The Bane of Goosegrass! (by sarah)

I have just come after 3 hrs of removing goose3grass, willow herb, thistles, ground elder and stinging nettles from the headge along the drive with Al and Babara. They are still out there even though it is getting dark!

We have shifted about 10 barrow loads of the stuff and we dont have a small wheel barrow!

I hurt! I fell in the ditch but then I was supposed to be in the ditch anyway! My wellys made a bid for freedom everytime I tried to move my feet 🙁

Worryingly there appears to be lots of bell bind - Babara has another name for it but its a creeper thats a real menace - really pretty bell shaped flower and green heart shaped leaves. Once you've got it its murder to get rid of and has a nasty tendancy to choke all the plants you do want!

Anyway time for a well earned dinner now!

Steaming piles of….. (by sarah)

Due to having to ration the wormery we have to take most of our kitchen waste to the compost heap - well heap sounds small - we have an industrial type compost area!

There are three piles - this yrs, last yr and the one before (thats the one being used). We have to berry any kitchen wast as the deer and badgers (well mainly the badgers) dig it up - sorry now have a mental image of a deer with a spade in their mouth! Before we even got there you could see the steam rising from the now 2m cube pile of grass cuttings, the smell is gross and Al had to dig (makes gagging sounds). The steam was thick and white and looked more like smoke from the inner depths of the heap - shudders.

Why did I eat Meat? :'( (by sarah)

Stupid stupid me!!!

I kept eating meat a little bit here and there and nothing happened - I thought - Yay! The pregnancy has curied me I can eat meat again - then I proceeded to eat meat - not alot but some meat for three days in a row and wham bam thankyou mam - the stomache cramps start - just like the onsort of labour.

The got worse over a few days until the climaxed with the morning of my concert and chior reunion - probably the added stress of having to leave home three hours later than I was expecting (at least - due to Al deciding he was going to work an 11 hr day) and panicking that I wouldnt be able to sing - probably didnt help!

Due to throwing up and 'other' stuff I didnt even get an hours sleep before I got to the Church for the Chior reunion at 9:45 - sigh!

I had to tazke fall dosage of Lopramid just to survive - it was horrible and I am still suffering - I know from the past that I've got at least another week to go.

Becca - time for you to preach at me now!

P.S soz if this is to graphic laughs evilly

Dislexia, Dispraxia ADHD and the Autism Spectrum (by sarah)

Hmmm I'm sure there should be some y's in that lot - oh well!

I was bored in the doctors surgery and just couldnt sit still so I went to look at the littloe nhs books they have in the waiting room and there was a book on ADHD - I thought that might be interesting - it turns out that the above 'disorders' are now all lumped together. Now Dyslexia and Dyspraxia I didnt realise had diversified into two distinct groups. Anyway the case studies were depressing as mostly it seemed the childrens distress seemed to be mostly they were surrounded by 'stupid' adults be that perants or teacthers.

I was also a bit shocked that people took kids to the doctors becuase of the 'symptom' I didnt read the whole book but it did throw up some interesting things like the fact it is licky that if you have one then you will have some of the others. Anyway I got intreged as I have sort of ignored the whole thing and even get annoyed when mum tells people about it.

I got a 'diagnosis' of dyslexia and dyspraxia at the begininning of my A'levels after struggling for the whole of my school life, being accused of being thick until IQ tests were done, then of being lazy etc... etc... anyway thats all old hat as they say!

I've started reading up some stuff and was suprised to find that omega-3 is supposed to help alivieta symptoms - I need to go more indepth because this is jusst one paper I've come across - when I'll get all to link at some point though it'll be a pdf. Not having studied in this field I dont know if the journal is any good - but the main contributor is from IC 🙂

This paper basically says that the 'disorders' are actually all just part of a phospholipid disorder which has also been conected to scitzophrenia (sp), bi polar (though I thought they were still arguing about weather this exists!) and other psychiatric conditions. Also that the disorders are associated with digestional track problems - if you know me then that is v.v.v. interesting - now I can see that this may actually be becuase if you have a digestional track disorder you are more lickly to suffer deficiencies - though this hasnt been mentioned yet!

Also if it is a deficiency then it would explain why more 'poor' people suffer from them and the rate of apparent increase (I say apparent becuase I dont beleive its something we can even get close to properlly quantifying) ie we all have bad diets in modern society etc...

Anyway - I'm off to think - especially as with all these disorders (the originals not bi-polar) there are disproportionatly more males affected than females - ie I'm unusal having server dyslexia as a girl which I already knew!

Oh Deer! (by sarah)

Well we have a garden causulty of the lovely wildlife - the tops of all our peas appear to have been eaten by the deer - oh well. We may still be able to get a crop still - maybe 🙁

Still we have been doing extensive weeding of the veggi patch! I'm afriad we had to cull most of the fat hen and transplant the potatoes which were attacking the veg we actually planted! Still ther is some fat hen left which I'm thinking of freezing and using from frozen. This will only work for curries and the like - it being a spinache substitute!

Talking of spinache - it too is growing out of control - sigh - I wish I liked the stuff - still it goes nice in curries and the salads (as long as it has a salad dressing - dont get me wrong its nice spinache its just I dont like it or brussels for that matter - oh well its good for me and Al loves the stuff!).

Also we have loads of cherry tomartoe plants as Babara gave us her spare ones - all of which have survived - we've given some to mum and dad and some to Babaras friend Maureen. I've planted some out in grow bags out the front of the house in the 'gully' bit infront of the window. There is a grow bag either side of the morning glory the Babara is training up our drainpipe - Al keeps making hungry eyes at it and muttering about Ti cooking - Babara said she'd notice if he eats it whilst she's away!

Still I need to put some more tomatoes in pots out the front here and some in the veg patch - I have a feeling if they dont all get eaten by deer, rabbits, slugs and catapillars that we are definatly going to have surplus! Still theres always relish and chutney to be made 🙂

We also planted a second parsley plant out yesturday as a complimentary planbt to the curley parsley that was in the veg plot when we moved here! - As it was just a Tesco's one we bought to cook with which has continued to grow - I doubt it will survive but its worth a shot!