or should it be 'Merry Catmas'?
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Monday, December 22, 2008
Good Bye Spam Cat
We had to say good bye to Pam today 
Pam in July 2007 aged 16 1/2 years
She was a funny little cat and had a very definite character. She was one of three kittens that DH adopted 18 months before we met and the last of the gang. In our old house she lived in the garage and refused to come into the house. When we moved she changed totally and really enjoyed her time here:
Pam in the garden
She also took her role of 'big cat' seriously and taught the new kittens how to enjoy cat nip:
Enjoying a catnip whale
We lost her a few months ago and by the time we got her back 6 days later the experience had taken it's toll on her. She did pull back a bit but the experience had a negative effect and she aged quickly over the past 3 months.
I think she had a stroke whilst DH was in hospital as her back legs were a bit wobbly and she was eating with one side of her mouth. After she'd fallen down the stairs a few times we decided that the time was right to 'say goodbye'.
Pam much loved
Pam in July 2007 aged 16 1/2 years
She was a funny little cat and had a very definite character. She was one of three kittens that DH adopted 18 months before we met and the last of the gang. In our old house she lived in the garage and refused to come into the house. When we moved she changed totally and really enjoyed her time here:
Pam in the garden
She also took her role of 'big cat' seriously and taught the new kittens how to enjoy cat nip:
Enjoying a catnip whale
We lost her a few months ago and by the time we got her back 6 days later the experience had taken it's toll on her. She did pull back a bit but the experience had a negative effect and she aged quickly over the past 3 months.
I think she had a stroke whilst DH was in hospital as her back legs were a bit wobbly and she was eating with one side of her mouth. After she'd fallen down the stairs a few times we decided that the time was right to 'say goodbye'.
Pam much loved
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Poor DH......
he has been sick this week, VERY sick. He has had a problem for the past two years after eating rich food or bread. I've been dieting for 15 months & this has really helped him.
He started throwing up on Monday after we had eaten with friends on Sunday afternoon. Then he seemed to recover & ate out again on Tuesday night only to start throwing up again on Wednesday.(I want to point out at this stage that it wasn't the cooking or food to blame as both friends are brilliant cooks). For the past two years DH has struggled with vomiting episodes after eating bread or rich food but this time it was really bad & far worse than anything he's ever had before.
I took him to the Doctors where he promptly collapsed onto the floor still vomiting into a bowl. The ambulance staff put him on oxygen before moving him swiftly to the local hospital.
We spent about 6 hours in A&E as the doctors tried to find out what was wrong. At one point they thought he'd perforated his stomach (I got REALLY scared at this) but the x-rays were fine. In fact everything was fine which was annoying as they couldn't tell us why he was sick. He was admitted on to the ward still in agony & spent 3 nights not sleeping as he listened to other throwing up etc etc etc ......
Eventually after an endoscopy revealed that his stomach was healthy the doctors concluded on Friday that he was suffering from Gallstones but we didn't find out until he was discharged last night.
He's now home & I'm so pleased to have him back. However the pain is still around but not to the same extent as previously. So I'm serving up VERY low fat meals & am prescribing lots of rest with short walks to get him moving again whilst we wait for an appointment with a specialist consultant.
This has come at the end of a very bad year. I'm afraid that I haven't written any Christmas cards & to be honest I'm not going to bother this year. I've just got too much on. More is to come tomorrow & then we've still got 9 days left in the year so I'm sure we'll have some other 'joy' to contend with soon ......
He started throwing up on Monday after we had eaten with friends on Sunday afternoon. Then he seemed to recover & ate out again on Tuesday night only to start throwing up again on Wednesday.(I want to point out at this stage that it wasn't the cooking or food to blame as both friends are brilliant cooks). For the past two years DH has struggled with vomiting episodes after eating bread or rich food but this time it was really bad & far worse than anything he's ever had before.
I took him to the Doctors where he promptly collapsed onto the floor still vomiting into a bowl. The ambulance staff put him on oxygen before moving him swiftly to the local hospital.
We spent about 6 hours in A&E as the doctors tried to find out what was wrong. At one point they thought he'd perforated his stomach (I got REALLY scared at this) but the x-rays were fine. In fact everything was fine which was annoying as they couldn't tell us why he was sick. He was admitted on to the ward still in agony & spent 3 nights not sleeping as he listened to other throwing up etc etc etc ......
Eventually after an endoscopy revealed that his stomach was healthy the doctors concluded on Friday that he was suffering from Gallstones but we didn't find out until he was discharged last night.
He's now home & I'm so pleased to have him back. However the pain is still around but not to the same extent as previously. So I'm serving up VERY low fat meals & am prescribing lots of rest with short walks to get him moving again whilst we wait for an appointment with a specialist consultant.
This has come at the end of a very bad year. I'm afraid that I haven't written any Christmas cards & to be honest I'm not going to bother this year. I've just got too much on. More is to come tomorrow & then we've still got 9 days left in the year so I'm sure we'll have some other 'joy' to contend with soon ......
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Irony.....
We're doing everything we can to reduce the amount that we as a family contribute to landfill . We recycle, reuse, freecycle & reduce our waste.
So why then did the bin wagon eat our wheelie bin this morning & make a bigger contribution to landfill?????
I've been advised to use black bin bags until our new bin arrives in a weeks time. I don't think it'll work somehow due to the cats.
Hmmmm have to see if the neighbours will let us put our small amounts of rubbish into their bins but they're all normally overflowing......
So why then did the bin wagon eat our wheelie bin this morning & make a bigger contribution to landfill?????
I've been advised to use black bin bags until our new bin arrives in a weeks time. I don't think it'll work somehow due to the cats.
Hmmmm have to see if the neighbours will let us put our small amounts of rubbish into their bins but they're all normally overflowing......
Monday, December 08, 2008
Book meme....
I found this on Spinning Fishwife's blog.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Underline those you intend to read (I'm going to asterisk these - Blogger doesn't like underlining)
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.
4) Post your list so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.
1.Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling First four only.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - Some
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan*
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Most of them anyway.
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
51/100 not bad but can you tell that I studied Literature at University?
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Underline those you intend to read (I'm going to asterisk these - Blogger doesn't like underlining)
3) Italicise the books you LOVE.
4) Post your list so we can try and track down these people who’ve only read 6 and force books upon them.
1.Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling First four only.
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare - Some
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - J D Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan*
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Most of them anyway.
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
51/100 not bad but can you tell that I studied Literature at University?
Friday, November 28, 2008
Keeping warm
After this post DH & I decided to spend some of our saving on a Wood Burning Stove so that we could save on our fuel costs.
Wood Burning Stove*
Luckily DH was able to install it which greatly reduced the cost. So far we haven't had a problem sourcing wood & we're using the central heating for a minimal period each day just to keep the chill off the rest of the house.
I absolutely love the fire & am looking forward to being home over Christmas & having it on all day.
* Photograph courtesy of DD using HDR.
Wood Burning Stove*Luckily DH was able to install it which greatly reduced the cost. So far we haven't had a problem sourcing wood & we're using the central heating for a minimal period each day just to keep the chill off the rest of the house.
I absolutely love the fire & am looking forward to being home over Christmas & having it on all day.
* Photograph courtesy of DD using HDR.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Blaaaah!
Not much knitting going on here at the moment as my life is cr*p. Things aren't going to plan with the new job but I daren't mention anymore just yet. Lets just say I'm VERY stressed.
This is going to be a Christmas present for my MIL & until yesterday it was hiding in a corner as I'd made a mistake. However it was solved in 20 minutes whilst on a coach to the Harrogate Knitting & Stitching show yesterday & is now back in favour.
Clapotis in Noro Kureyon Sock
Our home is a building site & DD alternates between being a wonderful, responsible & delightful young woman to being an absolute cow. I know that it's part of the territory with a teenager but I'm finding very draining.
Oscar has been ill with a horrendous bladder infection but he seems to be over it now. (If you look closely at his right foreleg you can see where his fur was clipped for the x-ray):
Oscar
We celebrated his first birthday on November 1st but he still behaves just like a puppy just a bit bigger, stronger & still very friendly.
ETA: 25/11/8
Well I spoke too soon. Poor Oscar is now on his third round of anti-biotics & has an abdominal scan booked on Tuesday. DD has Housemaid's Knee & I've hurt my neck/shouldar.
Joy
This is going to be a Christmas present for my MIL & until yesterday it was hiding in a corner as I'd made a mistake. However it was solved in 20 minutes whilst on a coach to the Harrogate Knitting & Stitching show yesterday & is now back in favour.
Clapotis in Noro Kureyon Sock
Our home is a building site & DD alternates between being a wonderful, responsible & delightful young woman to being an absolute cow. I know that it's part of the territory with a teenager but I'm finding very draining.
Oscar has been ill with a horrendous bladder infection but he seems to be over it now. (If you look closely at his right foreleg you can see where his fur was clipped for the x-ray):
Oscar
We celebrated his first birthday on November 1st but he still behaves just like a puppy just a bit bigger, stronger & still very friendly.
ETA: 25/11/8
Well I spoke too soon. Poor Oscar is now on his third round of anti-biotics & has an abdominal scan booked on Tuesday. DD has Housemaid's Knee & I've hurt my neck/shouldar.
Joy
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