OOh my stomach

I woke up this morning feeling fine and with a busy day ahead of me. Just as I was getting my things organized to go to my class, I started barfing. Very unpleasant. I decided to stay at home in bed until my evening class but I am not up to that either. The only reason I'm blogging is because I am bored. I'm still sick so no gym class tomorrow. Poor me.

I see the earth

It rained hard on Friday night and the snow was gone by Saturday morning. I made my way out to Sandhills where the SeeSaw offices are. There were six of us starting the training program. We had that usual thing of introducing ourselves but instead of getting on my high horse and being all negative, I decided to learn and remember everyone's name. I succeeded. I have an added problem in that I can't always remember people's faces. I don't fall into that large category of people who say "I never forget a face but I'm bad with names." I'm bad with both. I know that there are two Anne's, two Chris's, a Deidre, a Rebecca, a Simon, a Jenny, a Kathy and a Rosie. We spent the day doing exercises in how to talk and listen to people and some other things which will work with young children, i.e. making poster boards and badges. I had a great day. I'm looking forward to the next session. I walked home (1&1/2 miles) and collapsed into the chair in front of the TV. Rushed off to bed at 9:30.

Yesterday I started my car for the first time in two weeks. I was expecting it to be dead as a doornail but it fired up on the first try. It is a really crappy little car but I love it - so reliable. I went down to the farm for lunch and then took Rosie for a walk to the playground. I came back and collected Adam and we went to see Avatar in 3D. I loved it almost as much as he did.

Sound on the windows

I hear rain; I see rain; this is a good sign. Even the street is becoming visible. Before you know it, I will be able to get my car out. Yeah. I was meant to be going for my first SeeSaw session this afternoon but it has been cancelled. I will start tomorrow instead.

Last night I went to see "La Bete". Judith was in it otherwise I wouldn't have known about it. It was terrific. The chap who played the Beast was amazingly good for an amateur production. I went with Lucy, a new friend who is also from Canada. She works at the JR with all the old epidemiology people so we have friends in common. With the SeeSaw meeting cancelled, I have a free day so I can spend countless hours perfecting my Mac skills. Yeah again. Also the Dong Dong reopens today so I can have a noodle dinner this evening.

My little friends

The larger male bear is Harry's. It comes from Harrods.

The smaller female bear is mine. It comes from a Charity shop.

Here we go again

13/01/2010 9:23 AM

It is bloody well snowing again today but I am having a magnificent time with my Mac. I’m getting to grips with it and it is easy. I am much more used to the huge screen and I have learned how to change the font size so that I can see it better. I’m supposed to be at the gym today and now I don’t have to go. Yeah. The snow had better be gone by the time we go to Earnley (end of month). I have just spoken to Alison and they are home today as well. I also have lots of back room tidying to do so I will force myself to do that as well as playing with my new friend Mac.

PS: Jane, is the type size better on the blog? I did seem to have gone overboard catering to my old age sight problems.

Guess what???

I finallygot up the courage to buy a Mac. I'm writing this blog on it. Yeah.

Once again

Either it is very very cold or I am jinxed. The boiler shut down again this afternoon. This time I have succeeded in fixing it without the help of Andy Plumber. A kettle full of boiling water poured over the exhaust pipe melts the ice jam and 'Bob's your uncle'. I'm glad I was able to fix it but the whole thing is getting very old. The part I find strange is that it freezes in the day but not at night. At least not so far.

I was having a panic about my Ipod because it seemed that I had lost everything that was on it. Not so, thank god. It came back to life this afternoon and I am overjoyed. The problem is my attempt to download all my stuff on the PC to an external hard drive to transfer it to the new Imac. In the process of so doing, I erased my Itunes set up and file. Ugh, double ugh. I was going to get the Imac tomorrow but with the snow, I can't get my car out and it is too heavy to bring home on the bus. Then I had a brain wave. I will see if a taxi will come to the shop and pick me up. More than one way to skin a cat!

Mr. Plumber

I wrote the last entry too soon. In spite of my lagging efforts, the pipe froze again and the boiler gave up. Return of Andy the plumber. Once again he came by very quickly and fixed it. He unfroze the ice bloc in the pipe and re lagged it (see below and compare with previous picture). I hope I don't have to blog about this any more. I'm almost as bored as you are.

Snow Snow Snow

I would have stayed in Canada had I known we would have days and days of extremely cold weather with 6" of snow all over. I can't get my car out and even if I could, I wouldn't want to try to drive it. There is about 2" of packed snow and ice on my road. The temperatures are forecast to drop below zero (Centigrade)for the next week, day as well as night. My outside pipe froze again yesterday and this time I had to get the plumber. He turned up within 1/2 an hour (what a sweetie) and sorted me out. We are all tightening our belts and pulling together. Thank god for the second world war or we might not know how to handle a crisis!



I have been lagging my pipes. This is another bit of English wonderfulness. You take a thick tube of solid polystyrene which is the length of the pipe in question. The polystyrene has a hole down the middle of the tube which is the same diameter as the pipe. There is a lengthwise slit the length of the tube. You manhandle this around the pipe and it is supposed to keep it from freezing. I had only done half the job and it was the exposed bit that froze yesterday; ergo, Andy the plumber.

I was supposed to go to Kenilworth today for a singing lesson. This involves driving which is not on right now so, no singing lesson. Alison and I are going to Earnley for a weekend at the end of the month and I am doing a Choral Singing course. It's not something I would have jumped at but she is doing hand spinning so I had to find something at the same time. No matter how bad I am we will enjoy our mother/daughter weekend. Lots of pampering and lots of bevvies.

Old Blogs

I thought that I had better save my old blogs since I will be getting a new computer in a few days. I now have copies of all the Anne Richards ones. It has been a real pleasure reading back through them. It is nice to remember good times and I have had a lot of them since beginning of July. Now I will try to find the old Queen Mother ones and save those as well. I do keep a diary but it seems that I only write it when I am down (LOA) so it is good to also have an upbeat version of things. Do you think I might be self obsessed? I spot a trend.

It looks good but........

Here are pics taken from the back and front of my house this morning. It started snowing at about 5PM last evening and it's still snowing. I'm supposed to be going to the gym today for a session with the Personal Trainer but I think I'll have to limit myself to lifting weights at home!!

A Big Step

Today I started the process of becoming an IMac owner and user. We have a small Apple shop in Oxford and I went in and ordered a brand new 27" iMac. I have paid a deposit so I am serious. I will be picking it up on Sunday. I have been using a PC since the late 80's so Imac has a lot to live up to. So why am I making the switch? Search me. Everyone who has Mac's raves about them and I don't want to be left behind. My PC has become slow and decrepit. Unfortunately, Peter the Geek who has been my backup person does not do Macs. It was he who told me that my PC was getting to the end of its life but I don't think he realized that I was under the influence of family Mac people. I'm buying Microsoft Office for the Mac because I use and receive a lot of Word documents. I'm also getting a Care Package so they will look after me. I hope I'm doing the right thing. Do I have enough computer know how to teach myself the new machine. Time will tell and, when it does, I will tell you.