had driven only five miles when suddenly a loud 'crack' sounded from the rear and in my mirror I witnessed the rear wiper flying through the air, gone forever. Bugger I thought, oh well, that's easily fixed, I'll sort it on my way home. I made it to my destination, Tesco's, did the shopping thing and set off in search of a new part. I had hardly hit the motorway again when I discovered that my nearside indicator had gone the way of the wiper and was making no effort whatsoever to indicate. Kaput! Bugger again! Mental note, 'Add to list of parts to buy, a new bulb'....and within seconds of that thought another loud clattering noise began emitting scarily from somewhere about me!

Moments later, with even more clattering, and before I had time to pull over anywhere to investigate the noise, a rather large 'bit of something' flew at high velocity off the side of the car and was to be seen, again in my rear view mirror, hurtling down the carriage-way and into a hedge! FFS!!!

I pulled over at the first opportunity and scrambled out into the rain, planted myself upside down in the mud and muck - oh joy - to investigate and discovered that the departing part had been a section of wheel arch and the remaining piece was dangling unhelpfully against the tyre, it's fixing grommets very absent! Exasperated I gave it a hard kick, temporarily securing it behind the body work...and carried on on my search for now more parts.

En-route I decided to check my tyre pressures, even that wasn't simple. The first place I tried the machine was defunct and the second had such a long queue that people were becoming fraught with one another and small arguments began to erupt. I opted to use the car wash first and go back to the air after that....next small disaster...the car wash broke with me in it! Arghhhh! Thankfully it didn't trap me inside and there was another, but I had to fight the attendant to issue me with another ticket! It was beginning to feel very much like it was one of those days I just shouldn't have got out of bed at all!

Eventually, by now very rankled, I emerged clean from the wash and pumped up my tyres, things were looking up....until when emptying the car ashtray I dropped it into the bottom of the cavernous bin and had to hang upside down on the edge with my whole body poking through the little hole in the side to retrieve it! Don't laugh!

The rest is a blur, I got lost trying to find Halfords so abandoned that plan and instead found a local car parts emporium, where I was provided with the wiper...only to find I didn't have enough money to pay for it and had to rush off to the bank and go all the way back. The indicator light wasn't the bulb but a corroded connection requiring more than a quick fix and the wheel arch was history, new parts not available and duct tape seemed to be the only short term solution on offer!

By the time I got home it was dark and I was completely fraught and frazzled, my half hour trip had taken most of the day and my car was hung together with tape, I was feeling less than 'chipper' to say the least. There is always an upside though. I did manage to make it to my parents yesterday, which had I not 'tested' the car the previous day I wouldn't have, a good time was had, we bought a Christmas tree and got it decorated and I only had to stop three times on my travels to boot the dangling arch back behind the metal work!!!

The Clampetts have nothing on me man!

A question of 'cooties'

Until yesterday I hadn't even heard of 'cooties', I think maybe it's an American thing, or maybe I'm just dumb but whatever, the question is this, are they real? There seems to be some difference of opinion, Wikipedia tell me they are an imaginary thing, kinda like we would say we have the 'lurgy', but others say they exist!

So do they or don't they? What's the Cootie thing all about? Would anyone like to enlighten a dumb Brit please?

Oh.....and whilst I was 'researching' cooties I found this amusing little item;

Orange - New heights of stupidity

I find this hard to believe, well actually I don't and that's the sad thing, we are so used to the idiocy of large corporations and their inefficiencies that we now accept almost any degree of stupidity as no great surprise!

When I lived in Scotland my ISP was Orange, yes that's ORANGE if you are in any doubt who I am talking about here! They were 'Wanadoo' at that time but it's all the same.

When I left Scotland I closed the account, cleared it and that was that. That was almost three years ago. Simple? You would have thought so...or maybe you know better!

In all that time I have heard nothing, I repeat nothing, from them, the account was closed, I couldn't access the email address etc. all seemed well, history.....that was until yesterday.

Yesterday I received a little missive via snail mail from their debt collecting factors telling me I owe them money, £31 to be precise. Not much I grant you and maybe I should have just paid it, but I dispute that I owe it in the first place and I was so incensed by the whole issue I decided this time I would dig my heels in. To that end I called the debt collectors, explained the situation and that I had subsequently been declared bankrupt in any case, so they could no longer make a claim against me.

As these companies do (I know from bitter experience during my bankruptcy proceedings that even the big boys, those high street names we are supposed to trust, are more than capable of lying to Jane Doe in their efforts to secure payment) they assumed I didn't know the laws surrounding bankruptcy (like one would go through all that and not know!) and lied to me about the powers they had. As a result they threatened to carry on chasing me until my dying day, yada, yada, yada. and said only Orange could call them off.

So, when I could eventually found a number for them, I called Orange..... and at expensive rates was left hanging on for almost an hour while they 'couldn't find any trace of me'. You don't say!. I tolerated two individuals with a joint I.Q. of a small peanut as long as my patience would allow but eventually I lost it and asked to speak to a supervisor....she turned out to be only marginally brighter but with the customer service skills of a rhinoceros.

To cut what became a very protracted story slightly shorter, I got nowhere, absolutely nowhere and so incensed further I really dug my heels in, probably immaturely but hell, I'm sick of it all, it's my turn to play stupid I figure!

She just didn't seem to grasp the principle of personal bankruptcy and that no matter what she did or threatened me with it would only cost her company money, and it would be her company contravening the law, not me. Neither could she understand why I might be ever so slightly miffed that the first and only thing I had heard in almost three years was from a debt collecting company, or that I maintain that I don't owe them the money in the first place!

So, I explained that I wouldn't be paying on principle and nor would I be jumping through their administrative hoops proving my case when I don't believe I have a case to prove in the first place and nor would I be intimidated by their threats, let's face it, I have dealt with my fair share of that these last few years and they can hardly destroy my financial status any more than it already has been. I won't ever realistically be in a position to obtain a mortgage or credit again whatever I do, so if they wish to keep spending their shareholders money chasing thirty quid, they can be my guest!!!

I know, I know, I probably should just play the game and had any one of them been remotely reasonable or behaved with common courtesy or common sense I would have, but I'm fed up to the back teeth with this kind of stupidity and this time they can go to hell, I can be stupid too!

Did I mention this is ORANGE?

So sue me, I repeat, I am bankrupt, I have nothing!

*And as a general footnote for anyone who considers bankruptcy the 'easy way out', something we bankrupts are accused of from time to time, I promise you, it is not!

Bite me!

Saturday's Christmas shopping expedition resulted in among all the other purchases, the acquisition of a Natural History Museum stuffed toy dinosaur! I will add quickly here that it was intended as a gift for a three year old relative......but on the drive home, Fletch decided it was pretty funky and it was his!....and in true demented comedic Fletch style it also acquired a name en-route, 'Doyouthinkhesaurus' (what do you call a blind dinosaur, yada, yada).

Yesterday morning I found it abandoned on the bedroom floor so when I made the bed I plonked it randomly, and without further thought, on the pillows with the only other squishy toy (I don't really do the whole soft toy thing) we posses and that was that.

Sometime later I went into the bedroom to get something and was met with this sight;


Perhaps I shouldn't have plonked it so randomly!

Well it amused me anyways, but ok, maybe I'm easily amused! :o)

Christmas is done - ish!

What a relief! We decided yesterday that there was no point stressing about the lack of Christmas organisation in gemmak's-ville and then doing precisely sod all about it, so yesterday we bit the bullet and headed off early (well early for us on a Saturday morning) to face the demon Christmas crowds in Milton Keynes!

And demon they were, nothing less than the expected nightmare greeted us but we focused on the task at hand, though Fletch might not agree I was as focused as I should have been given my proclivity to wander off the straight and narrow to check out 'me stuff' now and again!!

But persevere we did and by 5pm we exited into the cold, dark evening, complete with ninety percent of everything we need for the Christmas tussle in a few weeks time. Ok, we were jiggered and somewhat 'fraught', there had been the usual 'man out shopping domestic exchanges of opinion' (what is it with guys and shopping??) here and there but we had it almost all done, in one hit! Result!

Add to that, we managed to hook up with Punctuation for a quick coffee and a natter early on in the proceedings and then decided on our homeward journey that we deserved to go via a bar for dinner and a beer as our reward! ;o)

It's all good, ....save now for a lingering headache and the fact that Fletch, having had to spend his Saturday in retail hell, has now had to go into work for the rest of his weekend! Ooopsss.

A winter poem

I found this beautiful winter poem and thought it might be a comfort to you. It was to me, and it's very well written.

'WINTER'
a poem by Abigail Elizabeth McIntyre
'SHIT, It's Cold!'
The End.

Fire!

This building Fletch and I live in is an old converted paper mill parked squarely on the edge of a river. It has been utilised by various organisations since the long forgotten when days it actually milled paper, it was Clive Sinclair's company headquarters in the heady days of the ZX Spectrum and the infamous C5 and then later became the local police HQ until some property developer saw fit to 'develop' it and it became what it is today.

The building houses approx. 36 flats all inhabited by either retired people looking for a bijoux little spot on the river to see out their days or yuppy types who are rarely ever here....and then there is us who fall into neither category and in my case who is always here! And thereby hangs the tale.

There is of course a fire alarm system but quite why, other than to fulfill building regs. I have no idea because it sounds with such regular monotony everyone bar me it seems, has tuned it out in the firm belief that it is just another old duffer burning their breakfast toast! Which of course it is, but one day it just might not be...and do they care? Nope, seemingly not!

I have lost count of the times I have scrabbled into some clothes in a hurry, gathered up life's essentials (handbag, phone, lappy, Hammy....she fits nicely in my handbag for safe-keeping)) equally rapidly and bowled out onto the landing to find maybe, at the very most, only two or three velour and gold-lame slippered residents wandering about aimlessly asking me if they 'really need to go downstairs'! Ack!

The whole issue seems ridiculous, I don't know what current fire safety law requires and my days married to a fireman are so long gone I don't recall now exacely what they used to be, but here is a building with a high number of elderly and in many cases very infirm residents and we don't qualify, it would seem, for an 'automatic turn out' from the local fire station. Add to that, the regularly of the alarms means very few people take a blind bit of notice and even if they did, in a fire the lifts shouldn't be used and most of them aren't able to exit via the stairs!

No-one seems to know how to turn the alarm off, no-one but me understands the fire panel as far as I can tell, no-one has a key to turn it off anyways and despite my attempts at trying to get some information and assuming some responsibility for the situation, I have had no success. Add to that, whilst the alarm is tested weekly there has never been a drill in the time we have been here and in the event of an alarm or a fire we, the residents (that would likely be me then I suppose) are supposed to call the janitor guy....who lives five miles away and only has a push bike for transport! How freaking helpful, not!

One day, mark my words, something nasty is going to happen in this building and maybe then someone will start asking a question or two!

Too soon was the cry!

Christmas that is! How is it that the Christmas's of recent years have developed this nasty habit of stealth? They seem to creep up on me silently and then suddenly pounce, taking me by surprise and causing a state of last minute panic. I used to be organised, I used to have every last detail planned with military precision.... but no longer it seems. There is only twenty one days left now until the zero hour and I am apparently completely incapable of getting my mind into any semblance of Christmas order whatsoever. It's just coming way too soon and I'm not ready for it, at all!

Not so much as a card has been purchased let alone written, our brief endeavour at getting a tree fell into disarray within minutes when we both lost patience with the pushing and shoving hordes of a Sunday afternoon's retail delight and try as I might, I am utterly clueless and without inspiration as to what might be provided as gifts for one and all. Despite hours surfing the interweb for ideas and scanning pages of glossy catalogues that promise to solve all my present problems I have achieved nothing, nada, zip!

I suspect, this year, as last, the situation will only be resolved by a week or two more of blind panic, of trying to shoe-horn myself into the Christmas spirit and then finally, with only a day or two left, making a mad and protracted dash around Milton Keynes shopping mall and spending way too much money because nothing suitable in the gift line is ever within pre-defined budgets! That of course will then be followed by mad dash number two, the one to get all the wrapping and bow tying done and the cards delivered by hand, because of course, I will also have missed the final posting dates!

A final bout of festive panic and mayhem will then doubtless ensue when the sudden realisation hits me that I have forgotten a gift for someone or am missing another item of utmost importance for the (tongue firmly in cheek) 'perfect Christmas experience'..... at a point only hours from having to look cool, collected, serene and full of Christmas cheer and joy!

Panic, panic, panic.

Bah bloody humbug!

Afghanistan - The ultimate price

The politics of war are complicated, doubtless if they weren't the conflicts would not be conflicts in the first place and no matter which war or where, whether the reasons are valid in our opinion or whether we agree or disagree with the principles of an individual situation, one thing doesn't ever change..... and that is simply that the guys and gals out there at the sharp end, and their families back home, show immense courage and fortitude, regardless of their own political views.

These are the people we depend on to face the dangers and hardships when we agree with the reasons for a given conflict and as such they deserve our support just the same when we don't. We live in a democracy and whilst I'm not naive about how much of a democracy it actually is, it is the one we have and it beats many other options.

Those serving in war zones have no more choice in where they serve and why they find themselves in a particular place than the rest of us do and as such, regardless of the politics we should be proud of their efforts and of their bravery, maybe even more so for just that reason, they have no choice in where they serve but they serve nonetheless with the same courage and skill regardless of their personal feelings.

Situations such as have occurred in the UK recently, where service personnel, far from being able to show pride, have been advised not to wear uniform in public because of the risk of assault in showing publicly that they are members of the armed forces, I find utterly repulsive and appalling! Yes, they make the choice to serve but not the choice as to where they serve. and we should be proud of our service men and women and those of our allies because it is they, not you or I or the politicians in their ivory towers, that face the true horrors of war and it is they, not us who pay the ultimate price.


Rest in peace CPT Rob Yllescas.

How do you make a hormone?

Don't pay her! Ha!

Sorry, very poor joke but I couldn't resist and there has to be a lighter side to the whole middle years thing than my current state of hormonal madness!

Hormones, who'd have 'em!? The damn things are the bane of my recent life. When we are teenagers and our hormones first start kicking ass and are out of kilter we are told merely that 'it will soon pass', it's 'growing up'. What anyone fails to enlighten us on is that once we hit that 'woman of a certain age' phase in life, things are only going to get a whole lot worse.

Now then you guys, I know it's not all fun and rosy for you being on the receiving end of all this nonsense, you take your fair share of the flak, let's face it, we women can be something of a confusion when we are in, shall we say, a more stable state of hormonal balance so we must be almost impossible to fathom when we lose the chemical balance plot, hell, I can't understand myself let alone expect someone else too much of the time but that said, a little more understanding and a little less derogatory comment and hilarity would be good! ;o)

For me these recent months have suddenly become pretty 'hormonally challenged', gone are the times of a few days mental and physical uproar prior to a period and then happy relief, instead they have been replaced with weeks of the damn carry on and if I'm lucky I might manage a few days break before the whole emotional and physical malarkey begins again. Gone too is any semblance of order or regularity, replaced instead with a completely haphazard timetable of symptoms that mostly just don't have the good grace to bugger off for long at all.

So, next time you guys scathingly make reference to hormones or laugh at our stupidity, you might like to consider trying to live your daily life with a permanent bad skin and hair day, pains in your joints, your abdomen and your thighs, adhoc bruises about your person where a sudden bout of hormonal clumsiness caused you to lose all sense of spatial awareness and bump into things like Mr Blobby on acid, feeling too cold one minute and too damn hot the next, the headache from hell for weeks at a time, feeling like your are about to get a bout of the flu, permanently, retention of enough water to make an adventure trek across the Sahara a distinct possibility and worst of all, fluctuating from feeling angry to weepy at a seconds notice and then back again, for absolutely no reason at all!

Ok, ok I know it sounds pretty funny and weird but the women among you will know where I'm coming from only too well and I'm sure I'm not the only one frustrated by feeling so dysfunctional and out of control. In real terms it is pretty life altering at times, there are things I really could not consider trying to do in this condition because I know I wouldn't be safe, driving for instance, with no spatial awareness takes some degree of courage or stupidity and has to be considered carefully before being undertaken!

So, this is not a 'you don't understand us' whinge, more a little plea for some understanding or sympathy when we apparently behave like we lost all sense of cognitive thought and an acceptance that the phrases along the lines of 'oh, it must be that time of the month again' or 'it's just your hormones' aren't very helpful! Oh, and our ability to think is not affected....just our reaction to that thinking....and yes, I know, what a reaction it is sometimes!

I wouldn't like to be on the receiving end of it that's for sure, but I would prefer it, I suspect, to being on the end I am! All this and for what? I didn't even get to make any use of my damnable reproductive system!

And don't please, anyone suggest HRT...I'm not allowed, my family medical history makes it not an option.

Me? Bad tempered? Perish the thought. Chocolate! where's the freakin chocolate!

Christmas is coming....

.....and the goose is getting fat, or not, you are completely uninspired where gift buying is concerned, your cards remain in a dark corner somewhere in a still unwritten heap, your tree hasn't yet ventured from the loft where you put it on twelfth night last time around..... and your blog desperately needs it's Christmas look, if only you had the time!

So, gemmak designs to the rescue, no faff no fiddle, I will take care of the whole blog thing for you. Just choose from one of the 'ready to wear' Christmas designs or order a bespoke Christmas look, and like magic it shall be done, all from a starting price of just £12 or $18 at current rates.

How easy could it be? I'll even host the images and return you to normal after the festive season is over all in the price.... and if you are looking for an inspired gift for a blogging friend, what more could they ask than a gemmak designs gift certificate?!