cat

Progress, sort of

/ Loony Feminist / 2 Comments

I have just finished the second tension sample for the cardigan. Yes. Just. Normally it takes me an evening to knit up a sample square. Hey ho. Well, that one is too big too. I’m going to have to do another one on slightly smaller needles. Ho hum.

Went to Brighton the weekend before Christmas to see family. We stay in a lovely hotel in Bramber, which is right next to an old castle and church. It’s really nice and there is parking! which is an issue in Brighton. It’s about 15 minutes away in the car from ES. The only fraught thing about the whole weekend was charging the electric car. The infrastructure is simply appalling. Even when you find a charging point, you’re lucky if a) it’s working and b) there’s no queue. And it was cold!Christmas Day was wonderful. Just hubby and me. No worrying about the Appalling Mother any more. Just lovely food, gifts (of which more in a moment), siesta and relaxation generally.

One of the things hubby gave me was a paraffin wax bath for my wonky hands. Sometimes used by beauty salons, they are good for arthritic and painful hands. I had a go with it yesterday – takes some setting up the first time, as you have to wait for 3 x 1 lb blocks of paraffin wax to melt, but it was worth it. It’s very hot – 50-55o C – so you just dip the painful part in and take it straight out again, wait for the paraffin to set, and dip again. About 6 – 10 times is recommended. It is so soothing. The paraffin wax just peels off, and you can discard it, but as I’m the only person using it, I’m reusing the wax.

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Both the physio and the surgeon have discharged me from the hospital – 5 months after the operation.

It should continue to improve hopefully. Still a little swollen and quite stiff but I can manage most things.

Watching some excellent tv – Succession series 3, The Great series 2, the films Spencer, and The Power of the Dog. Wonderful drama. Spencer is about Diana (of course) and takes place one Christmas. The stuffiness and insistence on adherence to tradition, however dreadful, is claustrophobic. Some characters are invented, but make a strong point. Charles is portrayed as completely hidebound by the rules, but not a bad chap overall. Diana is portrayed as being very unhappy, resentful of Camilla Parker-Bowles (the mistress), unsurprisingly having mental health problems, and a wonderful mother. The Power of the Dog is a Western of a very different type from usual. Shot in New Zealand, directed by Jane Campion, it’s very very good. Dark and powerful.

Also last night watched Billy Connolly’s “My Absolute Pleasure”. He’s nearly 80 now, has Parkinson’s, and is such a lovely, lovely man. His sense of humour is delightful. I just love him to bits.

Hubby has gone into Solihull to spend some Christmas vouchers. Also he doesn’t feel comfortable being in the house when the cleaners are here. So I’m doing this, he’s in Solihull, and the cleaners are cleaning.

I’ve ordered myself a “monocular”. I can’t see through binoculars because of the stupid double vision, but I can see through a monocular. The plan is that when I see an interesting looking bird through the window I can grab it and actually see what’s going on. Mm. We shall see.

Not terribly pretty, but yum!

Made an apple and almond cake for Christmas. Hubby doesn’t actually like fruit cake. This is a recipe from Nadiya Hussain, who is just wonderful. I didn’t use olive oil for the icing though, just dairy free butter cream. And for Christmas I did white glace icing so it looks a bit more Christmassy. It’s absolutely delicious. Quite rich though. Even I can only manage one slice per day. But Oh. My. Days. it’s yummy.

I had to get a new computer in the end. The motherboard was clearly in distress. Strange random beeping noises and kept falling off the internet, when everything else in the house was fine. Hm. And managed to work out it is 3 years old. Not old for a personal/domestic computer, but the industry standard when I was working in tech (20 years ago now I know!) was to replace workstations every three years. So I’m on Windows 11 now. Had to tweak it a bit because it was quite slow, and took me a whole day to install it – which is usual, I will say, for Windows. But I’d backed everything up, so haven’t lost any data, so am fairly smug about it. I just need to nuke the old hard drive and Freecycle it – with clear warnings about the dodgy motherboard.

Hubby uses his Virgin email address and it wouldn’t work the other day. Eventually after much faffing about I discovered that it was locked for some unfathomable reason. So I ran a virus check (clear) and managed finally to change his password. After an hour it magically unlocked itself. FFS. What is that about? Damned blasted technology. But I think I won, even if I don’t know what happened. Mm.

And here is a photo of our cat. Just because.

And a very Happy New Year to you all.

November already! What!

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Well. What a lot has been going on.

I’m back on Facebook, after a ten day break. But am very wary of any difficult conversations, and don’t comment nearly as much. Which is probably a good thing, but I still feel as if I’ve been bullied, which is not a good thing. The moral of this story is that I need to think more and comment less.

In October I went to UNISON Retired Members’ National Conference in Brighton. I stayed in ED’s flat, which was great, and a 20 minute walk from the Conference Centre. I went down a day earlier than everybody else, and stayed a day longer, so I could rest and sleep when I needed to. It was wonderful. I spoke to Conference (about 500 people) and successfully moved an amendment to a motion. All very exciting. And I love Brighton. Brighton Train Station has a piano for people to play, and they do! just random people! how fabulous.

But of course it was absolutely exhausting, and so I needed to sleep for most of the rest of the month.

YD is now 30 weeks and due on 5th January. She’s feeling much better, though tired, and looks fabulous. ED’s little boy is almost one year old, and what a delightful little character he is. A happy, happy child.

Hubby was 70 years old on Sunday, and his three sons organised a surprise party. They did the organising, I did the “keeping it a secret”, which was actually harder than it sounds. I didn’t actually tell any lies, but I did omit the whole truth! We met everybody (almost his entire family) at the Regency Hyatt in Birmingham, on the waterfront, and then got on the barge which took us for a three hour trip. Buffet for food, I had a fabulous cake made by an extremely talented 16-year-old, who also crochets the most amazing things and has been approached by some very big names in the entertainment industry, because she has an Instagram account (I think).

It was a wonderful, wonderful day. His family live all over the place (Brighton, Malvern, the Cotswolds, Ledbury, Dublin) and he was very surprised and delighted to see them all.

Meanwhile, Bertie the Cat has had a very nasty abscess, which manifested itself last Wednesday night. Fourth trip to the vet today for her 48-hourly antibiotic injection. Cone collar of shame. Fifth trip on Friday. It is definitely improving. We bought her a little harness so that she can go outside, but only with one of us holding on to the lead. I wipe her down with a warm damp flannel every day, and she gets brushed a lot. I make sure she gets plenty of attention and that she purrs as much as possible. Fraught though. And she hates her carrier, and the car. And of course the cone collar of shame. She loves the vets though. Doesn’t matter which one she sees. She loves them all. She just lets them clean the wound, inject her, and is extremely interested in the room (tries to jump off the examination table to explore). Bless.

So I’m very tired, in “looking after the cat” mode, and it’s time for me to stop now. For some reason it won’t let me upload any photos. Maybe I’ll try again another day and there’ll be a blog with just photos.

Thinking aloud

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Well, we bought the Thermomix. I’m going to make some pizza dough with it later on, and hubby has already been using it. It’s wonderful.  It’s an extremely fancy, computerised food processor which can cook as well. Am planning to make a carrot cake next week, and it should be much easier and quicker than it usually is.

Haven’t been able to knit for almost a week now, too tired and my hands are sore. Maybe tonight. We’ve also been watching Breaking Bad, and it’s just too exciting/fraught to knit anything remotely complicated while that’s on. But last night we watched the last two episodes of the final series. Exhausting. Excellent. We’ll miss it though.

And the counselling I’ve been having is going well. The counsellor is a wonderful woman. Understanding, listens to me, and makes me think/reflect about things. I’m able to celebrate all the good stuff in my life. I think I’ve always appreciated the good stuff, but actually saying it out loud really helps affirm it all. She has used the analogy of going up in a hot air balloon, and leaving the bad stuff behind on the ground. I’ve added to that, in my head, so that all the wonderful people in my life are extra/auxiliary balloons, lifting me higher.

I usually go to a knitting group on a Saturday morning – sometimes I go to the Thursday morning one, but counselling  takes up Thursday mornings at the moment- but today I’m not going to do anything. Can’t even be bothered to shower and dress properly. Might walk round the garden in a bit (that takes all of thirty seconds) because it’s a lovely day.

The cat had lost weight when she last saw the vet, so we’ve been feeding her more every day (now two sachets each day) and I need to take her to be weighed again at the end of next week. She looks healthy though and has plenty of energy. Sleek, glossy fur, eating well, killing small defenceless things (a mouse, so she’s doing her job). She purrs loudly, despite initial resistance, when I pick her up to cuddle her and puts her paw gently on my face, so I don’t think she minds too much.

The guitar playing is improving slowly. I can’t strum and sing. I can strum, or do one chord per note, and sing.  I’ve taught myself one song, and learned four others from the teacher, and practise most days. Almost every day, really, but the last two days I’ve just been unable to even think about it.

So for the next few days I’m not going to do anything big. I might start the next stage of the knitting project (if you’re a knitty person, I need to pick up the stitches for the sleeves – it’s a cardigan knitted top down in one piece, so the sleeves are knitted in the round). May practise the guitar, or maybe leave that till tomorrow.

I currently have the fan blowing cool on my face, a cup of tea beside me, and I think it’s time I did a (quick, easy) crossword. Laters, guys.

Feeling much better.

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Things have been happening.

First, most 20150519_120432important, and the best fun, was that my lovely friends Réjane and her husband Yves spent the afternoon with us while they were on a short trip to the UK. (See what I did there? I managed the acute accent on the “e”! Impressed?) It was just wonderful. Yves and hubby had not met before, and got on really well. We sat and drank tea, ate berry muffins, took a short walk to The Shop, came back, drank more tea, ate more muffins, walked round our little garden, and had a generally wonderful time. We exchanged birthday presents – I was finally able to present her with the cacti, which look great in her house, and I received some Yves Rocher products, two hand made carrier bags, two French magazines (one of which has some wonderful knitting patterns in – must learn French knitting terms), a pretty necklace, – a whole host of lovely things.

Also, I’ve had my assessment with the NHS for the depression which reared its ugly head recently, and have been advised that one-to-one counselling is the way forward. So now I’m awaiting the phone numbers to try out and see where the shortest waiting list is.

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The garden is looking beautiful, because of all the rain and then bits of sunshine. Going bonkers, in fact. I think May is my favourite springtime month of the year. Everything is so fresh and green, it all looks brand new. One poppy has opened, and there are lots and lots more waiting to burst open. The bluebells have been, and in some cases, already gone. The tulips are fabulous.

Knitting – have done the back, one front and one sleeve of this pattern. I had done two thirds of the second front, but messed it up. There are two pattern panels, and then there’s the shaping as well. But it’s fine. I’ll cast it on again tonight. The sleeves I’m doing slightly differently from the instructions. No pointy cuffs, just the diamond pattern up the centre of the sleeve. It looks nice. I was a bit concerned about the length of the sleeve, but after much faffing about with the calculator and the tape measure, it’s all come together. And I made a note of what I did so I can make the second sleeve match.

So generally I’m feeling much better.

Although the cat is not great. She’s very constipated, and it’s furball causing the problem. Took her to the vet’s today and she has had some treatment, we have medication for her and special food. She makes no fuss at all at the vet. He can do whatever he needs to, no complaining, no hissing, not even a miaow. And now she’s being very affectionate (for her). That means she lets me pick her up and cuddle her, while she purrs very, very loudly. Back to the vet on Thursday for them to check all is well. If not they’ll have to anaesthetise her and do a proper enema. Hmm. We shall see.

Not the cheeriest way to end this post, but she’s not exactly poorly.

August 10th 2013

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Mugginess gradually decreasing, although still plenty warm enough for summer clothes. The cat is very keen on catching and eating butterflies. Not such good news for the butterflies, but it keeps her very fit.

Went to the hospital this week and saw the orthopaedic surgeon about my arthritic knuckles. Apparently the X-ray was “fine” so they’re not going to do anything. I was very disappointed at the time, but have recovered since then and have decided I’ll ask the GP if physiotherapy would help. Meantime I’ve ordered some cod liver oil and glucosamine tablets to see if that helps. The pain is pretty bad, and each time I straighten or bend the finger I can feel the bones grinding. Mm.

The new computer arrived, and is set up, and working fine. Couldn’t wipe the old hard drives though because the old pc kept shutting down. So hubby sorted them out with a chisel and a hammer, and now they’re unusable. Freecycled the old pc case full of motherboard, memory, power supply, etc, to somebody who might well get it working, and the monitor stand. Love Freecycle.

Have had a large sort out of my yarn stash, and am feeling pretty virtuous. There is a Women’s Refuge which needs yarn so it’s going there. Excellent.

The socks are going well. Hoping to try one on younger daughter tomorrow, then I can finish them off.

Had a back episode about a week after the M.E. crash. It lasted five days, but the osteopath sorted me out. Still not quite back to normal, but much, much better.

Have just read a book called “Stoner” by J Williams. It’s absolutely unputdownable. I read it in a day – I was at the hospital for three hours, so had plenty of time to sit and read it. It’s wonderful. I don’t know anybody who’s read it who doesn’t think so. Highly recommended.

Went to Sip & Stitch today (the knitting group at the local yarn shop) and had a wonderful time, sitting, knitting, drinking tea and chatting. And eating biscuits of course. Am just about to go and make tea. Smoked salmon, beef tomato and salad. And baked potato for hubby.

That’s about it for now.

24th July 2013

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First of all, the dratted weather. Hate it with a passion, or would if I had the energy. For the last two days it’s been cooler and much more manageable, after some terrific thunderstorms and plenty of much needed rain.

But before that it was dreadful. The humidity is the worst thing for me. I can’t imagine going out and sitting in the sun. The most I could do comfortably is shower, put on proper underwear, and summer pyjamas – a loose t-shirt top and loose long shorts. Then I couldn’t do anything all day except sit around inside with all the fans in the house going. We do have a ceiling fan which we have been using at night. The first night or two we couldn’t sleep properly because it hums, but soon got used to it.

So I’m really, really pleased that it’s cooler. I don’t care if it rains, the whole country is going brown. Our water butts were empty.

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I’ve now learned to knit socks. The first sock would fit either a baby hobbit, or a duck with very fat legs, but I turned the heel and grafted the toe. No seams, did it in the round with two circular needles. Very pleased. I’m going to practise with more sock patterns and different ways of turning the heel. Socks are a small, portable project, and apparently once you’ve worn hand-knitted socks you’re hooked. We shall see.Image

More crocheting too, along the same lines but trying different patterns.

However, my KnitPro size 3.00 mm interchangeable needles – one snapped while I was knitting. Very frustrating. It’s never happened to me before. I’ve been knitting for over 50 years, and for the last 20 years with bamboo or wooden needles. But KnitPro will replace that set, and I’ve ordered a fixed and an interchangeable HiyaHiya size 3.00 60 cm needle from The Shop.

It’s frustrating because I need size 3.00 mm to finish the front band of the Cardigan of Doom which I’ve been knitting. But I shall put that to one side and do a few small projects in the meantime. I also need size 3.00 mm needles for my sock knitting – but in the meantime while I’m just learning I’ll use bigger needles and not worry too much.

Socks need to be knitted on small needles so that they don’t wear out too quickly and are comfortable. Big needles means big holes between the stitches/rows.

My hands – I’m in real trouble with them. The Tramadol (one x 3 times a day) plus the Paracetamol just isn’t doing it. But I’m at the doctor tomorrow, so will see what she says, and have an appointment with the orthopaedic consultant on 5th August. Also have an appointment with a different guy on 22nd August, for my tremor. Sometimes it’s not too bad, but sometimes I can’t get my food to my mouth, which is why I mentioned it to the doctor.

The cat has had a small adventure too. An abcess just below her eye. She didn’t seem bothered by it at all, although she was a little surprised when she washed her face, and it hurt. So the vet gave her an antibiotic injection and an anti-inflammatory injection, and she’s fine. If a little less pretty than usual.

Hubby is very busy. Labour party, chairing the Patient Participation Group at the local surgery, going to choir and learning to sing. All at the same time. It’s very good. He suffers a little less than me in the heat because of his medication. And he feels the cold worse.

So life is exciting on a small scale, leisurely, and relatively calm.

More projects and stuff.

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The cat needed to go to the vet today. She had an abscess under one eye. It looked like she’d been bitten. The abscess had already burst (on Saturday night while I was wiping it with a tissue!) but she’s had an antibiotic injection and an anti-inflammatory injection too. She doesn’t mind the vet at all, ignores the injection, and is quite keen to explore the surgery. But she hates the car and howls the whole time. Today I sang loudly to drown it out. Worked to an extent . .

I was so excited by the men’s final at Wimbledon, when Andy Murray won, I cried and cried. Wonderful, wonderful match.

The weather is hot, sunny and humid. Mm. Good for drying washing, not so good for people. So we sit inside with the fans blowing cool, and the cat sits in the shade outside.

I’ve done another couple of crocheted granny squares. I try to do one round of crochet each day, and discovered quite early on that I was making a mistake in the treble crochet stitch. So I looked it up in two different sources and am now doing it properly.2013-07-08 11.57.12

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I also made a new project bag – a smaller one.

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This one is for socks. I’m going to learn how to knit socks on Thursday. Exciting.

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It’s reversible, and this is the inside.

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Today I’ve made two carrot cakes – both to freeze. One for Friday when we have family coming over, one just to keep for now.

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just a diary.

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Writing the “bullying” blog was cathartic and left me feeling much better. It had been building up for years inside me. Phew. That’s done then.

Hubby is currently listening to classical music, there’s nothing worth watching on the TV, and I’ve just started reading Ian Rankin’s latest book. It’s called Standing in Another Man’s Grave, and I was surprised to discover it’s a Rebus book. Hooray! It’s on my Kindle, which is much easier to manage than “real” books at the moment.

I’m also reading a “real” book as well (at bedtime) – a Debbie Macomber book. I love Debbie Macomber. This one’s about how her character started up a yarn shop. As my two friends Vickie and Ana have just done that exact same thing, it’s very appropriate. And there’s lots about knitting in there too. Excellent.

My sister’s younger daughter is 30 today. Love her to bits. She had a baby last December and is a wonderful, wonderful mother. Can’t wait to meet the baby, who looks like a really interesting character. Mm.

Our cat is currently sprawled on our bed, fast asleep. It’s such a hard life being a cat. However, she has spent most of today scampering around the garden, now the hour has changed and we’re on British Summer Time. It means the evenings are lighter, and she just loves it.

Struggling with the pain in my hand/wrist tonight. Have had to take two Tramadol, one at lunchtime, one this evening. But back to physio on Monday and will see what they say about it.

Am delighted the sun has finally appeared. It makes everything seem so much better. And it’s good for us – am planning, if I can, to sort out my Oxalis Triangularis – this is what they look like when they’re open, and in the evening the blooms fold up and look like butterflies.Thanks to Davesgarden.com for the picture. I’ll have lots and lots when I’ve sorted them out, the corms seem to divide and multiply each year. Might see if anybody at Stitch group would like some . . .Image