It always happens to me.

As you may or may not be aware,my daughter,grandson and me were due to go on holiday to Scratby,a small place just up the road from Great Yarmouth.We didn't expect much,we had only paid £100 for five nights(usual price is £135 for 7 nights) just a little chalet not to far from the beach an onsite clubhouse for the evenings and shared indoor pool with the neighbouring site.
We arrived about 11am and noted that the site looked 'tired' but not awful,we unlocked the door to the chalet and we were horrified,before we could take up residence the place needed scrubbing,door handles and cracks needed fixing and the radiator needed reattaching to the chalet wall,rotten out of date food needed throwing away etc etc.
We thought that perhaps we could spend the rest of the first day cleaning so decided to actually drive around the site and look at the clubhouse and shared facilities,I took one look at the clubhouse and the Peterboro' wing of the EDL sprang to mind,worn out St Georges flags on the corners of a decidedly scruffy very small clubhouse advertising sky tv and cheap beer,the shared facilities were not in the stated walking distance and were just as worn out looking as everything else.See this link for some piccies.
We started ringing around,the only place we could find with vacancies was the Vauxhall caravan park in Yarmouth,the price however was £386 for the 5 nights,daughter and I couldn't manage to spare that much and so we rang the woman who owned the chalet to tell her we wouldn't be staying and that we would be returning the key forthwith.She kindly volunteered to refund' some' of our money,I wish I had been the one talking to her instead of my daughter.
My daughters hubby then rang to say he was leaving for Italy(he and his brother were driving there for the grand prix hence the holiday for us)My Daughter got really upset on the phone to him and bless his little socks he promptly used the money he had saved for a casino visit to pay for a stay at the Vauxhall.It turns out that the Vauxhall park is so expensive because they are hosting the Elvis festival 2012.........I really don't like Elvis' music but I had great fun being quietly mean about all the paraphernalia involved in being a fan,handbags,t-shirts,belt buckles,dresses and 70 year olds with jet black hair and winkle pickers....there was a non-Elvis entertainment room there as well so no real problems there,except some kind person gave grandson Rory an Elvis doll and as Rory was sharing the double bed with nanny I also had to sleep with Elvis. Overall this holiday in a caravan has ended up costing £100 a night.......
The tip of the day is to never book a holiday via an individual who is advertising on the internet.

It's been a while....

I really struggle now to put together more than the 140 characters allowed on twitter,but thought I should try.

The MS nurse rang today to tell me I was due my yearly review,I explained that either my brain fog was worse or there was a mistake as I had only seen an MS nurse in February and I know I haven't slept that long.

After a brief chat she said goodbye and we hung up,my breathing suddenly became laboured as it is wont to do at this time of year,so I grabbed the old inhaler and very expertly sucked an earwig into my tubes..........much hacking and horror later the bloody thing crawled away as I was gasping like a fish out of water and all I could think about was this post by BendyGirl.
Still I survived so all is well.
In 11 days grandson will be 2 years old followed shortly by a whole sack load of other birthdays.
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT I am having a holiday,my first since 1993 yes it is 19 years since I last went away,I am off to the exciting California sands near GT Yarmouth to stay in a chalet with daughter and grandson for six days on the 6th sept........yay woohoo.........

PS.
That isn't the actual earwig,that is an endangered one from here.

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2012

As you can tell,I really am not up to the joined up thinking it takes to blog,fatigue,brain fog and pain have finished this for me.
This short piece is just a reminder it is blogging against disablism day today,see here.

Bugger the inheritance, you're going in a home!!!

My mother rang me yesterday.

That woman will wear me down,she has a rather scary health situation going on,she has to have a bladder biopsy as during another procedure they spotted a red shiny patch in there,fair enough she is afraid, I do have some sympathy you know,well I did have....
She proceeded to talk me through some mythical torture she is about to endure and for some really bizarre reason which I really don't get she then told me she is worried that she will be the exception that breaks the rule because Mary Archer had bladder cancer and was treated and survived.She then proceeded to tell me about her cousin who had never smoked or drunk but had died of throat cancer in nineteen hundred and frozen to death 1954 I didn't tell her about throat cancer and HPV  she does seem to be taking her health advice from the daily mail of all places.........
She then started to tell me she was really sorry but she had forgotten Poppy's fourth birthday(my granddaughter her great granddaughter) and was I coming to her birthday tea,it is on Sunday the 9th of October as she expects to be unwell for a few days after"my birthday on the first" so I say "oh don't forget Sam's birthday on the fifth will you",which she completely ignores,so she will forget poor Sam's birthday again this year,it is at this point that I somehow manage to disconnect the phone from the socket and it takes me two or three minutes to plug it back in thanks to a tangle of cables and my disability,when I have reconnected I have a listen to see if she is still there or if I should ring her back,she hasn't even noticed my absence and is still waffling about her birthday and I won't forget will I ? how can I bloody forget you have sicked father on me so I have had to buy an expensive original newspaper from your birth date,I am also having to supply the cake and she will yet again forget her granddaughters birthday,on top of which all through my illness and disablement over the last couple of years she has never once said"how are you" or "how are you feeling" no matter how much pain I am in or how many walking sticks etc I have had to use or even how effing terrified I have been.

Oh by the way,I appear to have a previously unseen genetic problem,I have a switched letter instead of  a G I have a T it is fairly near the dodgy sequences that cause HSP although they don't yet know what the likely outcome of this will be,so now all the kids and grandkids will need testing as no one else in the family is known to have any problems it must have been a de novo error when I was made.

Look a gratuitous picture of my gorgeous granddaughter in her party frock.

Dear Prime minister,

You have this really, really wrong.
When the milk snatcher was in power and destroyed British industry a result was huge swathes of the populace unemployed,to massage the numbers, in an attempt to keep at least some voters, everyone who had ever had a backache or earache or some simple but ongoing medical thing was put on the sick,my next door neighbour being a prime example,for 20 years too sick to work yet owns steel toecapped boots and safety visors and is still seen and reported for "visiting my friend at his unit" He has somehow and still is on the sick,yet able to build 12 foot long sheds and ride a full on motorbike unaided and go off painting and decorating peoples houses for them.
I can now only walk no more than about 50 metres if I have someone to hold onto or my grandchilds pushchair as a walking frame,I have fatigue,which doesn't mean I am sleepy it means I am asleep for 16 to 18 hours every day.
I, after just one month on the sick with a degenerative though not terminal illness,have already had the form from ATOS,I am about to have to start job hunting,the form is written so that unless you have no arms, legs or mouth you can and will work.If I don't go to meetings at the job centre or go for interviews I will then have my benefits cut off.However,there is no direct public transport to the town where the jobcentre is,even if there were I cannot walk to the village bus stop or from the bus station to the job centre in town.The cost of a taxi there and back would use over half of my weeks incomeThe government are also going to cut my housing benefit as my house is now considered underoccupied.So from my 67 quid a week I will be paying £10 a week water, £10 a week electric, dog knows what in rent  and in the winter I will have to stay in bed to keep warm as coal will be just too expensive now.My phone line will have to go I suspect as BT like to not only charge the earth they also like to charge me extra for being poor and unable to pay in advance by direct debit.Before anyone suggests it,I am not qualified for any sort of desk job,if I were it would have to be within a few feet of a loo and transport and have no stairs,I cannot move house as I have been downgrading jobs for years with odd unexplained problems and I have no savings whatsoever.Dear David Cameron and that traitor Clegg,is this what you mean when you say all in this together ? you jumped up, never entered the real world,twats.

I may be officially a crip now.

Saw neuro today as an urgent GP referral,
I have my baclofen back so less spasms and twitching,I have nothing for the fatigue yet,she has done some more blood tests to rule out a couple more things but says in her heart of hearts she thinks I have secondary progressive MS in my spine ,although she cannot officially diagnose until something shows up in MRI or LP,
I 100 per cent do not have a functional deficit/conversion disorder .
If all these blood tests come back negative we can experiment with antifatigue drugs,but it seems they only rarely work.
I will get an appointment in the post for the bladder clinic(the urgency is bothersome and worrisome),I can get an emergency appointment with her any Friday by getting GP to ring and finally I am to contact social services to see if any help is available and if I need it she will write to dole office etc describing my illness/symptoms etc.

Unwell,unemployed and moaney,

Well that did a lot of good,or rather not,all tests come back negative,no leukodystrophies,heritable spastic paraparesis or rare copper metabolism problems,no thyroid or diabetic issues and no neuro-syphilis ,in fact I am perfectly healthy except I don't function properly,it would seem according to docs that I have either an unknown neurological condition or MS that just isn't testing positive.This exciting news means that I can expect absolutely no treatment for the time being,In fact I am currently getting less relief than last week.
I went to my GP to ask again if I can have any help with my seriously debilitating fatigue,she promptly took me off the antispasmodic baclofen as 'they can cause fatigue' I explained I had suffered with fatigue on and off for several years before any other symptoms showed themselves to no avail,I am now fatigued and full of cramps,spasms and spasticity.......
Daughter has gone off to Australia for her year,various members of the family saw her off from Heathrow,Rory and his daddy found a taxi to play in whilst there

she is such a busy bee,instead of having some fun she starts an accounts job Thursday, less than a fortnight after arriving! She has sent back picture of beaches and fruit bats and cockatoos via facebook and hopefully we will be arranging a skype schedule for video calls,don't tell her I said so but I miss her nightly moany phone calls.

Her moggies are well settled now and have arranged a truce with my Lucifer cat,in fact Claude her slightly simple cat has developed a fondness for my crochet blankie in progress and Charley the big ginger and white cat has taken possession of my sheepskin rug.

Life in the strange lane.

I am still waiting for the results of my LP, MRI and what seemed like 8000 blood tests that were all done at Addenbrookes on 17th march.
I usually see a neuro at my more local hospital,so I rang there again today to see what was going on.
The neurology department haven't even bothered turning off their answerphone today!
So I took things into my own hands,I rang Addenbrookes where the tests were done,they sent the test results to my local hospital on 12th April and cannot give me the results over the phone,but the really lovely lady I spoke to is going to fax the results to my GP ,I am then seeing a doctor on Friday.........not my usual GP she is on maternity leave(I am doomed,my life is never simple)
Now you may think I am kicking up a lot of fuss,but things don't seem to move along unless I kick them :-)
The reason behind all this is my beautiful  grandson,I just want to be sure I don't have a leukodystrophy that could kick in and affect him badly.I am sure you have all heard of Lorenzo's oil and therefore adrenoleukodystrophy.
As it stands I still think I have MS albeit an unusual presentation or I have conversion/functional/software disorder.
I swear I have probably read more neurology books,papers and ideas than some neurologists have.
Things are moving along on daughter off to Australia area too,I now have her two moggies in residence and they are being fairly good,although Claude, the small village idiot version of a cat, just cannot work out a catflap so, is having to have a litter tray for now,much to my disgust.
Sarah is doing her rounds of goodbyes and doesn't yet know we are springing a big get together on her on Sunday ahead of her leaving the following weekend.
I am to become redundant as of 21st of this month,I rang the social who tell me I can apply after the 16th.
It is quite frightening to think that if my health doesn't improve I may never be offered work again.
Sid my oldest ex battery hen is really showing signs of slowing down now,I expect she won't quite make the second anniversary of her release on the 16th May.

I am a slacker.

I really do mean to blog more often,honest guv.
Trouble is I rarely feel up to the brain effort involved.
So here we go on a massive catch up.
Daughter Sarah whose new baby died last year has now broken up with her partner and has decided she needs a break and time away,we have all encouraged her to such an extent that she is selling up and going to Australia on a working visa for a year.It will be absolutely the thing for her.Unfortunately guess who gets to foster her two cats for a year? yup as of the 22nd of April I will have my one evil moggy and her two in residence.
I went for my day on the the neurology ward at Addenbrookes hospital,they obviously have a different meaning for the word day .......I was there by 7.30 having an MRI before 8am and had had my lumbar puncture and 17 blood tests and was on my way home by 10.30 am.Why the letter said anything about a doctor  I don't know ,I didn't even see a passing neurologist,I did however see the nurse practitioner who told me I was walking badly(I thought I was having a good day)took my bloods,she seemed very nice except she managed to avoid telling me what my blood tests were for no matter how often I asked,I found this quite belittling to be honest.Still the reading matter was entertaining in the waiting room.Yes this is a photo of the available selection !I won't get any test results for at least another week,I am just dreading the thought I may have something hereditary that I may have passed to the kids and grandkids.

A week or so ago I had an incident with my bicycle,the chain snapped,got caught in the wheel and the bike immediately threw me in a hedge,I looked around and saw no one was looking(phew) then spent ten minutes trying to disentangle disobedient legs from the bike,the poor thing is so worn out that replacing the chain makes no sense as the gears and brakes etc are all shot,it is going to be cheaper to buy a new one.This incident got me in quite a tizzy though as I cannot walk far enough to get to work I have a borrowed friends daughters bike(bicycle Chinese whispers there) for the minute.
I have just found out I am losing my job at the end of May(not related to neurological issues) The boss has said that as I will probably only get a weeks redundancy pay would it be worth her getting rid of me ostensibly for health reasons,I am not very brave and told her today that I would prefer the legitimate route and will fight it out with the benefits system when the time comes.
Bruce my tiny light Sussex bantam hen sadly died yesterday,she went to sleep and didn't wake up,she had a good life though,almost fourteen years of free roaming and meal-worms,if only all hennies could have it that easy.
Today it was brought home to me just how badly I walk,there was something of a head wind as I was cycling home from work,so I got off and started walking,doing my usual and using the bike as somewhat of a walking aide.A chap stopped his car and came up to me and said"are you alright dear? do you need me to push the bicycle anywhere for you" I thanked him for his kindness and explained that I didn't need any help.
The funny thing is I can walk perfectly normally if I am walking backwards,just shows that it is the wiring not the legs that are broken.



Pictures stolen from here http://www.berryreview.com/2008/04/25/new-blackberry-line-running-late/
and here http://www.partydelights.co.uk/themes/australia-day-decorations.aspx

Neurology ...

My neurology appointment was brought forward to yesterday based on my clinical need.
I want firstly to say ' sorry' to my doc, It seems I was expected to be better by now and for this to be declared a post viral thing,but sadly not, she has narrowed down diagnosis based on symptoms  to three possible conditions,
Hereditary spastic paraplegia   Rare about 3 in 100,000
Adrenoleukodystrophy  Ridiculously rare,even more so in women,if I have this it is a very mild version of the 'Lorenzo's oil' illness.
primary prgressive multiple sclerosis  Most likely out of the three known options.
I have to go to the neurology day unit at Addenbrookes hospital for a phalanx of tests,including blood,genetic,lumbar puncture,more MRIs etc etc.
I am now on amitriptyline for nerve pain and the dreadful headaches I am getting and baclofen for for spasticity(very tight stiff muscles) and spasms(cramps).
I can't have DMDs or physio or any real treatment until the cause of my symptoms has been found.......

Mouse jerky,normal brain and life as usual.

I know, I know I haven't blogged in ages,still here it is,so make the most of it.
So in reverse order(except my brain bit),Sarah my middling daughter was 25 yesterday,it has been a very difficult year for her,first losing her baby boy then her relationship broke up,let's hope this year is better for her.
Although I am an avowed atheist I have always celebrated christmas as it helps distract from the terrible dark days of midwinter and how down that time of year can leave you,this years plan was that Sarah,Sammy and James and baby Rory would come for lunch and that Becky,Ray ,Poppy and new baby Willow would just visit for a while in the morning and then go home for a little family fun,except as usual plans went awry,Becky and co arrived and Becky was almost asleep,Willow had had her up since 1am..........so being a wonderful mummy I said oh stay for lunch here,we always have plenty.So stay they did,we had the dining table strategically placed so that one person could perch on the arm of the sofa and someone else sat on an upturned bin.
Between the whole herd of us we only drank one bottle of bubbly,two breast feeding mummies,two drivers and me who is wibbly wobbly enough without too much booze,but we had a whale of a time,auntie Sarah had brought Poppy a set of 'musical' instruments,watch the video,musical isn't the word I would use but still it was fun.

 

I finally heard from the hospital on the 11th of this month,they sent me a letter which said

"Dear Mrs That_Woman,

I am writing with the results of your recent MRI head scan.The scan was normal with no evidence of inflammation affecting the brain.I would like to see you again in clinic where we can discuss this further and decide if you need any further investigations.

I hope my letter finds you well

with kind regards

yours sincerely

Dr Useless Neurologist."

I will give her "finds you well" useless ruddy woman.

She doesn't say when I have an appointment or even hint at how long one will take.Although my new favourite GP may have snuck into the pooter system and informed me my appointment will be in bloody June .

I am slowly getting better thanks to previously mentioned super-GP who gave me a course of steroids which seem to have helped.The neurologist though has done absolutely nothing to alleviate my symptoms and only the most basic tests (two MRIs and some electrical tests).No drugs to relieve the spasticity which made me unable to walk unaided more than a few yards at one stage,suffering appalling spasms/cramps,vertigo, pain ridden and temperamental.

I feel a campaign coming on,having chatted to other people with undiagnosed neurological problems it seems patient care doesn't really exist in the field of neurology.Grubby is going to help me draft a 'just what do neurologists do' type letter to hand to her at my next appointment.

I have booked an eye test as I am having some real eye problems at the moment,they may well see something neuro going on too.It has taken me all day to write this as I can only watch the screen for a few minutes at a time.

Now we get to the mouse jerky,don't read this if you are eating.

A few weeks ago I could smell the unmistakeable scent of deceased mouse,I searched high and low while cursing the idiot cat who brings them in and releases them,I couldn't find a body and the smell disappeared,so I naturally assumed the mouse was under the floorboards becoming mummified.Oh no,the cat has been scratching incessantly at the join between landing and bedroom carpets,so I got out the old tape to do a bodge job and what do I find,a dead, very dry, very flat piece of mouse jerky.

The hens have all grown fine new feathery frocks except fanny the wonder hen,but she doesn't deserve a new frock anyway,I couldn't find her at door shutting time the other week so went on a frantic search of the garden,looked under hedges and in nooks and crannies,it was dark when I gave up,somewhat tearfully I must confess,I fell over in the mud straight onto my backside,I heard a cackle,it was only the wonder hen sitting up a tree snickering at me..........

I had my brain-scan on the 24th of last month the good news is they found a brain,the bad news is no results yet,it amazes me just how long it takes to send some data(scan) from one room in the hospital to another and then how long it takes for someone to look at the results let alone tell me what is wrong with me,but hey they haven't killed me off yet.I just hobble and wobble on alternate days,well that is how it feels to me.
I have lost one of my girls to what the local gamekeeper thinks was a marauding mink, another bruised herself very severely trying to get away from it,so she has been living in a cardboard box full of warm comfy straw being spoon-fed delicious luxury maggots.She is now fully recovered and back out with her friends,sleeping in a secure and predator proof greenhouse.
The cat thinks the cold spell is great,he spends all his time catching hypothermic mice and leaving bits of them lying around for me to step on.........
So really this has been a post to say life is much the same as always.

Gratuitous gorgeous grand-kids picture follows.

Been here before.

So we are to have a royal wedding,it will be full of pomp and ceremony ,it will cost a fortune and ensure that they can breed and add to those who get the highest benefits in the land,because I am absolutely certain they won't live off their own incomes.
At the same time we have that Cameron man studying how happy the nation is,what that translates into is, seeing just how much more shit we can take before we become revolting peasants.He recently took business to china and brought back repression.
And peasants we will become,everyone relying on charity because the state will no longer care for the frail,sick and downtrodden,whilst those at the top make more and more profit on the backs of the proles,who thanks to idiot, out of touch judges will no longer be able even to make silly jokes and idle threats no matter how obviously idle they are.

It feels like the eighties,riots,poverty,job losses and royal weddings..........
Anyone remember the trafigura mischief,dumping toxic waste in poverty ridden Ivory Coast,well there is a documentary here,in French with English subtitles,if even a bit of this is true there should be some jail time due someone at trafigura.

In it together?.It will all end in tears.

When politics is getting a bit rough I always make jokes about getting the candles in,it is of course a reference to the three day week when we had power cuts etc which slowly but inexorably led to the winter of discontent.
I currently have a bad feeling and I am stocking up on metaphorical candles again.
The students have set the precedent  for the season and I am seeing calls for street protest cropping up all over the web there are facebook groups calling for runs on banks on a particular date,I won't link to these as I know that a run on a bank would mean a lot of ordinary Jo Publics losing their money because as we all know there is a large difference between real money and bank money,we have absolutely no confidence in politics as evidenced by a piece in the torygraph by that obnoxiously right-wing Peter Oborne,even he calls  parliament "rotten to the core".
We have the disabled and their carers setting up groups for support and lobbying purposes as they become more and more demonised by this government and the right-wing press.
The modern day equivalent of the national front,the EDL are attacking Muslims instead of the Jewish people they went after in the seventies.In the meantime disaffected Muslim youth are turning to extremist groups for a sense of belonging and identity and strangely some Jewish people are turning to the EDL for comfort.
It would seem some members of the conservative party consider street protests may get out of hand again soon too,Steve O'Connell a member of the London Assembly for Croydon and Sutton and a councillor in the London Borough of Croydon and one of the best paid reckons we should ban protests in the capital to save money.
The unemployed are being punished for not having a job by having their meagre poverty line welfare cut after a year of unemployment whilst the numbers of unemployed seem set to rise dramatically.
In the meantime we are again letting the bankers off by cutting the levy on banks' balance sheets.

Of course our students haven't had much rioting practise so aren't too good at it,hence the need for nine papers to have just one photo on their front pages ,the funniest though is that most of them show one rioter and two dozen photographers egging him on.
Then we have the farce that is currently our law,from the twitter joke trial to libel idiocy,no wonder everyone is angry/confused/worried about the future.
On a lighter note,whatever is wrong with me seems to be on the wane at the moment,fingers crossed it doesn't come back,I have my brain-scan due on the 24th so won't know anything until well after that.We are also waiting patiently for the arrival of a new grandchild and sister to our Poppy.
The images above are from here.

Halloween fun.

I saw a neurologist on Friday as an emergency,she says that with all the neuro tests and without the brainscan her best guess is that I am having a bout of 'brain inflammation' and that, subject to scan confirmation, if it comes back again it will be considered MS if it doesn't it will be called a bout of inflammation.She won't give me any drugs for the spasms etc until the scan results are through,so I have to wait now until at least the end of November.Well you could have blown me down with a feather,when I woke up this morning and my legs are working again.So for five days no legs then day six legs again !!!

I thought I would go for a Halloween theme today so here are some nice creepy medical bits and bobs.
 cacodemonomania   are you possessed ?

The bat recognises you and is coming back for more blood.

 Ghost's are a load of bollocks or should that be the other way round?    Bottom right article.

 Don't trust the garlic.

 Mathematical modelling of a zombie attack.


Inverse zombies, anesthesia awareness, and the hard problem of unconsciousness.  Real horror this one.


As an aside to those in the know,some people just shouldn't be allowed to use a pooter,the old PICNIC acronym(Problem In Chair Not In Computer) is just perfect.

I am not even disabled yet.

Today I am really low on spoons I tried to get up this morning and the muscles in my back were as solid as a whalebone corset,

 I managed to shower and dress went down the garden to feed the chicky doodles only to discover by falling in the back door that I can no longer lift my right leg high enough to get up the step.I went to work,I can still ride the bloody bicycle although getting on and off it are becoming increasingly comical,they are on holiday in Thailand(lucky sods) so I have the job of feeding and watering the cats and the chickens,I went to fill a jug with water only to discover the weight of a plastic jug and a pint and a half of water were enough to set my arm shaking so badly I dropped aforementioned jug,luckily it landed in the sink,I had a cup of tea and a think then  took out two half filled jugs to the chickens.
When I got home I was feeling pretty damned down,even more so when the postman didn't bring an appointment from the hospital for a brain scan.Having sat snivelling to myself for a while I took a decision,I got myself an afternoon appointment at the docs,I was seen first by the young doctor who then brought in someone else who also went and got another doctor,having said how "disabling" my condition is becoming they are going to try and persuade the neurology department that I need to be soon PDQ,sadly there isn't an appointment available for a brain scan until 24th of november,so I will have to go back to neurology again soon after that.
All of this just as our kindly overlords are showing an extreme aversion to noblesse oblige and making going on the sick virtually illegal,I am so bloody scared now.
If you are affected by the government cuts and are disabled or a carer go have a look at this site.A bit of activism is good for the soul. Broken of Britain

The Curious Incident of the Jelly in the car-park

My friend Karla offered me a ride into town and back,more an 'in transit visit' than a serious shopping trip.We ended up at Lidls,obviously wearing our favourite balaclavas so no one would recognise us.
We bought a few bits and pieces then loaded the car and went to pull away,there was the most worrying clunking noise coming from one of the wheels, so we drove back into the car park and had a look and gave all the tyres/wheels a good kick,well Karla did,with my dodgy pins I would have been a heap on the ground had I attempted tyre abuse.  Nothing wrong,pulled away again,clump clump clump went the wheel.....................
There was a nice rowntree's strawberry jelly stuck to the rear tyre,the cause of an awful lot of noise followed by decidedly dodgy jokes and a lot of laughter.
On the subject of laughter,I have been looking round the interwebs trying to self diagnose,now you might think this isn't a good idea but truly when you are really worried there is nothing better than a self diagnosis of Tropical spastic paraparesis,even better I have never been to the 'tropics' in fact no one I know has been in yonks,or how about this  diagnosis Conversion disorder,you see really I am fed up so my brain is pretending my legs hurt to distract me.
Seriously,life does have a lighter side,the kids reckon they will just throw me in nursing home earlier than planned and as for the people I work for,it is starting to be embarrassing when they offer to carry the vacuum around for me or pick up things I drop to save me bending down,just how good can bosses be?

Too much codeine

I have some co-codamol here for shoulder pain whilst I await a response from the local physiodirect bods....
Too much codeine makes one slur and giggle like a tipsy teenager,it does not sit well on my near fifty year old shoulders,in fact tablets having worn off I am now quite embarrassed ,sorry friend Grubby for the strange phone persona..............

I rang the hospital today(several times) as per the recommendation of my GP and lots of friends who think I am  cracking up,I finally got through to my rheumatologist's secretary,she will get back to me,they seem not to have had the results from my MRI which was performed two weeks ago and about a hundred yards from the rheumatology department.
The henny pennies are currently leaving feathers everywhere,I hope they are all feeling silly in their near nakedness a full moult is not a good look.I am however running about the garden gathering the prettier feathers for washing and assembling into a chicken making kit for my fabulous (ignore the false date on the photo,I must nag Sam into setting her camera up properly)granddaughter,seems she hasn't worked out how to make playdough feathers,so I figured the real things and a pritt stick would work wonders.

Oh and here is a gratuitous photo of the increasingly handsome Rory-James.

Just in time for the cuts.

I have just spent half an hour on the phone to physio direct our local refer yourself physio service,all I needed was an appointment with the physio when she is at the docs surgery, as I have hurt my shoulder probably whilst dragging myself up the stairs by the bannister thanks to the other nonsense.Blimey it was like twenty questions,in fact she needed or wanted to know more than my rheumatologist did.I finally persuaded her I wasn't up to cycling 9 miles to the hospital for physio.
For years I have walked in a slightly lopsided fashion, enough to warrant an occasional "oh have you hurt yourself"type comment from friends and relatives,I always dismissed it with "oh I have a slight scoliosis it must knock me a bit off centre" but now I wonder.
I had my appointment with my rheumatologist for my psoriatic arthritis and he decided what I thought was crippling tendon pain and pins and needles was in fact "markedly increased muscle tone with bilateral clonus along with a reduction in sensation in the S1 dermatome"
They did an xray of my spine which showed no changes from the last time it was done,I have had an MRI but haven't had the results yet,I have several choices of complaint,a slipped disc could be causing the symptons or it could be worse,not only do I have  all these tests I now have to see a neurologist,seems MS or an MND are also possibilities.Just my bloody luck,crippledom just as the tories are clamping down on benefits.
PS.
Don't tell mad nad I blogged whilst disabled and working or she might be tempted to tell tales about me.

Magnet therapy and wind power.

Not the best option,but I really hate nimbys,I have just spent an hour telling a whole pile of nimbys in my village how beautiful and soothing I find wind turbines.........I may yet be drummed out for my anti-establishment ideas.
The whole of their argument is based on these don't look pretty especially on a ridge above' ye olde worlde' village,it really is a shame that so many people are intimidated by the better accented,educated and paid members of the community.So many of the quiet little people agree with me or are completely indifferent yet their opinions are never heard above the nimby din.
When I pointed out that sattellite dishes,tv aerials and phone lines were actually more in line of sight than any wind turbine would be, they tried the noise argument,except that didn't wash,the turbines will be a mile from even the edge of the village.
As an aside everyone I debated with said they would love an old wooden windmill in the neighbourhood with all the clunking and banging they entail.............some folks like the past way too much.It really is a shame that wind power isn't really that green or efficient
As an aside,you know how quacktitioners sell magnetic bracelets and things ,well will my MRI at the end of the month cure all my ills ?it is after all a giant magnet.