::snooze::

I'm really tired this evening.
I was late to bed last night and getting up for work this morning was hard. I really didn't want to go. It was OK once I was there and I seem to be getting back into the swing of the work fairly easily. I took my headphones in so I could listen to the radio whilst working which helped to stop be feeling a bit bored.
Guides were giddy and unwilling to listen this evening. ::sigh:: I am too tired to do a good job and keep feeling like I'm just not achieving enough for them. I feel like there are so many things we have to get done that they're not getting to do what they want to do. And I am doing precisely 0 delegating - I really bad at that. ::sigh::
I think I should go to bed.
I'm probably too tired to be even thinking about it all.
Night night.

Clonk! My head hitting the floor.

Posts for the last 2 days read something like the following:
7/11/08
Argh! Hit Morrisons 15 minutes before they close for ingredients for my guides cooking competition entry. It's midnight! I'm still printing out cooking competition judging forms. I still haven't decanted 2 litres of meths into smaller bottles for use tomorrow. Personal kit? What personal kit? What? *I* need wellies too?! Some more argh!
8/11/08
Plan says leave house at 8.30am - actually leave house at 9.10am - can I hear an 'argh!'?
Rain! Nonono, rain go away! Rain goes away mostly.
Campsite is absolute sea of mud.
Cooking is largely a success.
I eat lots of strange food in the pursuit of the best meal. Including chocolate porridge with marshmallows.....strangely good, strangely sick-inducing.
Noone burns themselves/otherwise sets fire to themselves or things; noone chops their fingers off; noone drinks meths and blinds themselves. I call this a major achievement.
Run out of time for proper pioneering - I throw together a few a-frames for guides and brownies to play with. Fairly successful.
Trees are planted; but not by me. I spent the remaining time trying to match up pieces of trangia and re-pack the 4 crates it took me 3 days to pack in the first place.
Attend official tree-planting ceremony. Admire virulent green cakes.
Pack up more stuff. Return stuff borrowed. Undo knots and lashings on a-frames. It's dusk by this point so I'm untying by touch rather than sight. Good job I know my lashings and knots and haven't tied any grannys by mistake.
Make Dear Other load the car. Incidently The Dear Other was also 'made' to be one of the judges for the cooking competition. He handled it admirably - even the threats made by one guide of holding a grudge forever if her team didn't win. Apparently she was joking.....
Eat virulent green cake in hopes that the pure (green) sugar would keep me going til we got home. It was exceedingly sweet, and did I mention the green?
Get in car through tricky procedure of removing waterproof coat, pulling down waterproof trousers so I could sit in car, remove wellies so I can pull waterproofs off the rest of the way, put on trainers, sit in car, groan, take pill I should have taken mid-afternoon, groan.
By the time we got home I had stiffened up so much I could barely unfold myself out of the car.
Asleep in bed by 8.30pm. Deeply sad.

Today?
Today was Remembrance Sunday, so church parade with guides. Nearly disgraced myself by giggling at the Sweet Camden Lass' enthusiastic reading. It was the intonation on "Adulterers!" that did me in. Aparently it had a lot of exclamation marks. Was excused chaperoning the trip to High School Musical 3 in favour of going home and rewashing the 6 trangias, unpacking my crates, washing blahs and blahs and blahs. Blah blah - it was dull, I cannot face thinking about it again - yawn. I have *not* attacked the 6 pairs of waterproof trousers that need seriously demudifying: treat for tomorrow. Then in a relaxing, total change of pace I get to go back to work on Tuesday. Which is seriously going to eat into my knitting time. Shame.

Brain overload

It's raining again and I'm all of a confuddle as I try to count trangias and knives and wooden spoons and teatowels and a multitude of other things
And write last minute letters to parents saying "wellies! Dear God, send your daughter in wellies!"
I brought home 2 litres of meths today - it's amazing how noone bats an eye as you buy two litres of flammable liquid.....
The Dear Other is coming to this event and one of the organisers asked if he'd be able to help with the digging......I didn't laugh. He's perfectly capable of doing lots of digging; but it's the sort of thing that he'll get bored and frustrated with very quickly.....probably in a manner similar to a brownie. Hee. That'll be fun!
In the meantime, I still need to test 4 trangia burners - I don't want to be caught out. Plus, work out what to do with the group of Guides coming who have only told me this week that they're coming but have decided not to take part in the cooking competition.....erm - here's a field. Sit in it. I think they've defaulted themselves into helping brownies plant trees.....
Plus printing. I have to print and photocopy things and remember things and make sure my second group of Guides know what to cook.....eek.
Argh.
Urgle.
Then I'm watching High School Musical 3 on Sunday. It's called "how to bribe brownies and guides to come to church parade". And I don't feel good about it. (that may be the "start of something new" - ack!)

In which we upload a lot of photos......

Hello! And welcome to today's report on: Do I still have any eyebrows (or a place to live)?

The good news is, yes! To both questions! I have cooked a meal, I have not blown up my house trying to light methylated spirits, I have not burnt myself or anything and I have neither poisoned myself with meths or in general (well, insofar as I can tell so far.)

Here we have the story in full:
Here is my trangia set up - and because I'm a cheatery-mccheater-pants it's set up on my kitchen counter. Well, it's cold and dark outside.....and I didn't want my neighbours to call the police and report some strange figure setting fire to things at the back of my flats. Being arrested by the police wasn't high on my list of aims for the evening. In this picture you have the bonus views of my toaster and the pan I used for porridge this morning, in the sink, You're welcome!


Oooh looky! Here I have filled my fuel vessel with my meths and water mixture and lit it - with a looong match coz I'm a wuss. This vessel took nearly 100ml of meths plus 20ml of water. Diluting your meths at a ratio of 15-20% water to meths will prevent your pans and the burner holes on your fuel vessel getting all sooty. A saving on washing up and non-sooty fuel vessel holes makes for a more efficient burn - yay!
I opened my kitchen window once I had lit my trangia - it smelt a bit funny.
Oh look, here I forgot to take a picture of my water in the pan beneath these onions - well, that would be a dull picture; so, probably just as well.
Here are very finely chopped onions in some olive oil - coz I'm posh like that. I'm also a mean chopper, so I can chop my onions this small.....go me! My onions sat on top of my water the entire time I was waiting for my water to boil.....35 minutes!!!! Which is extreme - especially as the water never actually came to a rolling boil......tsk. After 35 minutes my onions were faintly warm and the oil was *just* beginning to sizzle a tiny bit.
Now, my water has finally come damn-near close to boiling so I got bored and put my pasta (fresh spinach pasta - did I mention the posh?) in and took it off the heat, and put it to one side with a lid on it. I figured that the heat in the water would be enough to soften and heat the pasta through and I was worried that if I didn't do something I'd be having pasta with raw onion for dinner. As soon as I removed the water pot and put the frying pan directly over the heat my onions started sizzling - see them sizzle? They're all in the middle because that's where the hot bit is.....
Well now, my onions are cooking so well that I've added the (fairly finely) chopped mushrooms and they're well on their way to getting nice and soft. In fact, any minute now I'm going to get carried away and add my salt and pepper and oregano. Always add your herbs before your liquids - then you get the nice smell of the herbs in your kitchen. Couldn't tell you if it makes it *taste* any better, but it doesn't make it taste any worse.......


Here we have further evidence of my mccheatery posh ways - instead of bog standard chopped tomatoes (which I do use frequently!) I've added some fancy Bertolli Pecorino cheese and garlic sauce - verrry fancy dinners here folks! It's bubbling away quite quickly now, so once it's heated through I'll put the pot of water and pasta back on the burner and put the frying pan back on top of that to keep it warm....you don't need a picture of that, do you?

This here, this is what you do while you wait for 35 minutes for your water to boil......you drink diet coke with lime (never buying *that* again - ick.) Sit next to an open box of chocolate chip cookies (huh, how did that come to be open.....?) And read your book - Elizabeth Moon in my case. And keep peeking to see if it's boiling yet. Which of course slows down the process because you've let the heat out from under the lid. Damn my impatience!


Gosh, but I'm bored of waiting now.....my pasta is looking pretty wibbly and steamy, even if it isn't boiling. A sample is taken and approved - in fact, it's a little mushy. Tut. So, off the heat it comes and the sauce is whipped back on to make sure it's nice and warm while the pasta is drained. Pasta is manouvered to plate and sauce applied - the end result is as follows:



Ta dah!
The finished product - I still have not died from eating it and it did not taste of meths. It tasted of pecorino cheese and garlic, and spinach pasta.
I cannot currently say I'm as good as a bronze DofE group since I didn't actually cook it outside - but I'm now one step ahead of the girls I'll be supervising at Saturday's cooking competition! Bonus!
And, no, noone ever called me a tidy cook - hence the stuff all over the counter-top.

The amount of meths lasted for an hour and 10 minutes. This is a *lot* longer than I was anticipating - however I *was* indoors in a fairly warm room. Quite frankly, I *dread* to think how long I would have waited for the water to heat up if I'd been outdoors.....

So, tune in tomorrow to see if I can be bothered to cook something else on the trangia - maybe I'll even take it outside! Maybe my neighbours will have a fit! Maybe I'll have to fight off London drunks desperate for my meths (unlikely) (I hope) You know you can't wait!

What do we want?!

For the record, I'm sure I said "I love you all but I *have* to go finish scrubbing my carpet!" not 'want' - there was definitely no wanting being experienced whatsoever - apart from wanting to *go home*...... at any rate, that was what I intended to say -- sometimes the words coming out of my mouth are, um, not quite what I wanted to say! :)
Have now slept muchly and, mostly, unpacked - I haven't quite decided what to do with my four cardboard dragons.....tricky that.
However, now I must go and pack for the wedding I'm going to tomorrow -which I'm sure will be lovely and tortuous at the same time. Tortuous because I'm sure I'm going to end up all weep, weep, cancer, why don't I get to do these nice, normal things like my friends, bit more weeping for good measure. SO, excellent, have got all that planned out nicely.
I'm also quietly rejoicing in the fact that three of my Guides went to the County Guide holiday in the Peak District whilst I was on Pack Holiday and have come back with good reports of behaviour etc. Compared to last year this is a *major* improvement and I am *Very* *Pleased*. It must be me - I wasn't there this year, so they behave - I was there last year and they were menaces about whom every adult complained, including me.
So, yes, clothing, for wearing and some makeup, and I have no hairpins and no tights despite thinking I did. Brilliant. lalalalalalalalala la

Blown over

*Good* *Lord*
I have survived - 4 days of brownie pack holiday, that is....
There has been endless whining, falling in and out of friends, rain, brownies who cannot sit at the dinner table for more than 5 minutes, sayings of 'Be Quiet!'.
I have also *scrubbed* a carpet, whilst seething and ignoring the fact I shouldn't be doing things like that with my right hand and arm (of which the hand is somewhat puffy today ::sigh::)
An extremely picky warden at the pack holiday house wanted every minuscule wisp of blue fabric off the floor and also apparently expected us to feed brownies only food that won't show up on the carpet tiles when it's dropped; which, inevitably it will be. So I did the job - trying to mostly to scrub with my left hand and thinking of all the retorts I'd like to make to her. Sweat dripping off me - hoorah! Very nice effect - whilst thinking I probably shouldn't have been doing it but on the other hand thinking "I'm not dead yet" and being extremely stubborn. Which is my natural state anyway. My hand will go down - I'll put my sleeve and gauntlet-thing on for a few days and knit as much as I can - I think the knitting motions help to move the lymph fluid out. And hey! I spent the weekend doing tons of things that they say I'm not supposed to do - washing up in (very) hot water, dragging tables and chairs around, hefting shopping around. Life goes on - but life's too damn short for fussing - I want a sign that says "I Aten't Dead" - I think that's funny - I have a strange sense of humour. A fact that will probably be borne out by those who put up with me for the last 5 days. That, and the fact that I'm not a whole heap of fun when I've just woken up...... ;)
Oh, and apparently I'm officially Better Company Than Cleaning Toilets. Just so those of you who haven't met me in person get a real sense of what I'm like. I hope this is filling you with enthusiasm for meeting me ;) [BTW - I will be laughing at this for evermore!]
There were other funny things - but I am too tired to remember them; which is a drag - I mean, if I can't remember something for more than 24 hours, what the hell am I? A goldfish?!
I can, however, remember GFI Snogging -but am totally unable to explain that to anyone who wasn't there at the time.....
I had some lovely times - I've laughed myself silly most evenings and am so grateful for that - it's been lovely to get to know a few people a little bit better. I'm a slow friend-maker but I think the friendships are better that way.
And friendships are what Guiding is all about (well, apart from all the other things Guiding is about anyway)
::raising glass [of water]::

Grumpety grump

Hmm - grumpy old me this evening.
My birthday blood test looked like this:
Mother of all bruises - yes?
In good news, the bone strengthening tablets have been approved, so no more Pamidronate drips and therefore only a bloodtest every 3 weeks - which up until now have been mostly uneventful. This was a deep vein and despite me pressing down on it for *ages* it still made this mess. I looked very dodgy when I forgot about it and rolled up my sleeve when out for dinner on my birthday evening!


In other grumps - I'm annoyed that I'm such a noble, rule-abiding and forgetful person. If I weren't then I wouldn't have arranged to both go out for lunch with a friend *and* take brownies bowling after church parade at the same time tomorrow afternoon. And therefore wouldn't be texting my friend to ask if we can do tea instead, persuading the Dear Other that he wants to come to a bowling alley for lunch since otherwise there will only be two adults for bowling and refilling and printing permission forms since the original ones were for going to the cinema and there are now a different collection time and place and I couldn't bring myself to not have the t's crossed and the i's dotted. I know things will most probably be fine and I will be fussing over nothing - but if something required someone going to the hospital in a hurry (bowling ball to the head?!) and the forms were wrong we'd be in a bit of a hole.
So now I have to be nice to parents and ask them to refill forms.
And I'm annoyed that if I'd *remembered* this was going on before last night then I would have checked the cinema listings and I wouldn't be trying to reschedule lunch etc etc.

And Jane - if you're reading this, *this is not your responsibility* - we all knew you were going to be away and should have sorted it out for ourselves! We're big girls (and supposedly qualified!).

So, I'll be watching bowling tomorrow since I don't think bowling with a lymphoedemic arm and hand is a sensible option....instead of meeting Sarah's new fellow and having Sunday lunch. Must tell her that now!

In other news, my recycled Sari silk yarn has finally arrived (although mine looks bluer in colour, which disappoints me.....). Some of it has been washed and is drying and some more needs to be done. I've read that that makes it softer for knitting with - plus it's got little bits of straw and the like in it and I'm hoping that washing will have removed some of that. My bathroom laundry airer is festooned with lovely yarn :) (this may make having a bath in the morning something of a challenge.....)

Lucky old me

Blogger is pleased to announce to me this morning that I can now blog in Persian.....I think they've endowed me with some magical language learning since I do not know any Persian, or Hebrew, or whatever the 3rd option I've forgotten is......

So, sadly, this blog will not be brought to you in Persian, or by the letter P or by the number 4, you'll have to read it in boring old anglais (ha! caught you out there with a bit of French!!! Haha!)

I got given this little coveted item yesterday - presented by the Mayor of Camden, no less. Shall I make you guess what it is?? Perhaps I will - but I'll post the answer tonight so you've not got long. And those of you who already know - keep stum til then please!!
Here comes the clue: the Dear Other always refers to my badge tab for Guides as my 'medals', and I go 'they're not medals' (gosh it's fun living with us!). This, however, I think, is. I've pretty much given it away now, haven't I?
Sad thing is, I'm not sure I'll ever get to have the fancier 10 year etc bars - that's not fair..... :( Still, this is nice too.

I blathered on about Peru too - shall I post for you to read? Perhaps I will....later on.

It's all Wicked!

Wow - the whole lack of NaBloPoMo meant that I could have my party yesterday and not have to blog about it on the same day whilst collapsing in a heap of tiredness......
It's great!!
It did go with a bang rather than a whimper, which is always gratifying. The mulled wine went down very nicely - no-one ate enough cake or mincepies: how can this be? I am at a loss to understand this issue.
We did have a few youngsters around which was lovely - at one point there were two little girls grovelling under my table - hunting a tiger, I was led to believe. I also got to listen to a very good rendition of 'Away in a manger' - with nearly all the right words. Apparently there is 'no crib for a star' in this version - and I was quite tickled at the idea of sleeping in a star..... :)

I finally tracked down mini candy-canes to go in my mini Christmas stockings; so I'm well pleased with that!

Tonight, I am going to the theatre too see 'Wicked'! Yay! I've been wanting to see this for ages - the only flaw in the plan are the 10 Guides who are going too......apparently there have been ructions and I'm just hoping we can all have a Nice Time this evening. I've got lots of back-up though (for which I'm super-nova-ly grateful!) - so hopefully all will Be Well.

Tomorrow - is homeopathic hospital day. I have High Hopes. I hope they won't be dashed.....

The illumination, the earthquake and the Andes

Well, I'm home again.
I feel like I've been gone a lifetime and come back as someone else.
Someone else with Peruvian alpaca yarn.

Peru was an experience. Travelling with a group of 16 young women was a fantastic experience. Fantastic humour and courage and tenacity. We had illness and tears and hilarious laughter. I had some moments when I wanted to leave and come home; when I didn't think I could manage the responsibility - but of course, I did - we did. We had Peruvian hospitals and doctors; and we had copious amounts of vomit.

I have comforted so many tearful people and exuded empathy and sympathy from every pore for nearly 3 weeks. Guess what? I'm pretty good at that. If you'd asked me what I thought were my strong points before I left I wouldn't have thought to include that. In fact, I think I might have thought that everyone could do that in the way I can - but I guess not. Perhaps that's why I've had so many problems in the world - I truly haven't realised that not everyone can feel/see what others are feeling. I can. But I also discovered that I was stronger than I realised - I thought I would be overwhelmed by others pain - and I was at times - but actually I could cope with it in the moment. I could comfort and reassure through pain and fear. I could see and read and guess fear. I used my knowledge to guess where others felt frightened and I was right. I have skills I never knew I had. And it may have been exhausting but it was good. I said many times that I didn't mind people crying and being fearful and sad - that I would just be there for them and that I wanted to try and make people feel better; or at least, not alone. I think I managed some of that. I think I'm finding where I need to be.

I'm not sure what that's going to translate into but it's a better feeling than I've had for a long time. What I think I felt to be a flawed aspect of my personality - caring what people thought and how they felt - being aware and frightened of sadness and fear and anger; well, I think I now realise that it's an asset. It's something that not everyone has to the same extent.

I just hope this isn't a flash in the pan. Yet another wild dream of a moment (Yes! I want to be a fighter pilot! - No, I'm kidding; I never wanted that. I'm too much the pacifist for that.)

I think I've also come home realising how much I want to be married and a mother. I've been fighting my mothering instinct for a long time and it's not necessary.
I'm quite frightened now I've written that - and I want to shout 'no! no, I don't! It's a lie!'. But that would be the lie. I run away from making decisions. I haven't seen enough of decision-making around me. I've watched a 10 year wait-and-see scenario and I've allowed that to teach me not to make choices. I don't know how I'm going to make some choices but I'm going to have to try.

Duly licenced (or will be)

Whew! Finally, some time back again. Preparing for my Holiday License has been *really* intensive. I'm knackered but the girls had a good weekend, everyone went home in one piece, nothing un-toward happened, none of them went under a tube train. The visit from my assesor on Saturday went fine; she signed off lots of things in my book and I was left with a few things for the rest of my team to sign off and my accounts to finish off; which is now done.
The girls went off exploring London in small groups on Saturday; I led a pretty good campfire on Saturday evening and then we did lots of the business-things on Sunday plus devising our own song for a party-piece whilst we're in Peru.
So, once my accounts have been verified I'll be qualified to take Senior Section girls away on Indoor Holidays :) There's some stuff that I would have liked to have done differently but that's often the way and I'm satisfied that I did a pretty good job. I *am* really relieved that there were no First Aid emergencies or other problems. I was more organised and together this weekend than I have been for a long time but it's left me feeling quite strange. I think I haven't quite worked out where I stand on the line between in charge and not in charge. I've spent a long time not being in charge of very much in my life, never mind, in other situations and then to move from that to being totally responsible for the planning and running and safety etc of 20 people for 2 days is quite a jump. And I didn't have a problem with doing it, I'm just finding it discombobulating to come back from it.
It's good that I've managed to do this - I don't feel as pleased as I'd like to; but I do *feel* a little more than I have done about anything (other than fear and sadness) for a long time. It's a real contrast, for example, to how I felt - or didn' t feel - last August when I was singing at the Proms.
So, there you go - that's where I've been for a while - waking up a bit.
And I feel so much better now that the light and sun is back. I guess (for today) I am coming back a bit. It's a bit scary how bad, how sad, how black I've felt this winter. I'm just a little bit scared of it getting that bad again.

Brownies and Guides

I like my brownies and guides - honest - they're just utterly exhausting.

Especially since two of the guides are totally at each other's throats. The put-down of the evening is saying that everything is 'ghetto'. Whatever the heck that means......

Brownies are scarily full of energy, guides are totally unable to listen. THE BICKERING!!!! It was just like my brother and I - we were superb bickerers - now I start to know how my parents felt. Sorry folks!

And hey, at least spending 2 1/2 hours doing brownies and guides takes my mind off everything else.

I've been thinking lots about the girl I met who's younger than I am and has breast cancer too - her surgery was on Monday and she was, needless to say, pretty scared and unhappy. I haven't heard from her - hopefully all her family and friends are carrying her along but I hope she's OK. I've been thinking about her all this week.

It's hard because it brings back all the memories of my surgery and that time and it's tough stuff to remember. In some ways I find it harder to remember than it was to go through it. Because then I knew it would end - the memories don't end and they still have the capacity to upset me and I end up with this mantra going round and round: "It's done, it's over, it's just a memory"

But it doesn't help.

They tell me I'm still grieving but I feel like it will never end. They tell me that it's normal but I still feel like a dysfunctional freak. Elaine got quite cross with me when I said that last week - in a caring way - saying that I was wrong to call myself that, that it was normal, that she expects me to find this hard. But underneath all that I still feel dysfunctional.

Ouch - my fingers hurt as I type coz my shitty nails are digging into the side of fingers as I type. I'll be so glad when the rest of them grow out. At least they didn't fall out which is what various people were predicting (haha!) Did I mention that my body is utterly contrary and does what it damn well pleases??

My oncologist called me a 'challenging woman' the last time I saw her and said it was a compliment. I think that's what's got me through all this, to be honest - sheer determination and stubbornness. I like my oncologist very much - she's a challenging woman too and if I'm anything like her then I ought to be OK in life. If I can only find that bit of me and believe in it hard enough.

Elaine says I will get there - I'm not sure I want to. I like being looked after. I like being fragile. I don't want to be the snow-queen, ice-maiden, person-who-does-it-all anymore.

No more.