A Round Tuit

Well, I keep meaning to get around to writing more blog, but then I forget and time goes by until someone prods me. I’m sorry, I promise to try harder.

Solstice

Well, we had a good Winter Solstice celebration on the 21st December. We had the day off work, and had a sleep in (well, only after I had got up at 6 to feed the cats)

Our gifts to each other were no surprise this year. Douglas and I had been to York on a day trip with his work a few weeks previous, and made me choose me a beautiful paperweight as I collect them on a small scale. I was delighted with his idea and being able to choose something so lovely!

I got an electronic book reader. As many of you will know, hes an avid bookworm, and can chew his way through a normal sized paperback in a couple of hours with no difficulty at all. Due to this, our house is overflowing with books, and despite putting up a lot of new shelves this year, his consumption of reading matter is still a problem!

We did a lot of research into the various devices available and settled on Amazons Kindle. He now carries a small bookshelf worth of books round with him on a device that weighs much less than many of his books, and our bookshelves, although still groaning, are not any fuller. RESULT!! (the other great thing is that many of the “e” books he has purchased are cheaper than the paper versions!

New Year, New Bugs.

As a new years gift, Douglas contracted swine flu. It started off with him feeling generally unwell, having a chest infection then feeling sick. Overnight he rapidly got worse, and found it hard to breathe, so we called the Dangerous Dr Service (err I mean out of hours service) who would said they could not see him for a couple of hours, so they sent an ambulance to take him to hospital instead!!

I followed on in the car, knowing that he would almost certainly be kept in, and I would need transport to get home again.

We got to the hospital at about 11am, Douglas was given a cubicle and a trolley to lie on, and was told it was almost definitely swine flu. He was given a facemask to prevent droplet infection, and eventually a nebuliser to ease his breathing. As the day wore on, the A&E department got more and more busy, patients filling every cubicle, and more lined up in chairs and trolleys in the middle of the corridor. We were in the infectious end.. there were many other people in the same situation as poor Douglas.

At 4pm, I went home, abandoning Douglas to get some food for me and the moggies – all three of us were very hungry! I went back at about 6. He hadn’t been offered any food or water in that time. I sorted both out, left him with a suitcase of stuff and went home again.

At 4am the next morning, Douglas was transferred to an “infectious diseases” ward in a different hospital, where he stayed for the next couple of days. He was given the famous drug “Tamiflu” and was very impressed with its effectiveness!

My parents very kindly acted as taxi and brought him home, for a period of recovery before he was allowed out just in time to celebrate my dads birthday!

New Year, New Car!!

Douglas and I had been thinking about changing our car. We have a Vauxhall Astra at the moment, which is about 8 years old, and enjoys eating our money through petrol, insurance, tax and repairs.

After looking at Which? and other organisations reports about second hand cars, we decided to go for a Honda Jazz. The Jazz is a much smaller car, less CC, but with excellent layout and good storage.

We visited our local Honda outlet, and were soon signing on the dotted line for a lovely two year old Jazz!! We have paid our deposit, and on Saturday we will pay the rest, leave our old car as part exchange… and voilla! Drive away our “new” car!!

Watch this space for a photo.. I will put one up as soon as we get the car.