Trasha Lou's Rainbow Swap - Part II

One of the nice things about doing a bloggy swap is that not only do you get the pleasure of making something, and choosing other sundry bits for the person to whom you are sending. But you also receive a parcel of loveliness for yourself. And thus it was with Mrs Trasha's Rainbow Swap.

A parcel arrived for me on a very grey day. The rain was lashing down, the wind was howling, and my mood was not good. In fact I was a right old misery. Then the postman rang the bell and handed over a parcel. He needed a signature and I puzzled, trying to rack my brains and think what I might have ordered. Then I saw the return address label and had to suppress a little squeal of excitement. My parcel was from Ms Ginger Monkey herself, and if she sends a parcel it is a GOOD parcel.

Having signed the card and bid the postie cheery bye, I scuttled into the kitchen and set about the parcel, unpeeling the brown paper layers until I found a box:

Even the box was cool - a pukka Converse All Star box no less. No.1 is well impressed and wants that box.

Then I found all sorts of goodness inside:

A beautiful card in the brightest colours:

Some rainbow coloured stickers, some totally gorgeous pastels and some lollipops:

There was a box of very pretty candles:

Katy had made a really lovely pincushion:

And also included some pins with heads in colours of the rainbow:

There was a little box containing gorgeous CK threads:

And lastly a soft, bright knitted vision of rainbow loveliness:

Which I have told No.2 is not a hat for our Buddha's head ornament:

And is instead just perfect for my little brown teapot:

Didn't I do well? Thank you so much Katy - x. And thanks again to Mrs Trash for the fabulous swappage - x.

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Monthly Round Up (November 09)

Holy Moly - I know there are only 30 days in November, but did they have to go at double the speed of other days?!

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First things first, I'd like to thank Burby for this lovely award. I don't feel worthy of any kind of blogging 'recognition' at the moment, such is the cr@p quality of my blogging. To be honest, a part of me could quite happily walk away from it altogether; but I have a little voice (sshhhh, don't tell anyone I have the voices) which says I'll regret it if I do. So I'm hanging on in here. It's not that there's nothing going on in our lives, on the contrary, but I feel I cannot post a lot of it. I could make the blog private I guess, and then pour it all out to nobody at all, but that doesn't feel right either. So for the time being, this is how it is and I apologise to those who still read and remember how the blog used to be, and how involved I used to be.

As usual I digressed, all I wanted to say was thank you Burby - x - for the award, and for the emailed support too. You hang on in there.

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Some of the weather this month has been pretty severe. In my parts the conditions weren't as bad as in places like Cockermouth, but we had plenty of persisting down, and horrible gale force winds. I was enormously cheered one day when going to pick up No.1 after school. She walks back with a group of friends to one of their houses and I pick her up from there after first having collected No.2 from his primary school. This particular day I was decidedly damp, having stood in the driving rain, my showerproof coat proving no match for the downpour. As I pulled up to the house of No.1's friend, the four of them (they're still firm friends, these girls, which is lovely) started performing a routine they had swiftly devised. Like Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain, all four of them twirled their umbrellas, splashed their feet and danced around in perfect formation, being very silly indeed.

As I looked around I saw other motorists laughing and smiling and not for the first time I felt very pleased that my children have thus far chosen friends with spirit, humour and downright quirkiness. It's a silly thing to have enjoyed so much, but I did, and I want to remember it.

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I have to mention this month the presence of Match Attax in my life. These little cards (which are sold in packs of 6 cards for 50 pence) have become a huge draw for my son and his friends. They are 'trading' cards which feature all the players and managers of the Premier League, and the aim of each little boy (and many big boys too) is to own all the players in their particular team, and then in all the other teams too. There is gaming involved too - people play online (although I've no idea how that works). No.2 and his peers are bartering like seasoned market hagglers, and I am finding the cards all over the house. Under the coffee table. On the sofa. In the bathroom. Up the stairs. He has actually put the cards on his Christmas list. I am astonished at the pulling power of these cards, but then I'm not a small boy who is obsessed with football. Are any other bloggers having the same experience with their kids, or is it just me?

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Do any of you remember me mentioning in my July Round-Up that No.1 got to go on a Ceramics Workshop as part of the Gifted & Talented scheme at her school? They did say her resulting plate wouldn't be ready until the Autumn, and so it was. She brought it home after half term:-

Excuse the smudgy bit - that had her name on it.

I absolutely love this plate - especially that it has so much texture. Perhaps I am biased but I think it looks more 'grown up' than the work of a 12 year old girl. Her school asked us for photos of it, so I had a good excuse to take plenty. Here are some of the details:

It now has pride of place on one of the shelves in the sitting room

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Speaking of No.1, her school had their parent's evening this month. It's a fairly disorganised sort of arrangment, I must admit. Each student makes their own appointment with whichever teachers their parent(s) want to see on the given evening. As it was our appointments with only 6 of her teachers, were spread out over 2 hours, so there was plenty of hanging about at some points, and haring from one appointment to the next at others (although we got away earlier than expected as her ICT teacher wasn't available - he'd been taken to hospital that morning after an accident :-O )

Anyway, the teachers we saw were all pretty pleased with No.1 - she is apparently putting up her hand a lot more than she used to, participating in class discussion more, and seems altogether less shy. Good, I'm pleased. Her Art teacher said he would normally say 'You should think about doing this subject at GCSE' but was in this case saying 'DO this subject at GCSE'. He said she was very talented, and No.1 came out of that meeting with the hugest smile on her face. Once again I am reminded how lovely it is to hear others saying nice things about one's kids.

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I can't be a proud mum about one child and not the other this month. I am happy to report that No.2 won his club's Man of the Match trophy early on this month. He only got to keep it for a week, so we kept it on the kitchen top where he could admire it often (as could the rest of us):

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My addiction to the games at Facebook continue apace, with Mafia Wars definitely being my favourite. I was very pleased this month to have finished all the job tiers in New York. That will mean nothing to those who don't play, but my character (Rip van Wrinkle) worked very very hard to earn her own golden throne this month.

No, it's not a grand, ornate chair but a gold plated lavatory, and it gives me a nice little bonus regarding energy regeneration. Listen to me, I sound like I know what I'm talking about - and I do (which is astonishing). So, I have taken my new title of 'Master Boss' over to Cuba, where I will bribe, rob, steal and bump off a whole new set of fellow felons.

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I'll leave you with another of my pictures for Mrs Jelly's 'Photograph This!' group at Flickr. One of the challenges this month was 'Symmetry' and here's an image I added to the group pool for that:

It was achieved by taking a very ordinary shot of an autumn tree, and putting it through one of the many options at Picnik.com. The basic functions there are completely free and easy to use, so if you like being creative with images, get yourself over there and have a little play. And if anyone reading fancies having a go at these challenges, please come and join the group - we're a friendly bunch.

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The Mysterious Case of The Missing Organ

A few years ago I was experiencing pain on the right hand side of my body. I pretended it wasn't there - like you do - but eventually decided it might be sensible to see the doctor about it. Off I went, and had a chat with her (this was my lovely old doctor, who died not that long after this bizarre episode. I have been struggling to find a doctor with whom I felt I could 'connect' ever since, but - touch wood - think I may finally have found one). After examining me, she said she thought it could be gallstones causing the pain, so said I should go for an ultrasound scan.

Me being me, I googled the matter, and found out there are lots of 'alternative' type things you can do about gallstones, so set about doing those whilst waiting for the appointment for the scan. I drank copious quantities of apple juice and tried to swallow olive oil too - these two things are said to make any gallstones much softer and therefore easier to flush out of your system without the need for invasive surgery. By the time my appointment for the scan arrived, I was experiencing much less pain, but went along anyway.

I seem to remember that the car park was completely full and HWNLR had to park on a grass verge as we'd been driving round the car park looking for a space for so long that the appointment time was rapidly approaching. Anyway, we went in and sat in the waiting room. We hadn't been there for very long before I was called in. I hopped up on the couch and freezing cold slimy stuff was applied to my abdomen before the radiographer set to work over that troublesome right side.

She was concentrating hard on her little screen, searching for possible gallstones, and pressing that implement of hers quite hard into my skin. She went 'down' a bit and commented that my right kidney appeared to be somewhat enlarged. She frowned. I don't like it when these people frown - you know it's not good, don't you? She said she wanted to look at the left kidney too and began squirting more cold, slimy stuff over the other side of my abdomen. This was not what I'd come for and I began to feel a bit anxious.

She poked her probey thing (I bet you're so impressed with my knowledge of technical terms :-D ) into my left side and stared hard at her little screen. She poked harder and went upwards. She poked harder still and went downwards. She frowned a bit more. I asked her if it was ok, and she said no, it wasn't ok. It wasn't ok, because it wasn't there: There was no left kidney.

As you might imagine this came as a bit of a shock. One goes merrily through life imagining that one has the requisite arrangement of internal organs, and to find in middle age that that is not the case, is a tad surprising. Of course in the days when I was born, there weren't ultrasonic scans for pregnant women. They occasionally did X-rays to find out what was happening, but for obvious reasons that wasn't desirable. When I told mum about it she felt terribly guilty that she hadn't 'grown me' properly - the general medical opinion being that I must have been born with only one kidney.

By this stage in my life I had had two children (and had antenatal scans with both) and three laparoscopies - the fact that nobody medical had noticed that the left kidney was absent was astonishing. The doctors themselves seemed rather surprised. In the event, it's perhaps just as well I didn't know about it beforehand, as I'm told there's no way they'd have let me have my son in the local cottage hospital (which I did). I'd have had to go into Oxford and had the pregnancies overseen by specialists every step of the way. I should perhaps not think too hard about the amount of falling-down liquids which I consumed in my late teens, and what that might have done to my poor overworked kidney. Although one friend did proffer the theory that I might have had two kidneys up until then, but that one might have gone AWOL in protest at my student days drinking habits.

Once they had discovered I was less than fully furnished in the kidney department, I was sent to the large Renal Unit in Oxford and underwent numerous blood tests, urine tests, and general health checks. They said the sole kidney was fine but that from here on I would have to have annual checks to make sure it remained healthy ... and I have. Until recently there was no cause for concern; however at the end of October I was not a happy bunny. I began to feel unwell after my seasonal flu jab - generally not good, but with this odd nagging pain on the right side of my back. It got a bit worse but it was the weekend so I made an online appointment for the Monday. However by the middle of the Saturday afternoon it was horribly painful and I didn't know what to do with myself. I called the out of hours medical service who wanted to see me immediately.

My brother gave me a lift over there (it's 9 miles away which isn't terribly handy) and at least he was happy - they had free wifi in the waiting room, so whilst I whimpered, he watched tv on his iPhone. To cut a long story short, the kidney was inflamed and very painful. There was no infection though, so that was good. They think I had a bout of 'renal colic' possibly caused by a kidney stone. Whatever the cause, it bloody well hurt and I didn't like it. It made me realise that I have to be a bit careful about this precious kidney of mine.

Mind you, I have the perfect get-out 'excuse' if anyone ever asks me to donate a kidney. ;-)

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Trasha Lou's Rainbow Swap

A little while ago I had an email from Ms Trasha Lou asking if I would like to participate in her Rainbow Swap (Autumn 2009). I was very flattered, having been rather absent on the blogging front of late, and said 'yes - go on then'. It was quite nice to have a reason to sew again - I realised that I hadn't done any creative sewing for a long time. I've done some knitting, and I've done the 'mending' type of sewing, not to mention the 'sewing in name tapes' sort of sewing; but not any creative sewing. The theme appealed to me too - rainbow. Hmmmm, surely I could think of something to make for that?

You'd have thought so wouldn't you? But I couldn't think quite what to make. I concentrated instead on getting some bits and pieces to send along with whatever I made. I found some rainbow beads:

I got some felt pieces in colours of the rainbow:

I bought some grown up sweets (Green & Black's small bar selection box) and then bought some rainbow sweets too (Smarties, of course):

I also looked out some buttons and wrapped them in a FQ (but I forgot to take a picture of those). Hmmmm, definitely time to think of something to make. But what? I sat and sketched out a couple of rainbowy things that I might have made into an appliqué picture but didn't like them. I wondered about making a rainbow mini quilt, but quite frankly couldn't summon the enthusiasm for that. Then I had the notion (geddit? :-D) that instead of featuring a rainbow, I could make SEVEN things, one in each colour of the rainbow. And well, we are hurtling towards the 'C' thing aren't we? Thus I ended up with a red thing:

An orange thing:

A yellow thing:

A green thing:

A blue thing: (yes I know it's quite turquoise ... I did check with the swap boss that I wouldn't be breaking the rainbow code :-p)

An indigo thing:

And a violet thing:

Which, altogether, made a rainbow of things:

I used to make these in the craft stall days - people used them to hang tree presents on a Christmas Tree, or as a novel present bag, or just to hang up somewhere around the house at Crimble time.

The reason I can post about this before the recipient has got the parcel is because she doesn't know she's the person to whom I'm sending. And anyway, I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog.

I would like to say a big thank you to Trasha for inviting me to participate in her swappage and thus reacquainting me with my sewing machine and my very lovely, nay strokeable fabric stash. I'm going to make something else. Soon.

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