Fireworks....

Guy Fawkes Night was a week ago but that doesn’t seem to make any difference. You can buy fireworks all year round here.

So much for a quiet weekend. On Monday we are both going in to tackle the problem The Man is having with his visa application.  So we spent the morning sorting his paperwork, again, and then went in to my work to do a heap of photocopying and for me to sort out the work I had left for myself for Monday. Mostly filing, but I had a few letters to write and lab results to sort out. We’ll be up until well after midnight again tonight, trying to get an appointment. At least on the weekend we get to have a bit of a sleep in.

We read this article in the newspaper yesterday. No wonder he is having a problem with his visa.

Where we lived...

Another weekend has come around again.  Time is flowing past us at an alarming speed.

We are looking forward to a quiet weekend in. 

Our first year here we lived in a tiny one room studio. With so little space we hardly spent any weekends in. That’s not the case where we live now, and have lived since March 2011. Now we have a nice little one bedroom flat on the third floor, with a reasonable sized lounge dine leading into a little kitchen. In the studio our kitchen consisted of a tiny sink bench a microwave and a jug, with minute cupboarding. There was a full sized and fully functioning oven in the main kitchen of the house. That was a bonus as if I did any ‘smelly’ cooking it didn’t fill up the studio with cooking odours. The studio was in a converted terraced house and ours was one of seven within the building. Some of the rooms were very tiny. 

The laundry was in a lean to just outside the back door held a coin operated commercial sized washing machine and dryer. At about £4 a wash load and £3 a dryer load it wasn’t cheap. Our rent was the same as we pay here in our one bedroom unit, but included the power an internet connection. The supermarket was a good 20 minute walk away, a bit further away than the railway station. Not like here. Supermarket is a mere  5 minutes walk away.  

I really like that The man and I get to commute to and from on workdays. Sharing the journey with my best mate,, what more could I ask for.

We had a laugh tonight on the way home. Sitting on the floor of the train was a young couple. Late teenagers by the look of it, Slumped against each other tucked up under their jackets and sound asleep. We wondered how long they had been on the train, and had they been going backwards and forwards on the train all evening.

Noms and dogs...

That movie last night was an absolute waste of time as far as entertainment went. But the evening was not a total loss. In fact it ended up as a pretty yummy evening. Why?

Well on the way to the cinema we walk past a little convenience store, no longer are these little stores called dairy’s, and I’ve notice before that they have a kiwi flag and another large flag with a sliver fern on it. There is a small sign on the door stating that they sell New Zealand, Australian and South African products.

Hmmm, so I just had to go in and have a look. I was hopeful of finding some of my favourite Krispie biscuits. Well they weren’t there but the next best thing was. At almost $6a packet, sounds cheaper if you say £3, I had to buy two.

We despatched one of the packets pretty smartly when we got home. The other will be savoured a little more slowly, perhaps. They are very yummy and they were extremely fresh. Nomnomnom.

I know there I go talking about food again

Almost every day at Canary Wharf station there are collectors after your money for some charity or other. I will not donate to those who look as though they are paid collectors. These are usually quite young and dressed up in funny costumes.

Over the last few days war veterans and soldiers in uniform have been collecting for poppy day. I don’t mind donating to them, and the Help for Heroes charity. Today was no different at all and did I donate to them.

Yes I did. The charity raises money to help provide helping dogs for disabled people.

Then this evening after work The man and I went to watch a couple of the dogs going through their paces. We were very impressed with a labra-doodle that entertained the crowd and encouraged them to donate more The clever dog picked up coins off the floor, or out of our hands and put them in the collection bucket.

Takes about eighteen months to train one of them up, and that costs money.

Movie night failure...

Short blog tonight.

I'm writing this on the train on the way home from the movies.

And what did The Man and I go to see.

A French flick called Rust and Bone.

We saw the shorts for it a week ago and thought that look like it might be worth a watch.

And Was it.

No, not really.

What attracted us to it in the shorts was the fact that it looked like it had something to do with killer whales in a sea-world type environment, and there was a young woman it it who was involved in an accident in which she lost her legs. It looked like there might be a bit of a love story in there too.

It did look intriguing and despite the fact that it was in French with English subtitles we went. The other French subtitled film we saw a few months ago, called Untouchable was excellent and we thought this would be too. How wrong could we be?

Very wrong.

The storyline was weak, and a little unbelievable. Unless that is really how the French behave..

The acting was pretty mediocre. And there was very little of the orca in it apart from a brief few scenes at the beginning.

So marks out of ten.

Probably three. Well the cinema was warm and the company was good.

And as Forest Gump would say. That's all I have to say about that.

We are almost at our stop so I will stop and save this to post when we get home.

Girls are great...

The Man and I are very very proud grandparents.

 Our granddaughters have excelled themselves this year and been recognised at their respective schools. They have worked so incredibly hard and deserve all the credit.

Now for a cautionary tale.

At the place where I work we recently had a breast health awareness event. Us health professionls got out there and spread the word. As a follow-up to the event we offered one on one appointments to discuss any issues our clients had. 

Last week a client had such an appointment with me. She was concerned about a small lump she had found, especially so as her best friend had an aggressive for of breast cancer.

She did indeed have a small lump that felt very much like normal glandular tissue, I asked one of the docs to come and see her, which he did. He tried to reassure her that it was probably related to her cycle and suggested she wait and see how things were at different times in her cycle.

I asked her if she was happy with that and she said no, so asked the doc to refer her to a breast care specialist.

That doc came into my room today and said that the lump the client was concerned about was as we had expected normal glandular tissue. But, and it is a huge but, the specialist had examine her thoroughly and found another small lump that he biopsied. And guess what that second lump was cancerous. 

So girls, get familiar with how your boobs feel and if you are of an eligible age accept the invitation from your health care provider for that mammogram. It might just save yo

Please to rememebr the fifth of November....

A brief History lesson first.

We all know that November 5^th is Guy Fawkes Night, and on many bonfires across England effigies of Guy Fawkes are burned. But how many of you know that this is in recognition of his part in the failed 'Gunpowder Plot' of 1605. My Mum used to say that we were celebrating the death of Fawkes, who plotted to blow up the then king.

Though Fawkes didn't devise or lead the plot to assassinate James I, he became remains one of British history's greatest villains more than 400 years after his death.

It is Fawkes and not the charismatic ring-leader Robert Catesby who is remembered. Is it because it was Fawkes who was caught red-handed under the Houses of Parliament at midnight 4 November 1605. It was Fawkes who refused to speak under torture that included the rack and Fawkes who was publicly executed. Catesby, by contrast, was killed evading capture and was never tried.

Fawkes was sentenced to the traditional traitors' death - to be 'hanged, drawn and quartered'. A truly horrible death. But he foiled the executioners plans by jumping from the gallows and breaking his own neck. Mercifully avoiding being cut down while still alive, having his testicles cut off and his stomach opened and his guts spilled before his eyes. Nevertheless his body was hacked into quarters and his remains sent to "the four corners of the kingdom" as a warning to others.

Guy Fawkes instantly became a national bogeyman and the embodiment of Catholic extremism. It was a propaganda coup for the Protestant English and served as a pretext for further repression of Catholics that would not be completely lifted for another 200 years.

It’s quite ironic that the house that I lived in until I was about nine or ten was burned down by the local fire brigade, because fire was the subject of many of my childhood nightmares.

Us children eagerly looked forward to Guy Fawkes Night. One year my sister and her friends made a Guy out of old clothes. Topped off with a realistic papier-mâché mask and one of granddad's old caps he looked pretty good. 

 He was toted about on a trolley, as they called out 'Penny for the Guy'.

"Guy Guy Guy, penny for the Guy, throw him on a haystack and there let him fry" at least that's how I think it went. 

On the night Dad lit rockets and Catherine wheels, jumping jacks and bangers; I made patterns in the air with sparklers even though the hot stars burned my hands a little.

The highlight of the night was to throw the guy on the bonfire, in those old clothes and cap He looked just like my Granddad.

No wonder I had nightmares