52/4

Went to a book fair on Monday :) there was a stall covered in children's books.

I spotted Mrs Pepperpot- I used to love those stories! But I couldn't stretch to the £7 they wanted.
I did find a copy of Issi Noho, the magical panda. The author, Keith Chatfield had even signed it. I was very happy to part with £2.50 for this visit to my childhood reading....
I also had to buy Green Smoke because I can't come home with a bear book unless I also have a dragon book, and vice versa...

 ISSI NOHO by Keith Chatfield

His first journey to the bathroom each morning was always taken in a twilight daze.

The panda's name comes from the letters left on a packing case that he shelters in. The full notice said "THIS SIDE UP" and "USE NO HOOKS". But the only part still ledgible is IS SI NO HO.

Unlike in other children's adventure books of this type, the children don't come upon their magical new friend gradually, a few paragraphs or even chapters in: ISSI opens the book himself with the words, "Excuse me, but I suppose you wouldn't have such a thing as a bamboo shoot about you?"

It turns out that ISSI has magical cards which give him exciting powers but his spells often go wrong because he's not very good at adding up the numbers on the cards.

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Thanks to everyone who joins in with this, btw!

If you want to join in too, pick up any book, go to page 52, then go to the 4th line. Give us whatever sentences cross the 4th line. i.e. you may have to go back a bit or forward bit, but the 4th line is your guide!

Either put your finding on your blog and tell us in the comments to this post, or just write the entry itself in the comments. Simples!

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******LOOK!!******* Grab this bargain while you can!

I recently bought this book for 1p, brand new!

The postage was £2.80. It only took a couple of days to arrive and was spotless; it was even sealed in cellophane.

By The Batch: Creative Cards, Postcards, Envelopes & More by Judi Kauffman 

 Published 2006, 128 pages, usual price USD19.95 or GBP12.99

I'd really recommend it to anyone looking for some inspiration with card and stationery making, if you are a bit bored and want to see something different, getting back to creating, no 'Magnolia', no ribbons, die cuts and bought embellishments ;)

If you follow the link you'll be able to flick through a few pages online to see if it appeals.

 LINK: But hurry- as I type they have only 2 copies left!!!

It's on Amazon, but it's a MarketPlace trader, not Amazon themselves.

Good luck!

****2 UPDATES***** Eat, Scooter, eat!!

Had a lovely day yesterday; met up with Beanie and we went to the Tower of London :) I'll post about this properly another day.....


Was meant to have a friend over today as well, and we were going to go to a country fair. But I cancelled. Scooter hasn't eaten much since Friday, hardly a thing, and I wanted to spend a quiet day trying to get him better. He has been kept warm by the fire all day and been offered:

• Whiskas steamed cod flavour chunks in jelly,
• Thrive 99% chicken slivers
• real fresh chicken, raw,
• real fresh chicken, roasted,
• fresh haddock, steamed,
• his usual- and favourite- biscuits 'Purina One Sensitive'
• HighLife chicken flavour chunks in gravy

All sniffed, some licked, all refused.

He has drunk a little water.

No medicine taken, as it is usually hidden in the food.

I opened his mouth (he hated that) but couldn't see any sores on his tongue.

MIGHT be a wee bit constipated, judging by the lack of use of his poo patch in the garden! Then again, there isn't much in there to come out....

HELP!!!

Vet not back till Tuesday.
Maybe it's just a tummy ache. But he is showing interest in the food when you present it to him, sits up, excited, wants to see what you're bringing. But he won't eat.

Any cat owners out there with any ideas?????

He is purry and responds to being stroked and talked to.

by the fire today with his bunny

mum trying to coax him to eat by hand

UPDATE  ** UPDATE  **  UPDATE  ** 

About half passed midnight Scooter ate a few mouthfuls of biscuits. After a while I managed to tempt him with some of the HiLife chicken sachet too. He had a doze by the fire, now he's off out, mousing. I hope he keeps down what he's eaten. I'll double check the poo patch when he comes in. I wonder what my neighbours think about me sculking round the borders with a flashlight late at night?

UPDATE  ** UPDATE  **  UPDATE  ** 

Tuesday 10th April:
I haven't been able to get his thyroid tablet down him for 3 or 4 days so this evening I had to force it on him :( I had to put it in his mouth, hold it shut, tickle his throat till he swallowed.... ahuh yeah, ok, not quite. I had to do this four times cos the first three he pretended to swallow but then spat it out as soon as he was released. Of course, each attempt made him more wound up! My wrists and forearms are scratched so bad it looks like I've been self-harming and Scooter hates his Mummy. Bad Mummy. Bad, bad Mummy.

He is still eating less than normal, sticking to his favourite biscuits and a little fish. The poo patch is looking surprisingly normal. He's ok, touch wood. But I have been in tears wishing he were 4, rather than 19..... I don't want him to go....

52/4

the Creative License

-giving yourself permission to be the artist you truly are

by Danny Gregory

It can be as big as a table or it can fit in your hip pocket. It can be kept on 300lb. imported watercolour paper, on the ruled pages of a Grade School composition book, or on a sleek website.

-In this chapter the author is talking about art journals, particularly that there are no real rules about what they are or what they look or feel like.

A few years ago someone gave me a gift voucher for Amazon as a joint birthday and Christmas present. I really enjoyed spending it! This was one of the half dozen or so arty books I bought. I have just started re-reading it. I never finished it before. No matter how 'hands on' art books try to be, I still feel slightly in awe of these pristine examples of someone else's work. That was until a few nights ago, when I awoke with a start and knocked my glass of water flying. I cleared up what I could, sleepily and halfheartedly. "Oh well it's only water," I thought, one eye shut. I felt around to check that nothing electrical was damp, then went back to sleep.

So...........now................. my copy of this book is all bent and bubbly from water damage HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA and in being so no longer has a halo to be respected. The gloves are off. I feel some inky doodling coming on.... :)


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Thanks to everyone who joins in with this, btw!

If you want to join in too, pick up any book, go to page 52, then go to the 4th line. Give us whatever sentences cross the 4th line. i.e. you may have to go back a bit or forward bit, but the 4th line is your guide!

Either put your finding on your blog and tell us in the comments to this post, or just write the entry itself in the comments. Simples!

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4 X 6 ARTWORK EXCHANGE

Finally got this sent off today for the art exchange.

The words around the edge read-

I lay on the grass with my cat
and looked straight up to the BLUE,
blue, blue, everywhere blue,
not a speck, 
not a flaw,
and I thought...
BLUE is PERFECTION.

I couldn't find my masking tape, so I painted some artist's masking fluid around the edge first.
Then I coloured everything in with a blue aquapencil. Then I washed it over with water. When it was dry I spritzed some blue 'Angel Mist' onto it. It fell in puddles, which I didn't want, so I spread it over evenly with a soft brush. The result is an even blue, with a slight silvery glitter, but a very fine glitter. This doesn't show in the photo's or the scan :(

Then I stamped foliage round the edges to make it look like I was looking up through some trees. The foliage is actually the top of a tree stamp I have.

I'd had no idea what to draw. I thought maybe a sunset sky with something silhoutte in the foreground. But it didn't grab me.

On Thursday, with a handful of hours to myself, and it so amazingly warm for March, I lay in the garden with Scooter, a cup of tea, a craft book and my kindle. In the end I didn't read anything, I just lay face up and was genuinely amazed at the blue sky, the way it stretched in every direction, with no change in colour at all, and not a single hint of cloud. It's nice to be re-amazed by simple things :)

The words soon came, and then the picture.
Hope you like it. I was pleased with it, because it meant something, and recorded a genuine moment. That's what arty stuff's meant to be, innit? ;)

52/4

Nearly forgot this this week- again! LOL!

The Virgin Queen

The Personal History of Elizbeth I

by Christopher Hibbert

When she arrived in Richmond, she said to Lord Williams, 'This night I think to die'; and the next day, as her escort rode on from Richmond to Windsor, she sent one of her guards to a group of her servants who had collected to see her pass by, asking him to deliver this message to them, 'Tanquam ovis'- like a sheep to the slaughter.

(- This refers to when her sister, Queen Mary, sent Elizabeth to the Tower as she had been implicated in a protestant plot to put her on the throne.)

I've read lots of books on the Tudor period and several on Elizabeth I, and this is by far the very best biography of her. If you want to read one, pick this one!!

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Thanks to everyone who joins in with this, btw!

If you want to join in too, pick up any book, go to page 52, then go to the 4th line. Give us whatever sentences cross the 4th line. i.e. you may have to go back a bit or forward bit, but the 4th line is your guide!

Either put your finding on your blog and tell us in the comments to this post, or just write the entry itself in the comments. Simples!

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p.s. thank you all for your kind comments and support re yesterday's post, which I am still reading and mulling over.......

A dear friend

This is a long post, but one of the most important I've written, I think. One that marks something big in my life. If you do have time to sit and read it, thank you..........


I first got online in 2000.
Back then there were no blogs and few 'forums' as we know them now. In fact I didn't have much to do with the internet at all in those days. I stuck to email, and what we did have back then was newsgroups. These were like a message board, but not on a website. You joined the newsgroup and any messages you emailed to it went to everyone else in the group. These came out as a page of postings. It sounds a little archaic now, come to think of it!

Well I joined a newsgroup set up for people with depression. Most of the groups started with the prefix 'alt.' but for some reason this one started with 'alc.' which I did't even notice for a while, but I think it was a joke from someone somewhere, meaning we were a bit tipsy :) because of the strange name- 'alc.suicide' not many people found or joined it. We had about a dozen members from over the world, and we all seemed to share the same sense of humour. I would log on in the evening and spend hours in stitches sometimes.

Some members were very strong, others weren't. Some 'lurked', which was the term for someone who read but rarely posted.

We all had a history of depression in common. When one of us crashlanded the rest of us rallied round and supported them. There is much to be said for the intimacy of a smaller cyberspace!

In time lots of us moved on. I don't know what happened to the newsgroup. It continues for a while via a website, but I don't know how long it survived.

A few weeks ago I went searching for it. After hours, I found some of it saved in old cached pages. I was able to read 6 months of conversational threads from 2000. It took time to recognise some of the names but soon the in-jokes were back. It was very odd to read things that I had posted. It no longer sounded like my voice. I must have changed a lot. It was a very, very eerie experience to come across these old threads still out there, like disembodied ghost voices from my past.

And there there was Donna.

Donna lives in Missouri and I met her through this newsgroup. We started to email each other outside of the group as we got on so well. Donna has MS and sometimes wasn't able to get out of bed. Other times she'd be up but still only had the computer for communication with the outside world. She loves animals and her husband, John, is a vet who brings home anything he takes pity on. This meant that at one point they had about 14 dogs.

Over the years Donna has had some really scary times, like when she lost her sight for a few days and no one knew if it would come back.

We stayed in touch via MSN Messanger- conversations that lasted hours- and then email. She helped me when Luvbug went away to Ecuador and I didn't know if we'd ever be together- heartbreaking. She helped me through very black depression and worries and helped me make decisions when I needed to.

I've tried to help too, through some difficult times that her family went through, and through the various ups and downs of illness.

Lately we haven't emailed as often as before, just updates, rather than daily contact.

The latest update is devastating. She has been diagnosed with leukaemia and has been told she may have 6 months.

We always thought we would meet up, just took it for granted. Now it seems that would never happen.

Last night Luvbug and I tried to hatch a plan. He could stay here and look after mum and Scooter, I could fly over to Missouri on a Friday, stay the weekend, return Monday... a long way for a short trip, but mum reacts badly to change of routine, and at least me and Donna would finally meet.

The more I thought of it, the more I wanted this to be possible. And I'm convinced that if I don't at least try this I'll always regret it. When the reality set in, the long journey on my own, the strangers, the distance, I started to feel panicky. But I went to Australia on my own when I was 19, and I just have to take a deep breath, 'gird up my loins' (!) and be as brave as that pushy teenager I once was.

Now over to Donna. I asked her what she thought about it, and also which airport was nearest! (Kansas, apparently.) She said she is jumping with excitement and can't wait. It will depend on how well she is after her next chemo in a few weeks. She hopes she is up to it. So do I.

I told her don't worry, I'll get there somehow. And I told her to stop bouncing, that just can't be good for her!

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Seriously, anyone out there lived through losing a friend? I've lost friends, but only been told they've gone after they've gone. I haven't been *through* the leaving part before, the goodbye. If you've been there, I'd appreciate some advice. Other than trying to be strong for her and smile, I don't really know what else I should do.

This is where people with faith have an advantage over those of us that don't- we don't really know what to do at this point. In a past life I'd be praying and having Mass said for her. Now I think I might plant a tree....

Three Cheers!

HURRAY!!!!!!

British Summer Time has started- clocks moved forward at the weekend. An end to early, dark evenings. This is my favourite time of year....

HURRAY!!!!!!

Scooter turned 19 on Friday. He has a runny eye and a runny nose, but otherwise he seems ok. He climbs the stairs to get into bed with us, he caught a mousie the other week, and thes last few, sunny, days, he waits and meows for his blankies to be put outside so that he can sunbathe on the otherwise damp grass. Once the sun has left the back garden he trots through the house to lie on the front windowsill and soak up some more form there.

HURRAY!!!!!!!

-and a cheer for double helpings of hot apple crumble and ice cream. The perfect British pudding- the contrast between tart apples and sweet crumble top, between the steaming hot pudding and the melting ice cream.... oh, and why double helpings?? Because my chest infection seems to have returned, and so has 'that time of the month' so I was feeling suitably 'sod the waistline I want comforting' and anyway, no one else wanted any more! LOL!

Possibly some progress at last!

Went to a meeting of NHS Trust workers about local mental health services. Not many non-nhs peeps came so the docs and admin got embarrassed by lots of questions and 'service user' stories from those of us who had turned up.
(What a joke! They talked and talked about 'breaking down the stigma attached to mental illness', but insist on calling patients and outpatients 'service users' LOL)
Got names, email addys and leaflets. I now have a 24 hr carer's helpline to call, too.

There was also a presentation on a new dementia care unit opened two weeks ago attached to Colchester hospital. They offer lots of things to outpatients, like art & craft, music, gardening, exercise, therapy, etc. But you have to be in the system. You can't self-refer.

This means mum would have to already be under the care of a psychiatrist specialising in dementia. -Which is what I have asked the GP for several times, since July 2010, with no result. I'll chase this, but as I said at the meeting, any mention of the D word will leave her utterly devastated. The last thing we need is a letter coming to her with anything like 'dementia care specialist' written on it.... need to tread carefully.

Did meet one psychoanalyst last year who was insistent that he would tell her she had vascular dementia, that she had a right to be told, regardless of how I think she'll take it, and that it wasn't that bad. WTF?????
I asked if he would put support in place before breaking this news to her. No, he explained, that wasn't what they did there. They don't do support. You need to look to charities for that, really. Bastard.

Didn't take her back to another appointment with him. Got her moved to a lovely female doc, so gentle with her, she loved going. But after the memory testing and final analysis, these appointments came to an end. There does seem to have been a system of 'diagnose, tick a box, then show them the door', which they say this new unit is meant to change....

52/4

Middle of the week already? Again?!


This week I'm borrowing one of Dilly's dragon books:

 How to Train Your Dragon

by Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III,

translated from the Old Norse by

Cressida Cowell

"Most dragons that the Vikings used for hunting purposes were about the size of a Labrador dog."

I haven't seen the film, but the book is really funny :) The film must miss so many little details out- like for example, when a dragon speaks in the book it's written in an old wobbly gothic font!

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Thanks to everyone who joins in with this, btw!

If you want to join in too, pick up any book, go to page 52, then go to the 4th line. Give us whatever sentences cross the 4th line. i.e. you may have to go back a bit or forward bit, but the 4th line is your guide!

Either put your finding on your blog and tell us in the comments to this post, or just write the entry itself in the comments. Simples!