Web wandering.

I have been for a wander round the ethernet tubes and found some good stuff....an idiot guide to HTML for bloggers, from the chap who wrote some of the 'dummy' books one Dan Gookin.
Did you know that freecell game 11982 is un-winnable without cheating ?
Local councillors love wasting money as much as the big boys.

Ants vs. worms: Computer security mimics nature,looks interesting.

How about the 'dickhead' of the sea ? ok technically it is more of an Anne Summers type appendage,but hey I like typing 'dickhead'.

Mr Hari seems to agree with me on the much revered(by others) late queen mother.

What Katydid next in a cannibal bugs life.

Don't wear crocs to the synagogue.

We may have a couple of chaps in line for the big prizes. 

On Thursday my favourite awards are being handed out,the ignobles,for improbable research.Previous winners that spring to mind are papers on how high a dog flea can jump,Sword swallowing and its side effects, the positive correlation between tipping and ovulation in lap dancers.

Talking of correlation,have you noticed the inverse correlation between the hardness of your butter and the softness of your bread ? yes,I had a holey sandwich for lunch today.

Finally here is a picture of the henny pennies just to brighten this post up.

Ow, ouch the stingers got me.

My garden is a tad wild to say the least.This time of year I like to trim trees, hedges,brambles and any stingers that have snuck in ,so armed with minimal equipment and a still dodgy rib I set about it........I suspect any part of me that doesn't hurt must have dropped off. The rib is screaming at me for some codeine,the bramble scratches are bleeding, but the stings.........oh my deity,nettles are the suicide bombers of the garden( before you comment on it,I know the analogy was overdone),in death they reap their revenge,they seem to get me much worse than other people,I can remember my Dad pulling them up with his bare hands when I was a kid........me, I first get a nice neat hives style rash,then welts appear and after that I get a dry itchy rash for a couple of weeks which often requires antihistamines for a while.Still the bulk is done now,no more stingers,just tidying up.

Grubby and I went for a little stroll round the local reservoir at half eight this morning,en route we saw a lot of game-birds running about the road and the gamekeeper on his way to shoo them back into the woods.It was a perfect morning,with a mist that burned off rapidly in the unseasonably warm weather we have been having this autumn.A couple more shots can be found here and here and here....
Oh and the googlebot gave me a visit,does this help people find me on the search engine ? or is it some corporate move to be stopped with a robots.txt type thing ?

Experimental dyeing (note the 'E') and the cats near death experience.

On Monday I dyed my hair,sadly I had bought the wrong colour,instead of blonde I became white.So I have been to the chemist and purchased some more,they didn't have my usual colour again,so afterwards I may have either a bald head,an even whiter colour or be back to a nice shade of blonde.Wish me luck.
The cat was mewling on the kitchen windowsill the other day,so I opened the window and let him in with lots of mumbling about the fact he has his own cat flap,The picture is a view of a cornered cat from the bedroom above.      Well today I watched him run up the garden pursued by Whiskas the ex-battery hen,a bit of irony there, a chicken saved from the cat food factory torturing the cat,the long and short of it is, the hen chased the cat up the garden and cornered him so his only option was to jump onto the windowsill for safety.I wasn't laughing too much as I opened the window so the cat could come in.                                              

Snotty noses and tree sperm.

Well Cleo the cross dressing hen still hasn't quite decided which way to go,at least she isn't crowing yet.

Work was murder this morning,not only do I still have my dodgy rib

I also have a cough and cold,on top of that Mr and Mrs Boss had a lovely dinner party last night,I spent this morning washing up,laundering table cloths and napkins and vacuuming and scrubbing food and wine spills,oh how the other half live.
I am just jealous really,when I remember to do the lottery and then win,I shall have a houseful of staff at my beck and call.
On the way home from work I had a sneezing fit thanks to a Lebanon Cedar spraying its tree sperm about.There is a good pic on flickr of some pollen floating on water.
I thought if I got the waffling in early today you wouldn't have to read about moaning middling daughter,but rest assured you won't get away with it tomorrow.

Another day another ten bob.

The dwellers on mount Olympus are not happy with me,or that is the way it would seem.
I went to work this morning expecting a fairly normal day,I know they are having a dinner party tonight,so I was ready to give the place a bit of extra sparkle.Oh dear ! Mrs Boss was at home,prepping some food ahead of tonight,ye gods how does making a salad and a dessert make so much mess? straight after I had cleaned the kitchen she trashed it,so I cleaned it again and she managed to make yet more mess,she then obviously felt badly about it and wiped everything down,I really wish she hadn't,all she did was leave mucky wipe marks over every surface in their high gloss kitchen.Even worse,I have to go in tomorrow and deal with the aftermath .....

My friend L rang,I just knew what was coming as soon as she said "oh thank g-d I got through to you"her Router/adsl modem has broken,instead of ringing me straight away she fiddled with software,I tell her never to touch system files,but she never learns.........

Middling girl child has been on the phone again,moaning as usual,I may have to see if her friends can give me the name of a good counsellor ,tonight's moan gave me a chuckle even if I didn't appreciate her sound effects.
Seems her cats have got super-fleas,she has treated them with frontline to no avail,so combed the cats,in the process she managed to catch a live jumper,crushed it between her fingers and it exploded in her face,let us hope that toxoplasmosis infection makes one a less moany zombie.

Oh thank Zeus for that !!

   Red wine,jam on toast and something with nicotine to follow.
I have found my fag(that is ciggy for any Americans who may look in)papers and filters,owing to my laziness,after all I would never confess, that thanks to walking round the house with a carrier bag on my head to avoid getting hair dye (me grey ?never)everywhere, I didn't have the time to shop.So I found the emergency golden virgin,something regularly cash light people like me have,I spent an hour hunting down my papers and filters,decided I was too knackered to cook,so am eating blackberry jam on toast,drinking red wine and expecting to inhale nicotine any moment.
I don't often drink when alone,I had a brief spell several years ago when I found myself making a decision,bread or wine with the last of the weeks dosh(money for Yanks,Ozzies etc)now this would be fine, but I was single parenting at the time and the fact I even considered it knocked me back a bit.So I don't generally drink when alone ,just in case the twelve step monkey comes for me.Tonight however I need a glass,I just had the middling daughter on the phone,bloody hell is she depressing,moaned for an hour,thanked me for listening and then explained that none of her friends had time to listen these days,yeah right,they are all now in counselling for telephone induced depression after her last calls.
She tells me her other half calls her Rolf,as she spends all her time whimpering about one injured creature or another,seems today's victim was the poor run-over corvid she saw,whose friends were flying around the cadaver cawing tearfully,I suspect there was cannibalism coming on,but politely kept the thought to myself and sympathised.
I had a bit of a giggle today,I read the daily nazi on-line ,a couple of headlines jumped out at me as they are wont to do,the first read "Machetes by the door, drugs on the table - and mothers paid by the state to have babies with men they barely know. What HAVE we done to the British family?" the second read "Viagra without the wait: Anti-impotence lotion that offers instant results and no side-effects" I suspect having read the first headline the average mail reader wouldn't need any rub on Viagra,they would be so excited they could pole vault.The first article is the most flagrant bit of rubbish I have read in ages,the second has so far only been tested on rats,I wonder what the job description is for that ? rat masturbator ? it is also at least ten years from being anywhere near a human willy.........

A quickie(the end is nigh)

Oh heavens the end is nigh,how many times in my near fifty years have I heard this crap from the g-d squad?
Which brings me onto this excellent piece on how science does and shouldn't treat a belief in the sky fairy with kid gloves.
Ooh and  look at this pretty baby cardi pattern I found on a blog,
must persuade my kids to breed again,yes I know, I know, one grandchild between my four children is the responsible thing to do in our overpopulated world,but there is nowt so grand as a grandchild.

Weird world linkfest.

You just have to love how eccentric our world is.........
I have an elderly hen who is starting to do the Galliforme equivalent of cross dressing,she is very ancient and as hens only have one functioning ovary when it packs in, testosterone takes over and they grow spurs,crow and generally behave like cocks,maybe she will now turn into a subservient chicken ? or perhaps I should distract her with a little chicken camping ?.
On Friday Grubby and I went out for some light lunch,we had a bit of spare pannini ,so being of the tight persuasion I wrapped it in a napkin popped it in my handbag for later,oops,I only just found it.......still not as bad as the worlds oldest ham.The report was from 1993 I wonder if he still has it.
I blogged here on Great tits eating bats when desperate,well it seems they aren't the only things that like a batty snack.
Contrary to what the papers announced last week,showering won't kill you off....
I need to go down the garden and hunt out the girls eggs,perhaps I will need the worlds largest basket, and as for interesting stuff,how about teddies in space ? what a great science project.
Grubby sent me a good link list for bored moments,the fifty most interesting wiki articles.......

In case you wanted to know....

If you mix your old paint properly it will still match your walls,unlike the fool who stirred the half tin of paint with a pencil,painted where the walls were scratched by four poster assembly and discovered the patches stood out a mile.So having had a good thunk on why the paint no longer matched,I did the only thing possible,I stirred it with a dinner fork.........yay, woohoo, it worked.
Now to the bedroom piccy.........

and this is the lamp.

 

 So the bed-hanging cost a whole quid,the lamp is a recycled, cobbled together thing,the cushion covers have been gathered down the years,the stripey purple throw came from Camden market years ago,the bed was a freebie,a friend was throwing it away as her hubby was so heavy it sounded like the house was falling down every-time he moved,the lilac flowery bedspread came from mothers house,the mat under the cushions on the home-made blanket box came from a jumble sale for 10p and was then dyed to match everything else........

I hid the crochet down the side of the bed so it wouldn't interfere with the photo,sadly the duster was hiding on the radiator..........

How to make a lamp.

One does this sort of thing on my budget,I have to confess though that I am quite proud of some of my 'little fixes'
To the lamp.........
Take one super grannified bedside lamp,destroy,well no not really,disassemble carefully,take one faux Morrocan cheap tin tealight holder,squish squeeze duct tape light fitting into it,go to fit bulb and realise you have to take apart and redo as modern bulb is too long........

Finished item hangs nicely from draped bed........yay woohoo I did it.I took a photo,I have no idea whose house this is, cos it looks nothing like mine,it will by morning though,after a sleepless night filling the empty half of the bed with various books,crochet and other assorted projects
ps Grubby,
I won't be needing the hacksaw after all.

Update on post below

I got the bed assembled,as I was putting the drapes on I dangled them in my mug of black tea and had to put them straight in the washer........I got around the organza issues by sewing a piece of co-ordinating satin to the top,it meant I only had to pin everything together then sew rather than trying to sew organza to itself.
As for resting...............I am easily bored,I suspect I may have some weird, brain only, adult version of ADHD.

I have been having odd dreams lately,a lot of them,I have just woken from tonight's first already.It is still only 12.30am.

Sammy(my youngest) and I for some unknown reason were in an unnamed town with Tina and hoppy Porsche(the hens) in our arms when they were stolen by a gang of people somewhere between fair workers and gypsies........we had to run through mazes of shopping centres and streets until we eventually found them in a caravan with a load of illegally imported giant rats whose features were on the tops of their heads,so when you looked down on them they were smiling ???

I dread to think how a woo pusher would interpret that one.

Living in the twilight zone !

I am sure I am living in the twilight zone,Peter Poltergeist(that was our name for him when the kids were young)has been at it again.
A year or so ago I bought several yards of beautiful sari fabric,cost a whole quid from the sally army shop in Bedford. I had the intention of making a bed hanging,I have a rattly but ok faux brass four poster.So as I am pretty useless at the moment with this rib injury I thought I would get the machine out and make a start.....so I looked on my main stash shelf,not there,I looked in the underbed bag thing,not there,I have searched the house high and low,emptied every cupboard,drawer and wardrobe shelf to no avail,now I often give give bits and pieces of fabric to friends who are Mums,Grand-mums and youth workers for costumes etc,but I wouldn't have given this away.......
So whilst hunting high and low, I came across a couple of pieces that ought to be on my stash shelf,so I went to put them on there and low and behold there was the missing fabric.......
I may be cracking up.
I have made the bed hanging and now have to make some window drapes with a beautiful two tone piece of organza that fell into my possession via the scout bazaar yesterday.This should be fun,slipping and sliding all over the place, un-ironable because it melts,but I will beat it.
I just need to find someone to assemble the top bit of the bed now,I suspect I am not up to it without a lot of wincing and squealing.

Today I are mostly been reading.......(obscure Brit TV reference)

For the last week I have been leading a somewhat odd life.I take some pretty big doses of painkillers then go to work,I come home and for the last two days find myself having a three hour nap,whether this is due to the painkillers(all within recommended doses but way over anything I would normally take)or the pain that seeps through or maybe as Grubby suggested to me,it is the body shutting me down so it can heal or even all of the above,then I spend my time reading,sitting up at the desk or even in a comfy chair or bed soon starts to become painful,making crochet impossible,So I read books laying down.
I finished 'The Blind Assassin' by Margaret Atwood in the early hours of this morning,a brilliant read but in it's way just as dark as her masterpiece'The Handmaid's tale' aren't women brilliant at writing dark and foreboding stories,I just read 'The Trafficked' by Lee Weeks,she is spouted as the female James Patterson,I also just finished his 'Step on a Crack,Trafficked was way darker and nastier.........
I have just started reading a light hearted treatise on the way we speak called 'A Plum in Your Mouth' by Andrew Taylor.
There are also a few tomes I suspect I shall never read,such as The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III or The Bible Cure for Irritable Bowel Syndrome by Don Colbert or even The Lost Art of Towel Origami by Alison Jenkins.

Pigbola by proxy.

It could be worse I could have Munchwotsits by proxy........I could be gaining attention by making one of you poorly....instead I keep imagining the start of a sore throat.It is all my neighbours fault,she sent me an email in a brief, coherent, temperature below a hundred moment.......
First Mad Cow Disease, Then Bird Flu, Now Swine Flu.
It's Farmageddon!!
I am seriously fearful of this, whilst the old rib cage is malfunctioning....
Hey, do you remember the Arctic Sea,I blogged it over there.Well it seems I may not have been too far off, as to the reason the Russians were chasing it around in such a hunt for red october style.
I see that poor soul who has to live on rations will be even worse off,he has been demoted,sadly Cameron seems to me to have done this way too late,it is now obvious that it is due to public and media pressure rather than common sense or decency.
Did I tell you that my youngest who works in a nursery was asked recently to watch a colleague, and grass her up for any errors, as she is pregnant and the bosses want to sack her,our Sam was worried to death about her own job as she wasn't prepared to be a party to it.....well Sam has just been 'poached' by one of the parents to be a full time but live out nanny to their two very tiny children.Better rate of pay,they will also cover the cost of thirty driving lessons and theory and practical tests.......plus lots of available overtime at a tenner an hour off the books,now that is what I call landing on your feet.Mind you I often wonder why these people have kids and then hand them away for the bulk of their lives.
PS. My ruddy ribs still really hurt grrrr !! wait till I see that grubby again,I am blaming him,fancy plying me with wine and music........

Well I am officially broken....

Went to the quack this morning,when she had finished laughing she told me I had to go to hospital,seems she wasn't happy with the noises coming from my chest,so.....I have a torn intercostal muscle,I had to look that up and I have a minuscule fracture of rib 9.........
The odd noises from my chest are because I had been avoiding coughing and the pain that caused,so they have kindly given me a weeks supply of codeine,less pain means able to cough without being all pathetic and girly.So tomorrow I am off to work wearing that elastic thing ,having negotiated with the hospital doc,you aren't supposed to strap your chest any more,but he reckons four hours a day should be ok,so long as I can manage to cough when I take it off.
I aint even fifty yet and things are breaking................oh woe is me.

Well that is just great....

I have damaged ribs/muscles and my next door neighbour just rang to tell me his misses has pigbola.........now we all know how lucky I am ,I have visions of still cracked ribs,flu and asthma in a few days time.....gggrrrr !

The quacks it is.

Unless I make a miraculous recovery overnight,I am off to the docs tomorrow.
I have been wearing this elasticated monstrosity of a sports support,it helps enormously,but having looked online to see which painkillers are best,I have discovered you are no longer supposed to bind damaged ribs or chest muscles,it seems you are more likely to get chest infections as you don't breathe as deeply and can't cough so efficiently,particularly important for an asthmatic.......
So I am off to see if I can have some prescription strength painkillers. We all know what a debacle it was trying to get sick money after my gall bladder exploded,I really can't wait six weeks again,so strong painkillers and no sofa moving or time off work for me .
Yesterday I got my friend to pick up some veg for me,she had a jaunt to asda,the only stuff available in the village is well past eating,I am an old fashioned eater, waste not want not and all that,but even I don't eat rubber carrots or pay £2.49 for a kilo of tomatoes only fit for frying.My friend is a sensible shopper,so I gave her a fiver,said "buy dark green leaves(cabbage or kale)two small onions a head of garlic and then use your judgement",she did a fantastic job,a parsnip,a turnip,a sweet tatty,3 carrots,kale,broccoli,tiny savoy cabbage,a courgette and one orange,one nectarine,four fat strawbs and some black cherries for a fruit salad.....Today I have been feasting,so if you read this Karla,thank you,it is much appreciated.

Life sucks.....sometimes.

I have an invite to a party at my bosses house this afternoon...........Loads of wine,fish and chip van booked for the event,sigh !!
I can't go,I am trussed up like a turkey in a weightlifters belt,I had no more than two hours kip last night due to that self induced rib pain,my blasted BT homehub picked yesterday early evening to up and die on me(I have borrowed a spare from a friend this morning).........no sleep and no internet and no party,life sucks sometimes,yes,yes,I know it could be much worse.....but it still sucks.
I took Porsche out visiting t'other day,there is a very elderly lady who lives just a few doors from me,she is riddled with cancer and almost blind,but she is a grand old girl with a rich Scottish accent and a wicked sense of humour,we were nattering away when she said how sad it was she could hear the neighbours chickens but couldn't actually see them any-more..........so being a bit daft, I did no more,I came home, scooped up Porsche(the veggie hen) and took her round for some stroking.
I think they both enjoyed it,amazing how much of a smile something so simple can bring to an old girls face.
Talking of Porsche,remember me posting pics of her looking like this ? Barely able to walk,virtually oven ready and skinny as a stick.Remember don't eat processed foods or caged eggs.

Well look at my girly now..........she is feathering up nicely and has filled out a bit,she will never be hulk hen,but she is no longer half starved.Maybe if she caught a few mice ?

I am getting too old for this...

Nobody laugh........but I have hurt myself,obviously torn or strained something,although if asked it feels like a cracked rib.I am in bloody agony,it hurts to move,laugh and cough.
How did I do this ? One too many glasses of wine, too much encouragement from grubby himself and dirty dancing and head-banging...........
Overweight,almost fifty and tiddly,I really should know better.
On an even stranger note,yesterday I came in from work to find a chicken eating a mouse and the cat indoors murdering a green bean he had filched from my veg basket.That poor little brown heap in front of Sid used to be a mouse.........

Oh my love

you are back I missed you so,my dearest .........google.
Blimey how did I manage before gmail and googletalk...........

Damn and blast it.

There was a pre-owned(don't you just love that statement)wooden playhouse advertised in our post office window,only thirty-five quid(would have taken some Peter and Paul type wrangling,but I could maybe have managed)as big as a proper henhouse well made and a snip at the price........but it was gone,so I shall look at pictures of one just like it and sigh.