Eyes (by alaric)

When I was quite young (5 or so?) I remember having conjunctivitis - rather vividly, since it involved my eyes being stuck shut in the mornings and having to be cleaned out by my mother before I could open them. And, alas, I have it again; this morning, my wife had to clean my eyes up before I could see...

So when I could see well enough, we went and got this 'eye ointment' stuff that she had to put in my eyes (holding me down as she did it!), and afterwards, my eyes felt very sensitive so I sat there for some time with them closed.

This brought to mind a long-running area of interest of mine, which is the design of computer interfaces that are usable to the blind. I only see usefully with one eye anyway, so if anything should happen to the other eye, my career in software development will rather depend on such software...

Boxing Day Madness (by sarah)

This morning Al couldnt open his eyes, not suprising as they where gummed last night. Jeans had conjuntavitis for the last few days and Al knew he was coming down with it but we where hoping - it appears that they both have a slight avertion to the soot that the smokeless coal makes 🙁

Anyway I spent a good half an hour cleaning his eyes out with salt water this morning - Poor babe has a phobia about things touching his eyes which dint help! Once he could see again we found the duty phramacist and headed out. In boots whilst he looked at things I pushed Jean in her pushchair - this was my fatal mistake - the cold and effort stuck and bam! My pelvis seized in a very painful way. Still Al got a special eye ointment and we lurked to the nearest coffee/place I could sit down. Fortunatly the place was warm enough to take coats etc... off - this helped muchly with the pain and stiffness though it did mean we missed the shops to buy certian supplies like - orange juice and parsnips 🙁

Back at home I had to attempt to put the ointment in Als eye! This was near impossible and had him physically fighting me at some points. It was worse when I did his bad eye than when I put the gunk in the good eye. The other problem was that I started doing my 'mothering' voice which had him cracking up with laughter. in the end I had to get him singing rude versions of christmas carols whist I did a fast in and squirt jobby!

Of course he then couldnt see so I wrapped him up warm on the setee and cats came and saw him!

Unfortunatly one of the kittens descided that they would climb the christmas tree that we've put on the window seal (the window sills in this house being like half a meter deep etc...) Becuase it had to fit in a short space we had to not use the bottom teir which ment we couldnt use the stand - so it was standing in a Farleys Follow on Milk tin, full of marbles - this had worked really well but the kittens weight was too much.

I saw it start to go and shouted NO! Ran too it and caught it but not before the marbles had tipped - of course poor Al could only hear what was going on and was calling 'Sarah Sarah are you all right?' I was trying to answer whilst wrestling a tress and having a coughing fit. Still I sorted it out but then my hands wouldnt work proberlly and my pelvis decided to kick in - so we still havent had our lunch - bar Jean who we fed before doing the eye treatment!

Still it all turned out ok in the end - Al is currently sleeping underrnieth two cats! Jean is sleeping too - I'm going to reheat left overs including Leopard Pie! as soon as Al wakes up. We have Christmas music playing and well there are 12 days of Christmas so....

The cats at least are getting inot the spirit!

And I had a pyro moment when I found our candy cains where a bit demented! Burn, burn, MELT - evil Genius laugh.

Feline Cannibalism (by alaric)

Spotted in supermarkets all over the UK:

The text reads "Whiskas Kitten In Jelly"...

The Curse again (by alaric)

Eargh.

I've been laid low with something flu-like the past two days, but that's not the problem at hand; it just adds a little extra horridness to it all.

Somebody wanted some information from Sarah before school time today, and since it was late last night when Sarah had the information, we decided to ring at eight in the morning to pass it on rather than eleven thirty at night, since they might already be sleeping.

So I set the alarm for eight, and had my phone to hand (with the number in). And went to sleep. I was woken by the alarm, turned it off, then found to my annoyance that the clock said eight twenty - I'd slept through twenty minutes of alarm, mainly thanks to only having gotten to sleep around one o'clock and being ill, so I poked Sarah awake, handed her the phone, and she left an answerphone message - at the time, I though this meant the whole family had probably already left and we were too late. Afterwards, we drifted back into our troubled sleeps.

I then naturally awoke at half past nine (since I work from home, my normal routine is to wake up at nine, to start work at ten).

So, imagine my surprise when I found I had a voicemail message from this person, rather annoyed that we'd woken them up by ringing at twenty past five that morning...

I still don't know how this happened. I distinctly remember turning the alarm off, and seeing it was twenty past eight before waking Sarah to make the phone call.

This suggests three possibilities:

1. My alarm clock played a mean and nasty trick on me. It shifted three hours ahead in the night, then shifted three hours back before I woke again. (Yes, the alarm was set for eight, not five; I'd not slipped up in setting the alarm or anything simple like that, and the alarm clock's time does currently match what my watch, wall clock, and NTP-synched computers say). Which is actually possible, since it does synchronise to the MSF time signal; perhaps it received a corrupted time signal, but then reset itself when it received a non-corrupted one later.
2. I dreampt of the alarm clock going off and me stopping it, and woke naturally from this, then saw the ...:20 on the clock face and thought it was 8:20 because that's what I was expecting (and 8 and 5 look similar on a seven-segment display)
3. The Painswick telephone exchange is using Time loop logic as part of an experimental new generation of infinite-bandwidth broadband connection.

I suspect (1) is the most likely. But either way, it's incredibly depressing.

Plague! (by sarah)

We have been down with the 'plague' ie bad colds for the last two weeks - its not been good - Jean the first to be ill is just about over it, I the second to catch it am still feeling really grotty though better than the three days I spent in bed, now Al is sickening and has had to drink large quantities of cough mixture 🙁 He gets sinus stuff bad so we have all the joys of post nasal drips with him - not good.

Just thought I'd best blog as I havent for ages!

I've also currently got an acting up pelvis - sigh - its clicking painfully agian. Its my own fault I slipped over last week at the capfire - but like away from the fire and inbetween groups - it was a bit embarrasssing as I couldnt get up and the elderly camp warden and Al dressed as a Yeti found me and helped me up. I was carrying my coffee at the time, so that was split on me and was ouchy hot as the mark on my finger testified the next day!

I also fell out of the van yesturday as I thought our back tire was on fire (long story) this added to cold and damp (I dont care that Al says its warm!) has been a bit of a pain 🙁

Anyway enough of the maoning and self pity - hopefully I'll be back on form with the posts soon!