Postmodern Pets

Too many things on this site to even start to pick one to blog but if I had to make a choice I'd blog the Cat Scratchers.

Domesticated

A new post on the Domesticated Blog. This must be the first time I've cooked from a book for months!

Bone

So I went to put my shoes back on so I could go out to get some lunch. Well, I don't wear them at work at the moment because I have my feet propped up as high as I can on a cushioned stool (as part of my agressive elevation plan). Anyway, when I went to put my shoe on I noticed that my ankle looked kind of funny. Its the bone, I can see my ankle bone again. Hurrah!!!!! The swelling is going down fast. This putting your feet up malarkey is the biz.

Stansted Sleepers

I must look out the next time I go through the airport at night. See if I can post the slumberers.

MIU

Ok. So a wee bit bored at work yesterday so I rang NHS Direct to see when they thought my ankle should start shrinking back to its normal size. I really thought they'd just tell me to take it easy and that would be it but they told me I should go to my nearest Minor Injuries Unit. I didn't know there was such a thing but there you go.

So this morning I headed to the MIU in Barts. Nice enough hospital from what I saw and lovely location. Waited, waited, waited. Apparently they always deal with people who are bleeding first :-) Saw the nurse. She was lovely. Prodded and poked my ankle. Told me about ligaments. Apparently if you twist your ankle and the ligaments don't successfully stretch there are two options a) the ligaments tear or b) the ligaments hold but they pull little chunks out of the bone. So, to the X-ray department. Waited, waited, waited. X-rayed. The first time I've ever been x-rayed, very exciting. Waited, waited, waited. X-rays produced.

Back down to the MIU. The nurse had a gander and I have a lovely unscathed ankle bone. Of course there are signs that I have broken my foot sometime in the past but I must have just ignored it. Perhaps I did it at the same time as the broken collarbone that a doctor in Cambridge once noticed. Anyway, anyway. No problems with the bone. Just a bit of swelling. I seem to be inclined to swell. I have to keep my ankle elevated above my waist as much as possible (which is not at all possible for most of the day) and that's about it.

Pruck

I am vindicated! Someone else uses the word pruck.

Buffy

Buffy, buffy - nothing but Buffy dvds. I fear I will be quite antisocial until I've watched them all. Which is, surely, a good reason to just get through them all as quickly as possibly. And on the positive side this is the last set of dvds. There will be no more.

Amazon

Ian got a great parcel from Amazon yesterday. Lots of good pruck.

The last season of Buffy on dvd. This now makes my collection complete much to everyone's relief.

A book on photographing people which looks really interesting. Though we may need to invest in a flash and a reflector.

A wonderful Canon A80 digital camera. It looks like it can to _everything_. And when I got down stairs this morning Ian had put it and the volumous instructions, in my bag. I studied the instructions on the train this morning and I'm going to play with it all the way home this evening. Prepare to be bored by lots of shots of my commute.

But best of all was a New Model Army concert dvd. Ian's in it giving it what for in the crowd. Imortalised.

Agony Anne

The Ann Widdecombe advice column sounds like something you would make up for a gag. But there it is.

Sorry

Here is somewhere to go when you're feeling really, really sorry.

Snaps

Definitely snaps.

Vine

We went to see Tim Vine last night. Bit of a trek to get to Catford but why not. It was very funny. Constant one liners. We'd heard a lot of them before but the sheer quantity of them built up to some sort of comedic critical mass.

This is a very small sample of the stuff he did.

Still managing to find a photo a day to post on the photoblog. I wonder how long its going to take before I have to repeat subject/location. And I wonder if that matters.

A Light Adapted Eye

I love these. Specially the ones at the top. Rob Carter @ Britart.com

I must go out with camera and try to make some! Well thats tomorrow planned!

Perhaps I should take Mum here for her birthday dinner?

Wi-fi may tempt train travellers. Well it would tempt me. Of course at the moment the KingsX to Cambridge train doesn't even have decent reception for mobile phones so it may be some while yet.

Electric books have still got a way to go but it looks like they're getting there. I still like the idea of good old fashion paper books but e-books would be grand for technical books, newspapers and magazine.

Oh my god, was nothing innocent? They roped in Tufty the squirrel.

I'm thinking about changing the template on this blog. Blogger has released all sorts of new functionality that might be nice to use. Of course this may mean (oh, ok, will mean) that the blog falls apart a bit for a while but I'm sure (almost) that I'll be able to haul it back together again.

The big decision is what format to go with. I'll have to ponder. And perhaps try a few different looks out for the craic.

I've restarted my photoblog. I don't really know why. Its a bit aimless. But perhaps I just need to wander round it until it finds its purpose.

So no swimming lesson tonight. I nipped (in a big ankle way) over to the chemists where my swimming teacher works and instead of berating me for skipping class she sold me a support bandage. How cool do I look now? No need to answer that.

Words discussed at work today are: Apocryphal and Crock

I was so happy last night. It was the first set of 5 minute runs on my Race for Life running plan.

So there I was. Pootling along. I had done the first two 5 minute runs and they were only a bit strenuous. Nothing to worry about. I was very happy. Central London was lovely. The sun was shining. I was running down a wee street behind the Guardian building on Farringdon Road when all of a sudden I was pitching through the air.

Oh the joy of finding yourself sitting on your bum in the middle of the footpath. And then there was the gentle exploration to find out which bits of me were hurting. Grazed hand - trivial. Grazed leg - a wee bit sore but hardly a problem. Big puffy ankle - ouch. And then the fun of limping back to the pool where I get changed.

So, still have a big puffy ankle. Its a bit sore but not too bad. I can walk around with out too much bother (and possibly with the help of some neurophen). I'm hoping this is just one of those rights of passage. They say it takes three falls to make a horsewoman but I'm hoping it only takes one to make a runner.

My god! I didnt blog about Thursdays swimming lesson!

The swimming bit was, eh, ok, grand. Felt like I might be getting the hang of that front crawl malarky. But, but, big and better news. I did my very first stand up dive! Lots of excitement and no bellyflop.

I've had a bit of a cough all weekend. And a sore head. Very unpleasant. But I've been dealing with it by having plenty of naps.

Despite this, amazingly, I have carried on on the Race for Life training. Sunday's session was Run 4 minutes Walk 2 minutes Repeat 6 times. Which I managed to do without being horribley wrecked at the end. I am very pleased with this!

Big sandwich

Very cute japanese packed lunches.

Bad, bad yesterday. No exercise, ate everything I could find. Lets just pretend it never happened.

Tonight will be better. Heading to the swimming pool for my weekly lesson. Should be good, we're going to be diving from a crouch. And then next week we'll be standing up and diving. I am very excited by this!

Oh no. Slugger O'Toole has been hacked. Some people have too much time on their hands.

Cripplegate Meeting

I went to the monthly Cripplegate camera club meeting last night.  We had a guest speaker come in to show us his photographs as we do when there isn't a competition.

 

It started off fine.  He seemed ok and he told an almost interesting story about having to take photographs of 25 saplings being planted in 25 different golf courses for the PGA.  It wasn't thrilling but it was a perfectly good story about being a professional photographer.

 

But that was the highlight.  The rest of the evening was a sales pitch for an hotel http://www.hotel-terrasses-eze.cote.azur.fr/ near Monaco.  I have to say that it looks lovely in the brochures.  Sadly his photographs were awful.  And I'm not being picky here.  God knows I can't afford to.  But these photographs were terrible.  Some of them would have been grand as holiday snaps but a lot of them weren't that interesting.  One bad photograph of a palm tree should not be followed by another 10 bad photos of palm trees and I don't care how impressively tall they were.  I'm not sure that we did need to see snaps of his missus outside the casino.  Though, to be fair, those were more interesting than the photos of his car.  Even though, as he told us for the umpteenth time, it did show how temperate the weather was in December.  Some people left for the pub during the interval.  They did the right thing.

Stuart at work is moving his support to a new football team.

Ran last night. Day 5 of the Race For Life training plan. Run for 3 minutes Walk for 1 minute Repeat 8 times.

Went ok. Oh so very, very slow. But ok. Hate the tiny one minute breaks. Nearly looking forward to the Day 6 which is run 4 mins walk 3 mins. Thats a proper break!

Buy a ready made cd collection? Not necessarily a good cd collection mind.

Sadly I found this too late for Valentines Day.

A user guide to pubs for the foreign visitor. Always handy.

Swimming lesson last night. Managed to do two lengths of the pool doing front crawl without being completely pants but theres still a long, long way to go. Apparently you dont need to lift your head from the water to breathe - just turn it round. Hmmmm. This is going to need quite a bit of practice.

And our diving progressed to kneeling dives. Lots of fun and only a few belly flops!

Finally managed to do Day 4 of the Race for Life running plan. So thats Run 2 minutes, Walk 1 minutes Repeat 10 times.

Tried to do this at the weekend but failed dismally. I think I managed the one minute break twice before giving in and reverting back to 2 minute breaks. But last night it was lovely. Ran very slowly. No, let me emphasis that, very, very slowly. But slow or not the 2 minutes were doable and the 1 minute break was adequate. I am very happy.

Of course the next hurdle is Day 5: Run 3 minutes, Walk 2 minutes, Repeat 6 times. That'll be fun.

Thunder, lighning, hail stones. All todays wonderful weather.

Of course it is Stuarts fault. He would insist on cycling in to work today.

Or perhaps a cow instead of the sheep and donkey ones?

These I really want.