Stuff Wot I Have Done the Past Month
Um, not updated LJ, that's for sure. Oops. Weird month health wise, been doing stuff but then going splat in between, hence lack of posting, or when I *have* been online I've been doing emails or blog posts or image editing of doll photos for said blog so LJ has been neglected.
Lets see..
Dad had his colonoscopy (and hated every minute of the whole process, not surprisingly). As expected, the results came back clear, but one can't help worrying about these things - as usual I was calm and helpful until after it was all done and then I wibbled a bit.
Mum's knee is now fine but she's been having trouble with her back, her hip, her migraine, adjusting to new meds (having *got* new meds, a palaver in and of itself) so she's been rather miserable, with a few good days. One thing that cheered her up was the ridiculous bear I got from Build a Bear on my trip to town about a week after the previous post - couldn't resist the brightly coloured cat bear complete with blue satin and sequin jacket and skirt, and even sandals!
I also finally checked out Gourmet Burger Kitchen - really good burgers, almost as good as Brasco Lounge, and the best chips I've had in ages, will be back there for sure. I'd not decided on Erik by that point, but every little girl in town seemed to have bought that bear in that outfit so I kept seeing them walk past and could not resist for long...
Fun experience in the Build a Bear shop, though I warned the lady on the stuffing machine that I was not about to bounce up and down and do star jumps like the little girl ahead of me had had to do *giggle* The bear is now named Erik as nothing that flamboyant could be anything other than a drag queen, though most of the time said bear is nekkid in my bed being cuddled as his fur is so soft. He looked fun and silly enough to brighten mum's day though, so he was borrowed for cheering-up purposes and performed admirably :)
Erik in costume
That soft but funky fur
The following weekend I was kept busy doing some proofreading work for my Chinese penpal Qi who's in the UK right now studying linguistics. Fascinating topic, code-switching amongst bilingual speakers in Singapore, I learned a lot just reading through whilst fixing the odd grammar point and punctuation - his English is excellent, but it helps to have a native speaker double checking these things. His next course is in theology, so more fun for me discussing various topics arising :)
And that fried my brain for a few days, though I had fun in the garden taking photos of some of the dolls for a future blog post.
I was well enough to meet up with the fabulous DC (tanngrisnir) when he was in Liverpool for a couple of days. There was coffee, and chat, and much good company to be had as well as good food. We tried the new-to-me ASK italian place near the central bus stops and it was pretty good, especially the hazelnut ice-cream, we had a cute and friendly waitress too which always helps. Nice place, lovely decor, relaxed atmosphere and of course having a friend to spend time with is the best part. We did a bit of shopping and more coffee and I rather overdid it, cos the next thing was me thrashing about having a seizure in the hotel room we'd gone back to in order to drop stuff off before dinner. Ugh. Not fun. I was expected a few little twitches, not the whole full-body immersive experience. Finally came round enough to cab it to another new restaurant - Browns, which is indeed new, only been open a month - which was very nice, though I wasn't really in a fit state to really appreciate, and navigating round allergies on the menu was.. interesting.. to say the least. Will have to go back there and assess it properly, though I can vouch for their chocolate brownie dessert at least, which helped with usual post-fit malaise... I'd hoped to meet DC again for coffee next day but was just too drained from the seizure. Just as well, the second half hit hard on Friday *sigh* So much so that I wasn't even up to opening my new doll till the Sunday! That's awful!
We all had some kind of flu-like bug here the past week so not much happened apart from everyone moving very slowly, feeling glum and doing very little, though I got to the long overdue diabetic nurse appointment one day so am feeling dutiful.
Oh, but I was feeling somewhat more human by Thursday last so did a limited town trip, got a taxi both ways rather than the bus down. The plan was just ice-cream at ASK, but I felt so much better once I was there, actually had an appetite, that I had a proper lunch of breaded chicken with roast potatoes and a mushroomy sauce, very tasty and very filling, but there was room for the ice-cream, which set me up nicely for ambling to Aldi, Boots etc and then getting a cab back home.
I'm still having fun with my doll blog (which is adollsday.wordpress.com, and of course the dolls, love the new one, Bree, a redhead with long hair and I added glasses to her as she looked so cute in them on the doll website:
Bree, from The Dolls House (centre, with Grace & Katy on either side and Ariane and her doll in back.
Lets see..
Dad had his colonoscopy (and hated every minute of the whole process, not surprisingly). As expected, the results came back clear, but one can't help worrying about these things - as usual I was calm and helpful until after it was all done and then I wibbled a bit.
Mum's knee is now fine but she's been having trouble with her back, her hip, her migraine, adjusting to new meds (having *got* new meds, a palaver in and of itself) so she's been rather miserable, with a few good days. One thing that cheered her up was the ridiculous bear I got from Build a Bear on my trip to town about a week after the previous post - couldn't resist the brightly coloured cat bear complete with blue satin and sequin jacket and skirt, and even sandals!
I also finally checked out Gourmet Burger Kitchen - really good burgers, almost as good as Brasco Lounge, and the best chips I've had in ages, will be back there for sure. I'd not decided on Erik by that point, but every little girl in town seemed to have bought that bear in that outfit so I kept seeing them walk past and could not resist for long...
Fun experience in the Build a Bear shop, though I warned the lady on the stuffing machine that I was not about to bounce up and down and do star jumps like the little girl ahead of me had had to do *giggle* The bear is now named Erik as nothing that flamboyant could be anything other than a drag queen, though most of the time said bear is nekkid in my bed being cuddled as his fur is so soft. He looked fun and silly enough to brighten mum's day though, so he was borrowed for cheering-up purposes and performed admirably :)
Erik in costume
That soft but funky fur
The following weekend I was kept busy doing some proofreading work for my Chinese penpal Qi who's in the UK right now studying linguistics. Fascinating topic, code-switching amongst bilingual speakers in Singapore, I learned a lot just reading through whilst fixing the odd grammar point and punctuation - his English is excellent, but it helps to have a native speaker double checking these things. His next course is in theology, so more fun for me discussing various topics arising :)
And that fried my brain for a few days, though I had fun in the garden taking photos of some of the dolls for a future blog post.
I was well enough to meet up with the fabulous DC (tanngrisnir) when he was in Liverpool for a couple of days. There was coffee, and chat, and much good company to be had as well as good food. We tried the new-to-me ASK italian place near the central bus stops and it was pretty good, especially the hazelnut ice-cream, we had a cute and friendly waitress too which always helps. Nice place, lovely decor, relaxed atmosphere and of course having a friend to spend time with is the best part. We did a bit of shopping and more coffee and I rather overdid it, cos the next thing was me thrashing about having a seizure in the hotel room we'd gone back to in order to drop stuff off before dinner. Ugh. Not fun. I was expected a few little twitches, not the whole full-body immersive experience. Finally came round enough to cab it to another new restaurant - Browns, which is indeed new, only been open a month - which was very nice, though I wasn't really in a fit state to really appreciate, and navigating round allergies on the menu was.. interesting.. to say the least. Will have to go back there and assess it properly, though I can vouch for their chocolate brownie dessert at least, which helped with usual post-fit malaise... I'd hoped to meet DC again for coffee next day but was just too drained from the seizure. Just as well, the second half hit hard on Friday *sigh* So much so that I wasn't even up to opening my new doll till the Sunday! That's awful!
We all had some kind of flu-like bug here the past week so not much happened apart from everyone moving very slowly, feeling glum and doing very little, though I got to the long overdue diabetic nurse appointment one day so am feeling dutiful.
Oh, but I was feeling somewhat more human by Thursday last so did a limited town trip, got a taxi both ways rather than the bus down. The plan was just ice-cream at ASK, but I felt so much better once I was there, actually had an appetite, that I had a proper lunch of breaded chicken with roast potatoes and a mushroomy sauce, very tasty and very filling, but there was room for the ice-cream, which set me up nicely for ambling to Aldi, Boots etc and then getting a cab back home.
I'm still having fun with my doll blog (which is adollsday.wordpress.com, and of course the dolls, love the new one, Bree, a redhead with long hair and I added glasses to her as she looked so cute in them on the doll website:
Bree, from The Dolls House (centre, with Grace & Katy on either side and Ariane and her doll in back.