That went well-ish.....

The youngest and her other half came to dinner today,we were playing 'come dine with me' the food was brilliant,the entertainment went down well,retro themed PS1 and a couple of games.........just brilliant until I stood a plastic bowl on the hob,turned the wrong ring on and walked away.Sigh........at least I know the new smoke alarm works and is loud.
The kids were running round frantically searching everywhere for my inhaler whilst I tried to explain that it was ok I wasn't allergic to burning plastic..............all's well that ends well,the cooker is clean,the plastic tub was an old thing that holds a bunch of fridge magnets for amusing any kids who dare to come into the house.
The menu was sexed up a bit,leek and tatty soup became creamed vichyssoise with a mirepoix of lightly sautéed leek and potatoes as a garnish, glazed carrots meant add butter and honey swish about in the pan,the savoy cabbage was cooked in olive oil with bacon and garlic,the pork was perfection according to the son in law..........and the creamy cheesecake with a blackcurrant topping came from scummerfields....... a good day and another horrifying tale to add to the family repertoire.This themed thing comes from when the kids were growing up,we used to raid the cupboard and make what we could with what was in there a la ready steady cook,it was a good set of budgeting and cookery lessons for the kids without ever lecturing.
In other news,I have been referred to hospital to see a bone quack as my doc thinks I may have rheumatoid arthritis,I personally think I have psoriatic arthritis as I have had it on and off for donkeys years without any major progression(thank dog),so I will cross my fingers and hope they don't stay that way.

The Jenny Wren made it

but there is a sparrow currently napping behind the chest of drawers in my bedroom ,I can't catch him and put him out as the rain is monsoon like,so I have shut the cat out and will have to release the bird at dawn tomorrow.This is not what I needed to have been doing at half two in the morning
We go through bouts of this hunting stuff,for a couple of weeks Lucifer catches anything he can,then we see no more prey for a couple of months...............

That dratted cat.

No wonder he answers to the name Lucifer,look what he brought in a few minutes ago,
luckily I was quick off the mark and managed to get it before any damage was done,I have tucked it up in a big growth of ivy for the night,so fingers and toes crossed.

Life only gets better.Meet Goonie.

I have managed to secure myself more work by way of networking and an add in the post office.....woohoo.
I am also celebrating being very naughty,I have a new rescue hen,before I got her I was going to call her Mildred,but she has an old healed injury to one eye and doesn't see so well out of it.So being not quite one-eyed Willy her name is Goonie........my kids and I loved that film,in fact when I wore the old video tape out, my youngest got it for me on DVD...for mother's day.

http://www.henrehomers.net 
http://www.free-at-last.org.uk/
http://www.bhwt.org.uk 
http://littlehenrescue.co.uk/default.aspx

Swine flu jabs and finger johnnies.

It started Tuesday,I had the H1N1 vaccine at 5pm,it was painless,about 7 o'clock my arm was tender when I poked it,but I was fine.
I woke at 3am Wednesday morning with the injection site screaming at me,hot,swollen solid and extremely sore,so much so I didn't even try to poke it.I eventually settled down and went back to sleep,I woke later than usual  Wednesday morning ,I was feeling a bit grotty and my arm was still extremely sore,but I got on with things and went to work,as the day progressed I got very achey,I just put it down to my psoriatic arthritis playing up.
When I got home from work at lunchtime my eyes were dry and burning and the arm and joints were still dodgy,nothing too awful just a general unwellness,which is what I expected.
By 5pm I had a temperature of  39c which is really quite hot for me,as following experimentation I know my normal temperature is roughly 36.5ish My eyes were really dry and burning which may have been down to the fact that my tears were running out my nose by then(I couldn't possibly have had a snotty nose,how undignified)every joint in my body ached,even my bum bone ached,I had a small gland between collar bone and neck that was swollen to about twice the size of a pea but I swear it hurt so much I couldn't turn my head I thought I had a bubo,my skin was tender from the fever and  my head was pounding and finally the most unusual thing for me,I really didn't want to eat,not even chocolate.Then to cap it all I was shaking and shivering so much I managed to burn a lump of skin off of my finger whilst reloading the fire with coal.
At that point I gave up and took to my bed moaning and groaning.
This morning I am a little warm but absolutely fine,the arm only hurts if I poke it,the aches and pains have dissipated nicely my bubo has shrunk and doesn't hurt any more.I have however had to buy burn dressings and finger johnnies for my burns.
Having said all that I am really glad I had the jab,can you imagine how badly I would have felt had I caught a live replicating virus? Also having conducted a straw poll amongst people who have had the vaccine,it seems I had an unusually strong reaction to it.
I think I may now be one of the roughly 70% who develop immunity after the vaccine,for the rest of you I am doing my bit towards herd immunity.

I have a bubo,only a small one mind.

I am really glad I had the H1N1 vaccine,I will tell you all about it tomorrow if I survive the night.

Yesterday.........

Now I know this is all in the wrong order,but as today is so horrid weather wise,very dark,raining and blowing a gale,I thought I would tell you about yesterday's fun.
It started well,I didn't want to get up,it was dark wet and miserable,so I traipsed down the garden in welly boots, umbrella and dressing gown,not a good look but it did the job.It was so damned miserable even the chickens didn't come out until late.I went to work, getting soaked en route,came home and got another drenching(bloody weather).
When I came in, the house was buzzing with great big blow flies,

the street stank and I knew what had happened,about a mile away as the crow flies, but outside the village, is a nasty chicken farm,one section for battery(watch this one) hens and another set of sheds full of hens(so much for the RSPCA freedom food label) for eating,well they were emptying out one lot ready for the next lot of extreme cruelty to begin,sadly the wind was blowing the wrong way,so all the bloated flies who had fed on hens that died and the faeces of those that had managed to live blew straight down the hill into the houses of me and my neighbours.I am surprised I didn't get OP poisoning from the amount of spray I used,next I swept up all the bodies I could find and then went to get on with my housework,because even I feel the need to clean up in those circumstances.What did I find,a murdered mouse in the sitting room,then in the middle of the night during a break in the monsoon Lucifer the cat the evil one managed to catch a sparrow and murder it in the bedroom,feathers everywhere.

Big words and 'leeking'.

 

Our favourite comic,The Sun,has gone above and beyond even the word irony,this snippet of a picture is from their website,I am feeling some Epicaricacy (schadenfreude just isn't a good enough word ) after this story from them.You will notice that I  am often partial to a little  sesquipedalian obscurantism.Although when you hear me mumble replies to peoples' vacuous and puerile questions I generally use monosyllables,I do actually know quite a few unusual or rarely used words in the language.I like to hurl them out at odd times just to discompose people.Next up I have a couple of local councils who need to

First and second. 
Since when has this been news ? when I was a kid there was a saying that went 'spring a leak to grow a leek'.

Sex,drugs and politics.

I just read the funniest thing ever,they are making Mandy information minister,now bearing in mind  his oligarch friends and the Chinese yoghurt fiasco I really think his title should be disinformation minister.And fancy him making weekly speeches to the country,even the queen herself only makes us suffer yearly.
There is absolutely nothing I can say about Alan Johnson and his desire for policy based science,I want whatever drugs he is on,they obviously make one completely oblivious to any advice offered.See badscience on the Nutt sack affair.

Ok I know it is mean of me, but this report of transient global amnesia following good sex made me chuckle,until,that is, I read that it is most common in people not that much older than me
The next sex based piece I read is a bit of a poke in the eye to creationists,well I think so anyway.What sort of supreme deity arranges for bonobos,humans and bats to be the only known creatures that indulge in the odd bit of oral sex?(you are safe,I didn't link to the bat pron video page) mind, I wonder if bats would enjoy the company of slingjaw wrasse ?
ps. don't worry about fido and tiddles come the rature,I have found just the service for them.

In which I do office speak,outside the box !

Well outside the office anyway!!
Today I have been 'networking' now normally I hate office-y jargon(I will mumble about that in a minute)but it does seem the most appropriate word for what I have been doing today,I have been out and about in the village,just engaging people in conversation and letting it be known the local scrubber is available.I have already found out about a job in the after school club,so will be getting an application form later today,and I have heard a couple of rumours about cleaners being needed...........so fingers and toes crossed.

Now to the jargon rant.
When did customers and service users become 'stakeholders'? makes us all sound like vampire slayers.
What about 'blue sky thinking'  and 'heads up' both sound almost like hippy mantras rather than work place chatter.Maybe the 'strategic staircase' is another stairway to heaven(I love that tune) When various departments of government want to 'reach out to me' I want to hit them with a cricket bat,when did meeting someone become 'interfacing' ? sounds like we should be using cat5 cable not talking,on that subject why do we now 'dialogue issues' rather than talk about or discuss problems.........gggrrrrrrrr.
I found the cartoon on this site

Double,treble even quadruple drat or woe is me.

It turns out I have probably got Tietzes syndrome from the bouts of coughing caused by the cough/cold/flu I had whilst still clutching the broken rib,my doc called it 'devil's grip' and boy does it feel like it too.I still have quite painful finger,hip and knee joints,so if the new rib pain doesn't start to clear up the doc is going going to refer me to the hospital for tests .......
In other news,my hours at work have been cut by a third,seems the bosses business isn't going so well at the moment,so I am going to put an ad in the village post office asking if anyone needs an ageing scrubber.

Now my income has dropped, the chooks have decided to go off lay for the winter,so no cheep ( Paronomasia intended)protein for me.I feel a deep depression coming on.
Never mind I can always steal the cats mice if things get desperate.

Waffle waffle.........

In light of our chief medical officers latest statements about pigbola, getting a vaccination if offered is a really good idea,and if it is offered to kids, and they get all stressed out and tearful whilst queueing, it might be a good thing if human immune systems are anything like mouse ones.Mind you, if the evil one sneezes he is a goner, if you think you have already had the flu don't get complacent,a woman in India is suspected of having it twice.In America rice krispies won't protect you from flu after all! Some possibly good news in the future of emergency medicine though,scientists think they have found a way to use any blood type in transfusions.
In 'at home news' I am chuckling at the thought of that Thatcher chap possibly getting his comeuppance.Charley boy is still a twat,our young men are still dying for nothing in Afghanistan and finally,it was always the CO2 what did it.
Oh did I tell you ? I have to go to the quacks tomorrow,I appear to have something wrong with a rib opposite the one I broke in September as well as a bit of an outbreak of psoriatic arthritis.It never rains but it pours........

A musical interlude.

I adore Pachelbel's canon ,it is musical silk,a fine weave of harmony and melody..........
so for your edification I bring you the classical version,the JerryC arrangement(cannon rock) played by Lim Jeong-hyun it is a good listen if you like a bit of classic rock.Or how about on the ocarina ?or electric violin and guitar played by the joker and for those who can't  stand the piece how about this rant by comedian/musician Rob Paravonian .