Here Is The News #38

Blogland Brilliance

The showbird and the magician's relationship seems to be going from strength to strength (and well done to them I say!).

 

Lauren is coming to the end of her first year at uni. I started uni back in 2001 but I recognised an awful lot on this list of things she has learnt in year 1 - it seems things haven't changed much in 14 years!

 

The third instalment in Annie's Icelandic adventure sees her do the famous Golden Circle tour.

 

If I ever visit Belgium, I'll be using Kerri's list of things in a Belgian town in a sort of tick-box ‘I Spy book' way.

 

Holly's got some good ideas for bloggers all about creating original content.

 

Janet perfectly exemplified the rose-tinted gloss that the majority of us put on our blogs and social media, reminding us all that it's not like that all the time.

 

And Anna's post about mental health is spot on, talking is most definitely good!

 

Food and DIY Porn

Amy knitted a fabulous Doctor Who scarf for her other half (even if she did feel like throwing it out the window a few times)

 

Toni's fabric shelves look pretty darn cool (and deceptively simple to make).

 

Sarah's pulled pork pasta recipe looks delicious!

 

And just look at Sophie's crème egg rocky road! I’ve tried making those clichéd crème egg brownies but can never get them looking right so I reckon this would do nicely instead!

 

Interesting Info

I loved Garbage as a teenager so Standard Issue's nostalgia-filled Shirley Manson fest brought it all back.

 

Emma Cossey from The High Tea Cast (and the Freelance Lifestyle) wrote all about how to be a dick on Twitter (and {whispers} I think I may be guilty of one or two of them, oops).

 

And fair play to this lady from Turkey, finishing off her degree 64 years after she started!

Blogs I've followed this week...

Purse Full of Pennies

 

Chloe Likes to Talk

 

What's new with you?

A Photo Every Hour - Saturday 21st March

Photo an Hour for March (as chosen by myself last month) fell on Saturday 21st - a day that mostly consisted of repairs and housework!


9am - We didn't get back til late on Friday night so it was a lazy lie in on Saturday morning.

10am - Breakfast was on the go, this morning it was a breakfast bagel.

11am - Andrew had finally decided on which shower he wanted to buy so he popped out to Screwfix to buy it and then spread out all the bits on the dining room table.

12pm - We took a break from sorting out shower stuff to have a cuppa and watch the Neighbours 30th reunion programme. Neither me or Andrew have watched it for about 15 years but (like pretty much every teenager) we were huge fans in the late 1980s and 1990s.

1pm - I spy through our front window - lots of daffodils!

2pm - Despite moving into our new bedroom (with new wardrobes) just after Christmas I still haven't finished sorting out all my clothes and moving stuff around. This is just a small part of it, currently scattered all over the bed in our guest bedroom.

3pm - I made Andrew a cup of coffee and delivered it up to where he was working, only to hear a random selection of swear words coming from inside the shower. I went back downstairs and got some chocolate biscuits.

4pm - Afternoon snack for me (and I hope you all have the Gwen Stefani song in your heads now)

5pm - Andrew had finished installing the shower and climbed up into the loft to check on the water pipes (they were okay). The next job is to sort out the tiles and make it all look pretty again.

6pm - Still sorting out clothes (although there had been rather a lot of tea breaks in between). That bottom rail was mostly tops, blouses and vests and worryingly I counted 79 things on it.

7pm - Time to start dinner, Cottage Pie tonight.

8pm - Cottage Pie was cooked, it could have had a little bit longer in the oven to brown but we were both pretty hungry so it was a case of "that'll do".

9pm - We got started watching Houdini, a programme that's been sat on our hard drive since last September.

10pm - Hot chocolate before bedtime using blocks of chocolate as fancy stirrers.

11pm - And just before bed, currently reading...

Lots of people took part again this month (a big thank you to everyone who took part, liked or commented on anything to do with it); Jane's popped the round-up list on her blog and chosen the date for April - Sunday 19th! See you then :-)
 

 

Also, check out what I was up to in...

March 2014

This Weekend at the Duckpond

We have mostly been...

Spying - a glimpse of the solar eclipse on Friday morning. In Bath it was about 82% coverage and I nicked Andrew's welding helmet to take into work so I could view it safely. To begin with it was really cloudy but about 9.15am the clouds started to part and we everyone in my office had quite a good view.

 

 

 

 

Laughing - at comedians Romesh Ranganathan and Suzi Ruffell at a gig at Colston Hall in Bristol on Friday night. We'd seen Romesh briefly before (when he had a bit part in Seann Walsh's Edinburgh show back in 2013 - the one I even got a pic of) but not Suzi (although I had heard of her) - they were both good!

 

 

 

 

Participating - in this month's Photo an Hour challenge. Round up to follow tomorrow J

 

 

 

Repairing - the shower in our en-suite bathroom. The mixer tap went wrong about 18 months ago and then Andrew discovered the base was leaking so he started taking it all apart last weekend. This weekend he splashed out on a new shower and got started installing it. At one point there was rather a lot of expletives coming from our bedroom but by the end of the day it did all seem to work properly.

 

 

 

 

Sorting - lots of clothes from my wardrobe. An ongoing task really.

 

 

 

 

Watching - Houdini, a programme that was screened last September and we've only now got round to watching it. It was actually really good, I mean I know it's not all fact and a lot of the story was embellished but still, great music and very good performances.

 

 

 

What did you get up to at the weekend?

An A-Z of Me - T

Theatre - I love theatre. The plays, the musicals, the atmosphere and especially the buildings themselves, complete with all the old history and architecture you can shake a stick at. The earliest shows I remember seeing are The Important of Being Earnest and A Midsummer Night's Dream back in the late 1980s. When I was young I used to keep all my old ticket stubs as well plus a notebook detailing what I'd seen, when and where but now I have it all on a spreadsheet. If you include all the theatre shows, musicals, comedians and gigs I've been to, the total comes to 359 theatre visits (although with gigs, if you included everyone I’d seen at Glastonbury, it would be much higher). I'm sure there's a few I saw when I was really young that I can't remember as well. Last year we went to the theatre 41 times and it's been roughly the same amount for the last few years but almost of half of that comes from stuff we see at the Edinburgh Fringe in August. One more thing (that probably makes me seem really sad); because I was keeping track what dates I'd seen shows on, when I was at university I thought it might be interesting to see what days of the year I'd been to the theatre. So using my spreadsheet I can work out things like the months we go to the theatre most often (Jan, Feb, Aug and Oct) and the day of the year that's most popular for me to see a show (Feb 7th - 5 times). It's become a little pet project to try and see a show on as many different days of the year as possible. At the moment I've done 185 out of 365 days - about 50%.

 

 

Travel - One of my favourite activities is the journey to or from a destination, I love staring out of windows watching the world go by and it's fascinating how much you notice when you're not concentrating on anything else. I don't own a passport (although I do have an expired one), instead me and Andrew spend our time exploring what's in our own country. There's so much to see in Britain and Ireland (which (providing you're not flying there) you don't need a passport for) and I always find it really sad when people say they've seen so much of the rest of the world but never really seen any of their own country - I just feel as if they're missing out on so many wonderful things!

 

 

Tim Minchin - I think he's one incredibly talented guy, an expert wordsmith and if you've ever seen him perform live, the speed at which he plays the piano (and also sings, acts and chats to audience at the same time) is just incredible. Matilda the Musical has such a fabulous soundtrack and I do think he talks a lot of common sense, both in his songs and in real life.

 

 

Tap Dancing – My grandmother used to tap dance when she was a girl back in the 1920s and 1930s and it's something I always fancied doing when I was young. There wasn't really any classes nearby though so I never gave it a go. Somewhere in all my grandmother's paperwork she had a programme from a dance school concert that took place in 1930; she was second on the bill doing a short tap dance and would have been only 4 years old at the time. Not sure tap dancing is something my ankle could really stick now though!

 

What 'T' things sum you up?

For the rest of the alphabet click here!

Learning to Walk Again

Six months and two days ago, I fell down our front step and spectacularly broke my ankle - what's known as a Trimalleolar Fracture, made up of a fractured tibia, a fractured fibula and a dislocated ankle. Six months ago today, I had three 45mm screws and a long plate fitted into my ankle.

 

 

 

So half a year on and what have I learned? (other than to pay a bit more attention to where I'm walking)

 
 

Breaking a bone and being in hospital

 

• It wasn't agonisingly painful, the adrenaline and shock kept any real pain at bay for a good half a day. I had two paracetamol 10 minutes after I'd done it and then nothing else for about 3 hours until I was given gas and air while they were manipulating it.
• Which leads on to...gas and air - ruddy good stuff, incredibly surreal but blimmin' good.
• Hospital food is not that bad, there's far more choice than you think and it's actually pretty tasty. 
• But the meal sizes are small. Although you won't feel like eating much anyway.
• On an orthopaedic trauma ward, if you're under the age of 60, you're a statistical anomaly.
• Using a portable toilet, on a ward, behind a curtain is one of the most unglamorous things you can ever do. And that's after having had two IVF treatments and 19 different people look up my bits.
• Every medical person who reads your notes will say "wow, you did a good job of it" (and you'll still be being told that months later)
• Revisiting the scene of the crime will probably make you burst into tears.
• Don't break anything whilst you're in the middle of IVF treatment, especially not the day before your embryo transfer. That'll result in frantic phone calls to the fertility clinic (to make sure they hadn't defrosted anything yet) and a long-winded explanation to every doctor and nurse as to why you're already on so much medication.

 

 

Being in plaster

• You'll worry constantly that it's not healing properly.
• Sometimes the cast will feel tight and sometimes it'll feel loose - and you'll worry that each one isn't normal.
• A helpful toe massage attendant is useful, your skin will become sore (as you're not walking on it to rough away the dead skin). Any sort of Salvon, Germolene or other antiseptic cream is good.
• Don't cut down on the pain relief too soon, ease off slowly, dropping one tablet at a time.
• Disabled toilets are your friend. Buy a RADAR key (shopmobility places often sell them) and make full use of the arm rests and supports.
• Your bum will soon become numb. Buy one of these and be amazed at the pleasure it brings.
• Knitting, cross stitch and crochet are all good hobbies to take up. I learned to knit and made a scarf, crutch decorations and Christmas stockings.
• You'll have to put up with living off someone else's cooking and menus. I had 6 weeks of sausages and mash and Fray Bentos pies.
• Stairs are dangerous things. If possible, don't go up or down them without someone else being around.
• Your hands will become calloused from using the crutches. It's not even worth bothering to use hand cream until you're off them. On the plus side, using crutches is an excellent way of minimising the bingo wings.
• The house will become a mess. But that's okay. There's more important things to concentrate on.
• Get yourself a wheelchair (the Red Cross hire them). Go out as much as normal (even if you have to ring places in advance to organise disabled access). Don't give up having a life.

 

• The only handbag you'll be able to use is one that goes across your body.
• Long kneehigh socks are your friend, combine with dresses or long skirts and you don't need to worry about chopping off one leg from a pair of tights or jeans.
• Get a friendly knitter to make a large sock. Or teach yourself and make it your first knitted project. Put over your cold tootsies whenever you're outside.
• Showers are the enemy. You can spend £20 and get yourself a plastic leg cover or you can make do with a 'bit of a wash' for 6 weeks. You won't be doing much to get dirty anyway.
• Learn to use dry shampoo.
• Getting in and out of a car is a complex procedure requiring space to open the door fully and your crutches to hand. Other drivers won't appreciate why you're taking so long to get out. But they will all feel guilty when they see you shut the door and hop away on your two extra legs!

 

 

The first few weeks out of plaster

 

Left to right - 30th October (the day the cast was taken off), 8th November and 19th December.

 

• Your foot will be manky.
• The amount of dead skin you'll shed is atrocious. And you'll still be shedding it a month later.
• Putting it in water will be very nice but is also very strange.
• Moisturise, moisturise, moisturise.
• Your foot and ankle will be huge. But your leg will be withered. Both will be completely inflexible.
• You'll probably wear a boot brace for a few weeks before going back to normal shoes.

 

• But normal shoes won't fit and you'll end up wearing one size bigger on the bad foot.
• Shoeswise, anything that can be opened up and then laced or zipped is good. Anything fitted or pulled on is bad.
• Everything will be bruised. And you'll see every colour of the rainbow before it goes away.
• You'll won’t actually want to do anything with it, it'll feel too weird and all exposed.
• But wiggling everything is good. And the more you do, the better it'll get.
• But it's slow, deadly slow.

 

 

Physiotherapy

 

• Physiotherapists are evil creatures. But also spectacular magicians. I don't know what they do but it works.
• Make sure you go, if you're getting it after a fracture it'll be part of the services the NHS provides and even if you don't think you need it (you do), we should all be supporting the NHS.
• Do everything they tell you, several times over.
• They'll get you doing things before you think you're ready. Listen to them. They're the experts and they know what they're doing.
• Walking with one crutch is hard. HARD.
• If your foot or leg's still swollen you might be offered soft tissue massage. Take it. It's excellent. A 30 minute massage free of charge? Yes please.
• Some hospitals also offer an exercise class designed to improve your strength. Take that as well. It's free. Far cheaper than a gym subscription. 

 

 

Three months on

• Feeling up your scars is fine for you. Everyone else shudders at the thought of touching the screws and plate through the skin.
• The first time you walk without any crutches will seem like a huge milestone. Even if you're waddling like a penguin.
• It's tiring though. Any flat surface will become a chair and a place to rest.

 

 

Returning to work

• You'll have to explain exactly what you did and how you did it about a thousand times over.
• There'll be a small bit of you that's disappointed everything didn't just fall apart while you were gone.
• Stuff will have been half-inched from your desk (and no, no-one will know where it's gone)
• When they ask "was it painful" and you say no then tell them how many co-codamol you were taking (8 a day) everyone's mouths will fall open in amazement.

 

 

Six months on

This is the balancing-on-your-bad-leg-on-a-cushion-for-30-seconds physio move.  

 

• People will still be asking what you did and how you did it.
• You'll probably just be getting to the end of your NHS physiotherapy.
• Pulling on a pair of standard shoes or boots will feel like a real achievement and make you feel almost normal again.
• You might just have a small limp occasionally (which you can put on a bit more when you want some sympathy).
• But it's probably time to drop the "I broke my ankle, don't you know" excuses.
• Don't give up the physio exercises at home! 

 

And last but not least, I sincerely hope that none of you ever need this advice!

 

Here Is The News #37

Blogland Brilliance

El's rant about restaurants serving food on trays, slabs and other silly items is spot on.

How pretty does Samantha look in her beautiful bridesmaid's dress?

Anna created an excellent set of painted talons for Red Nose Day last week - she has far more patience than me!

Eleanor's ideal world would be such a lovely idea (especially the three day weekend).

Sophie's list of things life's too short to do (or not do) is brilliant. I love the one about not saving things for best - something I'm guilty of far too often.

If I ever go on holiday to Detroit, I'm using Rachael as a reference guide on what to do and where to go.

Sarah's post about making your own luck is all common sense, but also all things we often forget to do.

Anna's Chocolate Cookie Dough Truffles look delicious and very easy to make.

Elise's mum made her possibly the coolest knitted hat ever - it's Shaun the Sheep!

Anyone who references the fabulous show that is My Mad Fat Diary and manages to write a brilliantly helpful post gets a high five from me.

And Annie went to Iceland on holiday and took lots of pictures (here and here) - making me yearn to go back and visit!


Exciting Events

Photo an Hour this Saturday! Just take a pic on the hour every hour and either post them on Instagram and/or Twitter or save them up for a later blog post. The hashtag is a simple and easy #photoanhour and I'll be uploading mine to Instagram.


Interesting Info

Neighbours is 30 years old and Standard Issue shares one woman's journey through Ramsay Street.

The BBC looked at the dreams and drawings of Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

An excellent list of hints and tips for using PicMonkey.

And an egg mayo sandwich delayed a unicyclist's 18,000 mile charity world tour - only in Somerset!

 

What's new with you?

Mothering Sunday and Infertility

I try to ignore Mother's Day. I don't have that great a relationship with my own mother and it's the fourth one that's passed since we started trying to start our own family.  Both on Mother's Day and Father's Day, the best course of action is to avoid Faceache all day long. If you do log on, all you get is a constant stream of photos and status updates reminding you how defective you are. I know people don't mean it and all they're doing is celebrating their own happiness, it's just that when you're living with infertility, that's kind of how it seems.  

 

 

A lot of publicity seems to focus on the physical characteristics, the fact that you're not a "real mother" unless you've given carried a baby for 9 months and given birth. I don't believe it's that at all though, it's far more to do with the love, support and care you give to your children all their life.

 

Families come in all shapes and sizes and the word "mother" can mean a thousand different things: step mothers, mothers of adopted children, mothers who've used surrogates and hundreds of different types in-between. And that's without even mentioning the amount of mothers who've the heart-breaking agony of losing a child, a baby or a pregnancy. They may not have a hand to hold but they are still mothers.

 

And then there's us. The infertiles. The ones who'd dearly love to become a mother but haven't yet managed it. In 3 years and 3 months I've never seen that magical second line on a pregnancy test yet (with the help of some very talented embryologists) me and Andrew have managed to create 14 little embryos. One is still frozen (affectionately called "Findus"), eleven of them didn't survive past 5 days after conception and the other two have been transferred inside me only to stop growing and die sometime during that dreaded two week wait. Does the fact that we created life make me a mother? You certainly feel like one from the moment the clinic calls you to say how many fertilised right through to the result two weeks later. As far as the generic view from society is though, I haven't given birth therefore I couldn't possibly be a mother.  
 

 

We've looked into adoption and it might be something we do in the future. However it's not the same as having your own and it's definitely not a quick and easy process. The Catch 22 is the amount of criteria you have to meet before you'll even be accepted as potential adoptees. I know of one couple who spent a significant amount of money trying IVF, then after they'd come to terms with not having their own, started researching adoption only to be told they wouldn't be eligible - they didn't have enough savings as they'd spent them on fertility treatment.  The sticking point for me and Andrew is that adoption agencies usually insist on you having experience with children, which of course is quite hard to get if you don't have your own or have any relatives with children. Oh the irony of that. Because of course, each and every first time parent has already had the training course on "how to look after children" and naturally, all of them have a bulging bank account.

 
 

Another big issue in the UK is the fertility fairness funding can of worms. The NICE clinical guidelines recommend three cycles of treatment for women under 40. The reality is that only a handful of local authorities in England offer that, and even then there's usually a long list of criteria you have to meet. The problem comes when each local area decides on their own policy. We get one cycle free in our area. If I lived 5 miles to the west, we'd be offered two cycles free (plus any subsequent frozen cycles). If I lived 20 miles to the east, I'd be offered three. In order to get the NHS funded cycle in our local area some of the things you have to meet include being: over 23; under 40; under 30 on your BMI; never had any previous treatment; a non-smoker and trying for at least 2 years (or 1 if there's a known cause of infertility). I don't necessarily think the NHS should pay for lots of free cycles (I agree, there's often far more important things to spend the money on) but whatever the ruling is - it should be the same in every area. If we all get three - excellent. If we all get two or one - excellent. And if we all get nothing - well, that'd be pretty crappy but at least it would be fair. Interestingly the World Health Organisation class infertility as a disease yet it's probably the only "disease" which provokes such strong reactions in people with regard to NHS funding.  

 
 

I suppose as well, there's always going to be an argument for saying that it's some form of natural selection and if that's what nature intended then so be it. But if it really is a case of survival of the fittest, then there's an awful lot of people who've "survived" who should be a lot more appreciative of their success. I'm not saying everyone takes it for granted, there's a lot of people out there who are incredibly grateful and to them, fair play. Maybe it's just my Facebook news feed but unfortunately it seems there's a large amount who do take it for granted. Fertility is a privilege and one that a lot of us forget we have.

 

 

I don't want to sound bitter (although I'm aware I probably do) and this probably isn't really going anywhere so trying to put a bit more of a positive spin on it, here's a few of the most supportive and helpful resources I've found for infertility over the last few years:

 

• Nuts in May's 'Letter in Green Biro' - one infertile lady's response to Mariella Frostrup's "helpful" agony aunt advice to a reader who couldn't have children. This will make you both cry and punch the air in support.  

• The fertility privilege and why we shouldn't take it for granted.  

• The infertility thread on Money Saving Expert's forum, which has the catchy title of 'The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Conceive When It's Just Not Happening 12 m+' - the nicest most supportive group of ladies you’ll find on this planet.  

• The Fertility Friends forum - heaps of advice and tips for all stages of your journey. 

• Womb 4 Improvement blog - she's a very funny lady and has lots of advice about everything to do with infertility and treatment.  

• The Barren Blog - no longer updated (as she had a lovely happy ending back in 2010) but still worth a read.  

• TheOneHandMan - infertility and adoption from a man's perspective.  

• Wannabe Dad - one man's journey through ICSI.  

• Infertility Network UK - worth following them on Twitter and Facebook and their site has lots of factsheets but their forum's usually a bit dead.  

• The Fertility Podcast - exactly what it says on the tin, advice and interviews from women who've been there and got the t-shirt.  

• Chelenic’s YouTube channel - you'll have to scroll back a bit in time (she's now mum to twins) but she filmed everything, all the drugs, injections and emotions throughout the whole journey.  

• This IVF due date calculator - very detailed and filled with dates 

• Pinterest is great for morale - I have an IVF board on there with pictures and jokes.

 

And the best advice I can give you...
Any IVF or infertility story on the internet - don't read the comments. Just don't. Especially if it's the Daily Mail. There's a lot of "outraged and ill-informed of Tunbridge Wells" type people out there.
And they are not worth your time.