A Very Happy New Year!! Or,to my Welsh cousins...Mae Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!!

New Year Countdown - New Year Layouts

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.
Albert Einstein

A very Happy New Year to you all...
...See you in 2010...
xxx

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade...That SUCKS!!!

Yes, I am officially missing my funny bone (or any funny place to be fair) at present.

So, OK, here I was, blissfully enjoying my *sabbatical* from work, after 28 years of hard graft, through marriage, 5 pregnancies, births, 3 months off with each baby, divorce (OK, just the usual stuff all of us mums go through in life)...

Then this year, a lovely, very large lump (oh, the irony of that word!!) sum of early severance which paid off ALL our combined debts (yes, really, nothing, nada, nil) with leftover for me to peruse the job front at a very (read ::very::) leisurely pace.

Then wouldn't you just know it (actually I should have really, shouldn't I?....Duh)....

.....Life goes and serves us a nice BIG, FAT, JUICY lemon!

No, nothing much has really changed from yesterdays post, apart from a rather bizarre meeting today with the lovely, and very esteemed consultant, Prof. M. Thomas at The Royal Marsden Hospital. Bizarre, as at some points I couldn't really tell if he was talking to us or dictating into his little machine, which he kept rewinding midway through sentences to check where he was, then stopping to tell/ask us something, but sort of all at the same time.

At his request, I was pulling all OH's meds out of a carrier bag (I know, how so un-PC and so very trendy of me!..Not!) which happened to be under the very chair he was sitting on, so I was therefore crouched down, in front of him, between his knees, whilst he, still dictating, and looking down at me with bushy, wiggly eyebrows asked "how many?"..click..whiz...."Oh that's rather a lot, 2 a day you say?"..click....whiz...."Monica comma Iliac vessels, posterior, Psoas muscle stop New paragraph"...."does he need to take that many?"(YES! Fuck, he does, you try sleeping next to the person you love while he's quietly whimpering in pain in his sleep!!)...click....whiz...
As I said, rather bizarre! And I think if my funny bone could have been located this would've been the time...

Anyway, the upshot is actually more or less the same, a 7cm tumor. But what we did find out is that it's wrapped around his Iliac vessels. A biopsy was taken (definitely ouch, after all it was only a curtain between us) and the results will be ready next Thursday. But as any operation will also involve a Vascular surgeon, the best of which happens to be away till the beginning of the week after next, OH now has an appointment for the results on the 14th Jan.

So, I'm sort of hoping that the wonderful Prof. Thomas, in his infinite wisdom..click...whiz..., knows that damn recipe for 'Lemonade' because at the moment I sure as hell don't....stop

But of course, all and any recipes for 'that' Lemonade most humbly & gratefully accepted...

:::Shit!... does this post now mean I've moved on from just plain ANGER?...because I just read this back and I don't see very much anger here??!?:::What's the next stage??:::

A trip I wish we really didn't have to make...S**T!!

Tomorrow OH and I will travel up to London to the Royal Marsden Hospital, for a 2.15pm appointment with a specialist, Prof. Thomas (yup...he has been googled, lots ...he's extremely good)
His previous stay in hospital turned out not to be his appendix, but a 7cm tumor called a soft tissue sarcoma. So, for obvious reasons, I wish we weren't having to make it at all.

There ::breathe out:: I've written it down now....in black & white, all very matter of fact. But believe me, until now, I have been incapable of writing that down without getting so irrationally angry, I physically couldn't write it. I'm not angry because of the time they took to find it, in the great scheme of things, it was only a couple of days of delay and they were completely right not to have operated on him at the time.

But I am just ANGRY. ANGRY. ANGRY!!
The anger hasn't abated or diluted in any way either, which in the normal run of events it does/should. But of course, to be replaced by other emotions.....therein, I do understand, lies the problem.

I know it's not healthy to hold on to so much anger, but I have to. Because I'm too scared not to.

Sorry to be such a party-pooper in this time of celebrations, and I am actually, oddly, sort of OK (well, apart from the anger!). But I just really felt the need to write this down RIGHT NOW, so I went with the flow.

Much love....and I wish you all a very Happy, Healthy New Year.. xxx

Christmas cheer to one & all...and Peppermint Creams!

I hope all you lovely Bloggers and families have the most wonderful, healthy and very, very happy Christmas and New Year!

I raise a glass to you all, well, maybe not quite yet, as I still have the hoovering to do....and that would make me a tad wobbly whilst welding the Dyson Beast (it's new you know, and I'm thinking I may need to put some bloody L plates on it!)




On a slightly different subject, yesterday TD made her Christmas gifts to Family & friends. As she is a student she is always strapped for cash, so each year she hand makes her pressies. In past years she's made biscuits, this is the first year she's attempted chocolate dipped 'Peppermint Creams'. Now she just needs to wrap them in cellophane & ribbon...and voila!

Here's the recipe as they are so, so easy to make and even the littlest child can make them, its just like playing with playdough, which they can then eat....they'll love it!



Enjoy and let the festivities begin...

Let it snow..Let it snow..Let it snow..and a SnowKat!

We rarely get snow here in Brighton, nothing that ever sticks anyway, so of course when it does people go all out and fully embrace their inner child....

Here are some slightly festive (festive only 'cause it's snow) picturey type things...
....including a snowKAT!


I'm spelling it like that because my Gorgeous 18yr old son's girlfriend is called Kat....and they made it on the roof of our house. That's not quite as dangerous as it may sound! His bedroom is in the loft, with huge loft windows.

But snow does make people do some very odd things. For instance, while it was snowing last night, said 18 yr old son & girlfriend opened the loft window, wide, and videoed themselves, whilst singing "It's snowing in my bedroom!" which of course it was....He-he...

Hysterical phone call...And a Paramore ticket!

I received a phone call late this afternoon, while doing some shopping. So, there I was juggling carrier bags, a basket, my handbag & a mobile phone, and all I could hear was an almost incomprehensible hi-pitched, squeaky TD shrieking....

"Mummymummymummypleasepleasepleasemummy
pleeeeaasseemyfriendhasaspareParamoreticketpleaseplease
canigo?pleasepleasecanIgo?pleasecanIgo?purleeeeassse?!?!"

....all in one breathe....in 3 seconds flat!

S**t, she nearly gave me a bloody heart attack...I thought someone had died or something...
I had to get her to repeat it several times, before I could understand her.

And no, I'm not going to make it any easier for you, I had to decipher it standing in the middle of a store of full on, rampant christmas shoppers, you're only reading it on a screen! She was so frantic to spurt it all out she didn't even hear me saying "Yes".... "YES"..she was so busy rambling & burbling.... "TD....YES!" I had to shout at her.....Haha.

I had tried (secretly, as a christmas pressie) to buy tickets when they first went on sale a couple of months ago, at 9am, but by 9.08am they were sold out...Woah! Popular or what?? And I refused to pay upward of £80 at any of the other places...it's a £20 ticket for gods sake!

Needless to say I now have one extremely ecstatic (thankyoumummythankyouthankyouILOVEyou!!!) Teenage Daughter, who is, as I type, queuing in the freezing cold at the Brighton Centre, with her £25 ticket, to see her Idols, Paramore, featuring the lovely 'Hayley Williams' ....

And I know TD will have just the hugest grin on her face...

Here is a video of Paramore's BBC Radio One Live Lounge performance of their single, just in case you have absolutely no idea who they are, although if you have teens you must, surely?
If you like it, be sure to listen to their acoustic version of Kings of Leon's 'Use somebody' here.
I think it's a beautiful version of a great song.

Enjoy...

(:::Psst!..Sshhh....Just don't tell TD that her Oldest Gorgeous Brother is on the Guest list, VIP....So I think the s**t may hit the fan when they return. Uh-oh....take cover:::)

Just a photo..Beautiful TD 'I am safe'..

Sorry, but there is just too much crap in my head at the moment to write a long post, or one that would make much sense and isn't just ugly anger and sadness....Not very Christmassy at all....

So instead I thought I would give you my beautiful TD's photo (with her permission).

This is her, a self portrait, holding a badge with the words 'I am safe'....

I love it...

I'll post again soon, when I have the heart to.....