Rantings

Just in case anyone is wondering what the heck is going on with the appearance of my blog … fear not!  I’m just playing around with the templates because I got a bit bored with the old one.  No doubt it’ll be back to its old self when I realise I don’t really like any of the others!!

It's good to see someone is showing a bit of common sense!

Woo hoo!!!!! What more can I say?

Traumatised.

That’s me.  I need a few extra psychotherapy sessions just to get over the last 3 minutes.  I won’t be able to sleep for weeks.

If you want to know what’s caused my considerable distress, lookee here.  Please folks, protect your kids from this kind of material.

Don’t blame me for finding this … blame Monsieur Scalzi.

Testing … testing …

Anyone used this Blogger for Word plugin thingy?  I’m just giving it a go right now.  I’m not a big Word fan at the best of times, and have been posting most stuff via email, which works well, but I sometimes find I have to edit the post from Blogger online to sort out any formatting issues.  Phooey!    

UPDATE:  Oh cool! It works!!  He he!

Thanks Amy! I think that as well as getting to know folks a bit better, they're also a great way to get your blog advertised!! LOL



Four jobs you have had in your life:
Admin assistant, catering assistant, veterinary nurse, quality administrator

Four movies you would watch over and over:
Any of the LOTR movies, The African Queen, Blithe Spirit, Close Encounters

Four places you have lived:
Felling (Gateshead), Washington, Birtley, Pelton

Four TV shows you love to watch:
Ray Mears's Extreme Survival, Nigella Bites, Farscape, Star Trek

Four places you have been on vacation:
Norway, Denmark, France, Greece

Four websites I visit daily:
By The Way...
glittyknittykitty
LiveScience.com
we make money not art

Four of my favourite foods:
Chocolate, noodles, warm fresh bread, roast chicken

Four places I would rather be right now:
Kefalonia, in bed, in a hot bath, socialising in a coffee shop with friends

Four bloggers I am tagging:
This is so sad, I know, but I only know two folks with blogs, so ...

Amy - http://amylovespeccarys.blogspot.com/ (dunno if I'm allowed to tag the person who tagged me)
glittrgirl - www.glittyknittykitty.com/

Twenty seven ... yes, you heard correctly, twenty seven new species found in one area! I mean we may find the odd new species every so often, but 27 in one go?! Wow!

Early man was hunted by birds ... well, the tables have turned somewhat, eh? It's usually the blokes that pursue the birds (chics to any Merkans reading this) here!

Arthur C Clarke's 'Newspad' Finally Arrives. Yay! I always did say this guy was a prophet! Way to go, Arty! Oh, and well done to Sony as well.

I've been decorating the kitchen today. Painting the skirting and door frames. I'll do the doors and window frame tomorrow. Possibly, I'll even do the walls in emulsion tomorrow as well, but more than likely that'll get left till the day after. My feet hurt. My back hurts. My neck hurts. And I have to take The Boy to his training class tomorrow evening. [sigh]

So, right now, I'm going to open a bottle of beer, put my feet up and watch an episode or two of Farscape! Blue vegetables rule! Yeah!

This is truly macabre! Books bound in human skin! Eurgh!

This is just incredible. what an achievment! Someone has actually made a dolls house and is an exact replica of Bag End ... yes the home of Bilbo and later Frodo Baggins of Hobbiton! Go on, have a look! Plenty of photos.

Ok, so who remembers this wonderful, wonderful series? :-)

Fantastic! How to make your house look less drab on the outside!

I thought this knitting pattern for a slit throat choker was rather cool ... thanks go to my big sis for pointing me to this website!

Yes, I need to try my hand at a new skill. I've decided it's going to be cheese making. I made some rather tasty breakfast rolls yesterday and took them to my Mam's to have with the butternut squash and roasted sweetcorn soup we had as the starter. I remember thinking, "some homemade cheese would be nice with this homemade bread", and the idea was born.

So, now I have to try to find out what I need and how to make it! I used to have the link to a site that sold cheesemaking supplies and I ordered some annatto[1] seeds to colour my soap from them, so I hope I still have it (the link, not the annatto).

[1] a natural colouring used to make yellow/orange cheese

Ideas, anyone? ;-)

I hurt my back yesterday. I was emptying the car of big lumps of old carpet and underlay that I'd taken up to the tip/incinerator and something went ping/wrench/grind. I managed to drive home, but by the time I got home it was stiffening up. I took some painkillers and lay down, then got up when they were working and had a hot bath to try to loosen up the muscles. It's not so bad today. Not so much a sharp pain as an achy muscle feeling all over my lower back. It does jab at me when I stand/sit/attempt to bend down/go to the toilet etc, but I suppose I'll have to suffer it till it heals on it's own. :-( It's taken me absolutely ages to do a little bit of housework.

I think maybe I'll go and have another hot bath. :-) With candles and scented oils. And lots and lots of bubbles. :-) I suppose there are some good things about having a bad back. I can relax without feeling guilty about it.

Some of you who read my blog may also be readers of my friend Amy's blog (link over there <----- to the left). She's been away for a while ... split up with her other half and got a place of her own. Unfortunately, this left her without a computer or internet access, but Santa was good to her and she's now back blogging again as usual. So, head on over and read what's been happening! See ya there!

Ever wondered where all the spoons go? Click on the image for more.

I bet you were wondering where I'd got to, weren't you?!

[fx: tumbleweed blows across the desert]

Ok, so perhaps not, but I'll post a quick update anyway, whether you like it or not.

After the awful incident with the neighbour, I took a serious downhill decline. Some of you may know I've been battling depression for some years, and this sent me into one hell of a nose-dive. I considered killing myself on more than one occasion, which, when I think back now sounds so silly, but it was far from it at the time. I was so deeply saddened and shocked that my dog had gone for someone in the first place, but then to be treated not like someone who had made a mistake but like a hardened criminal who deserved the worst the law could hand out was just beyond me. We sought the opinions of two independent animal behaviourists who both said that he was not a dangerous dog, and indeed one of them suggested that he had in fact exhibited typical herding behaviour and not out and out aggression, and suggested that we attend formal training classes with him so that we are always in control of that behaviour. The court hearing was on 8th December. The magistrate saw sense and fined us the minimum that the court can and sent us away. That's it. It's over with and finished. The idiot can't take it further and have our dog destroyed no matter how much he wants to. He will get a piddly £50 compensation out of it, which he'll probably be really insulted by because, to be honest I thought that money is what he was after all along. I mean, nobody goes on the way he did unless he had an ulterior motive.

On a lighter note, we spent New Year in Whitby. This is the first year that there has been a gothic weekend organised for New Year in Whitby, and it seemed to go down very well indeed. On New Year's Eve we were given a tour of the cellars below the Metropole and shown the old smuggler's tunnel which leads out to the cliffs. New Year's Day we had a very nice meal followed by party games, and of course every night there was partying and dancing till the wee hours. We came home yesterday and I felt like I could sleep for a week.

Right, I need a cuppa and I'm still washing clothes from the weekend, so I'll finish here for now and post another update in a while.

Catch you later.