Sheer and complete genious....

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/1402.html - and when you have appreciated the comic in all its glory, have a quick look at the notes....

Sherbies Fine

Well, we were allowed to bring Sherb home last night but only after promising that we would keep him in his cage and keep him calm and quiet. When we picked him up Ivan explained that the infection was worse than he had been apparent from the outside and he had had to remove both anal glands and sherb had had almost 3 hours under anesthetic while he cleaned it all out. He has 2 wounds about an inch and a half long each either side of his anus.

When Ivan bought him out he was VERY dozy and just leant up against John. We took him home in the car and he was asleep before we got there (you can walk there in under two minutes). When he got in he headed straight for his cage andleft asleep. We had to wake him every so often to let him out in the garden, to check that he was OK and to get his blood moving so that he wouldn't be too bruised.

He was so sleepy that when we fed him I took him into the kitchen, turned round and opened the can and turned back to find he had gone back to his cage to go to sleep again!

During the night he was ill (I had to throw the bean bag out) but this morning he is a lot better and he had his post op this morning and the vet was very pleased. Hopefully, all shall heal and he will be a happy bunny again!

Literally a pain in the @ss

Poor sherbie. He has anal furunculosis. For the past few months we have been treating it with Atopica (bought online, not through my vet and hence saving me almost £200 a month!) and steroids but when we weaned him off the steroids he had another breakout so push has come to shove and tomorrow he goes in to have the infected tissue removed.

I am all round miserable about it and keep having vivid dreams in which he is dead but the vet doesn't want to tell us so cuts up his body and leaves it on the doorstep for us to find. All of which is very unfair to our vet who is wonderful. His name is Ivan and he he is used to us and our weridness so didn't bat an eyelid when I burst into tears when we found out Thai had cancer (she is still fine btw) and then again when we decided Sherb should go to surgery. The other staff there are also great so all in all I know he is in good hands but I can't stop the feeling of dread...

YAY! Happy happy joy joy!

Sheldon

Just a quick note to say:

Dave Kellett’s Sheldon is moving to http://www.sheldoncomics.com .

The reason I say this is that he is moving away from United Media and they have refused to put ANY message on the site saying where the comic is going so we have to get the word out - you can help by posting this on your blog, putting it in the sig line of your comments ot any other way you can think of!

Halloweeeeeeeeeeeeen!

Well two good things today - My sister got her first ever A in an exam so happy dancing all round. And then she came over to see me and we carved pumpkins - I did a silouette of zero (from the Nightmare before Christmas) flying past the moon and kristy did a funky face.

Ride of our lives...

Well my sister, K, and I just had the BEST day our EVAR! We went to Thorpe Park earlier in the year and they had a special offer that if you paid £10 at the time, you could get in again another day. We were running out of time before the end of the season and we also had to take a picture. This particular picture was in honor of my cousin in Oz's wedding which most of the family can't make it out to. My mum thought it would be a great idea for us to all take piccies holding best wishes signs and make it into a poster to send out with my Nan and Grandad (who fly out soon to see them). So my sisters inspired idea was to take signs on a ride and then buy the picture. And here is our effort:


And the finished item:


Anyway, it was the best day out I have had for a long time as the kids were back to school so the longest we ever had to queue was about 10 minutes (annoyingly for the crapest ride) and most rides we walked straight onto. K will tell you, I was completely pathetic on the Slammer ride - basically a giant seesaw affair which goes all the way over the top - and was heard to say "I don't liiiikeeee thiiissssss" while on it. (It was horrible because it is quite slow so there is no centrifugal force to press you back against your seat so you are basically hanging against the restraints. I don't mind speed but I don't like having to rely on the safety processes as the whole time my brain is going, "what is there is a bolt loose? It was constructed by humans and they are ffallible")

Anyway, all in all and great day!

OK for some reason I can't add photos today - I will add 'em later!

Good News!

I forgot to say in my last epic post, we had a bit of good news. The planning application for the peice of land behind our house has been turned down again. Good news as it means we won't be going from being overlooked by nothing to being overlooked by 6 windows and 8 balconys! Also, one of the objectors to the plans wants to buy the plot and restore the house that is already there so hopefully that will happen instead of a block of flats being there instead. Of course, we just have to find out what happens to the appeal for the original planning permission now.

A weird night all round...

OK so yesterday evening was just plain strange. We didn't go to bed untilt he early hours of the morning as John has holiday at the moment. I went to bed first and read my book for a bit (Terry Jones Barbarians, in case you are interested which is very good) and John stayed downstairs reading and watching TV for a while. Eventually I yelled down the stairs threatening him with nasty things if he didn't come to bed and, after popping the dogs to bed, up he trudged. I waited while he pootled round in the bathroom etc. and then he ambled in and said "I just saw a ghost".

I was a bit taken aback at this for two reasons - firstly neither him nor I believe in such things (though I will be damned if I will walk through a graveyard at night) and secondly, I was expecting him to moan about being made to come to bed. So this is what he told me...

He was coming up the stairs to bed and saw something move in the bathroom, heading behid the door. He thought it was he hiding waiting to jump out on him (something that I am known to do at regular intervals) and so when he got to the door he said "HA" and pushed it back hard to squish me. At that moment the resistance gave way and the door banged against the wall. The resistance had been created by the stool that we keep in the bathroom and it had popped out from behind the door when he pressed harder. John was convinced that he saw something in the bathroom before he got to the door though.

Of course this morning in the cold light of day he insists that he never thought it was a ghost and he is likely right as behind our house there is a street light which shines through the trees and so casts shadows into the bathroom and it is most likely that was the movement and the increased pressure on the door popped the stool out. Also, this is upstairs in a relatively newish house which, to my knowledge, has never had any deaths in it (unless Iain and Michelle next door need to come clean to us) that is sited on land that (again to my knowledge) was part of a large estate which hasn't been built on before, which was not a cemetery or in any way hauntable (except maybe by the spirits of squirrels). This however did not stop me sleeping with the duvet tucked right up round my ears though...

... and this leads on to the second werid things of the evening. Due to being WAY too hot while I was sleeping, I had the weridest, most vivid dream.
It started that Mum, Dad, my sister, my fiance (who was a man I didn't know) and I were doing a fete stall so we turned up at a big hall with our stuff and on the wall was a diagram saying the position of each stall. However, our stall isn't on there and, when we find the organisers they say if we aren't on the diagram we will have to set up in the garden. So we go out in the garden and it turns out to be my Mum's garden and we start to set up our stall. Sherbert is there but he is tiny, the size of a cat, and curled up in a ball like a fox. And while we are setting up a big, bullet-headed man comes over and starts hassling my sister, the whole tap rapping instead of talking. Eventually he starts to slap her around so I step in and start to fight this man and he is rapping the whole time. I then, during a pause in the fighting, and compliment him on his rapping, telling he should be doing it professionally cos he is really good (I don't remember if he was any good or if I just was trying to appease him). With that he says "Do you really think so? Right you are going to marry me" and grabs me and marches me off across the fields and a river to a train station (none of which are near my Mum's actual garden) and my fiance follows. We get on the train and the carriages were only seperated by curtains.

Now the man is making polite conversation and I am going along with it, trying to keep him happy and each time I annoy him for whatever reason he slaps me. My fiance put his head through the curtain and mouths at me to run and he will stop the man holding me. But it doesn't work, my fiance is a bit useless and misses and the man grabs me and ties me up then goes into the next carriage and kills my fiance.

We are going through amazing scenery with lots of people around us -sometimes we are going past a giant mine with lots of people working it by hand and there are lots of people around and I think they were slaves but I don't know how I knew this. I knelt up on the seat to better look at the scenery. As I do I realise that an asian woman and her daughter are in the seat in front of us and I lean over and start tracing letters out on my hand asking for help. The asian woman is sypathetic but doesn't seem to realise that if she talks the man could hear here so I keep on having to shush her up. She leaves the carriage to phone the police (for some reason the cutains are soundproof) and the mans phone rings. It is his pysciatrist and he talks to him for a while and then hands the phone to me saying he needs to talk to me. The pysciatrist is a recorded message repeating things with very little meaning and there is no sense to what he says and he hangs up mid sentence.

The asian woman then returns and asks what the pscaitrist had said and also lets me know that the poice will be waiting at the station. The station we are going to is called the pier and it is in the middle of shops. As we pull up, there is a kind of cut scene and suddenly I am in a room that is dark with electricity arcing and a contraption which is loads of thick wires that plug into the back of one a mans skull. He disconnects it and I suddenly realise that there are eight people in the room, all dresses like Switch from the matrix but with fur coats. There are 4 in white, 4 in black and each member of the black team is a clone of their corresponding member in the white team. The fourth member of each team is like a living, organic version of the anubis guards from stargate. The leader of the troup grabs a tablet from the machine and swallows it, saying that he now knows the plan - they are to approach the train and let the man holding me see that they are coming, he will react violently and in the firefight this will give them a chance to kill me.

I am then back on the train, but I have changed - I have red frizzy hair and makeup like Pris from Blade runner (do you think I watch way to much science fiction?!) and in a white PVC raincoat which came down to mid thigh and red high heels. We are getting off the train and I see the people walking towards us through the crowd and all hell breaks loose when my captor sees them. I manage to get behind a pillar and then sneak off while they are dealling with him - I am almost past them when they spot and surround me. I suddenly have two machine guns and I spin round in a circle shooting them. Two are too fast and dash off to make a sandwich and then come back (while I am still shooting) and kick my leg (I don't know why I am standing on one leg) causing me to bite on the wodden dowel that I suddenly have in my mouth. I swallow a chunk of it and they laugh saying that it will sufocate and their work is done and they leave.

I crawl away through the shopping center and into the Royal College of Surgeons. There are hundreds of doctors dressed in period dress sat on really long pews in a huge cathedral like room. Stephen Fry runs up and says, "Oh my dear, what have you done?" I tell him what happened and that I am sufocating and ask if he can heal me but he declines to help saying he isn't a doctor. Then Peter Davidson comes dashing round the edge of a pew and, once he is filled in, tells me to lay down on the pew and he will help. He then tries to put me under anethestic by hitting me on the head with a walking stick but Stephen stops him and suggests hypnotism. So I am wake and aware but not feeling pain when he removes the wooden dowel. He then checks me over and finds I have a cracked skull so cuts open my scalp and pops a bit of metal that was in his pocket in to reinforce it. He then sews me up which for some reason makes my hair longer.

As I am coming back to full awareness another doctor wanders up and says that she has called my captors psyciatrist to let him know that I am there. I scream at here and tell everyone to leave because they will be coming to kill me and them and then...

... John nudges me to tell me to wake up.

Bleeding annoying as I would love to know what was going to happen!

Up a creek without a paddle...

So we have just finished watching season 2 of Lost. We were a little behind everyone else as, having bought season one through NTL so watching the whole lot over a couple of evenings I was loathe to watch the second season once a week. So finally the DVD set came out last week and we have watched them all, finishing finally tonight with the bonus features.

All I can say is "Wow!" maybe mixed with a bit of HUH?! We have gone through various theories - my favorite was purgatory however apparently the creators have debunked that. The next theory is aliens being involved and possibly this is supported by the four toed statue or colossus. Some of the backstory has been filled with the "Lost Experience" but I wasn't aware of this so missed things unfolding. Youtube and wikipedia however have nicely filled me in though. The thing is it not only answers some questions, but it raises SO many more!

I am sat here trying to update this, while John sits beside me making farty noises on his chest - I am soooo blessed!

Chimps are people too...

OK so firstly I have not posted in ages - I keep on meaning to but then someting will come up and it just gets pushed to one side. So anyway, we have only played two games of scrabble since I last wrote, one which John won (after much cheating) and one which I won (despite John's cheating) so the status quo (this was one of the cheaters words) is maintains. If you are interested in the actual scores so far, you can see them at Johns site.

In the meantime I have been knitting up a storm and have a number of completed bits and still more WIP's on the needles. My latest finished project is a dinosaur/dragon for my sister. I started with Jean Greenhowe dinosaur which the plan was to add wings from her terodactyl and the dorsal ridge of her other dinoasaur and then TA-DA there would be a dinosaur. However, this did not go exactly according to plan. First og all the initial pattern I started adapting I *think* that the pattern for the leg is wrong but I can't say for sure as I am not a great knitter. I then try again with a different pattern and it knits up fine. I make it up and them sew the face on and was a little disappointed as I realised, in the middle of the dino's back, there was an error (I think I increased one too many times) so to cover this up I made a little man, a dragon rider if you will, based on the little cavemen that Jean Greenhowe designed to go with the dinos. I then put the face on the dino and it ended up looking a little... um... well not right. BUT I soldiered on and sewed the dragonrider on to the back of the mentally challenged dragon. It wobbled.... I gave up and put it to one side in digust and vowed never to mention it to my sister.

Until...

... on friday Kristy, John and I went to Jongleurs (just getting there is a story in itself) and we got a tad tipsy while wathcing the comedians and eating greasy food. (As an aside, the first comedian started badly but got better, the second wasn't really my cup of tea, and the final was very good). And, once I had got my reprobate hubbie and sloshed sister back to the house, I, in a moment of stupidity say "Look what I made for you!". Kristy agrees that it doesn't look like the brightest dragon ever but seems to like it so all is OK and then I show her the book I got it out of to show her what it should have looked at and she falls in love with the frogs. Next morning, we are eating our hangover cure fry up and so I quickly knit her one, so then she wants it sewn onto the dinos head. So we now have a mentally challenged dino, with a frog on his head who is the brains of the outfit and a weeble on his back. Weridest cuddly toy I have ever seen.... Anyway, here are some piccies of Randolf the frog, Bog the dragon and Root the weeble. Oh and Kristy...









John and I have just watched a program by Danny Wallace called "Chimps are People too" looking at the similarities and differences between Chimps and Us. It was typical Wallace fayre - good but not brilliant and amusing rather than educational. Having said that, I really enjoyed his books "Yes Man" and "Join me" which were hysterical. Anyway (I seem to be rambling somewhat) on the related website there is a test to see if you are 99.4% chimp or 100% human and I came out chimp! So no suprise there then...





Finally, here is a quick piccy of my gorgeous boy, as I rearranged the lounge the other day so that his den is away from the radiator as he gets too hot over the winter when the heating is on and he was a bit disconcerted by the change.

A Very Productive Weekend...

Anyone who knows me knows that we have an awful garden. I despair of it - when we moved in it was gorgeous but poor drainage combined with two big menacing dogs means that we soon ruined it completely. So, in a rare money spending mood, this Saturday I dragged poor John round the garden center.

The idea is, that one day, when we have enough time, money and patience, we shall replace the sad bedraggled grass with gravel, possibly leaving a raised lawn in the center of the garden, but that has yet to be argued out. Around the edge of the garden, we will have a collection of pots, tall enought that the dogs can't pee in the them and heavy enough that they can't knock 'em over, planted in a replendant manner.

So far, we have 8 large stainless steel pots.

Now, admittedly, they are cool, but up to now one has contained a christmas tree, which promptly died, a Japanese Acer and some sweet peas that I had grown from seed on top of the microwave (surely the radiation should turn them mutant?). The others have been stood in the back garden, stacked up in some strange futurist sculpture. BUT NO MORE!

Yes for Saturday I dragged poor Jonnie-boy round the garden center. He was very fore-bearing (mostly, I think, to make up for his appalling behaviour during my recent stomach bug) and basically let me have relatively free reign. I could have blown a fortune... However I am more sensible than that (and mindful that the company tax bill is due at the end of the month) so I largely stocked us up from the reduced-price plants and, if a younger plant was available for less money, we had that instead of the more resplendant, but budget-busting, older plant. We both admired enviously the full grown trees but decided that that was pushing it.

Anyway, here is what I came home with:

I don't have time to tell you about the rest of the weekend - I shall finish updating tomorrow but here are the piccies:

The Polar Problem

OK - I haven't written any posts recently but I declare it ISN'T MY FAULT! Honestly. No really. You believe me, don't you?

Anyway, the reason for the lack of updates is my hubby has been working very long hours recently and, as a result, no scrabble and so no updates. So, in an attempt to not be completely useless I have decided to start cataloging some of my knitting here too. I started to learn to knit about 7 months ago now so that I could knit my sister a throw for christmas. I completely underestimated the time it would take and my ability to be distracted and so it still has to be finished but luckily it is built in squares so whenever I go and see my sister I stitch on another couple of squares while I am there.

My first knitting project was a polar bear. He is SO cute - I have a thing about polar bears and I found the pattern so then made five in quick sucession, four of which have gone on to new homes, just the original remains.







Isn't he just the cutest, with his little smile and teeny ears? And SO easy to make as well.

However, from here on in their have been a litany of unfinished projects. Yes that's right - the blanket is still being worked on, the England scarf, which I learnt to double knit in order to start, will be ready for the World Cup in 2010, two VW hats for John, niether of which actually worked, the gnome I started has a hat, a body but only one arm, no legs and most importantly no beard!

Not content to leave knitting unfinished, I have also taught myself to crochet in that time too! This time I did it so I could make my Nan a plant holder for her birthday (Nan and Grandad both insist they are too old to be bought anything for their birthdays but we can't not give them anything - after all they are the best grandparents a girl could have - but it so hard to think what to make sometimes!) I crocheted this out of garden twine and was left with blisters where it was so coarse but I was really pleased with the outcome and I shall post pictures of it if I remember to ask Nan when I am over there. I have crocheted a couple of squares for Kristy's Blanket and also some flowers and leaves to be sewn on, but I haven't got round to attaching those just yet.

And this brings me round to the polar bear again. You see he is part of the problem. I could get one of those knitted, sewed and stuffed in the space of an evening easily and I have become spoiled. As one of the Generation X-ers, I am used to instant gratification, not having to work at something for days and days on end for the final joy of a finished article. I have been spoilt by a cuddy toy...

So in the light of all this, I have a free afternoon and I am determined to get at least one project finished. Question is, which one?

Edit (17:01) - I have also joined a new web ring for us brit girls : YAY Brit Gals!

Scrabble Desolation

OK, obviously in a fit of pique at my winning streak, my hubby has been resistant to suggestions of scrabble playing recently. So instead I thought I would share with you another Ipod audio gem. By this I mean podiobooks. The concept behind this is SHEER GENIUS! Keen amateur writers read their own books for you delight and delectation and, if you love it, you can give a donation which goes partly towards running the site and partly to the authors. Even though the installments are mostly all uploaded already, podiobooks only downloads one to you itunes once every so often, with a interval that you can set yourself. And if you are feeling greedy and want the next installment NOW THIS MINUTE you can log in and press a button to release the next installment and voila! you listening pleasure is ensured. Were I you, which I am not as you can probably tell I don't dress nearly stylishly enough, I would go and sign up right NOW!

Ipodding Geeky Bliss

I have to recommend the podcast that I have begun listening to recently. The Word Nerds is an etymology podcast, where three American gents (Howard and Dave Shepherd and Howard Chang) natter about the origin of English/American words. I love this podcast, the guys are intelligent, interesting and amusing and I often learn something, despite that fact having Americans teaching me about a language that they don't bleeding well speak properly rankles a little! Theydo occasionally get it wrong however, there have been a number of references to how us English use words which just are either plain wrong or a little off-center, but that is to be expected as they don't live here.

Anyway, enough whittering on on my part - go listen to it!

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Firefly RULES!

You scored as Hoban 'Wash' Washburne. The Pilot. You are a leaf on the wind, see how you soar. You have a good job, and a stunning wife who loves you (and can kill people). Life is good, which is why you can't help smiling. Now if you can just get people to actually listen to your opinion things would be perfect. Hoban 'Wash' Washburne 88% The Operative 69% Simon Tam 63% Capt. Mal Reynolds 63% Kaylee (Kaywinnet Lee) Frye 63% Inara Serra 56% Zoe Alleyne Washburne 50% Jayne Cobb 50% River Tam 50% Shepherd Derrial Book 44% Which Serenity character are you? created with QuizFarm.com

Revenge is a dish best served SCRABBLED!

Well, the first proper entry for a scrabble game and I WON! However, it wasn't smooth sailing...

Firstly, while I made our tea, I foolishly let John set out the scrabble board. He "helpfully" picked out our letters for us so we could just start - as you can hopefully see, the results were a tad biased, mine tiles being on the left. (Click on any picture to enlarge it).



After returning the tiles to the bag, we pulled tiles and John was to go first. And it was then that his little plan to fix the tiles backfired.


His first go was therefore 0 points, while he swapped his tiles. The game then ran smoothly-(ish) until John tried to put down the word "quipe". I challenged and, while I was checking in the handy dictionary, John took a sneeky peek and saw the word "Quipo". So, cheat that he is, he used it the next go! There is no edd to the man's evil streak. Just look at the cheat's little cheating face.



Has anyone every looked so evil? Anyway, here is the final board :




And I feel vindicated, because after all, as my old Mum says, cheats never prosper!

My First Post

OK, so things have been going wrong in our house for some time. In arguments, the slamming of doors and the taunting only point to one thing.... Scrabble envy!

That's right, my other 1/2 and I have been playing scrabble for some time and things have become a bit... heated. The problem is as follows - I have a much better vocabulary but zero patience, no head for strategy and am dyslexic. He, however, is quite happy to spend 20 minutes contemplating his next move and makes moves merely for points. This is an anathema to me - scrabble should be a fast paced game that is about the love of words and life, he makes it about capitalism and boredom. He has started a site to catalogue our game scores and this is my rebuttal cataloguing the strife and the heartbreak that is our competition.