Just a Quickie today

Hit the gym at 9am this morning - my work out was pretty sluggish. Did I say I'd joined the gym? oh dear I am a bit behind on things aren't I? I joined a gym at the beginning of November (now those that know me know that I'm not a gym fan - to me the world is your gym all you need is some good running shoes!) But after some thought, dark nights and a good chat to a physiotherapist about my back and foot problems I decided to take up a very cheap student offer from Harpers Gyms. Turns out my core muscles are shot after having Emily - no I really mean SHOT. Hamstring it tight, no muscle in the glutes, no anything in my abs!! I needed to get an expert to check and she found my problem all right. Now I have a huge list of core strengthening exercises that take about an hour every day to do (sheesh). Hence why I joined a gym - I need to get my ahem 6-pack back (well I can dream about it). What has worrying was when I was being poked, prodded and pushed by Purdie (physio) she pushed down on the base of my spine and it all went "crunch" - she did as if it had done that before :) Sadly it hadn't but it made me realise just how knackered this old bod is getting.

So I went to the gym this morning and managed to pop up to the allotment to see what kind of state it was in, and I wasn't looking forward to it either as I had rather neglected it over the last 4 weeks. I do apologise for that. But it wasn't looking too bad. I decided to stay and do some work on it. I removed the now rotten aftermath of the squash patch - I only managed to save 3 small squashes. But the sprouts have grown and I picked some today for our dinner tonight. The runner bean canes I removed, along with the decaying courgette plant and I started to dig out some proper borders this time. Managed to get two thirds of the way down one side and about a third down the other before I called it time. I could have easily spent the rest of the day digging out the rest but I really needed to get home and do family time.

Marley helping with the washing (again)

I found some time to finish off a blanket with the Cath Kidston material I bought :) Any buyers?

One of the squash's from the allotment

And some of our crop of brussels :)

Winter Blues already

Feeling a bit blue this morning I thought I'd try to get into the Christmas spirit of things and watch a couple of films - so I firstly popped on Santa Buddies and yes it was an OK film but to be honest not something I would actually go and buy unless the kiddles requested it. I guess the blessing was that this was quite a short film so I didn't watch it for long but I kinda got fed up of seeing static looking puppies with animated mouths. This might entertain really young kids, but did nothing for older kids or parents.
http://www2.disney.co.uk/DisneyDVDs/DVDs/santa_buddies.jsp

What was great was G-Force - you know the one with the guinea pigs? Yep it was much much better, more entertaining and I much prefer the very well animated guinea pigs to stiff looking puppies, in fact at some points during the film I was really sure they had filmed real ones!

http://www2.disney.co.uk/DisneyDVDs/DVDs/g_force.jsp

For my Grandmother

1913-2009

Happy 13th Birthday!

Hand over the wonga

Today is Children in Need day - so what have you done to raise some money ?

I baked 2 pumpkin pies and made £24, plus got my work to match that, so a grand total of £48!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/

Give, give and then give some more.
Thanks for reading

We're all sick!

I feel the need to mark my front door with an X to say stay away. Phoebe was very ill last week with a very bad cold/flu symptoms. She's now bouncing around with excitement for her birthday party this weekend - sadly I'm not as I have some awful viral infection in my chest that is making me nauseous 27/7 - so I feel like a large bag of horse manure. I dread to cough because it hurts so much and the phlegm is so god-damn awful tasting it makes me wanna hurl even more. Emily has a cough and is a but under the weather, the dude still has his cough (that's been hanging around for at least 4 months now!).

And back to Marvin, he smells like cat poo! I thought it was just because maybe he had accidentally slipped in the cat litter tray - well it's not. He had is visit to the vet (third this week) to see how he was reacting to his antibiotics - and well ok his temperature is normal, but his mouth was covered in ulcers. Queue guilty feeling owner for not checking. But he's been eating and drinking, though not as much as normal and he still looks very peaky. The vet and I had a chat and he may have some viral infection akin to cat flu. So the plan of action is firstly to change his antibiotics to treat possible viral thingy, and tomorrow she's going to organise a swab for analysis. Which I was surprised to learn has to be sent to Glasgow to be analysed!

Anyway he's in good hands, though Marvin may not be too sure as every time he gets to the vets he now tucks his tail between his legs, and now I (well dude and I) have to wrap the little furrball up in a towel and shove 2 pills down his gullet followed by water -to prevent pills sticking. As if we don't have enough to deal with we can't let the pills gets stuck to his throat because that would be horrid horrid horrid. Remember that feeling of getting paracetamol or an antibiotic stuck in the back of your throat?

It's all a bit worrying as the vet said that this viral infection could be the type that may come back, a bit like the Herpes virus. :( I'm really glad our pet insurance covers him for any illness for the rest of his life :) Pet Plan - I'd recommend them to anyone.

It's not who let the cat out of the bag

it's why he's in there in the first place!




Marvin was very ill last week. On Friday morning I noticed he wasn't his usual self so he took a trip to the vet and got some much needed antibiotics and anti-inflammatory shots. Thankfully he perked up 2 hours later and ate some food and had a good long drink. Today he almost seemed his usual self but still not perky. He had a prior appointment for a checkup with the vet and thankfully his temperature had gone down by one degree - but it was still high. He had another smaller shot of antibiotics and I got a stash of pills to give him over the next five days before he goes for another checkup. I've now got to keep and eye on both of the boys to make sure Marley hasn't caught it and that Marvin is getting better.

The boys have also been infested with flees and no matter how much spot-on I've given them I had to douse them in the most foul smelling spray last night - it stunk real bad. I had to do it in the bathroom as it was the only room where I could open a window without the risk of either of the cats escaping. The boys hated it. I hated it. I'm sure anyone else doing this would have hated it. As it turns out I gave the boys a good combing today and any flea that I found was well and truly DEAD! hurrah I hope I've gotten rid of the little blighters.

Some huggage from his bro'
"yeah like I'm REALLY enjoying it"

yerugh - off ill with sinusitus

feeling grotty and snotty
but some things I've been doing recently - made 24 pumpkin muffins - very yummy, 2 pumpkin pies and a cheese and leek pie!

Emily pretending to be asleep - and Marvin happy for a snuggle

Happy Halloween

Climbing Kitty

Marley (AKA Mr Naughty) seems to have a "thing" about climbing - so far he likes to climb chairs, people and now ladders!

Had a bad day?

Hmmm thought so!

Blu-ray clips

So a while back Tosha, I and our families were invited down to London to be filmed discussing Blu-ray movies: so here are the clips, I'm not sure where and when you will see them, but maybe they'll be appearing in a cinema/website near you soon!

Clip1

Clip2

Clip3

Fun and Games

I've been chilling a bit more this week - though I'm just a tiny bit behind on reading my current course material I'm actually finding it a lot less work!

I even managed to go to Cambridge (last minute decision) to have some drinks with some workmates - how about that? I haven't done that for such a long time, and I think my body noticed as I woke up this morning with a sore head and tummy (personally I blame the chips with cheese that I ate).

Today my folks arrived safe and well, and after a walk to town for some coffee and to pick up some bits, my folks headed off to their holiday cottage to relax for the evening. Tomorrow we brave Tesco and maybe the allotment :)

Despite the rotten weather Emily, I and the "boys" played twister :

Green and brown stuff

Emily and I spent a couple of hours at the allotment today - I was sad to see someone had tried but failed to break into the shed, the door frame was splintered at the opening as if someone had tried to crowbar it open. Everything is ok, the lock is a bit bent but easily fixed. I just hope the little buggers don't try it again.

Ok back to the green stuff - well its starting to turn brown now. I could see one small courgette left, and I think the runner beans have come to an end. Whats left of the late tomatoes are just starting to turn red but I think some more green tomato chutney may be made this year. The cabbage looked a bit worse for wear after the caterpillar battle but still edible. Brussel sprouts are still to appear, but lettuce is still plenty - did I already ask you if you wanted one? no - go on take TWO, spoil yourself. We have about 3 smallish squashes and the possibility of another 3 making an appearance over the next few weeks - I'm actually delighted with these as Bex put them in late for the year but they've still come up trumps! Today I moved the cardboard off the last area of prepared soil and spent about another hour preparing more ground for the raspberries. Did I tell you the fab guy at the allotment behind us gave us some raspberries? Well he did, and I took 12 (a bit cheeky I know) and planted them today. A couple of them don't look too great but I'll make some effort to go down and water everynight to make sure they get a good start.

I feel a bit tired after all that digging - still not easy to dig and week when I can only use 3 fingers and a thumb on one hand. The one I cut a week ago? Well it's healing but as the nail is cut through it's starting to flap about and I'm really worried one wrong move will erm remove the rest of the nail (cringes).

Today I've also managed to do 4 loads of washing, hanging out to dry, hoovered and dusted most of the house, as well as the allotment! So I'm a bit berty bushed as they say.

Oh Phoebe made the most lovely tasting apple crumble this week - one of her classes at school at the moment is cookery (though they probably call it something like domestic science these days) and this week was apple crumble - most yummy indeed that in fact it's been polished off as I speak.

Ok I gotta go - got to bathe Emily bunny kins and get her PJ's on
Ciao
XXX

Let's get ready to rumble!

Exam - shazam!

Sat the Interaction Design exam on Friday morning, phew so glad that that's over. Not the best exam to sit as it's all speculative (oooh a big word for me at 10am on a Sunday). Ah well, now I have to do a quick catch up on my TT280 course - which I also think involves some interaction design theory.

But back to blogging normal day to day stuff, right now Marley is being the inquisitive cat that he always is, and Marvin is being shown that you can shove a banana up your sleeve trick by Emily, whilst teenager-to-be is in her pj's on the couch playing Animal Crossing. Actually she hasn't played that one in a little while, she's been hooked on the Bonsai Barber - she even discovered it can do some magical things - eg if you spray the apple it gets bigger and bursts, and the leaves turned pink. If you keep knocking the apple a worm pops out and then turns into a butterfly - cute hu? If you change colour of the bells they play in a different pitch! I'm just wondering what other secrets it holds.

Anyway just a quick update on what's been happening - took the girls to see the Peppa Pig Big Party show in Dusntable and Emily LOVED it. I'm now considering taking them to a pantomine after new year - but I can't seem to find any in Cambridge so if anyone knows of any let me know? The allotment is coming to the end of its summer season and now we have some little squashes growing which I'm thrilled about as I like squashes. The brussel sprouts and cabbage are coming along nicely and we still have a tonne of lettuce to eat - anyone want some lettuce?

The very kind man in the allotment behind ours has given us some raspberry canes so I need to pop down today and try to dig out a patch for them to be planted in. The strawberry runners didn't fair so well but I've still got some runners at home and I'll try to get them planted in the October hols. I think that's it for just now, but I'm hoping to blog a bit more frequently!

Other things I test

apart from testing software I've been recently invited to test Kitchen roll, deodorant, eye-shadow and crisps! I'm looking forward to testing the crisps tonight as they are one of the more expensive veriety :)

But another thing I tested last night was on the Wii - we haven't played that games console for ages so after being invited to try out Bonsai Barbar - we took the console downstairs and plugged it into the tv (the big one!) After some confusion and a quick google for the answer on how to accept "gifts" on the Wii I managed to install the Bonsai Barbar and have a quick play. Even though this game may be aimed at younger people I have a great 10 or so minutes trying to cut the hair of various vegetables - sounds odd doesn't it, but actually it's quite fun as it requires you to concentrate(on something other than interaction design books!)

Awesomeness

comes in many forms - well two forms in this casein their AWESOME new bed/scratching post (not quite completed yet but already loved)

Ouchers

yes there it is the "gashed" digit maximus painus. Actually its not too bad as long as it isnt bashed, poked or chewed (by cats)

Marshmallows and muffins (and 1 small accident)

Kitty gonna get ya!

Ouch! lots of blood, stings :(

Ohhh muffins

Marshmallows - home made!

Ofsted - gone bonkers

I'd really like to know what little twerps thought it was their duty to stop two friends helping each other out by looking after each others children whilst the other went to work. Come on eh have some frigging common sense. In this day and age and in this financial climate two people who trust each other and AND work for the Police Service (how much more security checked could they be?) be doing any wrong?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ofsted-has-lost-the-plot-over-childminding-case-1794605.html

Artist strike (again?)

Happy Birthday to one and to all!

First of all A BIG BIG Happy Birthday to my little Emily who was 3 yesterday - she shares her birthday with 2 other lovely people - Paul who was 40 yesterday and another little girl, also called Emily, who was also 3 yesterday!

How about this for a hand made cake !!! This was at my friends daughter party on Saturday.Emily Rose

Drews Birthday Cake - yes another cake photo!

Respect to

Obama for calling Kanye West a JACKASS