Busy, busy, busy

First weekend in May - in York, birthday weekend for Number Guy's mum.

Second weekend in May - Badminton Horse Trials - belated Christmas present for me

Third and fourth weekends in May - in California, work trip for Number Guy, holiday for me.

Tonight - fighting off jet lag and bronchitis to go to a
Snow Patrol concert in Winthertur.

I'm telling you, this non-work life is tiring ;0)




ETA: Snow Patrol completely rocked last night!!! :0) :0) :0)

Birthday Cake

It might not be the prettiest cake in the world, but I reckon it's one of the tastiest.

One of my friends is having a "significant" birthday and she asked me to make this for her party. It's the Nigella Lawson Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

It's one of my favourite cakes, but it does make rather a lot. I reckon that even half the recipe would do too much damage to my hips, so I tend to make it only on special occasions. The last time I made it I made a mistake and put whisky in the icing instead of ginger ale - I know, a really easy mistake to make. It was delicious ;0) but I decided to go for the ginger ale this time, in case anyone at the party needs to avoid alcohol.

Now I just need to keep out of the kitchen, as I feel a bit like Alice - the darn thing keeps saying 'Try me'...

Bliss

A quiet house, a malt whisky and ginger ale* and a good book. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Just relaaaaax.....

*Yeh, I know, but I'm a Scot so I reckon I have the right to abuse my national drink ;0)

Well.....

...what I would like to know is this - why do some health professionals feel it is ok to say one thing to your face and something entirely different behind your back?

Although patients in Scotland have the right to see their medical notes, they can be edited if it is felt that something ' would be detrimental to their wellbeing.' Yeh right. We all know what THAT means, don't we? Suffice to say that I got a copy of some of my notes today. I don't think that the person who wrote them envisaged me getting to see them.

I am really angry. But more to the point, I am really, really upset. I had a great deal of trust in this person and it has now been irrevocably shattered. To add insult to injury, I have to show these notes to another doctor tomorrow.Oh well, it's only self-esteem....

On a cheerier note, I may be getting one of these beauties

Migraines

I went to see my Augenartzt (eye doctor) yesterday. He measured the pressure in my eyes, which was a bit on the high side. By the time he used his 'Gameboy' as he called it, to perform a calculation once he had plugged in eye pressure plus corneal thickness, all was well. Pressures normal, visual field great, optic nerve wonderful.

All this means that he is happy for me to have beta blockers - in fact, turns out that some drops to treat glaucoma have beta blockers in them.

So I left a message for THAT neurologist and picked up a prescription today. I don't trust her but will make do until I find one I can actually trust. So no more pizotifen for me tonight, and I start the new medication tomorrow. It isn't propranolol, which gives really, really bad nightmares. I *think* it may be atenolol, but of course it has a different name. I am hoping this will have less of an effect on the dreaming - wonder if this is why I am to take it in the morning....?

I feel a little bit excited. It would be great to have more migraine control with no weight gain, but only time will tell.

Travels.

Thanks for the kind words about Athyr....

I really miss having cats in the house, and Athyr's passing just made me feel it more. Looking on the bright side, it lack of responsibilities makes travel a lot easier. We are going to be having a crazy travel year. Part of the travel plans involve my second trip to the USA in May.

Looking forward to it already :0)

Athyr.

If you look at the picture in the 'About me' section on the right of this blog, you will see Athyr, our chocolate-point Siamese. I say 'our', because although she had to go to a new home when we moved here, she always had a special place in our hearts.

The final, and most important, kindness that you can and must do for a pet is to let them go when the time comes. However hard the parting is. One of the reasons that we chose the new owners for Isis and Athyr was that we just knew we could trust them to do this if the time came.

Sadly, that time came for Athyr just under a week ago. She was not quite 6 years old. My heart is heavy, but I can't thank J & M enough for this last kindness.