Guy Fawkes Night

My brother and the kids came up as we have a fab view over the city and we had an evening of hot dogs and sparklers. It was simple, and nice. Would have been miles better with a bonfire though... Had a fairly good view of one of the best displays in the City too, very big bangs. Total cost £10. Not bad.

Going to be scrapping a few of these pics soon. Spent last night adding stickles to chip letters in preparation.

Anyway, cat-wise, we have made a decision to grit our teeth and get on with it - Oliver loves her and that does outweigh all the other things..... We have also said that if things get any worse, fungus-wise (!) then we will look again at the situation. On the plus side, the house has never been so clean.....

I don't know what to do.....

Well, bit of a downer at the mo..... we have picked up Ringworm.....NOT a worm at all - it is a fungal infection which comes from a fungus we all have co-existing happily on our skin apparently, but gets triggered off by certain things. One of them is pets, and as this has happened since Tabba has been with us, we have taken her to the vets and they have done a test to see if it has come from her. The results don't come back until next Monday. If she has Ringworm, it seems that there will be months of expensive treatment for her, not to mention the hygiene issues at home. It all seemed bearable until we suddenly noticed, out of the blue, a bald patch in Oliver's hair on Saturday. A visit to the Doctor confirms it is possibly the scalp version of Ringworm, and that feels like the last straw.

Now I am sat here after a sleepless night, in two minds what to do - Oliver has half-accepted that if she is responsible for causing him this, then it is impractical and unfair for her to stay here, but I know he is very attached to her, and he will be terribly upset for ages. If it is confirmed she doesn't have it then do we just accept it was picked up elsewhere (possibly abroad as that is another cause) and get on with it, knowing we could pass it on to her and it could be passed back to us, blah blah blah.......

I have, for the first time in God knows how many years written out a list of Pros and Cons about keeping her here, and on the Con side is a long list encompassing possible hygiene issues, stress, interminable vets bills, expense on top on expense and inconvenience, and on the Pro side is one thing: Oliver. And that one 'thing' carries as much if not more weight and makes this decision so, so painfully difficult. And I still don't know what to do...

Incidentally, if anyone is reading this who mixes socially with us - fear not - once treatment is underway, contact with other people is not forbidden. According to the Doctor, Ringworm is incredibly common. Funny how I never hear about these 'incredibly common' ailments until I bloody get one.

Bloggin' Hell

So much to catch up on. Firstly, following on from Oliver falling in love with the supermarket cat on holiday (Patchos), Mark unexpectedly came home with a kitten a few weeks ago! She is a long-haired tortoiseshell, very sweet (when she isn't lying in wait to bite us or rip my sofa to shreds) and litter trained. Bonus. She is not as 'lap-cat' as Oliver (or I for that matter!) would like, but he is happy with her around and seems to love her very much. She is called Tabba(!)

Thrillingly, Mark turned the spare room into a craft room for me!! Can't tell you how excited I am by this - I have a worktop from wall to wall with a TV/DVD player sat on the corner (more excitement) and two wall to wall shelves above that. I am sighing in bliss as I type. No more yelling as I yet again clear my part-finished masterpieces (?) from the dining room table seconds before we eat. Instead I can leave them littering my worktop and simply close the door. Ahhh, does life get any better than this?

I went to a crop on Saturday - a rarity - and did two layouts and a couple of pages of my 'Corfu' minibook:

Have got into a new routine with Oliver, which I hope will work out in both our favours - we do an hour of 'schooly' stuff in the morning and then go for a walk and then by that time he's sick to death of me and I get some time to myself for a change ha ha. Also, it seems that by doing these things in the morning, we are much better tempered with each other for the rest of the day.

Cor, phew...

Arrived back from Corfu late Friday night. It was a lovely hotel, the Greeks in Sidari were surprisingly friendly and laid back, considering they have had a season full of English tourists. Oliver enjoyed it. I, as usual, found myself longing for home after a few days. Many years ago (in the days of my first marriage) I used to holiday abroad often twice a year. I hated it - I hated the foreign-ness of being abroad, instead of being able to embrace the differences in culture and the absence of home-comforts, I found myself desperately homesick and weeping copiously. Then came Mark and the kids, and holidays in France, and I loved it - I NEVER felt homesick in France. We stayed with Mark's family too, in Tunisia and in Paris, and the Loire and I loved that - I NEVER longed for home so I thought I had outgrown the missing home thing.

But - weirdly, I struggled this time. It is the bareness and lack of familiar things I think in the apartment that did it. I love being with Mark and Oliver - there is no-one in the world I would rather spend time with, but - this time on holiday, I felt 'lost' in the evenings when our meal was finished and afraid of the 'emptiness' of returning to our apartment. Concerning for me.

Anyway - enough analysis - some pics -

This is Mark and Oliver on the boat we hired for an hour...and took back after 10 minutes because we felt seasick -

Mark doing some early evening reading -

Oliver hopefully not reading Robert Goddard with Mark -

The view from our apartment -

And, to prove I was on holiday too...

more ATCs, and fibbing

I have finished these three for a 'Shakespeare quotes' atc swap on Magmaker forum.



I am quite pleased with them, looking forward to seeing what I get back....

Oliver has broken a pane of glass in the greenhouse - quite by accident whilst playing with his cousin (J), it seems, but whilst that is annoying - the worst of it is that he didn't tell us and asked J not to tell us either!

I found out because J, worried to death about trouble, authority and the Police, as only young children do, told his Dad and he told me. I left it for Mark to deal with as I was at work, and it seems that when confronted with the broken glass, Oliver lied blatantly about how it happened. This is so very disappointing, and maybe I am horribly naieve, but I just didn't expect him to lie, and continue to lie with no apparent effort or guilt. Since he is not at school he is not in an environment where I guess he might feel the need to be sly and competitive so I don't get it. Maybe I am making too much of it. I just get a nasty feeling about it - it has to be nipped in the bud straightaway - lying to Mum and Dad just can't be condoned at this age..... Anyway, the truth outed in the end and he was sent to bed early, his new Ben 10 Top Trumps I bought him before I knew about the lies he must give to J, as recompense for dragging him into his naughtiness, and he will miss his DVD night this week and go to bed early again. Three punishments for the three big whoppers he told. He seems remorseful enough. We are playing on our upset and disappointment with him not telling the truth and that seems to have got through. Emotional blackmail? I don't give a shit......

Loads to report....

Got Virgin media plumbed in last week by two young boys who looked as if they should have parental permission to be out alone. Still haven't got the wireless router sorted, told Mark I would do it (?!) and then found we haven't got a wireless adaptor. Couldn't get the cables to fit the appropriate sockets either and rang up Virgin to have a go at some poor hapless chap called Danesh saying that Virgin had not supplied the right ones, blah blah and he kept banging on about the cable modem. I kept on telling him I couldn't see one, getting more irritated by the second, when I realised that he was referring to the modem attached to the TV in the other room... I promptly informed him that THAT was why I was having problems and thank you and goodbye. Sometimes you just have to get out quick.


I applied for a job with NHS Direct, at a band higher than my current job with the NHS, got an interview and then found that there was a Sunday shift going at my place. It's double time, and therefore infinitely more attractive, so I have applied for that too.... meanwhile I have put off the NHS Direct interview because I would prefer to stay where I am really. I like the work, and I like the hours and the people. Not many jobs around like that..... AND then I find out that the Child Tax Credit people have increased my weekly payments (fairly substantially I have to say) because of the drop in my earnings since I left Lloyds. Really, I am in two minds whether to even take this extra shift if I am offered it, or not. No wonder some women are faced with the dilemma of not working at all.

Recently, I have tried to get arty with ATCs. (Artists Trading Cards). I have tried to get going with these before, as I like the idea of trading little cards with people and having a collection of individual art, but as usual, I find my creativity stunted. I have come up with this one with one of my favourite Shakespeare quotes:



And I have tried to get Oliver into them too, as I feel it would be something we could do together, and I think he would like to send and receive these too. With some assistance he made these two, the theme is the Riverbank, and it is a children's ATC swap: (photos are out of focus, my fault)


And finally, I have recently purchased an old PS1 console with a few games, and have re-visited the world of Tomb Raider 2. I played this around 15 years ago fairly extensively and am quite shocked to find how much I can remember of it. I like this sort of game since not only does it involve a great deal of hand-eye co-ordination, you have to think about where you are going, been and how things might happen around the corner. I make Oliver play it with me - he has a fantastic sense of direction with it although he is too scared to take the controls. I have to say there are times that I absolutely shit myself when the spooky music kicks in and I round the corner to be savaged by a pack of Dobermans..... is this good for one's heart I ask myself.....

Oh - and I MUST say about my experience with the Osteopath - I had a headache which went on for about three days, unheard of for me, so I assumed something to be strained, pulled, 'out' whatever, and booked in to see an Osteo I had not heard of before, Susan Farwell. Anyway, she does this cranial-sacral stuff, you know, the very light touching/pressing method and it was FAB. My headache went instantly and she released alot of tension in my ribcage and pelvis too. I saw her again this week and she says my body is 'recovering well'. She reckons I have an accumulation of stress on the body since having Oliver (by horrible emergency caesarian) 6 years ago. AND she cited the operation and recovery from it as a major cause of stress too...

I asked her how it worked and this is a rough explanation, how I understood it. She applies (the right amount of) pressure to the muscle where it crosses over the bones and nervous system. The idea is that her taking the strain off of that muscle will tell the nervous system that the amount of tension there is not necessary, and the nervous system will then re-programme that muscle to be less tense and it will relax itself. When she feels that happening, she releases the pressure that she has been applying, as the muscle has 'got the message' and tension is released by itself. Voila! How very clever. The whole theory of Osteopathy is that if the body is correctly physically aligned, it will self heal. So interesting.

And that's all I've got to say about that...

The Build-A-Bear Experience

Oliver expressed a desire around 3 months ago for one of these rip-off bears, and we put a star chart in place in order for him to 'earn' a bear. I set the target at 30 stars, reckoning that this would cost me around £30. To be fair to Oliver, he set his heart on a particular rabbit in June, and on two subsequent visits still wanted the same rabbit, AND he has had to work for this - 3 months is a long time in a little chap's life.....

So anyway, the awful moment came when he reached 30 stars and we visited BAB -

It's this rabbit:

And this is stuffing him with love....

And this is the outfit he wanted....

And this is my Mum getting FAR too into the dressing up thing....

And this is the cash desk where I get ripped of the princely sum of £31.50.



And it's worth it.





He did have to put in alot of effort, in alot of different ways to gain these stars, so I'm kind of proud he achieved this, and still chose the same rabbit he picked out 3 months ago. It is one of my aims for him that he learns to EARN and appreciate and not be so shite with money/gaining goods as his Mother.