all cool

mini me and his girl parted company this evening. all very amicable. no real reason given (i am an old aged parent after all), they just wanted to be friends now. very civilised.

as i was daydreaming on my way home from work on the evening of our anniversary i thought about what gift i would get when i got home.(one had been promised).I decided that the best thing he actually could do would be to install that bloody shower that's been sat in its box for over 2 years gathering dust. that would really show he'd thought about how he could make me happy rather than buying me some little token gift. ha! what are the chances of that eh? i mean, he's a darling but there's only so much you can expect.

got home and the shower was installed.

got home tonight and a shower screen was installed.

what a star :o)

346896000

...seconds me and mr K have been together as of yesterday, our anniversary!

although my maths is awful.

no wind up

No kidding, this book is incredible.

I've just had 3 days off work on the trot which is very rare and very welcome. I have slept, eaten and read. It's been absolute bliss. I'm over half way through Murakami's 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle' and it's incredible.

I love my job, I really do but right now I'm feeling pretty cross that I have to spend my time working tomorrow when I could be sitting down and spending more hours with Toru Okada, Creta, Malta, May, the odious Noboru and Kumiko.

Let's be frank here. I've eaten Miso soup for the last two days because Murakami characters seem to be endlessly consuming the stuff. Yeah, that's pretty sad but it tastes great with enoki mushrooms and scallions dropped in!

Some crazy guys turned up and started sawing chunks out of my house!

Not a loft conversion I'm afraid, just a bit of extra light for mini me when he drums. One day we might get round to making it a proper room.

a picture paints...

Is it any wonder our true crime section is so well shopped?!?!

March of the Penguins

A really beautiful film.

Incredible photography, humour and a jaw-dropping

fight against the odds. Just gorgeous.

news

so there goes another 'have i got news for you' participant down into the mires of ignominy.

brainiac update

news in brief:

he has to have another scan in feb to see if the tumor has grown. nothing was said about if it hadn't grown but if it has, he'll have to go for a biopsy and then maybe radiotherapy. if he has to have a biopsy, he won't be able to drive for 2 years afterwards nor will he be allowed to fly. something of a problem as he drives all the time for work. however if it hasn't grown then i'm guessing that nothing will be done apart from intermittent scans to monitor its structure but that's conjecture on my part.

for those of you who've read mcewan's 'saturday', the neurosurgeon we saw today was just like Perowne! exactly the kind of look and demeanor his character i had in mind as i read :)

smooooth

this has to be the best christmas present i got.

i have just smoothied up a banana, four rings of pineapple and a splash of milk. i feel as full as an egg and as guilty as if i'd eaten cake for breakfast but it was just fruit and semi skimmed milk.

2005-2006

Had a fab party at Mole's house. They hadn't invited anyone according to mrs mole and yet the place was heaving with people. that's what happens when you're fab company. x's to you all.
afternoon!!
You have a lovely bunch of friends Mole. One of them said to me; "Alone at last" when we were momentarily in the kitchen with no-one else about. Guess who!!Another guest described me as a 'delicious creature' and insisted on kissing me twice!! Guess who!! Someone else I've never spoken to said "You've got a blog haven't you?" Guess who!
I got to have a good talk with a load of folks I've met in passing and the home-made quiche and potato salad was outstandingly good. I think you should have parties more often!!

A very happy new year to you and the small critters upstairs who slept through our pandemonium!

3112

so mole, what time are we expected to your low key, sober little get together on saturday evening?

mini me will not be with us as he has gone bunburying.

a bientot

Buy the lil' blighter a tree and give him a tenner to decorate it, thinking, you're not messing with my decorations mate and what does he go and do?

outclass us with subtlty.

a tree full of nothing but white lights and birds.

festive grub

can't believe i didn't get round to telling you about the mince pies.

the centre were giving out mince pies all christmas eve and ended up with a box full that they couldn't distribute by the time they had to leave. for some reason they decided they'd dump them in our staff room. at the end of the day no-one else was prepared to take more than 1 or 2 individual mince pies so i took them all home. waste not want not etc etc. now i have 100 frozen mince pies. anyone hungry??

Buddy

Monty meets cousin Buddy for Christmas and

belts round a field like a loopy lurcher.

prior chaos

It's very weird having random strangers come in and rip out your windows then throw them onto your front garden. Grr. Thankfully I had Mr K there to remind me that my jungle of dearly tended flora might look like waste ground to the untrained eye. hmph.




They caused mayhem of course when they installed but it's suddenly warm. The motorbike that runs for half an hour every morning from 6 a.m doesn't wake us anymore and we have window sills which we didn't have before! Of course it's a bit of a drag that the dog bust the 50 quid cat flap in the new back door and now we have a door with a great big hole in it. Hey ho!

mmm

new windows

the day before the day before

i love work at this time of year. i keep telling myself. it's crazy busy and there's so much to be done and big goals to reach. where would peace on earth be without someone setting impossible budgets? the atmosphere at work is livlier i scare everyone; lots of stress and rush because i'm constantly telling everyone to work harder of the volume of work but so much more joking and teasing going on. i'm ruthless. it's a real buzz. the team seems to pull together more. they don't dare not do as i tell them because i look ready to explode. tomorrow should be great fun the place will be heaving and everyone will be irritable by 1st tea break keeping the motivation high their new year party rides on how well they perform and everyone happy false smiles work, the customer can't distinguish and glad relieved to close up shop and get home for Christmas day.

sod it

Actually I'm just going to use my blog for news about Mr K.Lots of people check in here to catch up on news so here goes. I know this is the world's crappiest way of doing it but please bear with me. I cannot face saying the same bits of news over and over again to different people, as much as I love you all. I know this is probably the equivalent of text dumping but I hope you can understand and will let me off the social faux pas!

We just got back from seeing the consultant for the 2nd time and I was armed with a mountain of questions. The main news from today is that the tumour has been there for a long time. At least months, possibly years. He thinks it is stable because the symptoms are stable but changes can occur of course and there can be abnormal developments. It can be known to trigger blackouts but so far that hasn't happened. If it does we'd have to look at restricting activities such as obvious stuff like driving.

In terms of processes, this tumour cannot be operated on. It is on too many important parts of the brain to be cut out so we're looking at medical solutions. Chemo and wotnot. We will be getting a date for a biopsy with 'a small number of weeks'. The tumour is non urgent because there are no signs that it is going to significantly change in a matter of days or weeks. Of course there's no proven diagnosis yet so he was unable to commit to a prognosis. I asked blunt questions and got blunt answers. It was just what we needed.

So, we won't know if it's malignant or benign until after the biopsy and we can't be sure of what treatment will be needed until biopsy results are back in.

He was rather more human than when Mr K went in last time. He did say that he'd find things out for us and contact us. Also he said he understood that the waiting must be really difficult.

Now don't get me wrong. I haven't blogged this because I don't want calls or visits. I just don't wanna have to say all this a million times over. Yes, because I have at least a million regular viewers!

Don't let this spoil Christmas, even Mr K came out and said; 'You know how much I want this biopsy? Like a hole in the head!'