Australia and Wales Collide (by sarah)

At the weekend I meet a cousin I had never before met and her husband who are on a visit from Australia! We met up with Shelia in Wales with my mum and dad.

It was interesting as I have dim memories of my aunts visiting when I was little - making mud pies and pretending to be a witch on a broom stick are about the only things I remember.

The only other one of the 9(?) cousins on my dads side that I've met was again when I was very small and I think pre-David so I had to be under 4 yrs old - he was called Glen and slept in the awning of our caravan on a family holiday in Wales and thats about it.

So this was all quiet exciting!

She makes websites which I'll link too in the side bar when I get a chance.

I also found out that the strange knecklace I have with a picture made of bits and pieces is one of my aunts bark pictures - which is nice though I think its probably still supposed to be in Essex and got packed up accidently from my bedroom when I moved in with Al.

We were hoping to go and see some of our Welsh relatives whilst in Wales - again dads side but unfortunatly the car decided to spring a quiet server leak which wasn't fun - reckon mine and dads bad luck fields are sinked and therefore amplyfy the bad luck - oh well never mind I can go and annoy those relatives at some other point!

A new arrival (by alaric)

The lightbulb in the bathroom died.

So we placed an order with Lightbulbs Direct, and a few days later, a parcel arrived:

We took the new bulb - still safe inside its egg - and set it up in a little hatchery until it was ready to emerge:

Before long, the egg came open, and our new bulb peeked out:

After all that effort, it was hungry, so quickly tucked into the pile of batteries we'd left out for it:

After a while it had built up its strength and started trying to find a nest:

So we took it to the bathroom and set it free:

It quickly settled in the nest in the ceiling:

And began to roost:

Tile engraving (by sarah)

I thought this might interest people - when we were on the Centenary Camp I was incharge of the tile 'engraving' which I had to work out as I went having only been left the equipment and no instructions!

Anyway the results are on Salaric including the Polyp tile I made for Alaric!

Screaming Tantrum (by sarah)

Yes Jean threw one yesturday and she hit me - evidently she didn't want museli for breakfast!

It was a real tantrum as well - I was shocked to say the least but turned out she was really tired and went fast asleep when we put her in the cot reguardless of the fact she hadn't eaten anything - she eat the musili quiet happily for lunch.

She is acting in every way like a two year old and has been for a couple of months - sigh.

Of Hernias and Blood Clots (by sarah)

I came back from seeing the surgeon on Friday not very happy - she proded my stomache lots but as always the damn lump chose to hide but thats what scans are for.

But then came the problem - what did I think my general health was like? Good/poor - I answered and she rapidly flicked through her notes - nothing there.

I gave a brief summary which all seemed ok until Al says, 'Oh and there was the heart trouble during the pregnancy...' She grilled us with questions looking more and more agitated as all we could say was we don't know and yes my notes are still missing from Essex and yes I was on blood thinners and no things didnt show up on the scan but no we dont know what it was all about.

So this leads her to pronounce that she can not operate on me until this is sorted out - even if there was a suspicion of clots during the pregnancy she wouldn't want to operate without a blood expert being involved and she would not be happy doing it unless things are life threatening.

So she's chasing things and if she doesnt hear back within eight weeks I have to go for blood tests and to see a heamotologist and stuff as if I am a 'clotty' person I'll have to go on blood thinners and stiff before any operations and I'll be risking death everytime I have a procedure done.

As you can imagine this didn't exactly make me or Alaric very happy especially as she then went on to say that it will affect future pregnancies and stuff and that someone should have spoken to us about this as things will have to be heavily managed and stuff.

It's all a big crashing wave again, I thought oh this is a simple procedure with little risk these days and I should recover fine - but no things never work like that for us do they?

On the plus side though it might just be a beniegn lump thing which obviously they would normally remove but wont if the clot stuff makes it too risky. Also it means that I can have treatment (blood thinners I assume) to help prevent any early strokes or heart attacks so maybe its a good thing really.

The issue with operations as far as I recall what she was saying is that clots will tend to form in the legs and then go zooming off around the body lodging in the lungs and and stuff so if I do have an opp it will be sexy stockings like during the pregnancy all over again!