There's a restaurant here that I like to go to. It's quiet, they do lovely food, have generally good service, aren't stupidly expensive, and manage to be family-friendly while not being a kiddie restaurant. The layout is of lots of different "rooms", up and down various flights of stairs, but they've made the effort with accessibility - the main entrance and bar (and the toilets) are ground-floor and totally accessible, and a combination of Stannah stairlifts and ramps/level access fire escapes mean that while a wheelchair user can't access every table in the place, they can use most of them. Usually they ask if I can manage the stairs and make an effort to seat us at a table with as few stairs to contend with as possible. Yesterday, Pip had a few hours without the Littlun, so we decided to go there for a spot of lunch.
Mary and Pip enter the restaurant, and approach the reception desk.
PIP: Good afternoon, could we have a table for two, please?
The waitress stands in silence for a few seconds, staring at Mary and Pip in utter shock or possibly disbelief, before turning and running off up the stairs.
PIP: Was it something I said?
MARY: Maybe "table for two" has become a slang term for something unspeakable.
PIP: (peeking up the stairs) I hope she's okay.
Enter the waitress, slowly making her way down the stairs with much trepidation. She stares at Mary and Pip in silence.
PIP: Is everything alright?
The waitress continues to stand silently. Mary and Pip start looking about for another staff member, to alert them that their colleague may be unwell.
WAITRESS: (slowly, pointing) Walking stick!
(pause)
MARY: (baffled) Yes, yes it is.
WAITRESS: (pointing) Out there. Fire door.
MARY: Excuse me?
WAITRESS: Stairs!
PIP: You want us to go in the fire door out there?
The waitress nods and without waiting for a response, runs off up the stairs. Mary and Pip exchange a glance, shrug, and make their way back outside, round to the fire door, which is open, and into the restaurant, where the waitress is beaming proudly by a table with two menus on it.
Strangely - or perhaps not - once we were seated, the waitress had a full and complete grasp of conversational English, albeit with a lifelong Suffolk accent.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Knitting and the Unholy Experiment
The last few days have been mostly taken up with knitting activity. This has had two main facets - the Group, and the Unholy Experiment.
The Unholy Experiment was Steve's idea (go on, you can all act surprised now). We were having a Lazy Monday, with no plans to go out or to do anything particularly energetic, partly so I could be ready for Active Tuesday (which turned out a lot more active than I'd imagined). He was fidgeting with small screwdrivers while printing off some study notes, and I was curled up knitting.
Him: Would it be possible to knit on screwdrivers?
Me: I don't see why not.
Him: How geeky would that be, knitting on screwdrivers! X, Y and Z would be so jealous!
Me: (taking screwdrivers) It would be tricky, but definitely possible... hmmm... go grab the orange yarn.
Click on the picture to go to my flickr stream and see more process photographs.
I am pleased to confirm that yes, knitting with screwdrivers is perfectly possible.
We used one Phillips-head and one flat-head, but it would be easier with two Phillips-head screwdrivers. The main problem we encountered was that the screwdrivers are not of a uniform diameter - there's the thin black bit which is just shy of 3mm (US size 3), then the smooth silver bit is 4.5mm (US size 7) and the ridged silver bit, as well as being ridged (gaa) is 5mm (US size 8). We could have overcome this by using larger screwdrivers with handles, but I feel that the weight of the handles would have made knitting even trickier and dropping/fumbling one of them and thus losing stitches even more of a possibility. The second difficulty was avoiding tearing the yarn with the sharp bits. The third problem was that while knitting needles are made to slide comfortably against each other, these scrape. It's not as pleasant a knitting sensation as normal needles offer.
They're going to come and take me away soon, so moving swiftly on, Active Tuesday.
Someone on flickr had recommended Web Of Wool as being "the best knitting shop in Leamington" so I decided I had to try and find it and that Tuesday would be a good day to do this.
53 Regent Grove, Holly Walk. I didn't know Regent Grove but Holly Walk is where Social Services and the Jobcentre and all that sort of thing are. I decided Regent Grove must be some sort of house-name (it's that sort of area). I figured a wool shop would be easy enough to spot, and set off.
Alas, Regent Grove is NOT a house, but a street which then morphs into Holly Walk. Alas also, Web Of Wool not only looks very much like a residential house from outside, but is next to a florist, which is bright and colourful and very "there" in the way that florists are, and it's near a corner. Because of the arrangement of dropped kerbs and crossings, I didn't go all the way along that strip of pavement - I looked along registering "hotel, florist, couple of regular houses" and then started scanning the pavement for my next crossing point.
After two and a half laps of Holly Walk I decided the hell with it and wandered into one of the businesses to see if their receptionist could offer a clue. She directed me to what appeared to be a tailor's shop, and thankfully they were able to tell me that Web of Wool was "next to the florist's over there".
About half an hour of poddling about on the scooter, I wasn't disappointed. Web Of Wool turned out to be as nice and relaxing and friendly a shop as you could wish for. The lovely Anna helped me look for a pattern that might be good, helped me pick some yarn for the project I chose to do, and also told me about their knitting group, which is on Tuesday evenings.
So after a rest at home, Steve drove me back into town and I attended my first ever knitting group. It was great! Since leaving work, I've become really unused to sitting in a room with several other people. But everyone was really welcoming, and while I couldn't participate much in discussions, it was nice listening to other people chat rather than reading it off a screen. The knitters were helpful when I ran into trouble with reading my pattern (it still looks like a cat jumped on the keyboard to me) or wanted to check something. It took a lot out of me, which was a foregone conclusion. But I took away several email addresses, and I feel that I'll be welcome to join them again next time I'm in Leamington, and hopefully I'll be able to make a couple of friends over here. Not next week though, as tomorrow I'm going back home.
Steve came to collect me and we went to get something to eat at a nice, quiet place. To be honest, we could have gone to the Ritz or McDonalds and I wouldn't have noticed the difference, I was so shattered. But definitely happy.
The Unholy Experiment was Steve's idea (go on, you can all act surprised now). We were having a Lazy Monday, with no plans to go out or to do anything particularly energetic, partly so I could be ready for Active Tuesday (which turned out a lot more active than I'd imagined). He was fidgeting with small screwdrivers while printing off some study notes, and I was curled up knitting.
Him: Would it be possible to knit on screwdrivers?
Me: I don't see why not.
Him: How geeky would that be, knitting on screwdrivers! X, Y and Z would be so jealous!
Me: (taking screwdrivers) It would be tricky, but definitely possible... hmmm... go grab the orange yarn.
Click on the picture to go to my flickr stream and see more process photographs.
I am pleased to confirm that yes, knitting with screwdrivers is perfectly possible.
We used one Phillips-head and one flat-head, but it would be easier with two Phillips-head screwdrivers. The main problem we encountered was that the screwdrivers are not of a uniform diameter - there's the thin black bit which is just shy of 3mm (US size 3), then the smooth silver bit is 4.5mm (US size 7) and the ridged silver bit, as well as being ridged (gaa) is 5mm (US size 8). We could have overcome this by using larger screwdrivers with handles, but I feel that the weight of the handles would have made knitting even trickier and dropping/fumbling one of them and thus losing stitches even more of a possibility. The second difficulty was avoiding tearing the yarn with the sharp bits. The third problem was that while knitting needles are made to slide comfortably against each other, these scrape. It's not as pleasant a knitting sensation as normal needles offer.
They're going to come and take me away soon, so moving swiftly on, Active Tuesday.
Someone on flickr had recommended Web Of Wool as being "the best knitting shop in Leamington" so I decided I had to try and find it and that Tuesday would be a good day to do this.
53 Regent Grove, Holly Walk. I didn't know Regent Grove but Holly Walk is where Social Services and the Jobcentre and all that sort of thing are. I decided Regent Grove must be some sort of house-name (it's that sort of area). I figured a wool shop would be easy enough to spot, and set off.
Alas, Regent Grove is NOT a house, but a street which then morphs into Holly Walk. Alas also, Web Of Wool not only looks very much like a residential house from outside, but is next to a florist, which is bright and colourful and very "there" in the way that florists are, and it's near a corner. Because of the arrangement of dropped kerbs and crossings, I didn't go all the way along that strip of pavement - I looked along registering "hotel, florist, couple of regular houses" and then started scanning the pavement for my next crossing point.
After two and a half laps of Holly Walk I decided the hell with it and wandered into one of the businesses to see if their receptionist could offer a clue. She directed me to what appeared to be a tailor's shop, and thankfully they were able to tell me that Web of Wool was "next to the florist's over there".
About half an hour of poddling about on the scooter, I wasn't disappointed. Web Of Wool turned out to be as nice and relaxing and friendly a shop as you could wish for. The lovely Anna helped me look for a pattern that might be good, helped me pick some yarn for the project I chose to do, and also told me about their knitting group, which is on Tuesday evenings.
So after a rest at home, Steve drove me back into town and I attended my first ever knitting group. It was great! Since leaving work, I've become really unused to sitting in a room with several other people. But everyone was really welcoming, and while I couldn't participate much in discussions, it was nice listening to other people chat rather than reading it off a screen. The knitters were helpful when I ran into trouble with reading my pattern (it still looks like a cat jumped on the keyboard to me) or wanted to check something. It took a lot out of me, which was a foregone conclusion. But I took away several email addresses, and I feel that I'll be welcome to join them again next time I'm in Leamington, and hopefully I'll be able to make a couple of friends over here. Not next week though, as tomorrow I'm going back home.
Steve came to collect me and we went to get something to eat at a nice, quiet place. To be honest, we could have gone to the Ritz or McDonalds and I wouldn't have noticed the difference, I was so shattered. But definitely happy.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
New Doctor
Firstly, after the bout of knitting woes, things started going better again. I now have a blue swatch of ribbing and am part-way through a blue swatch of seed stitch (aka moss stitch). I think this is my favourite so far to look at and feel, but it does seem to take a bit longer to get to the end of the row.
Secondly, I've had a letter from the Disability Living Allowance people, explaining that they have received my claim renewal, and want to write to my GP for more information. That's pretty normal and nothing to worry about. After all, it'd be a bit pointless if they didn't check with at least one medically qualified person.
When I first applied, just under two years ago, I was quite pleased to hear that they would contact my GP. Dr W has known me and my family since I was a kiddie. She saw my childhood illnesses, my mum's long-term health problems, my marriage and subsequent divorce, my teenage smear-test scare. She's the person who diagnosed me with The Lurgy. She knows me well enough to know I'm not the sort of person who would be trying it on. She knows the sort of lifestyle I had before I got ill, and how it compares to the activity levels I have now. I could not think of a non-family person better placed to give the DWP useful, in-depth and accurate information about my health.
She is also, currently, on maternity leave.
I have seen Dr M, the locum who is covering for her, twice. Both times were follow-ups regarding an ear infection I had a while back. She was very nice, efficient, and gave the impression that she knew what she was talking about. Unfortunately my ear infection had sweet buggerall to do with my Long Term Lurgy, unless you count that I've had as many, if not more, visible "oozy" acute infections (yum) in the last couple of years since I got ill, than I had in the fifteen years before.
So, when I saw her about the ear thing, I mentioned that I was working on a DLA renewal and that they might want Dr W's input, which may fall to her. She smiled and said this had already happened with one of Dr W's patients - what she would like to do is make a long appointment with me once they contact her, and we can go through her part of the form then.
No problem, right?
Uh...
My diagnosis label is "ME/CFS". In non-medical terms that means "we don't know". There are three main schools of thought. One is that people with ME/CFS have a psychiatric problem - that the reason we experience the physical symptoms is because of some past uncovered trauma, or low self-esteem, or stress issues. Sort of like a panic attack, only instead of the physical manifestation of our mental issues being shivering and trouble breathing and pounding pulse, we get the pain and whatnot, and instead of it being for a few minutes at a time, it's more or less constant. Another viewpoint is that people with ME/CFS have a biological problem that medical science doesn't have a conclusive test or cure for yet. Medical research from the biological viewpoint is ongoing but underfunded - after all, ME isn't a spectacular illness with a high death rate. The other widely held opinion is that people with ME/CFS are making it all up, for fun/attention/time off work. Thankfully this is more rife among the general public than the medical profession.
I do not know which of these theories Dr M subscribes to.
Dr W can confidently feel certain I'm not malingering, because she has known me for many years. How to convince Dr M, who I've known for all of fifteen minutes, that I'm not a workshy scumbag?
Similarly, I know that if Dr W thought my problems were psychiatric, she would have immediately referred me for whatever flavour of psychiatric help she deemed most appropriate. As such, on my original DLA forms, the minor mental health trouble I had were listed as a secondary effect of my illness - in other words, that I got bouts of depression and mood swings because I lost my job/was unable to go out like I used to/got frustrated by my physical limitations/was in a large amount of pain. But what if, this time, Dr M puts it all in as "mental health"? Will they consider my illness to have changed, and would I get into trouble for that?
Or even if Dr M accepts that I'm not making it up and am psychiatrically sound, how do I properly describe the effects my illness has on me without sounding like a whinger? When I'm meeting people, particularly if I don't know them well, I try to be positive and upbeat, try to make a good impression. I'm full of painkillers and if the illness comes up I say things like "the hourly pay sucks but the parking's great" or "meh, it's only a bit of pain, it's not actually going to kill me". What the DLA people need to know about are the bits I don't like people to see - about the pain that is so bad it reduces me to tears, the dizziness that makes me vomit, the lack of dexterity that makes me drop my plate of dinner all over myself and the floor. See, you can hear those violins already. So how do I give a clear picture without giving a bad impression?
Secondly, I've had a letter from the Disability Living Allowance people, explaining that they have received my claim renewal, and want to write to my GP for more information. That's pretty normal and nothing to worry about. After all, it'd be a bit pointless if they didn't check with at least one medically qualified person.
When I first applied, just under two years ago, I was quite pleased to hear that they would contact my GP. Dr W has known me and my family since I was a kiddie. She saw my childhood illnesses, my mum's long-term health problems, my marriage and subsequent divorce, my teenage smear-test scare. She's the person who diagnosed me with The Lurgy. She knows me well enough to know I'm not the sort of person who would be trying it on. She knows the sort of lifestyle I had before I got ill, and how it compares to the activity levels I have now. I could not think of a non-family person better placed to give the DWP useful, in-depth and accurate information about my health.
She is also, currently, on maternity leave.
I have seen Dr M, the locum who is covering for her, twice. Both times were follow-ups regarding an ear infection I had a while back. She was very nice, efficient, and gave the impression that she knew what she was talking about. Unfortunately my ear infection had sweet buggerall to do with my Long Term Lurgy, unless you count that I've had as many, if not more, visible "oozy" acute infections (yum) in the last couple of years since I got ill, than I had in the fifteen years before.
So, when I saw her about the ear thing, I mentioned that I was working on a DLA renewal and that they might want Dr W's input, which may fall to her. She smiled and said this had already happened with one of Dr W's patients - what she would like to do is make a long appointment with me once they contact her, and we can go through her part of the form then.
No problem, right?
Uh...
My diagnosis label is "ME/CFS". In non-medical terms that means "we don't know". There are three main schools of thought. One is that people with ME/CFS have a psychiatric problem - that the reason we experience the physical symptoms is because of some past uncovered trauma, or low self-esteem, or stress issues. Sort of like a panic attack, only instead of the physical manifestation of our mental issues being shivering and trouble breathing and pounding pulse, we get the pain and whatnot, and instead of it being for a few minutes at a time, it's more or less constant. Another viewpoint is that people with ME/CFS have a biological problem that medical science doesn't have a conclusive test or cure for yet. Medical research from the biological viewpoint is ongoing but underfunded - after all, ME isn't a spectacular illness with a high death rate. The other widely held opinion is that people with ME/CFS are making it all up, for fun/attention/time off work. Thankfully this is more rife among the general public than the medical profession.
I do not know which of these theories Dr M subscribes to.
Dr W can confidently feel certain I'm not malingering, because she has known me for many years. How to convince Dr M, who I've known for all of fifteen minutes, that I'm not a workshy scumbag?
Similarly, I know that if Dr W thought my problems were psychiatric, she would have immediately referred me for whatever flavour of psychiatric help she deemed most appropriate. As such, on my original DLA forms, the minor mental health trouble I had were listed as a secondary effect of my illness - in other words, that I got bouts of depression and mood swings because I lost my job/was unable to go out like I used to/got frustrated by my physical limitations/was in a large amount of pain. But what if, this time, Dr M puts it all in as "mental health"? Will they consider my illness to have changed, and would I get into trouble for that?
Or even if Dr M accepts that I'm not making it up and am psychiatrically sound, how do I properly describe the effects my illness has on me without sounding like a whinger? When I'm meeting people, particularly if I don't know them well, I try to be positive and upbeat, try to make a good impression. I'm full of painkillers and if the illness comes up I say things like "the hourly pay sucks but the parking's great" or "meh, it's only a bit of pain, it's not actually going to kill me". What the DLA people need to know about are the bits I don't like people to see - about the pain that is so bad it reduces me to tears, the dizziness that makes me vomit, the lack of dexterity that makes me drop my plate of dinner all over myself and the floor. See, you can hear those violins already. So how do I give a clear picture without giving a bad impression?
Friday, April 13, 2007
Look Ma, No Stitches
It's not been a great 24 hours for the knitting efforts.
I've mostly being working on the basic garter stitch scarf Mk II which is coming along slowly but surely.
However, yesterday I got my new knitting book - Stitch 'n Bitch by Debbie Stoller - so I picked up my test piece to have a bit of an experimenty.
As the knitters in the audience will be aware, a piece that is just stocking stitch tends to curl in on itself, so I had the bright idea of doing a few rows of normal basic garter stitch before embarking on anything else. I could probably do garter stitch in my sleep by now.
This confidence may be the reason why the needles leapt from my hands, pulling several stitches off themselves, which promptly undid, due to me tightening my grip on the yarn as the needles dropped. I tried to kind of slide them back on but it just wasn't happening.
A few choice curses later, while I ripped the swatch apart, and I figured, hey, it was only a test piece, no biggie. So I cast on again to start trying to do what I was planning to do - some ribbing. Cast on, did some rows, rested, did some rows, showed it to Steve, who agreed it was coming out right. Marvellous. I thought about getting up to grab the camera and take a picture, but decided that instead I'd go to bed and then in the morning, try to make a square of it and then cast off.
Two rows into the morning, I'd somehow acquired an extra stitch (probably from not putting the wool to the front/to the back correctly) and was getting in one hell of a snarl-up where the yarn was unravelling and I think I must have shoved the needle through the yarn rather than through the stitch. I tried to undo it but with limited success, and just as I thought I'd got it, out plopped the right-hand needle again, taking the yarn with it.
This was the point at which I threw the needles.
I just don't get it. It's wrapping string around a stick, for pity's sake, how hard can it be? Also - how come I never stuffed up like this while doing the first scarf, the first casting on, the first zillion rows of garter stitch?
Anyway, I've cast on again, with the now rather battered blue wool, and I've done about eight rows of ribbing. Again. If it cocks up this time I'm going to cut the yarn and try again with a non-wibbly length. Or get stabby with the knitting needles, either's good.
I've mostly being working on the basic garter stitch scarf Mk II which is coming along slowly but surely.
However, yesterday I got my new knitting book - Stitch 'n Bitch by Debbie Stoller - so I picked up my test piece to have a bit of an experimenty.
As the knitters in the audience will be aware, a piece that is just stocking stitch tends to curl in on itself, so I had the bright idea of doing a few rows of normal basic garter stitch before embarking on anything else. I could probably do garter stitch in my sleep by now.
This confidence may be the reason why the needles leapt from my hands, pulling several stitches off themselves, which promptly undid, due to me tightening my grip on the yarn as the needles dropped. I tried to kind of slide them back on but it just wasn't happening.
A few choice curses later, while I ripped the swatch apart, and I figured, hey, it was only a test piece, no biggie. So I cast on again to start trying to do what I was planning to do - some ribbing. Cast on, did some rows, rested, did some rows, showed it to Steve, who agreed it was coming out right. Marvellous. I thought about getting up to grab the camera and take a picture, but decided that instead I'd go to bed and then in the morning, try to make a square of it and then cast off.
Two rows into the morning, I'd somehow acquired an extra stitch (probably from not putting the wool to the front/to the back correctly) and was getting in one hell of a snarl-up where the yarn was unravelling and I think I must have shoved the needle through the yarn rather than through the stitch. I tried to undo it but with limited success, and just as I thought I'd got it, out plopped the right-hand needle again, taking the yarn with it.
This was the point at which I threw the needles.
I just don't get it. It's wrapping string around a stick, for pity's sake, how hard can it be? Also - how come I never stuffed up like this while doing the first scarf, the first casting on, the first zillion rows of garter stitch?
Anyway, I've cast on again, with the now rather battered blue wool, and I've done about eight rows of ribbing. Again. If it cocks up this time I'm going to cut the yarn and try again with a non-wibbly length. Or get stabby with the knitting needles, either's good.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Lovely Day (and Twitter)
As I'm at Steve's at the moment, and the weather is getting warmer, we've wiped down and charged up the scooter and today I took it out.
I had planned to simply trundle off to Asda, and get some milk and whatnot for the weekend. It's a nice enough little trundle and has the added bonus of being productive.
However, Steve convinced me that it would be a better idea for me to go into town, maybe go to the park, have an ice cream, that kind of thing. I didn't take much convincing - it's just been far too gorgeous a day to waste.
So off I trundled into town. After a bit, Steve got on the motorbike and came to meet me for lunch at the Victoria Coffee House, and then we went for a walk in the park, Jephson Gardens. It's easy to control the scooter with one hand, so we were able to hold hands like any other couple - because it's nice, rather than for support. I think a few people wondered why he was holding a motorbike helmet though.
Regrettably I had to turn down Steve's offer of taking me out for dinner tonight, but nevertheless, he went and got some takeaway and we've had a wonderfully relaxing evening in. Ahhh.
In other news, I've started playing with Twitter. I'm not entirely sure how to find people on it, I think you need to exchange email addresses first so that one of you can send the other an invite? but really I am a long way from certain about that. If you use Twitter and you want to be added to my friends, post a comment containing your email address. I'll then invite you, but won't publish your comment, so your email address won't be shown to the world from here.
(edited to add tags)
I had planned to simply trundle off to Asda, and get some milk and whatnot for the weekend. It's a nice enough little trundle and has the added bonus of being productive.
However, Steve convinced me that it would be a better idea for me to go into town, maybe go to the park, have an ice cream, that kind of thing. I didn't take much convincing - it's just been far too gorgeous a day to waste.
So off I trundled into town. After a bit, Steve got on the motorbike and came to meet me for lunch at the Victoria Coffee House, and then we went for a walk in the park, Jephson Gardens. It's easy to control the scooter with one hand, so we were able to hold hands like any other couple - because it's nice, rather than for support. I think a few people wondered why he was holding a motorbike helmet though.
Regrettably I had to turn down Steve's offer of taking me out for dinner tonight, but nevertheless, he went and got some takeaway and we've had a wonderfully relaxing evening in. Ahhh.
In other news, I've started playing with Twitter. I'm not entirely sure how to find people on it, I think you need to exchange email addresses first so that one of you can send the other an invite? but really I am a long way from certain about that. If you use Twitter and you want to be added to my friends, post a comment containing your email address. I'll then invite you, but won't publish your comment, so your email address won't be shown to the world from here.
(edited to add tags)
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Haute Cuisine
This evening for dinner Steve and I cooked pork chops, mash, and bacon. The idea is that I'm the one who knows how to cook stuff, but he's the one who's able to safely get stuff out of the oven, or turn off the gas and sort things out if I start fitting or if I collapse, that kind of thing. So it's a team effort, but he tends to regard it as me cooking.
So anyway, this meal. There are a number of cooking things I regularly cheat with to save time, energy or washing up - instant gravy, pre-peeled/chopped veg, that sort of thing - and this meal was no exception. The mash was Smash, and the bacon was pre-diced. He mixed the Smash, I fried the bacon, we mixed the two together, huzzah.
The pork chops, however, I did from scratch the way my mum used to, with a certain amount of various seasonings, an eggy-breadcrumby coating, pan-fried and then baked for a while covered over with foil. Obviously mine are never as good as my mum's, but then nothing is as good as your own mother's home cooking. They're perfectly passable though and might well fool the casual observer.
We sat down to eat, and as he often does, Steve started enthusing about the meal. "Mmmm, this is fantastic. Thankyou darling, this is gorgeous. We must never feed my dad this, he wouldn't want to leave," and so on. Of course, I asked what it was in particular he liked, for future reference... of course, he was on about the bacon-y Smash.
So anyway, this meal. There are a number of cooking things I regularly cheat with to save time, energy or washing up - instant gravy, pre-peeled/chopped veg, that sort of thing - and this meal was no exception. The mash was Smash, and the bacon was pre-diced. He mixed the Smash, I fried the bacon, we mixed the two together, huzzah.
The pork chops, however, I did from scratch the way my mum used to, with a certain amount of various seasonings, an eggy-breadcrumby coating, pan-fried and then baked for a while covered over with foil. Obviously mine are never as good as my mum's, but then nothing is as good as your own mother's home cooking. They're perfectly passable though and might well fool the casual observer.
We sat down to eat, and as he often does, Steve started enthusing about the meal. "Mmmm, this is fantastic. Thankyou darling, this is gorgeous. We must never feed my dad this, he wouldn't want to leave," and so on. Of course, I asked what it was in particular he liked, for future reference... of course, he was on about the bacon-y Smash.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Still Here
My levels of energy, pain and ability to concentrate have been all over the place the last few days and I don't know if I'm coming or going half the time. However, I am happy to announce that the knitting continues to go well. Having finished the scarf for Dominocat, I started looking for another project. A look for basic knitting patterns or learner's patterns online revealed that I could (a) make another 6ft of garter-stitch scarf or (b) attempt to decipher a "pattern" which looked like someone had randomly squashed their hand onto their keyboard, and after decipheration, involved such voodoo concepts as "cabling" and "ribbing" which I have no concept of.
This led to a bit of "oh my god, I'll never be able to do this..." but that was over pretty quickly as with the help of the lovely Jiva, I determined my plan of action thusly:
(a) get a book about learning to knit, and follow its handy instructions bit by bit until on top of basic stitches.
and
(b) cast on another scarf with some wool I already had, to give me something to work on and that I would be able to pick up and know I could do it easily, even when frustrated at the learning-bits going difficult-ly.
(forgive my vocabulary today. It's all there somewhere.)
So, I'm working on it, I have nailed garter stitch aka knit stitch, and also purling, and also stocking stitch where you knit stitch a row and then purl stitch a row. Next in my handy book is increasing and decreasing the number of stitches on a row, which should be entertaining. And then that's it for the book.
God knows what happens next.
This led to a bit of "oh my god, I'll never be able to do this..." but that was over pretty quickly as with the help of the lovely Jiva, I determined my plan of action thusly:
(a) get a book about learning to knit, and follow its handy instructions bit by bit until on top of basic stitches.
and
(b) cast on another scarf with some wool I already had, to give me something to work on and that I would be able to pick up and know I could do it easily, even when frustrated at the learning-bits going difficult-ly.
(forgive my vocabulary today. It's all there somewhere.)
So, I'm working on it, I have nailed garter stitch aka knit stitch, and also purling, and also stocking stitch where you knit stitch a row and then purl stitch a row. Next in my handy book is increasing and decreasing the number of stitches on a row, which should be entertaining. And then that's it for the book.
God knows what happens next.
Monday, March 19, 2007
Activity, cost, and Spoon Theory
One of the trickiest things to keep on top of is calculating the costs of each activity I do, prioritising the activity, and figuring out if I can do it or not.
The beginning and end of the spectrum is easy. There is "rest", which is lying down or sitting very comfortably, in a warm, safe and quiet place, with my eyes shut and no distractions. It may or may not involve actually falling asleep, but the important aspect is making the time as uneventful as possible for both my brain and my body. Rest helps me slowly gain some energy.
At the other end is "impossible activity". A few years ago it was perfectly feasible for me to rollerblade along the seafront with an ice-cream in one hand and be chatting on my mobile phone in the other. These days, I simply do not have the capacity to do that, which is something I've come to terms with. It was fun, but hardly a life skill.
The bits between "rest" and "impossible" are tricky though, and they vary for every person with ME/CFS and similar illnesses. For everything I do, I have to think about how much it will cost me, and whether that will prevent me from doing something else that may be more important or more enjoyable.
Let's take reading as an example. I've enjoyed reading from a very early age and it used to be one of my top things to do to relax. Now I can't read any whole book at one sitting any more, fair enough, but there's more to it than that. These days, reading isn't just reading.
Low-cost: Reading a book from my personal collection which I have read many, many times before.
Medium-cost: Reading a book I have not read before, but by an author I am familiar with and whose style of writing flows well for me.
High-cost: Reading a book by an author who is new to me.
Near-impossible: Reading a non-fiction book which requires the reader to keep up with concepts that may be new to them. For instance, I've had The Science Of Discworld for about a year and I am still less than halfway through it.
The same sort of thing applies to everything I do during a day, fun or not, essential or not, productive or not. It applies to getting up and having a bath and getting dressed and washing my dishes and buying a pint of milk, and it also applies to knitting, using the computer, shopping (yes, even online), watching a TV programme, cooking, seeing friends, chatting on the phone or playing a game.
Some people have the idea that anyone who is off work long-term must be sitting around all day doing the sort of thing they would love to do if only they weren't at work. It's not the case. Not only would I need to be having a good day to attempt half the "day off" things I used to, but as soon as we've factored in stuff like housework, forms for several different benefits, and family commitments, it's an almighty mess.
The best explanation I have ever encountered for this is Spoon Theory. I really recomend you click that link, but if you don't want to, here's the summary:
People with illnesses like mine start each day with a limited number of energy credits, represented by a handful of spoons. Some days it's a good day and you have more spoons than usual (although still not as many as a healthy person might) and some days it's a bad day and you've only got half the spoons you're used to having. Doing things costs you spoons. Resting may make you a spoon or two if you're lucky, but it's not guaranteed. If you spend all your spoons by lunchtime then that's just tough if there's something else you want or need to do later in the day.
Physically do this. Get your handful of spoons (or pens, or knitting needles, or whatever - just one handful though!) and go through your day. Waking up and forcing yourself out of bed? Spoon. Having a bath? Spoon. Washing your hair as well? Another spoon. Getting dressed? Spoon.
Of course, this is what happens to healthy people when they get a bad cold or something. They drag themselves into work wearing an unironed shirt and brushed but not styled hair, get frustrated because they can see that they are performing at a level of less than 100% and are making mistakes, go home, and collapse into bed with a cup of lemsip and some takeaway food. And that's okay, because for a week while you have a cold, you can let things slide - the washing up doesn't HAVE to all be done every day, you can catch up on the laundry when you feel a bit better, your friends will understand that you've had to cancel on a planned get-together, you'll absorb the £5 charge for late payment of a bill in order to not have to worry about getting to the bank this week.
Chronic illness is different. You can't simply skip the vacuuming for three years. Your friends will stop inviting and including you if you never join in, and as a human being you need some social contact. The clean clothes in your wardrobe will all be used up after a few weeks. If you don't get yourself into town, go to the bank and pay your bills, you go past Final Demands and bank charges and into the realms of baliffs at the door. You have to stay on top of everything that needs doing.
So you have to get on, and calculate every activity every day. You have to balance and you have to decide if the fact you have no fresh clothes to wear is more or less important than the fact your cups and dishes have almost invented the wheel. You have to decide whether to read a few pages of a new, interesting book, or to read a familiar book and thus be able to chat to someone on the phone for 15 minutes. You have to be able to tell your friends that you don't have the time or energy to see them, because you've got to use all of that day's spoons on eating three basic meals and filling in a couple more pages on a poxy horrible benefits form.
I can deal with the pain, and I can deal with injuring myself when I fall over, and I can deal with the poor sleep and nausea and fits and all these physical things. But I have real trouble keeping positive while dealing with the constant comparing and choosing and juggling and never being able to forget for even a day about being ill.
And THEN some bugger tells you that you'd feel ever so much better if you just went jogging for an hour each morning... I think that's another post though.
The beginning and end of the spectrum is easy. There is "rest", which is lying down or sitting very comfortably, in a warm, safe and quiet place, with my eyes shut and no distractions. It may or may not involve actually falling asleep, but the important aspect is making the time as uneventful as possible for both my brain and my body. Rest helps me slowly gain some energy.
At the other end is "impossible activity". A few years ago it was perfectly feasible for me to rollerblade along the seafront with an ice-cream in one hand and be chatting on my mobile phone in the other. These days, I simply do not have the capacity to do that, which is something I've come to terms with. It was fun, but hardly a life skill.
The bits between "rest" and "impossible" are tricky though, and they vary for every person with ME/CFS and similar illnesses. For everything I do, I have to think about how much it will cost me, and whether that will prevent me from doing something else that may be more important or more enjoyable.
Let's take reading as an example. I've enjoyed reading from a very early age and it used to be one of my top things to do to relax. Now I can't read any whole book at one sitting any more, fair enough, but there's more to it than that. These days, reading isn't just reading.
Low-cost: Reading a book from my personal collection which I have read many, many times before.
Medium-cost: Reading a book I have not read before, but by an author I am familiar with and whose style of writing flows well for me.
High-cost: Reading a book by an author who is new to me.
Near-impossible: Reading a non-fiction book which requires the reader to keep up with concepts that may be new to them. For instance, I've had The Science Of Discworld for about a year and I am still less than halfway through it.
The same sort of thing applies to everything I do during a day, fun or not, essential or not, productive or not. It applies to getting up and having a bath and getting dressed and washing my dishes and buying a pint of milk, and it also applies to knitting, using the computer, shopping (yes, even online), watching a TV programme, cooking, seeing friends, chatting on the phone or playing a game.
Some people have the idea that anyone who is off work long-term must be sitting around all day doing the sort of thing they would love to do if only they weren't at work. It's not the case. Not only would I need to be having a good day to attempt half the "day off" things I used to, but as soon as we've factored in stuff like housework, forms for several different benefits, and family commitments, it's an almighty mess.
The best explanation I have ever encountered for this is Spoon Theory. I really recomend you click that link, but if you don't want to, here's the summary:
People with illnesses like mine start each day with a limited number of energy credits, represented by a handful of spoons. Some days it's a good day and you have more spoons than usual (although still not as many as a healthy person might) and some days it's a bad day and you've only got half the spoons you're used to having. Doing things costs you spoons. Resting may make you a spoon or two if you're lucky, but it's not guaranteed. If you spend all your spoons by lunchtime then that's just tough if there's something else you want or need to do later in the day.
Physically do this. Get your handful of spoons (or pens, or knitting needles, or whatever - just one handful though!) and go through your day. Waking up and forcing yourself out of bed? Spoon. Having a bath? Spoon. Washing your hair as well? Another spoon. Getting dressed? Spoon.
Of course, this is what happens to healthy people when they get a bad cold or something. They drag themselves into work wearing an unironed shirt and brushed but not styled hair, get frustrated because they can see that they are performing at a level of less than 100% and are making mistakes, go home, and collapse into bed with a cup of lemsip and some takeaway food. And that's okay, because for a week while you have a cold, you can let things slide - the washing up doesn't HAVE to all be done every day, you can catch up on the laundry when you feel a bit better, your friends will understand that you've had to cancel on a planned get-together, you'll absorb the £5 charge for late payment of a bill in order to not have to worry about getting to the bank this week.
Chronic illness is different. You can't simply skip the vacuuming for three years. Your friends will stop inviting and including you if you never join in, and as a human being you need some social contact. The clean clothes in your wardrobe will all be used up after a few weeks. If you don't get yourself into town, go to the bank and pay your bills, you go past Final Demands and bank charges and into the realms of baliffs at the door. You have to stay on top of everything that needs doing.
So you have to get on, and calculate every activity every day. You have to balance and you have to decide if the fact you have no fresh clothes to wear is more or less important than the fact your cups and dishes have almost invented the wheel. You have to decide whether to read a few pages of a new, interesting book, or to read a familiar book and thus be able to chat to someone on the phone for 15 minutes. You have to be able to tell your friends that you don't have the time or energy to see them, because you've got to use all of that day's spoons on eating three basic meals and filling in a couple more pages on a poxy horrible benefits form.
I can deal with the pain, and I can deal with injuring myself when I fall over, and I can deal with the poor sleep and nausea and fits and all these physical things. But I have real trouble keeping positive while dealing with the constant comparing and choosing and juggling and never being able to forget for even a day about being ill.
And THEN some bugger tells you that you'd feel ever so much better if you just went jogging for an hour each morning... I think that's another post though.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Comic Relief
I never thought Tony Blair would make me smile, but...
Also, if you like blogs, you'll probably enjoy this book, with all profits going to Comic Relief.
Also, if you like blogs, you'll probably enjoy this book, with all profits going to Comic Relief.
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Halfway there
As you can see in the picture, the scarf is coming along nicely - I am now about 10 or 15 rows into the second ball of wool.
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice about changing over from the end of the 1st ball of wool to the beginning of the 2nd. The knot is nowhere near as distressingly huge as I feared, and the advice to just knit a couple of rows with the 2nd ball before securing the knot was good - it's pretty inobtrusive. I do, however, need to find out what the best thing is to do with those end-y-bits, as a scarf "pattern" this simple doesn't really have a Wrong Side where I can hide them. Should I snip them off, or sew them into the edges, or across the width of the scarf, or what?
I'm also open to suggestions about what I should try to knit next...
(edited 6th April to add tags.)
Thanks to everyone who gave me advice about changing over from the end of the 1st ball of wool to the beginning of the 2nd. The knot is nowhere near as distressingly huge as I feared, and the advice to just knit a couple of rows with the 2nd ball before securing the knot was good - it's pretty inobtrusive. I do, however, need to find out what the best thing is to do with those end-y-bits, as a scarf "pattern" this simple doesn't really have a Wrong Side where I can hide them. Should I snip them off, or sew them into the edges, or across the width of the scarf, or what?
I'm also open to suggestions about what I should try to knit next...
(edited 6th April to add tags.)
Monday, March 12, 2007
In which I am an Unethical Cowbag
I've just lied my arse off about the nature of my disability to a couple of salespeople and I feel really very guilty about having done it, so I thought I'd confess to The Internet (iGod isn't as satisfying as it once was).
I was coming up for my next dose of painkillers when there was a tap at the flat door. So I hauled myself up to answer it. Two people, a man and a woman, in suits, were standing there. We got as far as "Hi, you're Mary, yes? I'm Mark and this is..." before my legs gave way and I slid halfway down the wall. And it's impressive that I lasted that long.
There's then a short piece of confusion. The man asked me if I should be sitting down and I agreed and then somehow we were all in my flat. I remember inviting them to sit down because that's what you do when people are in your flat, and then everyone standing in confusion because there were three of us and only one seat available (the others being taken up with my laptop, and the cutlery tray from the kitchen drawer that broke a couple of weeks back - really must get that fixed). They told me to sit down, which I happily did, and as my head got back on track the man knelt on the floor by the sofa and asked if I was okay.
Then they introduced themselves again and that is when I realised they were salespeople. My first thought was "how come there are salespeople inside my flat?" followed by "oh bums. Salespeople aren't going to leave until they've got my signature on something. I can't stand up, so I can't shoo them out, and I don't have the oomph right now to be terribly over-assertive..."
As they opened their spiel I couldn't think of anything apart from how to get them to Go Away. I don't care if I could save up to 10% a month on my electricity bills. A direct debit goes out every month to cover my electricity, and if I'm paying a couple of quid more than I absolutely need to, well, that's the price I pay for not having to muck about and try to understand deals and shift suppliers and adjust payments and so on, and the state my brain is in that's a price worth paying for things to carry on smoothly. I was trying to work out how to explain this to them when it hit me that this might, after all, be a way out.
"Can I cut you off for a moment?" I said. "As you can see, I'm in a bit of a state. I have long-term cognitive difficulties so I'm not going to be able to take in half of what you say." So far so true. Then the lies spilled forth. "I can't sign anything, but if you can leave me, like, a leaflet or something, then I can discuss it next time I see my advocate and take it from there." That's tosh. I don't have an advocate, unless you count my mum. I'm perfectly capable of signing things and I don't have any alternate signatorys on my bank account or anything like that. And even if I did, I very much doubt I would waste an advocate's time trying to change electricity suppliers.
It worked. The young man told me they didn't have any leaflets, but if I could show him my last electricity bill, he could write on it exactly what the difference would be so that I could show "my advocate". As it happened, my latest electricity bill was lying on the table, so I gave it to him and he wrote down his phone number (a regular mobile phone number, which I found odd) and the price comparisons between my current supplier and their company. They said I should tell my advocate that with my current supplier I was getting the worst deal possible and that it was really quite important to sort it out. After a bit more of this, to make sure the message had sunk in, they left, thank god, and I locked the flat door behind them.
I really hate playing the disability card and I'm really bothered about having lied. I phoned Steve, but he was more upset about me having let them into the flat in the first place, which is understandable, but it's not like they'd come to rape, mug and murder me. What bugs me most is that not only did I use my disability as an excuse, but I also painted myself as being less capable than I actually am. I think I had a good reason, and it's not something I intend to make a habit of, but I feel very unhappy to have done it at all.
I was coming up for my next dose of painkillers when there was a tap at the flat door. So I hauled myself up to answer it. Two people, a man and a woman, in suits, were standing there. We got as far as "Hi, you're Mary, yes? I'm Mark and this is..." before my legs gave way and I slid halfway down the wall. And it's impressive that I lasted that long.
There's then a short piece of confusion. The man asked me if I should be sitting down and I agreed and then somehow we were all in my flat. I remember inviting them to sit down because that's what you do when people are in your flat, and then everyone standing in confusion because there were three of us and only one seat available (the others being taken up with my laptop, and the cutlery tray from the kitchen drawer that broke a couple of weeks back - really must get that fixed). They told me to sit down, which I happily did, and as my head got back on track the man knelt on the floor by the sofa and asked if I was okay.
Then they introduced themselves again and that is when I realised they were salespeople. My first thought was "how come there are salespeople inside my flat?" followed by "oh bums. Salespeople aren't going to leave until they've got my signature on something. I can't stand up, so I can't shoo them out, and I don't have the oomph right now to be terribly over-assertive..."
As they opened their spiel I couldn't think of anything apart from how to get them to Go Away. I don't care if I could save up to 10% a month on my electricity bills. A direct debit goes out every month to cover my electricity, and if I'm paying a couple of quid more than I absolutely need to, well, that's the price I pay for not having to muck about and try to understand deals and shift suppliers and adjust payments and so on, and the state my brain is in that's a price worth paying for things to carry on smoothly. I was trying to work out how to explain this to them when it hit me that this might, after all, be a way out.
"Can I cut you off for a moment?" I said. "As you can see, I'm in a bit of a state. I have long-term cognitive difficulties so I'm not going to be able to take in half of what you say." So far so true. Then the lies spilled forth. "I can't sign anything, but if you can leave me, like, a leaflet or something, then I can discuss it next time I see my advocate and take it from there." That's tosh. I don't have an advocate, unless you count my mum. I'm perfectly capable of signing things and I don't have any alternate signatorys on my bank account or anything like that. And even if I did, I very much doubt I would waste an advocate's time trying to change electricity suppliers.
It worked. The young man told me they didn't have any leaflets, but if I could show him my last electricity bill, he could write on it exactly what the difference would be so that I could show "my advocate". As it happened, my latest electricity bill was lying on the table, so I gave it to him and he wrote down his phone number (a regular mobile phone number, which I found odd) and the price comparisons between my current supplier and their company. They said I should tell my advocate that with my current supplier I was getting the worst deal possible and that it was really quite important to sort it out. After a bit more of this, to make sure the message had sunk in, they left, thank god, and I locked the flat door behind them.
I really hate playing the disability card and I'm really bothered about having lied. I phoned Steve, but he was more upset about me having let them into the flat in the first place, which is understandable, but it's not like they'd come to rape, mug and murder me. What bugs me most is that not only did I use my disability as an excuse, but I also painted myself as being less capable than I actually am. I think I had a good reason, and it's not something I intend to make a habit of, but I feel very unhappy to have done it at all.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
Knitting seems to work
An eventful and highly enjoyable day yesterday. I had arranged to go over to Norwich and meet a friend to go shopping and generally spend a bit of time together.
At about 9am, the Scarf In A Bag kit mentioned in my previous post arrived. It wasn't precisely what I was expecting - I had an idea in my head of there being a cheap but durable bag, with handles, maybe with a zip, which I could use to carry my knitting around. It turned out to be more "Scarf In A Plastic Packet". Still, the plastic packet did contain everything it was supposed to, so I decided that I would take it with me and learn how to knit while on the train.
So I did, as you can see. There were a couple of false starts while I was trying to cast on, and when I finally got my fingers and wool and needle in the right places and made the first stitch, then I couldn't remember what I'd done, and needed several more attempts at the next stitch. But after that it was really easy, just repeated the same actions until I had the right number of stitches to be getting on with.
The "pattern" for the scarf is not exciting. You just keep going and going and going with the same basic stitch until you run out of wool. Sounds good to me, it makes sense that before I try anything else I should be able to do the basic stitches in my sleep.
Mind you, it's still made a good attempt to confuse.
As a non-knitter it took a while to decipher this:
"Work in garter stitch (every row knit), noting first row is a WS row, until you have sufficient yarn remaining of the 2nd ball to enable you to cast off, ending with RS facing for next row. Cast off knitways."
Knitways? WS? RS facing? Did I neglect to buy the Collins English/Knitterish Dictionary?
There's also absolutely no indication, anywhere, of the correct manner in which to change from the end of the first ball of wool, to the beginning of the second. The obvious solution seems to be to tie the two together, but I don't want to make a big ugly knot in the middle of the scarf, and given that I was never a Girl Scout it is likely that such a knot, tied by me, would lead to an extremely weak point in the scarf, which would eventually undo itself and unravel the entire thing.
That's odd, because the instructions and diagrams for Casting On, Knit Stitch, and Casting Off are really, really clear and simple and easy to understand.
Anyway, I had quite a few respectable rows done (and still the same number of stitches as I started with) by the time the train pulled into Norwich.
Once again, I'd like to praise the wonderful service that is Norwich Shopmobility at Chapefield. Friendly, helpful, efficient, and two minutes and £1.50 later I was impressing my friend with my amazing driving skills. It was nice to be going shopping with a girly friend - Pip is wonderful, but a man in his late 20s fielding an energetic two year old is not an ideal partner for a disabled woman who wants to get clothes.
I wasn't feeling well enough to be able to try on any skirts or trousers, but I tried on and bought a couple of tops which I really liked. After a while I couldn't get on and off the scooter any more to go into shops, so I sat in Castle Mall enjoying a smoothie (banana and strawberry, mmmm!) and looking after the bags while my friend went in and out of shops. Then we went to the train station to have a cuppa and fill time until the next train home. It was marvellous to have a giggle and a chat, and while my exhaustedness meant I was glad to get on the train to head home, I did feel sorry that I couldn't stick around longer, get dinner and stuff.
Getting from my flat to Lowestoft train station is easy. You go straight downhill towards the river, along with the flow of the one-way northbound traffic, cross the bridge, and you're pretty much there. Taxi fare about £4. Getting back, from the train station to my flat, is another matter, particularly since the corresponding one-way road for southbound traffic is currently closed, along with many others. Last time I had to get a taxi home from the north side of the bridge (just over a week ago), what should have been about a £5 fare was more like £9, and it wasn't because the taxi driver was messing about - all the roads we wanted were closed.
But, it's not like I have a lot of choice in the matter. So when the train arrived at Lowestoft, I got in a cab, told the driver where I wanted to go, and when he pulled a face, explained that I knew the roads were snarled up and it would cost over the odds and that it wasn't important, I trusted whatever route he felt was best. At that point he amazed me by saying "Call it a fiver? That's about what it would normally cost, after all." and he turned the meter off. I felt kind of bad about it, but apparently a lot of the cab drivers are getting rather upset about having to effectively overcharge people. So I thanked him, and was happy.
Needless to say, today I am in a total state. Leaving my bed only to go to the loo or get a drink, and that crawling, crying in the half-hour before the Next Dose of painkillers, the lot. It's taken several hours to compose this blog entry. But it was really really worth it, because I had a great day.
Edited a couple of minutes after posting to correct a bit of grammar and add tags.
At about 9am, the Scarf In A Bag kit mentioned in my previous post arrived. It wasn't precisely what I was expecting - I had an idea in my head of there being a cheap but durable bag, with handles, maybe with a zip, which I could use to carry my knitting around. It turned out to be more "Scarf In A Plastic Packet". Still, the plastic packet did contain everything it was supposed to, so I decided that I would take it with me and learn how to knit while on the train.
So I did, as you can see. There were a couple of false starts while I was trying to cast on, and when I finally got my fingers and wool and needle in the right places and made the first stitch, then I couldn't remember what I'd done, and needed several more attempts at the next stitch. But after that it was really easy, just repeated the same actions until I had the right number of stitches to be getting on with.
The "pattern" for the scarf is not exciting. You just keep going and going and going with the same basic stitch until you run out of wool. Sounds good to me, it makes sense that before I try anything else I should be able to do the basic stitches in my sleep.
Mind you, it's still made a good attempt to confuse.
As a non-knitter it took a while to decipher this:
"Work in garter stitch (every row knit), noting first row is a WS row, until you have sufficient yarn remaining of the 2nd ball to enable you to cast off, ending with RS facing for next row. Cast off knitways."
Knitways? WS? RS facing? Did I neglect to buy the Collins English/Knitterish Dictionary?
There's also absolutely no indication, anywhere, of the correct manner in which to change from the end of the first ball of wool, to the beginning of the second. The obvious solution seems to be to tie the two together, but I don't want to make a big ugly knot in the middle of the scarf, and given that I was never a Girl Scout it is likely that such a knot, tied by me, would lead to an extremely weak point in the scarf, which would eventually undo itself and unravel the entire thing.
That's odd, because the instructions and diagrams for Casting On, Knit Stitch, and Casting Off are really, really clear and simple and easy to understand.
Anyway, I had quite a few respectable rows done (and still the same number of stitches as I started with) by the time the train pulled into Norwich.
Once again, I'd like to praise the wonderful service that is Norwich Shopmobility at Chapefield. Friendly, helpful, efficient, and two minutes and £1.50 later I was impressing my friend with my amazing driving skills. It was nice to be going shopping with a girly friend - Pip is wonderful, but a man in his late 20s fielding an energetic two year old is not an ideal partner for a disabled woman who wants to get clothes.
I wasn't feeling well enough to be able to try on any skirts or trousers, but I tried on and bought a couple of tops which I really liked. After a while I couldn't get on and off the scooter any more to go into shops, so I sat in Castle Mall enjoying a smoothie (banana and strawberry, mmmm!) and looking after the bags while my friend went in and out of shops. Then we went to the train station to have a cuppa and fill time until the next train home. It was marvellous to have a giggle and a chat, and while my exhaustedness meant I was glad to get on the train to head home, I did feel sorry that I couldn't stick around longer, get dinner and stuff.
Getting from my flat to Lowestoft train station is easy. You go straight downhill towards the river, along with the flow of the one-way northbound traffic, cross the bridge, and you're pretty much there. Taxi fare about £4. Getting back, from the train station to my flat, is another matter, particularly since the corresponding one-way road for southbound traffic is currently closed, along with many others. Last time I had to get a taxi home from the north side of the bridge (just over a week ago), what should have been about a £5 fare was more like £9, and it wasn't because the taxi driver was messing about - all the roads we wanted were closed.
But, it's not like I have a lot of choice in the matter. So when the train arrived at Lowestoft, I got in a cab, told the driver where I wanted to go, and when he pulled a face, explained that I knew the roads were snarled up and it would cost over the odds and that it wasn't important, I trusted whatever route he felt was best. At that point he amazed me by saying "Call it a fiver? That's about what it would normally cost, after all." and he turned the meter off. I felt kind of bad about it, but apparently a lot of the cab drivers are getting rather upset about having to effectively overcharge people. So I thanked him, and was happy.
Needless to say, today I am in a total state. Leaving my bed only to go to the loo or get a drink, and that crawling, crying in the half-hour before the Next Dose of painkillers, the lot. It's taken several hours to compose this blog entry. But it was really really worth it, because I had a great day.
Edited a couple of minutes after posting to correct a bit of grammar and add tags.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Knitting
Several of my online friends get a lot of enjoyment out of knitting. Most notable of these is probably Dominocat whose projects often leave me in awe. Plus, I am the honoured owner of one of those projects which is amazing.
I've considered doing knitting on many occasions, but have so far always rejected it on the basis that I am simply not creative. In "art" at school, when you were given some paper and some pencils/paints/whatever and told to create a pretty picture, I was the kid who sat there in front of a blank sheet of paper with a dopey expression. Eventually the teacher would suggest an object, and I would do my best to draw it accurately, with varying results. In later years when it was suggested that we might like to paint "interpretations" or "feelings" I was even more at sea. It made no sense to me whatsoever and it was with relief that I entered my GCSE years and was able to do straightforward academic subjects.
However, of late it has occurred to me that while I'm not creative, I am good at following instructions. I started by making a couple of soft toys from kits, like this badger. Then I picked up one of these knitting bees for something to do with my hands when I can't sleep, can't concentrate, and can't move about. I've now created several yards of bee-poo, as Steve insists on calling it, and wanted to try something just a smidgen more challenging, not to mention useful.
So I have ordered a scarf in a bag kit, containing all the necessaries - beginner's instructions, needles, and wool. The order should be processed by the end of the week and then the kit should be here about a week after that. An actual scarf may or may not occur, we shall have to see, but I'm taking the plunge.
Should it all go to plan, I will then be able to start terrifying Steve by knitting baby-clothes... ;)
I've considered doing knitting on many occasions, but have so far always rejected it on the basis that I am simply not creative. In "art" at school, when you were given some paper and some pencils/paints/whatever and told to create a pretty picture, I was the kid who sat there in front of a blank sheet of paper with a dopey expression. Eventually the teacher would suggest an object, and I would do my best to draw it accurately, with varying results. In later years when it was suggested that we might like to paint "interpretations" or "feelings" I was even more at sea. It made no sense to me whatsoever and it was with relief that I entered my GCSE years and was able to do straightforward academic subjects.
However, of late it has occurred to me that while I'm not creative, I am good at following instructions. I started by making a couple of soft toys from kits, like this badger. Then I picked up one of these knitting bees for something to do with my hands when I can't sleep, can't concentrate, and can't move about. I've now created several yards of bee-poo, as Steve insists on calling it, and wanted to try something just a smidgen more challenging, not to mention useful.
So I have ordered a scarf in a bag kit, containing all the necessaries - beginner's instructions, needles, and wool. The order should be processed by the end of the week and then the kit should be here about a week after that. An actual scarf may or may not occur, we shall have to see, but I'm taking the plunge.
Should it all go to plan, I will then be able to start terrifying Steve by knitting baby-clothes... ;)
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Roomba
I've been giving serious consideration to purchasing a Roomba. On the one hand, it's incredibly expensive for a vacuum cleaner - my current vacuum cleaner cost all of about £30 whereas these seem to be over £150 as a minimum. On the other hand, my current vacuum cleaner doesn't actually get used and my carpets could really do with less dirt. I don't have the capacity for pushing a hoover around the place but I can push buttons and use remote controls like a champion! And lo, for there would be another notch less of feeling bad about my housekeeping.
I mentioned these thoughts on the phone to Steve. He was enthusiastic, but his reasons were more along these lines. I began from a viewpoint of "do what you want to it as long as it still cleans the room" but I found myself having to revise that policy when he started talking about fixing scythes to it to make it double as a home security system...
Do any readers have experience of roombas, or similar things?
I mentioned these thoughts on the phone to Steve. He was enthusiastic, but his reasons were more along these lines. I began from a viewpoint of "do what you want to it as long as it still cleans the room" but I found myself having to revise that policy when he started talking about fixing scythes to it to make it double as a home security system...
Do any readers have experience of roombas, or similar things?
Thursday, March 01, 2007
One Of Those Days
I've been a bit flattened by the Birthday Weekend, but yesterday (Wednesday) I had a productive morning. Then mum and Chris had gone out for the day and asked me to let their dog out at lunchtime, so at about 1pm I went to their house (only two blocks away), let the dog out, had a rest, let the dog back in, and went to the shop for some bread on my way home. I had a bit more trouble than usual getting up the stairs to the flat, and once I was in I called Steve to warn him that I was going to be asleep all afternoon and went to bed.
Woken up by the phone ringing, it was mum. Their car had broken down. Their breakdown cover would relay them and the car either home, or to a garage of their choice. Chris's preferred garage is quite a distance from home, so they figured that it would be easier use the cover to get them and the car to the garage and find another way to get them from the garage to home, than to use the cover to get them and the car home and then have to find another way to get the broken down car from home to the garage. My job was to go to their house, dig out their address book, and text them with the number of a friend who lived in that area and might be able to give them a lift home.
Parents stranded in the wilds of East Anglia is one of those situations where "do I have the energy for this?" doesn't really come into it. I was kind of wiped out, and for ten or fifteen miles I'd have told them to call a taxi and I would cover it, but the actual distance according to Google Maps is just over FIFTY miles, which is not taxi territory. So I warned them I might take a while, put on my coat and shoes, and began to shuffle.
Halfway to their house, a group of kids playing in the street with a football came careering towards me. No problem, I just paused and held onto a handy wall... then one of the kids who wasn't in the scrum yelled "MIND THE OLD LADY!"
I looked round.
They meant me.
I was mortified.
Anyway, got to the house, found the number, texted it to mum, let the dog out again, and curled up on the sofa to try and finish my nap. Woke up, took painkillers, planned to head home once they were working. So far so good - until The Sister got home from work. I've mentioned her before. Nice enough girl, although of course being siblings we regularly fight like cat and dog and have phases of Not Speaking to each other, but Oh Dear God does she talk. On and on and on and on, well I can deal with that, but also high-pitched, too fast, repeats herself, and never ever lets anyone else get a word in. Plus, she had had a bad day at work. I nodded and smiled and prayed for deliverance. After half an hour an absolutely shattered mum and Chris wandered in, and I could leave the room. We ordered some takeaway and then I think mum persuaded her to do a bit of work on her job application so she was quiet for a bit, but soon she was talking about what she was writing rather than writing it. Aargh.
We all had dinner and then mum offered to walk me home. Getting up the stairs took the last little bit out of me. I took my coat and shoes off, stood up to get ready for bed, and lurched into the bathroom just in time to throw up. Lovely. No one else is feeling ill so it's not food poisoning and it's unlikely to be a bug. The only theory Steve and I can come up with is that it's my system telling me to bloody well stop punishing it, on the basis that last time I was throwing up for no reason (so that's not counting little teeny bits when I'm extra-dizzy, heat exhaustion, or that bit of food poisoning last year) was when I first got ill and was pushing it by keeping going to work. So today I'm in bed, no ifs, buts, or maybes, and having as many little naps as I can. It's helping.
While I was final-editing this, mum rang. Turns out that as well as their car breaking down and my sister's bad day and me being sick, the people they had gone to meet, on their way home, got stuck in traffic and then something hit and shattered their windscreen. Not a good day for anyone!
Woken up by the phone ringing, it was mum. Their car had broken down. Their breakdown cover would relay them and the car either home, or to a garage of their choice. Chris's preferred garage is quite a distance from home, so they figured that it would be easier use the cover to get them and the car to the garage and find another way to get them from the garage to home, than to use the cover to get them and the car home and then have to find another way to get the broken down car from home to the garage. My job was to go to their house, dig out their address book, and text them with the number of a friend who lived in that area and might be able to give them a lift home.
Parents stranded in the wilds of East Anglia is one of those situations where "do I have the energy for this?" doesn't really come into it. I was kind of wiped out, and for ten or fifteen miles I'd have told them to call a taxi and I would cover it, but the actual distance according to Google Maps is just over FIFTY miles, which is not taxi territory. So I warned them I might take a while, put on my coat and shoes, and began to shuffle.
Halfway to their house, a group of kids playing in the street with a football came careering towards me. No problem, I just paused and held onto a handy wall... then one of the kids who wasn't in the scrum yelled "MIND THE OLD LADY!"
I looked round.
They meant me.
I was mortified.
Anyway, got to the house, found the number, texted it to mum, let the dog out again, and curled up on the sofa to try and finish my nap. Woke up, took painkillers, planned to head home once they were working. So far so good - until The Sister got home from work. I've mentioned her before. Nice enough girl, although of course being siblings we regularly fight like cat and dog and have phases of Not Speaking to each other, but Oh Dear God does she talk. On and on and on and on, well I can deal with that, but also high-pitched, too fast, repeats herself, and never ever lets anyone else get a word in. Plus, she had had a bad day at work. I nodded and smiled and prayed for deliverance. After half an hour an absolutely shattered mum and Chris wandered in, and I could leave the room. We ordered some takeaway and then I think mum persuaded her to do a bit of work on her job application so she was quiet for a bit, but soon she was talking about what she was writing rather than writing it. Aargh.
We all had dinner and then mum offered to walk me home. Getting up the stairs took the last little bit out of me. I took my coat and shoes off, stood up to get ready for bed, and lurched into the bathroom just in time to throw up. Lovely. No one else is feeling ill so it's not food poisoning and it's unlikely to be a bug. The only theory Steve and I can come up with is that it's my system telling me to bloody well stop punishing it, on the basis that last time I was throwing up for no reason (so that's not counting little teeny bits when I'm extra-dizzy, heat exhaustion, or that bit of food poisoning last year) was when I first got ill and was pushing it by keeping going to work. So today I'm in bed, no ifs, buts, or maybes, and having as many little naps as I can. It's helping.
While I was final-editing this, mum rang. Turns out that as well as their car breaking down and my sister's bad day and me being sick, the people they had gone to meet, on their way home, got stuck in traffic and then something hit and shattered their windscreen. Not a good day for anyone!
Monday, February 26, 2007
Book Spines
Unsurprisingly I've spent the largest part of today in bed. Most of that time has been spent asleep but quite a bit has been vaguely staring at the ceiling or the wall or the bookshelves wondering when it's going to be time for the next painkillers. It's not an exciting way to spend the day but it keeps me out of trouble.
So anyway, I was staring at my bookshelf when I noticed something about the spines of the books. There are three different styles.
1. Large and/or interesting font for the book title, small subtle font for the author name. Examples of this include Chocolat by Joanne Harris, and Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel by Scott Adams.
2. The same size and possibly the same exact font for both title and author. Prime examples from my shelves include anything by Ian McEwan, and the individual books of the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis.
3. Large and quite possibly shiny lettering for the author's name, with the title of the book seeming to be a bit of an afterthought. The major culprit here is the hardback of Next (or at least I hope that was the title, given the size of lettering one would be forgiven for thinking it was the publisher) by big, red, shiny Michael Crichton, although Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code (yes, I know, I know) makes a significant effort as well.
So I started wondering, is there any kind of system to figuring out the prominence ratio for authors and titles? There's none I can really work out from my own collection, past the fact that books by the same author published by the same publisher tend to be consistent in style. There's no similarity for different authors by the same publisher (except for Penguin Pound Classics which are pretty much a set in their own right) and it's annoying.
From the above you may draw your own conclusions about where exactly my head is at today. Sorry. This stuff has been bugging me all afternoon and evening and it needed to come out. Please add your own thoughts.
So anyway, I was staring at my bookshelf when I noticed something about the spines of the books. There are three different styles.
1. Large and/or interesting font for the book title, small subtle font for the author name. Examples of this include Chocolat by Joanne Harris, and Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel by Scott Adams.
2. The same size and possibly the same exact font for both title and author. Prime examples from my shelves include anything by Ian McEwan, and the individual books of the Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis.
3. Large and quite possibly shiny lettering for the author's name, with the title of the book seeming to be a bit of an afterthought. The major culprit here is the hardback of Next (or at least I hope that was the title, given the size of lettering one would be forgiven for thinking it was the publisher) by big, red, shiny Michael Crichton, although Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code (yes, I know, I know) makes a significant effort as well.
So I started wondering, is there any kind of system to figuring out the prominence ratio for authors and titles? There's none I can really work out from my own collection, past the fact that books by the same author published by the same publisher tend to be consistent in style. There's no similarity for different authors by the same publisher (except for Penguin Pound Classics which are pretty much a set in their own right) and it's annoying.
From the above you may draw your own conclusions about where exactly my head is at today. Sorry. This stuff has been bugging me all afternoon and evening and it needed to come out. Please add your own thoughts.
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Happy Birthday To Steve
It was Steve's birthday on Friday and he came to visit for a few days. On top of the birthday thing, we also haven't seen each other for a few weeks and most likely won't see each other again for a bit, because he's currently studying for another bit of accreditation (so that he can apply for jobs paying £obscene) and fixing up his motorbike. If I'm actually physically present, which we tried briefly, then on the one hand he eats properly (because he wants to look after me and as that involves me eating one hot meal a day, it makes sense for him to eat one too, at the same time), but on the other hand he doesn't get much study done because he wants to spend time with me, talk to me, take me places and so on. I am a distraction. And lovely as it is to spend time together, it doesn't lead to any kind of technical qualification. So we are apart, and he is losing weight, which alarms me, but he's a grownup so it's up to him.
It was wonderful to see him though, even if it was rather less of him than I had hoped to see. Plus, for a couple of days (and with a couple of weeks to fall apart afterwards), I can push the boat out a bit - no long romantic walks, or parties at nightclubs, or adventure activity days, or anything like that, but I made sure we could Do Stuff for his birthday.
The day started well. I'd got him one soppy present, one present he knew I was getting him, and one geeky present he never imagined he was getting. He was extremely happy, especially with that last one.
We went to Southwold for the morning where we investigated the Under the Pier Show, which was just fantastic and bizarre, and then we went into the "town centre" and found a posh chocolate shop with a tea-room in the back where we had a lovely civilised cream tea. Southwold is a strange place. It's a bit like the 1950s unless you're trying to find a place to park in which case it's like central London just before the congestion charge. People largely come to Southwold to retire (if they can afford it - beach huts in Southwold sell for the same as houses elsewhere), or for lovely wholesome family day-trips. Lots of parked cars and nothing like enough spaces. Even on a weekday in February. Then it was back to Lowestoft, went and said hello to Pip, tried to say hello to my sister at the place where she works (hadn't realised it was her day off), got some lunch, and went back to the flat.
In the evening we went for a nice meal at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Well, that was the plan. It started so smoothly, too. Wake up from late-afternoon nap. Have a nice cuppa and browse the net together until deciding it's about time for dinner. Start to get ready.
Unfortunately the next bit went: Mary attempts to go and use the toilet, falls over, and lands in/on the bathtub, winded. Steve hears the crash, leaps up, helps the Mary-spaghetti out of the tub and into her bedroom, upon which he realises he's just got a nosebleed, probably from jumping up in panic like that. Both of us sit quietly, me with ibuprofen and him with a tissue up one nostril, until we decide to try again.
Nevertheless we got out and we had our dinner and, indeed, got home again, all in one piece (each).
On Saturday, as you can imagine I wasn't really up to much at all, but we went to the cinema to see Hot Fuzz. If you like Spaced or Shaun of the Dead or Black Books or any of that kind of stuff, you'll probably like this. The homage-o-meter goes through the roof, so I'm going to need to get this on DVD when it comes out.
And today... well, today he went back home. He wanted to travel while it was still light - the plan was he'd pack in the morning, then we'd have lunch, and then he'd leave - but it never works out like that at the best of times, instead he packed after lunch and didn't get gone until dusk. I wanted to go downstairs to wave him off but he was too worried about whether or not I'd make it back up to the flat on my own. He worries far too much. Still, he says it was a nice birthday so I guess that's mission accomplished :)
It was wonderful to see him though, even if it was rather less of him than I had hoped to see. Plus, for a couple of days (and with a couple of weeks to fall apart afterwards), I can push the boat out a bit - no long romantic walks, or parties at nightclubs, or adventure activity days, or anything like that, but I made sure we could Do Stuff for his birthday.
The day started well. I'd got him one soppy present, one present he knew I was getting him, and one geeky present he never imagined he was getting. He was extremely happy, especially with that last one.
We went to Southwold for the morning where we investigated the Under the Pier Show, which was just fantastic and bizarre, and then we went into the "town centre" and found a posh chocolate shop with a tea-room in the back where we had a lovely civilised cream tea. Southwold is a strange place. It's a bit like the 1950s unless you're trying to find a place to park in which case it's like central London just before the congestion charge. People largely come to Southwold to retire (if they can afford it - beach huts in Southwold sell for the same as houses elsewhere), or for lovely wholesome family day-trips. Lots of parked cars and nothing like enough spaces. Even on a weekday in February. Then it was back to Lowestoft, went and said hello to Pip, tried to say hello to my sister at the place where she works (hadn't realised it was her day off), got some lunch, and went back to the flat.
In the evening we went for a nice meal at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Well, that was the plan. It started so smoothly, too. Wake up from late-afternoon nap. Have a nice cuppa and browse the net together until deciding it's about time for dinner. Start to get ready.
Unfortunately the next bit went: Mary attempts to go and use the toilet, falls over, and lands in/on the bathtub, winded. Steve hears the crash, leaps up, helps the Mary-spaghetti out of the tub and into her bedroom, upon which he realises he's just got a nosebleed, probably from jumping up in panic like that. Both of us sit quietly, me with ibuprofen and him with a tissue up one nostril, until we decide to try again.
Nevertheless we got out and we had our dinner and, indeed, got home again, all in one piece (each).
On Saturday, as you can imagine I wasn't really up to much at all, but we went to the cinema to see Hot Fuzz. If you like Spaced or Shaun of the Dead or Black Books or any of that kind of stuff, you'll probably like this. The homage-o-meter goes through the roof, so I'm going to need to get this on DVD when it comes out.
And today... well, today he went back home. He wanted to travel while it was still light - the plan was he'd pack in the morning, then we'd have lunch, and then he'd leave - but it never works out like that at the best of times, instead he packed after lunch and didn't get gone until dusk. I wanted to go downstairs to wave him off but he was too worried about whether or not I'd make it back up to the flat on my own. He worries far too much. Still, he says it was a nice birthday so I guess that's mission accomplished :)
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Error the First
Ladies and gentlemen, may I announce my first form-filling cock-up on page 11 of the 39-page Very Important Form.
Two pages, both alike indignity layout. At the top is a question and tick boxes for Do you have problems with this? Yes/No. Then there's a largish box for "Tell us the problems you have and the help you need" and another one for "Tell us about any equipment you need and if someone helps you use this." Finally there's some small boxes for how often you have these problems/need this help, and for how long each time.
The first page is headed Getting out of bed in the morning and into bed at night. The second one is headed When you are in bed.
I very carefully and neatly started writing about the problems and techniques and equipment I use to get out of bed. I'd painstakingly written about eight lines before I had to stop. I sat with my eyes shut until I felt a bit better, then looked back down at the form and realised I'd written it all on the When you are in bed page.
I may have used interesting language.
Luckily I have plain paper and a pritt-stick which I am assured by the helpline people will be absolutely fine, happens all the time, nothing to worry about. That doesn't stop me feeling like a total wally though.
Tomorrow I'll try and sort it out. Today, I used up most of my energy going to see the doctor. I was quite nervous about this - the GP who's seen me since I was a kid is on maternity leave and the doctor who is covering for her isn't someone I'd seen before.
Doctors can be a bit funny about ME/CFS. I can't completely say I blame them - some people with ME get a bit evangelical about the whole thing, they read every bit of research and see their GPs once a fortnight and chase here there and everywhere following crazy therapies and are convinced they're allergic to The World and campaign for this that and the other to such an extent that one can't help wondering what they might achieve if they put such massive amounts of energy into something other than "illness". The trouble is, this puts people like me, who are less enthusiastically ill, at a bit of a disadvantage. I want a doctor to look at my notes, spot the diagnosis of ME/CFS and think "ah, so she suffers from mental and physical exhaustion, a certain amount of pain, sleep problems, etc," and then listen to me explain why I have come to see them, rather than think "oh god, not one of them. What wacky cure/pseudoscientific research am I going to have to hear about today?"
Luckily I don't tend to see the GP because of the ME/CFS stuff, only for acute illnesses, or at her request ("come back in 3 months for a review"), and I hope this works in my favour as establishing myself as Not A Timewaster. This particular visit was mainly about my ear now that I've completed the course of antibiotics. It's still a bit tender and itchy and, to use the new doctor's technical term after having looked in it, there's quite a bit of "green gunk" in there. Lovely. Ear drops and more pills, and come back to see her in three or four weeks.
She seemed nice, so I braced myself and told her the little worry that has been on my mind - as part of the DLA renewal, there are forms sent to your GP to fill out, which isn't a problem for my regular GP who has known me for ages, but might cause a hiccup for someone who's only ever seen me for six minutes about an ear infection. She smiled and said she'd already had one of those for another patient already, and what she would like to do is, when she gets the form, call me in for a long appointment to go through it and dig up any information that isn't readily available in my notes. So there's another big sigh of relief.
In other news, I've broken my kitchen. One of the drawers (the cutlery drawer to be precise) has come apart, not badly or irreparably, but the side pieces of chipboard that had been glued together are no longer together. Suggestions about the best product to fix it with are welcome.
Two pages, both alike in
The first page is headed Getting out of bed in the morning and into bed at night. The second one is headed When you are in bed.
I very carefully and neatly started writing about the problems and techniques and equipment I use to get out of bed. I'd painstakingly written about eight lines before I had to stop. I sat with my eyes shut until I felt a bit better, then looked back down at the form and realised I'd written it all on the When you are in bed page.
I may have used interesting language.
Luckily I have plain paper and a pritt-stick which I am assured by the helpline people will be absolutely fine, happens all the time, nothing to worry about. That doesn't stop me feeling like a total wally though.
Tomorrow I'll try and sort it out. Today, I used up most of my energy going to see the doctor. I was quite nervous about this - the GP who's seen me since I was a kid is on maternity leave and the doctor who is covering for her isn't someone I'd seen before.
Doctors can be a bit funny about ME/CFS. I can't completely say I blame them - some people with ME get a bit evangelical about the whole thing, they read every bit of research and see their GPs once a fortnight and chase here there and everywhere following crazy therapies and are convinced they're allergic to The World and campaign for this that and the other to such an extent that one can't help wondering what they might achieve if they put such massive amounts of energy into something other than "illness". The trouble is, this puts people like me, who are less enthusiastically ill, at a bit of a disadvantage. I want a doctor to look at my notes, spot the diagnosis of ME/CFS and think "ah, so she suffers from mental and physical exhaustion, a certain amount of pain, sleep problems, etc," and then listen to me explain why I have come to see them, rather than think "oh god, not one of them. What wacky cure/pseudoscientific research am I going to have to hear about today?"
Luckily I don't tend to see the GP because of the ME/CFS stuff, only for acute illnesses, or at her request ("come back in 3 months for a review"), and I hope this works in my favour as establishing myself as Not A Timewaster. This particular visit was mainly about my ear now that I've completed the course of antibiotics. It's still a bit tender and itchy and, to use the new doctor's technical term after having looked in it, there's quite a bit of "green gunk" in there. Lovely. Ear drops and more pills, and come back to see her in three or four weeks.
She seemed nice, so I braced myself and told her the little worry that has been on my mind - as part of the DLA renewal, there are forms sent to your GP to fill out, which isn't a problem for my regular GP who has known me for ages, but might cause a hiccup for someone who's only ever seen me for six minutes about an ear infection. She smiled and said she'd already had one of those for another patient already, and what she would like to do is, when she gets the form, call me in for a long appointment to go through it and dig up any information that isn't readily available in my notes. So there's another big sigh of relief.
In other news, I've broken my kitchen. One of the drawers (the cutlery drawer to be precise) has come apart, not badly or irreparably, but the side pieces of chipboard that had been glued together are no longer together. Suggestions about the best product to fix it with are welcome.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Code Monkey
I've been digging through old emails, bookmarks, etc, and rediscovered this song:
Code Monkey!
Song by Jonathan Coulton, Video by Mike Spiff Booth.
I love this song. Liked some of his other stuff too. Have a looksee.
edited a minute after posting to add the creators' names. Oops.
Code Monkey!
Song by Jonathan Coulton, Video by Mike Spiff Booth.
I love this song. Liked some of his other stuff too. Have a looksee.
edited a minute after posting to add the creators' names. Oops.
If I'm ever short of a few bob
I'll know exactly what I can do.
Blue Badges selling for up to £1600
Jesus. I wouldn't leave an iPod (£260) or a TomTom (£350) in a car, particularly not anywhere it would be visible to anyone having a nosey, but if I use a disabled parking space I am supposed to leave my disabled parking badge (£1,600 - more than the value of my stepdad's entire car!) right on top of the dashboard, specifically in full and easy view.
In fact, technically we could get a ticket if it isn't in full view, for instance if it blows off the dashboard when we shut the door. It is my responsibility to make sure the badge is displayed in the correct manner.
There is of course the issue that plenty of people go ahead and park in the disabled spaces with no badge whatsoever. This year two of the spaces outside my flat are marked as "disabled". I've yet to go past it and see two cars displaying blue badges. Generally there's at least one of the following:
- A red crapmobile with printout pages in the windows advertising it For Sale.
- A green car advertising and belonging to the Indian restaurant/takeaway on the corner.
- A transit van advertising and belonging to Chriscott, an electrical shop two doors away.
- A 4x4 advertising and belonging to Home PC Fix, a computer shop a few doors down (but this is not the crappy shop that sold us the Problem Machine).
Strangely, none of these display blue badges. And they're all properly parked, not just dropping someone off or whatever. But I digress.
All I can think of is that I could keep the badge on me at all times and see if I get away with leaving a note in the windscreen stating my name, mobile number, which building I've gone into, and that if a parking warden wishes to check my badge they can please feel free to call me, or come in and find me, and examine my badge to their heart's content.
Blue Badges selling for up to £1600
Jesus. I wouldn't leave an iPod (£260) or a TomTom (£350) in a car, particularly not anywhere it would be visible to anyone having a nosey, but if I use a disabled parking space I am supposed to leave my disabled parking badge (£1,600 - more than the value of my stepdad's entire car!) right on top of the dashboard, specifically in full and easy view.
In fact, technically we could get a ticket if it isn't in full view, for instance if it blows off the dashboard when we shut the door. It is my responsibility to make sure the badge is displayed in the correct manner.
There is of course the issue that plenty of people go ahead and park in the disabled spaces with no badge whatsoever. This year two of the spaces outside my flat are marked as "disabled". I've yet to go past it and see two cars displaying blue badges. Generally there's at least one of the following:
- A red crapmobile with printout pages in the windows advertising it For Sale.
- A green car advertising and belonging to the Indian restaurant/takeaway on the corner.
- A transit van advertising and belonging to Chriscott, an electrical shop two doors away.
- A 4x4 advertising and belonging to Home PC Fix, a computer shop a few doors down (but this is not the crappy shop that sold us the Problem Machine).
Strangely, none of these display blue badges. And they're all properly parked, not just dropping someone off or whatever. But I digress.
All I can think of is that I could keep the badge on me at all times and see if I get away with leaving a note in the windscreen stating my name, mobile number, which building I've gone into, and that if a parking warden wishes to check my badge they can please feel free to call me, or come in and find me, and examine my badge to their heart's content.
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