Got a real tree? CHECK IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahhhhhh..........didn't it look nice?

-I write that in the past tense, because I've had to strip the tree and smother it with insecticide till it's dripping!

Apparently, aphids hibernate in the winter, and there is nothing they like better to have a snooze in than a nice bushy little tree. Not too big, close to the ground, snug.... erm.... just like this one, actually!

Well, after two days in our living room with the fire on, they woke up thinking it was summertime and therefore.......party-time!

I'd had cards around the foot of the tree and on Thursday morning, went to put another card there, newly arrived. It was then that I noticed something sticky on one of the cards....... sap. Wherever the little ba***rds had nibbled, the tree had produced sticky sap to try to defend itself. It drowns the bug in sticky yuckiness, leaving it immobile. But it doesn't stop it nibbling in the first place, and therefore didn't stop the needles falling. Neither does it do anything to prevent further wee baby aphids from hatching and joining in the fun fun fun.

Stroooof!

Just when I thought I had Christmas licked!

Everyone's coming to our house for Christmas... only had ten days notice of this, but hey! I can handle this! I CAN handle it! I keep telling myself I can. Bought food...........found bigger table in charity shop........... bought decorations in an early sale.......... all done, all OK. Didn't account for aphid invasion in the middle of winter. Silly me.

Hey ho!

So. Take this moral- if you have a real tree, go and examine it. NOW. Before it's too late.

Have a merry, bugless Christmas!

Whoooooooooooooaaaaah!

I don't really drink. Never got into the habit, or developed the taste.

Then came duloxetine, my latest anti-depressant, with bigger than the usual "do not drink while taking this medicine" warning. Why so big a warning this time? I looked it up on the net....

.....man! How do these things get licenses? This drug caused liver cancer in the rats it was tested on. If they put it to market even after that, what was the point of putting the animals through that?

Anyway. So I've been taking Milk Thistle (silmarin) all the time I've been on it, as this is meant to help your liver.

I got the results of a recent blood test the other day- liver tested normal. Hurray!

So................ feeling a little wound up tonight, I decided to have some wine. Why not? The one that had been opend X weeks ago was off (really?) so I opened another. We have afew bottles- presents, winnings from pub quizes my partner went to, etc. All look the same to me, except some are red and some are white. I can usually tell from the label which is which, so I can cook with the right one. Ha!

Mmmm................. this red wine is gooooooooooood...........sweet, tasty, yum! Sip sip.... pour more.......

Then my partner says, "Hey! Hold on! That's not wine! That's PORT!"

Oops.

Better put some paracetamol and water by my bed for the morning......

Teeeeeeeeehehehehehehehehe...........

What am I? Where am I?

You Are a Yellow Crayon

Your world is colored with happy, warm, fun colors. You have a thoughtful and wise way about you. Some people might even consider you a genius. Charming and eloquent, you are able to get people to do things your way. While you seem spontaneous and free wheeling, you are calculating to the extreme. Your color wheel opposite is purple. You both are charismatic leaders, but purple people act like you have no depth.

What Color Crayon Are You?

Calculating?????? Cheek!!!!!

This next one is based on Dante's Inferno. Your answers place you in one of
his 9 levels of Hell (his ten levels overall, if you count purgatory). I'm in the first level, folks. Not too bad! But whoa... look at this list!!!
VIOLENCE??? MALICIOUSNESS????? LOL! I can only think this is because I ticked yes to occasional suicidal thoughts, and even an attempt way back when.

Hey ho!

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Low
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very High
Level 7 (Violent)	Very High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

This next bit is how this level is described. Not too bad, really. Bit like life here, but without the religious fanatics. Looked at like that, it's a possible improvement!

First Level of Hell - Limbo

Charon ushers you across the river Acheron, and you find yourself upon the brink of grief's abysmal valley. You are in Limbo, a place of sorrow without torment. You encounter a seven-walled castle, and within those walls you find rolling fresh meadows illuminated by the light of reason, whereabout many shades dwell. These are the virtuous pagans, the great philosophers and authors, unbaptised children, and others unfit to enter the kingdom of heaven. You share company with Caesar, Homer, Virgil, Socrates, and Aristotle. There is no punishment here, and the atmosphere is peaceful, yet sad.

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

Polish workers, cats, trees and one Polish word.

An old polish gentleman came to our door last night. He showed us a hand-written card to explain that he was a deaf-mute and was selling his drawings door-to-door. We don't need pictures- we have several, framed and unframed, still unhung from when we moved in 4 years ago. Still, me and my partner exchanged glances, perhaps a wink, and decided to help if we could. Any reluctance on my part disappeared when the pictures came out of his bag...

They are A4 size, too big to scan completely, but here are some details:

He had a few dozen. My partner prompted me to choose. I chose ones I could see were hard to draw! Not that the others looked easy, I don't mean that. But I've tried these two subjects!

I can't draw trees at all. I think I get bored. The first few twigs look OK, then it turns into a hairy doodle.

As for the cat picture, OK, it might be a bit too twee to actually hang on a wall (?) but I've found that kittens and ALL tabbies are the hardest ones to draw. With all those lines, it's easy for them to look 'flat'. I get confused, whilst drawing, between line, detail, shade. I lose track. Is this bit I'm doing a bit of shading, or is it some of the tabby pattern? Sound odd? Give it a go and you'll see what I mean. Maybe. Or maybe this is just me. Ha!

So I was impressed, that's the basis of my choice.

Look at the textures- that blanket in front of the kittens. OK, maybe he put it there because, like me, he can't do paws (if you ever see a picture of an animal standing in long grass, you know you've found someone else with this problem.) But the blanket looks real!

My partner knows British Sign Language. I guess some of it is universal, as they were able to make themselves understood.

I worked in Poland for a little while, back in 1991, and was excited about saying some Polish. When his attention was turned to me, however, I was ashamed and horrified to discover that I couldn't remember any of it. Except the word for "thankyou". But perhaps that's all that was needed.

Isn't it awful that people with skill and talent like this have to go door-to-door? And in the same week, a silly man lost his job as manager of the England football team and was paid 2.5 million sterling to leave his job? The world's mad.

We have lots of people from Poland here in Colchester. Since the EU expanded the other year, lots have come to the UK to work, and quite a few hundred to this town. I hear the language every time I go into town. Last night's experience has shown me AGAIN that it is never too late to learn. Why didn't I keep up the language in the 1990s? Hey ho. I wonder if any of the new Colcestrians has thought of giving Polish Language classes. I think I might enquire at the college when I'm in town this afternoon..............

ps.

The Polish for "thankyou" is pronounced "D'yen-koo-yah".

World Toilet Day

It's true! November 19th is World Toilet Day! The serious thought behind it is to draw attention to the billions who don't have good sanitation, something that we usually just take for granted. There's a website, here.


As well as the serious stuff, there are cartoons and quizzes. E.g., What kind of toilet paper are you? I am, apparently, a dried leaf. I don't care. It will make a certain Bear very proud, I'm sure.

what kind of TOILET PAPER are you? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as dead leaves That's right. When it comes to toilet paper, you're a pile of dead leaves. You're curious, ethereal, and spiritual. You love to challenge traditional philosophies. And because you're so environmentally conscious, you never take from Mother Earth what you can't give back. dead leaves 81% under-dispensing toilet paper 56% over-dispensing toilet paper 50% quilted toilet paper 44% public restroom toilet paper 31% paper napkins 25% empty roll 19%

A Certain Bear

I adopted Bob The Bear (or Bob T Bear esq., as he prefers to be known) in 2002, packing him off in a box to Ecuador. Also in the box was a supply of Chocolate Biscuits for the journey, a Christmas Pudding, some tea, and a few other things that my partner, at that time working in Quito, would be missing. He had mentioned to me that he had never had a Bear when he was a boy, so I decided that I had to correct this dreadful remiss. I hugged Bob and told him to pass on the hug when he got there, which I'm assured he did.

My partner was just a good friend back then, but after he returned to the UK in August 2003, we realised that no Bear deserved to have estranged parents and so we all moved in together. The rest is history, much of which Bob took to documenting in his personal diaries, which he moved into blogland last year.

Sunnier

I took this pic' last summer, in Suffolk. We came across the sunflowers unexpectedly. We'd had no idea they were there! If you look closely, you can see a bumble bee at the bottom of the inner circle.

Today I read the following, which has helped me feel much better about turning 40:

"Start to learn the piano NOW? Are you MAD? Have you any idea how old I would be by the time I had learnt to play?!"

"Yes. The same age you'll be if you don't."

:^)

(Good, isn't it?)

She's ok!

Hoorray! Fluffy got the all-clear! The lumps were just 'fatty lumps'. We have to keep an eye on whether they come back bigger or strangely shaped, but otherwise, it's all OK!! We're sooooooooo relieved and happy.

The poor thing had all these staples in her wound: No surprise then, that once they were removed she was singing and running about all over!

She is also getting very cheeky- this is her brother's bed, made from an old computer packing box and lined with an old quilt. We made it for him because he is so enormous we couldn't find a good one in the shops for him..... Fluffu decided that a visit to the vet gave her squatter's rights:
Never mind. Another old cover on a bench in the garden, and Scooter found a nice alternative in the sun:

I'm very happy that my little rogues have survived to purr another day!

Off for a few days..

Fluffy has a strange liking for leather shoes. With her sister it was bags. I still have a black leather handbag that has scratch marks all down one side. I'll never part with it. It says, "Figs was here". But Fluffy's fetish is definitely of the shoe kind. Here she is, a few weeks ago, sitting on my shoes. She later slept on them for hours. I have to take spare footwear with me. The alternative is a visit to mum's spent indoors.

Ah well. I'm off later today to see her, and to take her back to the vet tomorrow. We might find out what the lumps were....

The other day I dreamt that she had got the all-clear. I woke up smiling and relieved. Then I remembered it was just a dream. I can't say how much I hope that one will come true. My brain is telling me not to worry. My gut is saying "Prepare."

Should be blogging again by the end of the week..... please keep good thoughts for Fluffy.

*****

thanks for the birthday messages!

Scroll down for a post about the day....!

How to survive your 40th birthday

Birthday cards: they make me smile whenever I look at them.

Being a supply teacher, my partner didn't know whether he would be home or not for my birthday. Sure enough, he got a call the evening before. Never mind. Once you get past your 21st, you get used to being on your own on your birthday. Once you get past your 30th, you start preferring it that way. Once you get past your 39th, you sort of hope that it won't happen at all...

So off he went to work, leaving me to have a lie-in, one ear on the radio, one ear on the letterbox. Despite both, I slept for another few hours.


Then I did the girly bath thing- run the water deep and just warm enough, pour in the remnants of ALL the bottles of bubbles and oils that you've accumulated over the last three Christmasses and birthdays, fix a huge cup of tea and set a pile of chocolate biscuits at arm's length, and bring in the radio on a mile-long extension lead. It takes some setting up, but it's worth it.


A long, long soak with several hot top ups later..... soft pink slippered and dressing gowned thing floats downstairs stinking of lavender/rose/nutmeg/strange green oil of Ulay mixture.

Alas. No cards or letters on doormat. Sigh. Check outside... oooo! Two parcels! -Cards and presents from my partner's parents (suprise) and one of my brothers (miracle).


I've a total of £30 tucked inside cards, so I spend the afternoon in town. I keep looking at things that would suit other people. What so-and-so would just LOVE for Christmas... oooh I should get this for.... No! I have to reel myself in and tell me NO! Today it's for ME! I'm buying something special for ME!


I often come home from shopping with 'nearly gots'. My partner asks me how I got on and the list starts; I saw a nice skirt and I nearly got it, but (insert excuse), or I nearly got a new jumper, it was only £5. "Why didn't you get it then?" he says. Oh, didn't really need it. I've got a jumper. And so on. I'm good on nearly-gots, I am.

But this time I'm determined. I buy a watch that I saw and admired last year. I've liked it for a year, so it's safe to buy it. A certain bear has put a photo of it on his blog.


In the evening, a minor headache: make-up. Don't normally wear it. I have large, open pores on some of my face and make-up just sits in them. From a distance it all looks perfectly flawless, as they say on the adverts. But up close it looks like the surface of the moon. I go through the usual process of putting it on, taking it off, putting it on, oh, maybe if I just take SOME of it off, no, take it all off, put some back on again.... and so on, till my cheeks are so red I don't need any colour on them anyway.


Off we go, for a meal in town. We've been there before and it was good..... and it is again. I get the wrong starter, my partner's salad doesn't turn up, but the deserts are magnificent, just like last time, and that's what counts!!! Then I decide to have some alcohol. I'm not really allowed, not with my medication. But hey, just one yummy drink, just for today.


"Irish Coffee? Oh, we would, but we're out of cream, sorry. Would you like something different?"
I think, "That WAS my different. I normally have tea!" But think better of ordering anthing else. Maybe it's a sign I shouldn't drink after all. Hey ho. Off we go home.


Change into baggy jumper and jogging bottoms.
Chocolates. Tea. Telly. Both fall asleep on the sofa.
Trip upstairs. Snuggle into bed, on our new 'memory foam' mattress topper. Ahhhhhhh..... a few pages of PD James and away I go, asleep....

It might not sound like much, but I had a very, very happy birthday.