place your bets!! huge prizes not at stake!!

ok so i nicked the idea from auster. thanks for the management training, work, it didn't go to waste. we are effectively "networking" some fabulously cheesy blog ideas from each other. guess the titles.

medication for meditation

ZEE IS FOR ZEN, KIDS!

beware the evils of piriton! i have been incapacitated all day after taking my first hayfever tablet of the season which is weird cos i took them last year and was fine with them.
if you saw me at the back of church this morning with my head back, tongue lolling out indecently, sending up zeds, i was in fact in a deeper level of meditation that you can ever hope to achieve. went to bed this afternoon for about 3 hours. managed to drag myself to a barbeque this afternoon still feeling pretty spaced. am now back to sneezing merrily and can focus on the screen again. all is not lost, me and my computer are reunited.

M IS FOR MEDICATION

i remember something else that eejit of an interviewer asked; 'coming from an english lit background, i have to ask, are you just really trying to annoy people by having eight pages of pi in the middle?' Well let's spell this out with claps shall we? i-r-o-n-y. it was one of the funniest parts in the novel. i laughed and laughed. it's an email that one pod member sends to everyone else. there's one digit incorrect in these pages of pi and the first one to get spot it wins the opportunity to get him to sing something karaoke for them. it's a whole black humoured thing of spam emails, the fact that they compete, the fact that a canonical author can give over that space to numbers (he's part of the modern canon right?). i just loved the double irony that there is a character called Kam in there who has zero sense of humour or understanding of irony. uh huh. ooh i'm spotting a modern day parallel! shall i stop obsessing about this guy now.

mole, don't laugh but he taught on arvon!!

I get to meet the man!!

lovely loughboroughites

a nice man from loughborough found my phone on the train and is sending it back to me :)

the good, the bad & the ugly

and in reverse order...

The ugly

Mother of pearl, that interviewer was awful. (we're talking the douglas coupland reading and interview in nottingham this evening) Rules of interviewing must surely include not trying to wangle your own achievements into a conversation with someone who outclasses you. also, pulling your interviewee up on little details so you look cleverer is also not a great trick. best not to look confused when given an answer you don't think suited your question and then following it up with 'yes but the question i asked was...' He made too much of himself (as you mentioned i am an author too i didn't notice it being mentioned apart from by himself), he tried to make in jokes (don't you think it would be a good idea to explain what jpod is) and he also called the audience stupid at one point. i think it was about his references to pi but i'm not entirely sure. also he name dropped some other Canadian author and told Doug to 'tell the audience about them cos i'm sure they won't know anything about him'. He was a disaster of an interviewer and hopelessly smug after he'd asked every question that he obviously thought was an absolute corker. "I have to ask Doug, what do you think of the latest Morrisey album" the reason we discover he 'had' to ask that question was to get in that he had burnt a copy of it for Doug. >gag<

By the way the latest Morrisey album is great.

the bad

i lost my phone at some point today. so if you're reading this and you're a usual texter then i'm sorry i have no idea where it is and i'm really cross with myself. someone has found it for sure because as soon as i got in i gave it a call and it had been switched off. thankfully i'd just erased all my text messages the day before. but all my photos on there..... man, there are some i can never get back... the explosion at Buncefield, Bryan Robson signing at work, parties, people i worked with years ago. Not to mention all those numbers i have to find again. grr.

the good

well, here was going to go a picture of me and Doug but I've tried twice and blogger doesn't wanna know so i'll try again later.
Anyway, he was surprisingly nervy. Apparantly the last time he came he sat in the green room then ran away he was too nervous! At least this time he came out. He obviously does this a lot and told us he loved doing it but he didn't seem a natural public speaker. He was funny and likeable though and manoeuvred his way through a minefield of questions already detailed above. He read quite a lot from JPod which was enjoyable even though I had just finished it on the train up. He ambled through his talk, getting distracted along the way and picking up where he left off which was fun. I'm sure I'll add more soon but I'm getting fed up with the pictures not working now so here I post...

boing boing

and i also got to meet bryan robson today which was pretty cool. nice chap. had an abrupt introduction when his publicist hands me her mobile and says 'he needs directions'. so i'm talking to bryan robson with everyone (staff, crowds, manager, book rep etc etc) looking eagerly at me to be the first to know where he is and how long he'll be. as for me, i'm thinking, i know nothing about giving directions to where we are if you're gunna say i'm on the A54321xyz and i've come to a roundabout. as some point he mentions a landmark i know and we're in business.

it was a fun afternoon. only one lunatic shouting BRYAN ROBSON!! in his face to get him to look and have his picture taken. and one woman who said 'i've waited 20 years to kiss you' and planted a smacker on him! lots of people with shirts and old football programmes for him to sign. then he sat in my chair in the office signing a load more stock.

just as we're calming down after the fun, harlen coben walks in and offers to sign stock for us. not bad eh?

but tomorrow it will be my turn to be the token nutter shouting DOUGLAS COUPLAND!!! I'VE WAITED 20 YEARS TO MEET YOU!!!

life after Doug

i'm going to meet my favourite living author tomorrow and i'm beyond ecstatic.

computer ill

so far can still get online but excuse me if i disappear for no reason while we try and get rid of some nasty bugs.

nom de plant

i named my bromeliad, Percival.

he is my office plant.

something old something new

this is why i wanted the job so badly: my boss promises a meeting where we can sit down and plan how i'm going to make my next grand move towards world domination, he is giving me mountains of work to do and last but not least, he is rude to me. only yesterday he was on the phone to someone at another branch moaning about how i never made him coffee and he wished he hadn't employed me.

so much stuff is going on at this place i love it!!

and tomorrow i get to go to jj's party!! woo hooo. i will presume a bottle of something is an acceptable entrance fee unless i hear otherwise...

double vision

My improbable alliance with a Canadian (all the way from Canadia) professor of film who I met online, code name double vision, has just left after spending the weekend with us.

He was very polite about the dog, the mess, the rowdy dinner guests and my off kilter family! I hope he enjoyed himself even half as much as we enjoyed having him. It's not often you can walk in the pouring rain having a conversation about uncannily omniscient cats.

What an all round nice chap. He even went so far as to get British Citizenship last time he was here just so he could fit in. Slowly but surely he's learning how to be English. Under the careful tutelage of Esther and myself he can now passably scorn the Welsh.

best of time, worst of times

-

mr k's uncle died this week from an almost identical tumour to the one his father died of two years ago

mr k's cousin has been told, after recovering very well from an operation to remove a cancerous tumour on his kidney, that he has a very rare form of cancer to which there is no cure and there is nothing else the medical profession can offer him

+

tomorrow, i have my friend doublevision from canada coming to stay overnight and hang out with us for a while. really excited about seeing him and having him in our home.

i am on two days off before the new job starts and am looking forward to making a big meal for 8 of us tomorrow night.

i spent far too much on more new books today but i can look forward to some penguin epics, new david mitchell and more cooking with gordon.

i have made a stack of new mates at my new church and it feels very exciting to be with people who go out of their way to make you feel part of the group.

AND NOW i'm going to bed with the astringent fumes of floor varnish wafting up from downstairs. i should have vivid dreams tonight.

lunch

had a house mixed salad and tagliatelle crema at http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~vilarosa/index.htm Very good. Shame their website hasn't been updated for nearly 8 years!!

travelling wilberry

have start date for new location. a week tomorrow. should be interesting.

oOo

"My girlfriend doesn't really drink very much. Only when I go down to see her."

(The Boy Wonder)

egads!

wet weekend

A few months ago my garden was a tiny rectangle of concrete, uneven concrete at that. A few pots and lots of rubbish. Now look!

No time at all since JJ and I were pushing in roots of things we didn't know would spread.

And of course a few obligatory purchases to get things going, like this willow and three climbers that are loving the rain we're having.

Before you know it the place is full of colour and texture. I go out every morning before work to see how much further the shoots have grown or how the tendrils are curling round the support wires.

I've had fun reclaiming some old tiles from a table we once had and getting bargains on left overs. It took a bit of courage to stick them up on the walls but I think they look quite cool. The plan is that the plants will grow over them and you'll just catch glimpses of them.

And it's not just me looking forward to the better weather!

the root of all fun

retail therapy is a shallow, vacuous and utimately hollow experience.

unless you got the gorgeous 'long' shorts i bought from monsoon today.

am experiencing ennui. inexplicable. maybe it's the late nights, excessive carbohydrates and petrol fumes of the M1 at 10 mph every day. or just your run of the mill existential angst.

bran something. what's that cereal called? not bran flakes but the one that comes in shreds. was imagining a bowl of them but couldn't think what they were called. bran something.

:)

got it

lousy

Sent a grouchy text to Mr K telling him I was waiting to find out if he'd collected my prescription as I felt awful. Mysteriously got a text back from Lotus telling me he thought I might have sent it to the wrong person. haha! oops. Anyway, I'm fine really!

No-one cashed up yesterday so I spent hours sorting out two days worth of properly messed up tills and petty annoyances which boil down to people being a bit shoddy. But of course I was waiting for interview results so petty annoyance quickly turned to general irritation at everything.

So. No phone call. No result. Strange, cos "M" is startlingly efficient. They must be negotiating my payrise. (ie...will they bother giving me one!)

Finished reading 'Republic of Trees'. Very good but ends quite chillingly in the last 50 pages or so. You can pretty much see it coming but it's still disturbing. Deciding what to read next. Probably another Everitt cos the last one I read by him I loved with a passion. Although the mantlepiece in the bedroom should be bowing under the weight of yet to reads.

Need to sleep. The alarm goes off in 6 hours.

random

I've seen this before elsewhere but I kinda like it:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you



Posts, and rails, and old cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses, and patches of wretched vegetation, stared it out of countenance.

wake up call.

The night before last I lay in a half sleep for what seemed like an hour but probably was only 20 minutes. You know how it is. There was enough noise being made outside for me to be conscious of it but I was hoping it would ease off and I wouldn't have to make my way up to the surface of full consciousness. Nice idea. I thought I heard some racist abuse being shouted, loud music then enormous crashes. I was awake and at the window...just in time to see the streaker. Ye gods, half three in the morning and a big, fat, pasty and frankly, unimpressivly endowed male is running up and down the road with his hands in the air. More racist rantings, more shouting, more music, more throwing of wheelie bins. I'm assuming there's an unforgiving mix of alcohol and student involved in this unsightly performance.
7 am sees me up for work and banging the hell out of their front door in the hope of really, really getting on the wrong side of them and pointing out how irritating it is being woken up. Sadly they were dead to the world. Or preferably just dead.
When they eventually surfaced, they would have found a letter on their mat telling them to keep their naked bodies and racist abuse inside the house. I wish I could have seen their faces when they realised there had been an audience. On the other hand, I think I've seen more than enough of their faces and everywhere else to last me.

2 hours!

The interview lasted 2 hours in a tiny room with 2 interviewers and a temperature beyond legal working conditions! It was a tough one that made me very glad I'd done my prep, albeit having been completed in the car on the way there.
I find out on Monday if I have the job or not. I am really very keen to get this one. I was pretty pleased with how I performed so even if I don't get it I'm satisfied with how I did on the day. Though of course they'd be fools not to give me the job.
For those of you not in the know, the position is for assistant manager (wot i am now), in the same company but at a bigger store with lots more exciting things going on. Like people buying books. I worked at this branch last year for 5 months in a lower position. It was an altogether excellent experience so I'm dying to get the AM job there. I now know there's only one other person going for this job and she's pretty good too so it's no walk over.
Now let this be our little secret. I think I said before that I ran into the RM a week ago and drained him of information. This proved to be most useful as I was able to tell the manager things about his budget that made his eyes pop out and ask me where I got my insider information from. That was "sweeeet."
I would like to thank Mole for a) being an all round nice kind of chappy but also b) being useful to name as an 'outside contact'. 'Oh and I do have a friend who runs his own company as a management consultant...' Tralaa.
Also Phillie who gave me lots ideas that I nicked for the 8 month business plan I needed to compile for for the interview.

Anyway, I don't wanna count my chickens etc but I think it went pretty well and I'll post again on Monday once I know the sentence!

alternative decor

am beginning to think i could paper the walls of a small room in my house with the letters i'm getting back from school telling me mini-me is failing to hand in homework, failing to attend detentions, is being disruptive in class or has been issued sanctions. maybe i should start collecting them for his best man's speech.

day off

so this week i really *do* have that postponed interview. that makes 3 weeks on the trot preparing for interviews! a good number of people have helped me prep so thank you very much.

today i started listening to a cd of 'haunted' by Palahniuk which is reputed to be so vile some people have actually thrown up reading it. so far we've had a lad misbehaving at the bottom of a swimming pool and subsequently having his intenstine sucked out of his rear by the pool filter. pretty graphic. maybe i have underdeveloped sensitivities to the gruesome but i'm not feeling nauseous yet. or maybe there's much worse to come.

or maybe i was immunised by ->

hedge backwards

don't be scared. it's only temporary.

now where are my straighteners???

resolve

have run twice this week now! just back from jogging round the marina with Mr K on his kitchen ... er I mean, bike ;) and Monty the wild critter.

this is all training for the race for life this summer. does anyone from round here know how far it is round the marina? i could do with an idea and if any of you know off the tops of your heads, well, frankly, it'll save me having to do the research!

in the meantime you can all look forward to get emails from me in the near future begging for money for a good cause ie...seeing me half dead.

what a lovely day it is and the flowers in my garden are fab.

happy weekends all.

bored

have completed nine seventeenths of my holiday tasks and have lost motivation!

so i texted mole and had lunch out with him knowing that my crucial interview was postponed until next friday.

fortuitously, who should walk round the corner, as we are sat outside waiting for our meals to arrive, but the regional manager. (carrying his motivational stick!) so i forced him into an armlock and drained him of all information i could to enhance my chances of saying the right thing next week. nice man! then mole paid for my lunch. nice man! and gave me two moleskines as a gift. wonderful man!

walked the hound out on the 'fairway'. (not a fairway at all, just looks like it and is thus named in our house). he splashed through very rank, smelly puddle. i threw him in the river. we're square.

have discovered http://weboggle.shackworks.com/game.html and i urge you not to look if you have a penchant for words, a tendancy to waste lots of time in front of a computer and too much else to do. i blame daveybot.

Chilterns?

Are the Barton Hills the chilterns? I think so. Anyway, me and alimal went there yesterday to climb trees and get out of puff going up steep slopes.

I hope she doesn't mind me posting this picture of her. It's rather a nice one. Isn't she beautiful??!!

And here's the base of the gnarly old tree we shinned up. Anyone recognise what type it is? It's a proper climber.

One of my best holiday days.

too much time on my hands

Scandanavia

Just back from a weekend in Denmark.

The Little Mermaid is probably the most famous tourist spot of the town. Lots of Hans Christian Anderson things about but this one is *the* postcard picture.Unfortunately we forgot to put the 128mb card back into the camera and had to make do with 16mb....

The harbour area is very pretty and another postcard destination.

One of the highlights of our weekend was taking a day trip over to Sweden!

It's half an hour on the train over the Oresund and being travel junkies, we had to nip over to say we'd been.

I particularly liked looking round the Swedish Design shop and wishing I just had that spare few thousand Kroner to buy something really special to bring home.

In Denmark we hired bikes to look round the city, visited the extortionate Tivoli, admired the amber on sale everywhere, ate collossal breakfasts in our very pleasant hotel, walked miles around the city taking in the architecture and ate out in some cool restaurants.

In Sweden we spent our time in Malmo looking at the new area with its 'Turning Torso' building, ate apple and cinnamon ice cream in the sun on the Western Harbour, wandered in the old town taking pictures and window shopping Swedish Design, looked round St Peter's Church and sent some postcards.

Got to the airport on Sunday afternoon with lots of time to kill before our flight. Drank freely and played backgammon.

Our travel advice: Take the train to Sweden. Buy a Copenhagen card. Go without teenagers.

Lilla Torg (Little Square)

Lilla Torg (Little Square)
Originally uploaded by kumquat7.

The family on a day trip to Sweden

loss

3 days, 3 pounds.

confession session

A friend of mine admitted on his blog that he had spent 3 hours over the Easter weekend making a spreadsheet collating the information of all the book reviews in the nationals. It brought to mind a sordid little nugget of information I feel brave enough to confess now. I responded thus to his blog:

I'm delighted to hear about your entirely geeky 3 hours spent making a
spreadsheet on book reviews! It gives me the confidence to admit that I once
made a power point presentation on Ruskin just for the fun of collecting the
information and creating a teaching aid. I only ever told two other people. One
smiled nicely and the other laughed me out of town and teased me for months
after.

Has anyone else out there done anything geeky they'd like to admit to?

Bank Holiday

What did you do on your bank holiday? I spent mine at Huntingdon Racecourse giving away my money to the nice lady at the Tote stall.

Christ is risen...

...Happy Yeaster.


Just back from church and hoping that isn't blasphemous.

As you know, I'm on holiday now for 2 glorious weeks. I am going to use this time to become half the woman I was. Yes, in two weeks I am going to have lost TWO STONE. Essentially that means losing 2 pounds per day...and I have a 12 hour party to go to later this afternoon.

comfy

feeling a darn sight comfier than i did 14 years ago.

i'm on 2 weeks holiday now and not a moment too soon. haven't stopped rushing for months and months. even our wonderful holiday last month was wall to wall activity. i plan to see some ppl i haven't spent enough time with in ages, get the jumble sale looking like a house again and catch up on lots of important things like sleep, gardening, watching films, reading books, tidying up and did i mention sleeping?

oh and at least one interview that i know about.

how on earth did that happen?

My son turns 14 tomorrow.

A picture by Digger :)

tagged!

I was tagged several days ago and I've only just worked out what it means - duh! Anyway, here are the answers 'FeedthePony' wants me to answer and which the rest of you just have to put up with!

What were you doing 10 years ago?

1996...hmmm, I was working in a crummy sandwich bar which for the most part I quite enjoyed. I had been married for a year and was living in a housing association rabbit hutch with a number of cats and a lovely garden.

What were you doing 5 years ago?

2001..hmm, I graduated from DMU in English. Got the result I wanted to treated myself to a tattoo of a lizard. By then we had got a house of our own, two cats and it was also the year I had some major surgery

What were you doing 1 year ago?
2005 hmmm...(checks the diary), oh blimey, glad i checked back to last april 12, it's a mates birthday i'd completely forgotten about... I went for a run, picked up some pottery I was having fired, watched 'The Big Blue and looked at the photos I'd taken the previous day at the zoo.

5 Bad habits you have
biting my nails, leaving things to the last minute, always being 10 minutes late, letting our house become untidy and eating muffins when I know I'll feel guilty and fat the minute I've shoved the last delicious crumb into my mouth. (i've given them up for lent, though I fear not for reasons of religious abstemiousness rather any excuse to reduce my fat intake)

5 People you would like to do this: Anyone who reads my blog please.

24

Have spent the last 24 hours being sick and sweating. (ha, my cultured friends i bet i get more response to vomit than bernini!) Headaches, dizziness, nausea,exhaustion. So I'm up for the first time in 24 hours and enjoying the simple delights of a shower and sitting upright for more than 2 minutes without feeling that a green gremlin is sitting on my head and tightening the screws of a gigantic vice.
Sadly I missed the regional meeting which would have enabled me to garner all sorts of juicy gossip which at least two other non-attendees have quizzed me for!
If you feel in need of reminding of the reason for life and what's so great about where you live...sit in a darkened room for a day and when you get out you'll be amazed at how beautiful clouds are and grateful that the sun's still shining.

bernini touche

040319 bernini touche
Originally uploaded by jw_nyc.

isn't that amazing?

after the walk

an hour's walk round the woods beyond deadman's cross and I have two flaked out pups!

prior to execution

a painting to view before execution

love is...

...having friends over who look at the dinner you've given them, tell you that it looks like someone has coughed up an asbestos poisoned lung with blood clots onto their plate, and you still like them.

thank goodness for pens and paper

two fab days cramming my head and notebook full of info at a 2 day training session for work. unspeakably dull subject matter for anyone not doing my job, somehow made alive by interesting people and an opportunity for me to learn new stuff, for which i will do almost anything.

pizza out with mary and zak in angel. fabulous crust! how did that second bottle of wine arrive? when will i meet a white russian next? and of course i sat on the seat of fame. yes, i sat on a settee as sat on by peter jackson at my mates house. it's gratuitous bragging and repetitious if you read my blog regularly but....yes, derek jarman lived there once. (mole, it's angel and therefore the chapel market)

and now i'm going to bed because i have an evil sore throat that won't go away and it's making me miserable. hmph.

another time i might tell you about the goats in the machine.






maybe.

getoutmore

getoutmore
Originally uploaded by kumquat7.

Brian Houston

Went to see Brian Houston play

March 31st, 2006 Bedford,

The ent. Shed Gordon Arms,

Castle Rd.

last night. First time I'd seen him / heard of him but was dragged along by my sis-in-law. Glad I went! Liked him a lot. Quite a loveable scruffbag.

Take a look if you like. www.brianhouston.com She told me he was a bit Bob Dylan sounding. Sometimes he sounds a bit too country for my liking but others of his tracks are pretty rocky and very likeable. A lot of the songs have a pretty sad, solemn content (drunk fathers, getting life threatening news, betrayal) but between songs he's hilarious, stopping to tell funny anecdotes and banter with the audience. Shame there weren't more people there.

I'm Not Scared.

Buy this!!! 99p at Waterstones and a better value read you won't find anywhere for a long time. This story is amazing! My boss told me to read it so I could explain the ending to him. It's the 2nd Italian author book in a row as recommended by him and I was wary as the first title was a bit pap. (Camilleri) Wow, I started this morning and could not put it down. The protaganist is an 8 or 9 year old boy living out in the countryside of Italy. Cycling out in the stifling heat of the summer of '78, he makes a startling discovery out in the woods playing forfeits with a gang of mates. I'm not telling you anything else but it's page turning, evocatively written, suspenseful and touching. READ IT!!

idle words!

Managed to have a conversation with my boss back at my home branch yesterday in which the old order was established. Me being rude to him and him being rude back. It was strangely comforting.

me: it's you who likes camilleri as a writer isn't it?
him: yeah, brilliant stuff
me: no it isn't. the prose is piss poor
him: no it's not
me: bang, a shot rang out
him: it's not like that
me: it's rubbish
him: well it's a good story
me: yeah that's what they said about the da vinci code

laughter

(final point to kumquat methinks)

So I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and will finish it. So far it's horrible stereotypes, repeated hyperbole and too many long winded sentences talking about the brother of the person who isn't actually at this conversation but would have been if it hadn't been for the sister of the inspectors...... zzzzzzz.

Still, I'm only on page 52 (!) and I have ridiculed many a good book at this stage only to end up loving it. At least I have a train journey tomorrow to kill. It's never going to rival the Palahniuk I read the book before last. Top flight american-quirky-weirdness. Fab.

~0~

So anyway, I can't believe I haven't told you about me smashing up my car. Darling Maddy has a scrumpled up bonnet and smashed lights on the driver side. I'm gutted. Also they can't mend her til 11th April. Traffic on the A1 backed up in front and a momentary lapse in concentration prevented me from stopping quite in time. I felt rather a fool but thankfully the owner of the car I went into went into was very nice about it. Just a bind. Something else to contend with this week.

~0~

Tomorrow should be fun. Regional AM mtg in London where I get to meet lots of my lovely friends and hopefully go out for drinks after we've humoured the senior staff by nodding in the right places. Right Phillie?

Oh that reminds me Phillie, you have to ask me about your latest member of staff arriving from the branch known as 'exile'. I have insider information. heh heh.

nuffield visit

ok well the news is not awful. basically we got option 'b'. the tumour has not grown which is of course, great news. the consultant maintains that it has been there for a long time. we now have to decide whether to leave it alone and just check up on it from time to time or go ahead with radiotherapy and shrink it. i know what i would do but esentially it's not my decision (also my opinion hasn't been asked yet!) The next step will be an appointment with the oncologist at Addenbrookes to talk through the process of treatment that will give us more of an idea of what we're accepting or turning down. One further meeting with the consultant after that and we'll be ready to make a final decision.

thank you so much for your interest and concern. it's been a pretty trying time and we both still feel a bit up in the air about what's going on just because it's hard to turn off those months-long feelings of waiting and wondering.

and now i'm going to write a post more light hearted things so you're not greeted with news about brain tumours the second you log on here!!

watch this space

FAO all you lovely people out there who for one reason or another seem to give a damn about us, Mr K has an appointment to see the consultant this Wednesday. This is the biggy. We're expecting to find out if his tumour has; grown (requiring a biopsy, radiotherapy and who knows what outcome), stayed the same size and therefore is not cancerous but may need further monitoring or if God has healed him and the tumour has disappeared...?!?!?! Being a woman of not enormous faith in the healing department I'm expecting moderately good news ie option 'b'. However we are surrounded by friends and family all over the world who have been praying for months for him to be healed. My take on this, as a Christian, is that God is under no obligation to do as we tell him - you know, him being big and us being small (!) - but divine intervention kablamo style isn't something I'd turn down.

Whatever happens, the next couple of days are going to be somewhat stressful as we try and brace ourselves for the possibility of our world being held upside down and shaken a bit til all the loose change falls out of our pockets and we appreciate your thoughts, friendship and prayers.

blog highlights

Here are a few extracts from friends blogs for your interest and delectation. Also it's nice to plug a friends efforts once in a while.

http://blog.jodidodds.com/

If my condo is worth $500,000 by then, it will just cost me $1,000,000 for a house. I suppose it only makes a difference if one sells and moves to a less expensive area. But then - interesting cities are expensive for a reason. People want to live in them, and they are willing to pay for such exciting and amazing lives.

To which I agreed that although our repossession house had quadrupled in price since we bought it, we'd have to move into a caravan if we wanted to see any of the cash!

http://feedthepony.blogspot.com/

Movie Haiku - V For Vendetta
He keeps his mask on
wants anarchy in UK
big bang for Big Ben

Clever friend who haikuus recent films to help you decide whether to go and see it.

More next time.

Timber!

For those of you lucky enough to know the phenomenon that is Monty, I bring you Monty supercharged. She goes by the name of Timber and we're looking after her for a few days. She's like an elastic ball bouncing off the walls. I've been trying for 2 days to get a picture of her face but so far she's not kept still long enough. This is the best you're going to get. She's having her spring break chez kumquat while her kennel is being built in the meantime, she and Monty have had to bed down together.

We love her to bits!

A pleasant night over in London while on my course.

No matter how good your camera, nothing can reproduce the grandeur of actually being on the edge of a precipice in the alps.

We had an amazing time, spoilt with brilliant sunshine and cloudless skies the entire time we were away. Above is one of my favourite red runs. (Direction Oz?) During the week I did the longest black piste run in Europe; 16k and one of the most difficult black runs in Europe: the tunnel run. Seasoned skiers think twice and three times before hanging their feet over the edge and manoeuvring the moguls.

It's very peculiar to be skiing in blazing sunshine but still see enormous icicles (some up to 20 ft) and snowdrifts everywhere.

I've come back with Panda eyes from tanning with sunglasses, attempted harder runs than last year, made a few jumps and raced with the blokes!

The scenery is stunning, the sport is breath taking and the company was brilliant. It's the perfect holiday if you have a kid who is always on the move and two adults who don't quite know when enough is enough.

brief interlude

today

tomorrow

see you when i get back

if anyone wants a postcard, send me your request by this evening.

xxx

and two days ago...

we had a woman in the store wearing a gasmask.

my how the darth vader jokes went on after she'd left.

okaaaay...

"if i've seen a book i want, am i allowed to take it off the shelf or do i have to come to the desk?"

word for word. quaint how there are still people in the C21st who haven't grasped the concept of shopping. heaven help her at tesco.

couple of days ago a customer rang up to say her book was damaged and she only noticed when she'd got home, would i pay for her parking to come back in and get a replacement?

ponies!

never before in the history of all things culinary has a finer crust and rice pudding been sampled.

Now to work on the clanger liberation front.

'Moo' and 'baaa' say we for the dark grey turkeys.