I already knew that!

I went off to the hospital on tuesday to see an immunologist about my stupid allergy to cats - when it got to the point that a coat hung on the back of my chair by a cat owner, and bedding in a tent (which is pretty well ventilated!) causing me to spend a frustrating night concentratingon each breath taken in the hope that i would manage the next, Aggie persuaded me to see a doctor. This appointment was the result.

Of course, the immunology department was mostly AIDS related, which made me feel even more of a fraud:-) But the doc was very nice and spent the time to chat to me properly and get a good background. He asked all about my medical background - absolutely no problems of any kind, no major illnesses, conditions or diseases, Im a non-smoker (ex, but nearly 10 years now), I rarely drink, I don't have a childhood history of allergies, neither my parents nor my own house are overly cleaned. Its just not right!!! He checked that it was cats, and I said I was pretty certain. He thought he should do a skin test to be sure, and to check if there was anything else.

So I went next door and let a nrse stick a needle in my arm 8 times! It was only a little nedle, and not comfortable, but not really painful. Then I had to wait 15 minutes. THAT got painful, as my arm turned bright red, with four massive weals. It was REALLY itchy!

Back to doc 15minutes later to be told I'm allergic to cats (I knew that), grasses, house dust and dogs (a little). Discuss de-sensitisation as being completely inappropriate (2 mornigs a week in hospital for 6 months, then one a month for three years - I don't think so) and decide that my best bet is just to avoid cats as much as possible. i knew that too. I get some pretty leaflets to tell me not to work as a vet, cleaner or gardener, and to tell all my friends to kill their cats (well, OK, it didn't actually say that....)

So a whole morning used up to be told what I already knew - stay away from cats, don't sniff dust and take anti-histimines a lot.

I'm "special" me!

I went to the opticians today. I haven't been for seven or eight years, pretty much just because I'm too lazy/disorganised to get check ups when it aint broke in the first place! I had my eyes lasered about 10 years ago, which was fantastic - I would recommend it to anyone - and went back fairly regularly for a couple of years to make sure there were no problems. there weren't, and I had other pressures on my time, and it just sort of fell to the back of my priorities.

But a few weeks ago I noticed that I was getting more headaches - and they were coming after hard days at work staring at a computer screen. Once I thought about it, I started to notice that things weren't as clear as they used to be. Everything was starting to look a little fuzzy round the edges - which while it was a bonus in some ways as we all get older:-), was obviously something that needed to be checked out. So on Friday I popped into a local opticians, and made an appointment for lunch time today.

My optician was quite lovely - if only dentists could learn that kind of bedside manner! He checked through my history, didn't complain that io hadn't been for a decade or so, and had a good look in my eyes. "hmmmmm" he said thoughtfully, "that's strange."

he explained that there was no sign of either the laser traetment or my previous (severe) short sightedness. he would normally expect to see something of both. Also my optic nerve was totally round, and most people have a dip in it. Which makes me quite unusual. Add into that the fact that the optic nerve had "blurred bounderies" when it should be very defined (I have no idea what he was on about tbh) and he decided that it bore further checking out. So I got the full kit and kaboodle of eye tests, from puffy air to computer game flashing lights, and in the end he was happy that everything checked out fine - I was just "special".

Oh yes, and I have a really bad astigmatism in one eye and am very slightly short-sighted again. This is probably not a terrible thing as most people lose their near sight from their early 40's, which isn't amazingly far away. He asked whether i would be wanting laser surgery again, as he doubted that anyone would be willing to do it a second time. I pointed out that actually it would be a third time as they got it a bit wrong the first time and had to correct one eye with a second blast, but no, life was different now, my eyesight was not that bad and glasses would be fine for work & driving. Before I could not see my hand when held at arms length, whereas now it takes a millisecond to focus on small print at a distance - not quite the same!

He even came out and helped me chose a suitable frame - without immediately trying to flog me "designer" frames at silly prices. They should be ready in a week or so. Whooppee. he also tried to tell me that I ought to get my employer to pay for the test. I knew that, but said I didn't think it was worth fighting over for £18. I'm busy trying to persuade them to do bigger things at the moment, so I'm making a tactical decision to be one of those awful people who do not fight for their rights, and paid for it myself. tut tut, I am very unimpressed with myself, but the practicalities of a miserly small firm are that you can only fight one battle at a time...

Oh and Aggie has gone and got pleurisy - stupid boy! So he's not able to do a lot at the moment, what with having problems breathing and all. Just another excuse not to do the DIY if you ask me.... Still the doc has given him some antibiotics, so hopefully it will clear up in a week or so. THEN I'll have a nice list of things ready for him:-)

It's official

Aggie is a drain on society, a layabout, part of the non-working classes and absolutely, without doubt, a cripple.

Yep, he's finally been retired from work on health grounds. Yipee, now I can get back to my favourite passtime of planning for an improbable future:-0 It's certainly better than worrying about an actual present;-)

Of course, although it means that it's all official now, and he won't have to go back to work, it's not all finalised yet with dates and amounts etc, so no money has materialised yet! Not even the back pay for the last three months which he is owed (they stopped paying him anything when he hit 6 months sick, but they were supposed to pay him pension rate as he was going through the pension process....) But it will come. One day.

The lump sum should pay off all our debts (other than mortgage), and then we just have to re-learn how to live within our means. As no-one will be stupid enough to lend us any more money, that shouldn't be too hard:-) My salary will slowly increase - eventually. The light at the end of the tunnel is finally appearing.

Aggie is hoping to go off to uni next year - which gives him a full year to get himself and the house sorted out. he has to do it in slow time nowadays, but stuff still needs doing, so hopefully he'll have the time to do it!

It also means I will stay in my local job for a while yet - which is the easier option:-)

Here's to the future!

bah!

Aggie has got the sickness thing.

Being a) a man and b) Aggie he has to have it far worse than anyone else! He's really ill, so I'm stuck at home with the kids until I get other childcare sorted:-(

Ah well, at least it means I can get everything ready for them to strt school - but I'm not sure what my work will say!

What a weekend

It was LMB's birthday on Friday. So obviously, we were up pretty early, and she was fairly excited! We bought her a little CD player/radio and a couple of CD's. Which she has had on and danced to cnstatntly since. i thought that three CD's full of music would see her through for a while, but I was absolutely bored to tears of Barbie Girl by half way through the weekend and Aggie had to burn off another few CD's for her!

It also means that Cousin G came for the weeken, along with sister S and my mother - who invited herself along with sister S - much to sister S's charign:-) The journey didn't go well! Fortunately, my mother ahd been persuaded to stay in a B&B overnight rather than in the house which meant that we had a couple of hours peace in the evenings and she got a full night's sleep.

Which is more than I managed! LMD chose Friday night to be sick. She couldn't just be ill during the day, or even whe n she went to bed! Oh no, she had to start throwing up at midnight. Just as I had fallen asleep. So up I get, change her, calm her down, strip her bedding, find the febreeze and clean the mattress, turn the mattress, make the bed, settle her back to sleep and fall back into bed. the whole thing takes about an hour. I then lie awake for another 30 minutes listening for her before finally dropping back off to sleep about 2pm. At 2.30, she does it again. I change her, shower her, strip the bed, febreeze the mattress, make the bed, put her back into bed, settle her back to sleep, stay cuddling her for a while, whereupon she throws up once more all over the bed, me and herself. Lovely. clean her, clean me, put the washing on again, give up on her bed, bring her into bed with me. Where I fail to sleep at all for the rest of the night. Fortunately in a way as it means I was able to catch her each time she started cramping again and avoid vomit in our bed!

So Saturday m orning I was not at my best! Sadly that was irelevant as I still had to play hostess (badly) to my sister and niece, and remai civil to my mother, and prpare for LMB's party. We'd invited about a dozen of her friends, and only three had replied - 2 yes's and one no. I even gave out reminders asking them to let me know, but to no avail *sigh* so i ahd no idea if I was catering for 6 or 20! In the end, 3 came along, which with the 4 already here was fine. And the weather stayed dry, if not sunny, so they mostly stayed out in the garden. but it was still hard work - just arranging food, games and care for 7 three and four year olds is exhaisting. the nafterwards my mother decided that we ought to take the kids out for a walk (as they ahdn't had any excersise or fresh air by running around the garden all orning!) and walked us miles around town! I was knackered by the end of the day!

Then another night of broken sleep - LMD was OK, but I woke at every sound or movement:-(

They all left fairly early this morning, so we decided to take the kids off to the new local attraction: Puxton Park. there was a big fuss when it finally got planning permission and was set to open for this summer, then everything went quiet. i had seen somewhere that it had opened on time, but had not seen any advertising/marketing about it since so i was unsure what it would be like. Actually, it was quite nice. only 10 mins drive away for us, it had good parking, was clean, airy and fun for the kids. It's basically a good size soft play/ball park type place, with a few farm animals. Apparently there was spposed to be lots of animals - but then just as it was due to open Foot and Mouth hit the UK. All animal transport was banned, so they decided to postpone. Which is obviously why the marketing never happened too. And why it is still quite cheap to get in. We brought an annual pass - before they put the prices up next month:-) so it will be a good place to take the kids whenever they need somewhere to go!

And now, they're just about going to bed, and I would be delighted to join them - even if it is just 7pm! But perhaps I'll just slob here and watch LOTR on the telly and learn how to use this stupid facebook thing that i've been persuaded to sign up to!

Passing time

Yay me. I passed my exams. The results came in today - two days early! I hit a nice mid-range pass mark, which is pretty much what I expected. Now I am half way through the first half of my qualification:-) just another decade to go until it's all over!

Mstr A turned 7 yesterday. We had a bowling party for him at the weekend - which went pretty well. My mother stayed for the whole weekend, and I managed to only yell at her once, which is pretty good going with my mother;-) LMD got over her chicken pox nice & quickly - much to her disgust! every time I tell her she is all better now she tells me "NOT better - look, spots" and shows me the scars. i think she is determined to milk it for all it's worth!

LMB is growing up fast too. Its her last week at pre-school this week. We're off on holiday next week, then she has a week at home with daddy (hopefully learning to ride her bike) before starting big school. Well, for a couple of hours a day anyway. For 5 weeks! I'm sure it must be discrimination against working parents. 6 months ago I was really worried about her starting school just a few hours after she turns 4, but now I'm feeling much happier about it - I reckon she'll hold her own no problem.

LMD spent the whole day in big girl pants today! Yay yay yay! No more nappies? Or at least a start towards no more nappies:-)

spit spot pop

LMB is doing well - most of her spots have scabbed over, and she is feeling fine in herself now. She has ben really good about not scratching, even though she's ot a fair number of spots, and it really nasty places - one right in the middle of her belly button, a few on her feet, loads on her face, and one right on her vagina poor thing:-( I'm hoping she should be OK to go back to nursery on Thursday. Which will work out nicely as Mstr A finishes school on Wednesday and I'm not sure how well Aggie will cope with having them both at home all day!

LMD has not sported a single spot yet! Surely she has got to catch it? They play together, live together, go to school together - they even bath together!

We check each day to see if she has got any spots yet. each morning they come down stairs, and I look at LMB's spots to see how many new ones there are and how many have scabbed over. She asks if she is going to school today, and I say, no becasue she is still spotty. " I can't play with other children because I have chicken pox" she affirms understandingly.

"I got spots" LMD tells me, not willing to be left out. I check her carefully.

"No LMD, you don't have any spots. not like LMB's spots. She's got chicken pox"

"LMB got cocoa pops" agrees LMD "LMD have cocoa pops?"

"not cocoa pops", chicken pox" I explain

"NO! Cocoa pops" she tells me.

I think I'd rather have a bowl of cocoa pops than a dose of chicken pox:-)

On another note we had summer today. Unfortunately the rain is returning tomorrow:-( I know we're really lucky, it's barely affected us here

This is where we were supposed to be camping for our really big re-enactment event of the season last weekend.

but at least we don't live 30 minutes further up the motorway - that looks like this:

We've had a bit of flooding here, but nothing like Gloucestershire, our next door neighbour as it were. Hopefully it will stay that way.

And hopefully our insurance company will be so swamped with big claims they will rush our little claim for a new ceiling in LMB's room through to bump up their claim rate stats:-)

Will it never end?

I know that pretty much everywhere else in th world it's boiling hot and sunny, but right here, right now, it's the Great Flood! 40 days and forty nights of rain is nothing - I reckon we're at around eight weeks of rain here in the UK.

That's right, it has rained every day for eight weeks! Today I was sitting in work, listening to the downpour, as the day faded to a dim twilight at 2pm and the tempreture barely reached double figures and decided that I've had enough now. Even I have had to bow to the inevitable and buy a rain coat (well Aggie bought it, but I wore it). Our weekend event has been cancelled because of flooding - and it's a really big event - we were so looking forward to going & trading & chatting to other re-encators etc:-(

The trains have pretty much given up trying to be boats, the roads are all rivers - half the motorways are closed, even Weston-super-Mare beach is under water for once;-) It's JULY!!! I want some sunshine!

Actually, I think what has really got to the great British publi is not so much the rain - we're used to rain, but the lack of weather. Our weather should change - generally every few hours. 8 weeks of the smae weather is just not normal:-)

Oh yes, and just to make things even more depressing, LMB's gone and caught chicken pox (again) so we can't even do anything exciting with our wet weekend off:-(

Stuff

We're off to Anglesea again today - because the windiest, wettest part of the British Isles is obvioulsy the best place to go camping in 600 year old design tents during the windiest wettest and coldest summer the Uk has had since records began:-)

It's our annual trip to Beaumaris Castle - beautiful place, shame about the fact that cars can not get into the grounds at all, so it's a long trek carrying stuff agan. Oh for a pack mule:-) last year went pretty well, if a bit wet, so this ear should be good too - I've packed all our wool, and cloaks, and hoods, and extra blankets - along with some nice strong alcohol to help the adults make it through the long dark evenings! July is mid-summer here you know!!!!

Talking about the weather - I am getting a bit annoyed by the sob stories on the telly every night about the poor people of Hull (how come the poor people of Sheffield aren't moaning so much?). I KNOW they were flooded and that was awful. But that is what insurance is for - it's a shit and then you get new stuff! The moaning mum on TV ad nuseum yesterday was complaining that the Government should compensate her for the fact that it rained, and she was too lazy/stingy to buy insurance. I'm not sure what her mortgage company will say about that, since it's usually a condition of the mortgage, but I say, tough! If she is homeless the council will house her. if she was too stupid to get insurance, why should I pay for her house and her stuff to be fixed?

I'm off work today cos that annoying chest thing has come back, and I was wheezing like a smoker last night so didn't get much sleep:-( Hopefully the weekend "relaxing" will clear it up.

Talking about smoking - we had a cooked breakfast in the local greasy spoon today - without the added taste of chain smokers for the first time ever! Hurrah for the smoking ban.

Mstr A had his Speach & Language appointment yesterday. Unsurprisingly the result was that there is nothing wrong with his speach or language! NO!! Isn't that what I said two years ago? In fact, she was rather impressed with his vocabulary - I pointed out that I had told the paediatrician tht he was very advanced in his language skills - his vocab, pronounciation & reading skills are all way beyond his average age expectancy - and have been since he was a baby. Speach & Language woman latched on to this as him being "gifted" and hence having behavioural problems becaus eothers can not keep up with him. Which is absolute bollocks to be honest. He is not that brilliant - his reading and vocabulary are advanced for his age, but his writing is barely average, and his communication skills probably below average (ie: making others understand what he wants), and in other subjects he's an averagely bright child (except art - he's inherited my anti talent in all things artistic!). That is not the sign of a"gifted" child!

So, we've now got to wait while she writes a report to the paediatrician, and see what happens next. I think we're still along way away from a label though.

Gak!

I've got a cold:-(

Streaming (and I mean really flooding!) nose, sore throat & wooly head. I gave up trying to pretend I could sleep at 4.30am, & came downstaits for some lemsip.

4.30am is a good time to get the housework done y'know! No kids underfoot, nothing to watch on the telly, and no-one to chat to online:-)

I've got to go to work this morning tho. Apart from the fact I don't get paid if I don't go, I've got tons of nstuff to do, and I'd rather actually do it myself, than have someone else try to, and have to redo it properly on Monday!

And I have absolutely promised to take the kids swimming tonight too. They've been asking and asking, and in wouldn't be fair to back out now.

Oh well, sleep is probably over-rated anyway;-)

Phew!

The stomach bug only lasted 24 hours, so I went back to work yesterday. I expected to have a pile of stuff waiting for me, but it had all been done, leaving me at a bit of a loose end!

It was my 1 month anniversary there, and they still seem happy with me as far as I can tell (how do you know?), so that's good:-)

LMB woke up bright as the sunshine on Tuesday morning. How lovely to be 3 years old, and just sleep off nasty stomach bugs like that:-)

Aggie's GP has had permission to rewrite his report for work, so with any luck he'll be retired by the summer time (maybe), which will be the best thing on the whole. I'm quite jealous in a way - but not of the constant pain, inability to lift up the kids, flaky skin or bigotry he faces from others, so on the whole I guess i've got the better deal:-) It would certainly make it easier for me to embark on a new career if he's at home - especially considering the new report about how us mothers of young children face the most discrimination at work!

We started criminal procedure at college tonight. i was really concerned about this subject as i know very little (up to date stuff) about it, have no interest in working in the criminal law and have no experience of it. But fortunately, it all seemd fairly basic stuff on the syllabus - just general knowledge really. lets hope it stays at that level:-)

In sickness and in health

I tried to get that sentance taken out of our marriage vows (we wrote them ourselves), along with "till death us do part" but both were required by law:-(

We're in sicknesss here at Casa Aginoth right now. Well, I certainly am. It started with just feling a bit bloated on the drive home yesterday afternoon, and progressed to feeling really nauseous & having a raging tempreture by the time I went to bed last night. I hoped it would calm down over night, and intended to at least try to make it in to work today, on the principle that I could come home if I felt too bad, but when I got up this morning, my legs buckled, and the shivering & shuddering just wouldn't go away, so I phoned in sick:-( I managd to get the kids all up, breakfasted, and the girls dressed & ready for school, then took myself off to bed & left Nanny A to sort out everything else. Thanks Nanny A:-) She was booked in to look after Mstr A today as it is an inset day, but actually saved me from having to even get dressed today at all:-)

I did manage to sleep through 'till mid afternoon, which helped quite a bit. I wouldn't want to o too far away from a toilet yet, but I am hopeful I'll be OK to go back to work tomorrow.

Nanny took Mstr A off to see Charlottes Web this afternoon. He nearly didn't go, as he started complaining that his tummy hurt just before they left, which was a bit concerning. But then he mentioned that he had eaten too much lunch, so we guessed the walk to the cinema might solve the problem. Hopefully that is all it is, and he'll e fine tomorrow too.

Aggie collected the girls on his way home from work. LMB walked in th door, immediately said her mouth hurt & took herself off to bed. She was fast asleep within 2 minutes, poor thing, so it looks like she may have a bug too:-(

In fact the only person who is apparently perfectly healthy here is Aggie, who recieved a letter from work today saying that he was not eligable for ill-health retirement because:

he is "currently unfit for work" and " spontaneous improvement appears unlikely", his condition is "chronic and impairs normal day to day activity" there is "reasonable medical evidence that [Aggie] is prevented from discharging his duties" and "the prognosis is guarded with regards him recovering sufficently or long enough to reliably return to work"

Oh yes, and the report from his GP did not specifically say he is unable to work. That is because the report was written by the lead GP at the surgery who has seen Aggie once in five years, and has no knwledge of his condition, treatments or prognosis. He was also, apparently, unable to walk into th next door office and ASK aggie's actual GP for his opinion.

Aggie spoke to his GP tonight, who apologised, and agreed to re-write the GP's report if we can get permission from the practise manager to allow him to do so. That practise manager does not know what is going to hit him!

we will be appealing the decision, on the basis of new medical evidence from Aggies GP.