Another quick catch up...

Fri 24th Wendy came to visit - great fun, loads of catching up and laughs. Thanks for a great day!

Rang dentist on Mon, to be told that the earliest they could get me an appt was Friday (today). Oh joy. So had a miserable week, unable to bite or chew and in a lot of pain. This morning she drilled out the tooth and packed it with medicinal stuff to clean and heal it, and I go back in three weeks for the actual filling. So nice to be out of pain! Could actually eat a proper lunch today - it's been soup the rest of the week.

Films... Picked up and watched Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them on Mon - a fine fun film! The Gods Must Be Crazy II is also fun, though not as good as the first film. Arrival is... intriguing. It feels unfinished. Then again, having read the free book (of short stories) that came with the DVD, most of the author's stories feel unfinished. Strange and unsettling, but good.

A couple of years ago I picked up Sin City II: A Dame To Kill For, but first we had to watch Sin City, as Kai hadn't seen it. Very stylish, very violent, but enjoyable all the same. Sleepers is a good film, but very grim. (We seem to watching a lot of darker films at the moment...) On Wed High Rise was on TV - I've been havering about this, not sure if I was going to like it despite Tom Hiddlestone starring. Ken and I watched it until the second commercial break, then turned it off. Didn't like it. Obnoxious unpleasant characters without an ounce of empathy. Glad I didn't buy it!

Kai is now on holiday for three weeks, so of course we've both gone down with colds. Going to take the next few days easy, then plans include seeing Life at the cinema, a little gardening, organising Kai's new meadow and getting the pool in, and the usual BHOC appts. Fingers crossed for nice weather!

Labels: busyness, films, friends, holidays, medical matters

In brief - toothache is back and making it difficult to concentrate: painkillers are barely making a dent in it. Rang dentist this am: no appts possible, and I'm to ring back Mon 8 am to try then. Knowing my dentist she'll fit me in somewhere, but I have a drs appt for BP check and possible blood test for levothyroxine levels on Mon too. Good news - the two surgeries are pretty much opposite each other, but what do you bet they clash?

More later. Round up of news and films watched in due course, but other than personal health things are going pretty well at the moment.

Labels: medical matters

Just quickly to try to keep up...

Our Friday night film was Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children on Filmflex, and it's extraordinary! Thoroughly gripping. We will be buying it (when the price comes down a little). Tonight it was The Gods Must Be Crazy, which I picked up in a charity shop, double pack with The Gods Must Be Crazy II (which we'll probably try to watch tomorrow). Old but what a film! Reminiscent of HitchHikers Guide to the Galaxy (the TV series, not the abysmal film), and I still can't work out how a film can be laugh out loud funny and horribly violent at the same time. Wonderful stuff!

Tyjer rather likes his outdoor indoor bed, thank you mum...

Very cozy while Kai and I worked in the patchy drizzle...

And finally, the other ring I bought from amazon, silver and black opal this one.

Looks better in real life...

Labels: films, greenhouse, Tyjer

Catch up again!

First, the gum infection has gone, although the tooth is still very sensitive, especially to hot and cold things. Dentist took an X-ray yesterday, and there's nothing obviously wrong, so for the moment we're leaving it alone. I have a standard check up in May: see how we go. I'd very much rather avoid a root canal if I can!

K&K ended up not going mine-researching last Sat (Kai got up too late, which threw my whole day out too. Not chuffed about that): Ken and I did the Sunday shop early instead. On Sunday it was more garden work: the native privet is now uprooted and partially replanted - main plant at the top and I'm bringing on five plantlets in pots, so we'll have a ready-made hedge when it's grown a bit.

Ken took Monday off and we got a little more done in the garden. Things are beginning to blossom...

The prunus, currently full of honeybees!

'A riot of life', as Lutra calls it.

The rest of the week went much as normal. Client work and house and garden work for me; the courgettes, pumpkins and one sweet pepper are now sprouting in the greenhouse, and I've made a bed in there for Tyjer for later, when the door is open and he wants to snooze in the sun.

And did I mention that the ramsons I planted last year have taken really well and formed two little patches? There'll be more next year. And to my surprise, one of the plants I put in closer to the wall a couple of years ago has survived and is coming on well, so Kai's 'holloway' between the hazels and the wall will look like a real woodland path by the time we're finished.

I was supposed to go for my MATS appt (steroid injection to my hand for the carpal tunnel) at 11 on Tues, but at 9 I got a phone call saying it was cancelled as the consultant I was due to see had rung in sick, but she was actually the wrong person anyway, as she did spines, not hands. [SIGH] So I now have another appt - end of April, at a completely different location.

Am I ever actually going to get this bloody treatment??

Onto things we've watched in the past week and a bit...

Picked up Doctor Strange as soon as it came out Mon last week, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Cracking film. Last Tues Ken and I watched Philomena (had it for a while and since Kai had other things to do and wasn't bothered, it was a good time). Beautiful, funny, heart-breaking film which did nothing to improve my loathing of organised religion. Then Blood, the Last Vampire - live action anime and pretty good. Lots of fun and gore: Unfriended - meh. Stylistically similar to Cloverfield and Blair Witch Project but without that godawful dragonfly camera; a keeper as the only sample of the genre we're ever likely to watch: Little Fockers (bought for completeness sake as I have and quite like the other two films), which was OK. Fairly funny, not as bad as the reviews make out, as far as we're concerned. Last night we steeled ourselves for Lord of the Flies, another I've had for ages. Saw it donkey's years ago and picked it up at a charity shop as a classic British drama that we really ought to have, but don't think we're likely to watch it again. Dark and depressing.

Arrival hits the shops on Monday, I believe: we managed to miss that at the cinema, so I'll pick it up as soon as I can. Kai and I are planning to see Life in the near future (due at the Showcase on 24th March, I think - we'll leave it a week or two to let the crowds die down. If there are any...)

Kai has venesection on Sunday, and I finally get my hair cut on Monday (it's driving me nuts, it's all in my eyes, but I just haven't managed to find the time until now. Not to mention Jeff has changed the days he's in...)

And that's us up to date. I think. If I've missed anything I'll edit later!

Labels: films, gardening, medical matters

So the night after my previous post I developed toothache under the recently filled tooth. Thought maybe I'd been a little too harsh when cleaning, but by Sat the pain was excruciating and painkillers - even co-codamol - weren't doing anything but numb it slightly.

Monday I reported to the dental practise and said I'd wait until I could be squeezed in between patients. I didn't have long to wait, luckily: my dentist had a good look (and chuncked on all the teeth in the area with one of her tools - that didn't hurt) and said it was most likely a gum infection (to be honest that's what I thought too, having had one before). She prescribed a five day course of amoxicillin 500mg (that's the anti-bio Kai was given after his transplant - it kills everything) and I have an appt to go back next Thurs. Problem is, I'm still in an awful lot of pain and my jaw is still swollen, so I don't think the anti-bios are working. If they don't, she told me the next step is a root canal and a crown. OUCH. Would be cheaper to have the damn thing extracted...

Please keep fingers crossed. Will report back when I know what's what.

Over the weekend we did a little gardening, got a few more seeds on the go. These are my garlic plants: the hollows behind them are where my new asparagus plants are. They won't produce anything until next year at the earliest, but they seem to be coming along well so far.

Crocuses at the top of the garden - in completely the wrong place of course. Practically all my bulbs will have to be dug up and moved as soon as they've finished flowering. They'll be going in the old meadow, which I'm slowly populating with masses of flowering plants (it's going to be civilised rather than wild, from now on).

I will get some better photos when things are a little more organised. I know I keep saying that but we only have the time and energy (and in my case, I can only do so much before my legs and back stop co-operating) to get it done little by little.

Kai and I did get the automatic openers for the greenhouse vents and louvre sorted though, and they now work beautifully. Hoping to pot on my tomato plants this weekend.

Kai's birthday was pleasant, although he's trying to fight something off again. He loved his earrings though, and tonight watched The Secret of NIHM 2, which was better than expected. He took today off and we bussed to Street to scour charity shops and the antique market with his birthday money, and he came home with a few fun things that caught his eye. Lovely day, mostly sunny but not too hot, and the ride down there is always gorgeous. Tired when we got back though.

Tomorrow K&K plan to go researching mines to the north of Bristol. Why? Not entirely sure, but Kai has discovered a recent interest in mines and caves. Ken isn't claustrophobic, so he gets seconded to go on these sorts of trips. I get the fun of housework instead, oh joy. Still, I'll have the house to myself for a while so hopefully may be able to get some writing done.

Labels: days out, garden, medical matters, Street

Just a quickie...

Kai is taking GatU (Galaxies and the Universe) as one of his courses this year and it's utterly fascinating (yes, he's sharing it with me!) I think it's generally known that the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are heading for each other and in about 4.5 billion years will collide. What I didn't know was that the Milky Way is already colliding with another (small) galaxy - the dwarf Sagittarius galaxy...

It's too faint to see unless you know where to look, and even then there's not much visible, but I find the very idea engrossing.

The sky was clear for an hour or so tonight: took the telescope out and gazed at the perfect, beautiful crescent of Venus using the Barlow lens (the one with the greatest magnification). The shape echoed that of tonight's slender crescent moon, which we also took a look at. Beautiful crater detail. I've been trying to find which ones we saw but can't find a sufficiently detailed lunar map online... Quick glimpse at the Orion Nebula then I left K&K to it - it was cold and Kai was trying to find the Rosetta Nebula. (He has Stellarium loaded onto his tablet and finds it incredibly useful. Perhaps I should get it too... No joy yet. Next time!)

Labels: astronomy