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Monday 28th February
Wednesday 9th FebruaryOver-stretched It seems that I did too much on Friday. Not that I did a lot, just a little more than normal. Since Friday evening, I've had varying degrees of vertigo, plus more pain than usual. Even typing is proving difficult, so this is it for today... Posted 2.40pm GMT
Friday 25th February Book, ATC's & photos... Finished reading "Jennifer Government". Impressed. Apparently there's to be a movie made of it - should be good. At the moment I haven't decided what to read next (I have a few books in my 'to read' pile) but I am continuing to browse through my Celtic books in an attempt to find inspiration for the six  Celtic
ATC's that I've promised to do as part of a swap. I have managed one so
far based on a black & white drawing of the Green Man. Some may
call it a cheat, but the finished ATC is very, very different from the
original - it's in colour for a start and I've changed much of the
drawing to suit my needs. Different enough, in my view, to be called an
original. See the result on the right...I'm also trying to make 3 ATC's for a 'Me' swap for the same group. The concept is great - it's a way of swapping art about ourselves so that we get to know each other better. After scratching my head for ideas I decided to go for making digital ATC's using various clipart, drawings and photos. So far, 2 are virtually finished and I embarked on getting some photos scanned in for number 3. I needed a photo of my house but could I find one? I know that I have one somewhere but you should see the stacks of photo wallets and boxes of prints that I have - hardly any of them in order, even fewer marked with dates. Obviously a project that I need to start on soon is to sort out photos!!!! It's not going to get started today though. After doing some housework, going down to Matalan to buy some new pillows and looking through a couple of boxes of photos, I'm shattered. Time for a rest and then my Friday afternoon play on Star Wars Galaxies... Posted 2.45pm GMT Thursday 24th February CPB Stands for Committee to Protect Bloggers. I found this site via The Woolamaloo Gazette and thought some of you might be interested. Their current campaign is to free two Iranians jailed for protesting in their blogs about other bloggers having been arrested (as far as I can tell). I'm only pleased that I live in a society where blogging can continue, for the most part, without harassment - also it appears that Iran has taken steps to ban various blogging sites in Iran, making it even harder for Iranians to blog at all. For another view of this story, see the BBC page that reports the Iranian arrests. Posted 10am GMT
Thursday 24th February Snowing!!! Woke up, at last, to find it was snowing and settling... so here are a few photos that I took just after 8am this morning...
Posted 8.50am GMT
Wednesday 23rd FebruaryPeace in the snow Photo of Peace stone, Fairy and Frog in the snow... taken this morning before it thawed completely! As you can guess, we never made it to the park - what snow we had, disappeared very quickly.  Posted 8pm GMT
Wednesday 23rd February Jennifer Government Well, it's snowing as I write this. Not huge flakes, but as we've already had some snow - well, about half an inch worth - overnight, it's promising. As my partner has a day off today (he needs to use up his leave before 1st April) we may venture out into the park with our sledge later - but only if we have lots and lots more snow!!! Not that I can actually sledge much but it's fun to watch and I might get a photo or two... The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed that I've added a couple of things to the side bar. Both are fairly obvious. As to Jennifer Government, my partner bought the book last year after we'd both been playing Nation States. Both of us, however, stopped playing for various reasons but yesterday I launched a new Nation State: Meers Brook. Its a fun game that doesn't take much time. As for the book, it's been on my to-read book pile for several months. It's a great read. Anyone who dislikes the way capitalism and/or consumerism dominates their lives and politics should read Jennifer Government. I love it. Posted 10.45am GMT
WeatherTuesday 22nd February
Just a few miles from here there is a lot of snow. Forecasts are grim. See this BBC page for more details. Here? At 4.40am there was a pristine covering of snow that was probably about half-inch thick. By 7am much of that had disappeared. What is left is gradually melting away in the weak morning sunlight. It's cold still, and there is a threat of more snow on the way. I live in hope... Posted 10.25am GMT Monday 21st February Brrrr.... As you can guess by the title, it's cold here today. We've had several snow showers but as yet none of it has settled although it could later. In which case I'll try to get a photo or two to post on here... Having struggled into town this morning I now have virtually all the food supplies I need to keep us going until next weekend. So now I'm hoping for that snow to settle as I can watch from indoors knowing that I don't have to go anywhere!!! The weekend was spent doing not a lot. My FM was pretty bad Friday; on Saturday I felt brighter but I had spells of vertigo so didn't stay long in town with my partner. Yesterday the vertigo had gone but my legs ached a lot - probably due to the cold - I find that weather affects my FM a fair bit. Anyway, what it did mean was that I didn't feel at all guilty for spending a lot of time watching the snooker on tv :> The semi-final match between Jimmy White and Ronnie O'Sullivan was disappointing - an easy win for Ronnie, rather than the tough match we expected. Still, Ronnie won the Master championship last night, so I was happy. I have managed to work out some rough designs for the Celtic ATC swap that I'm in, and played around on Paint Shop Pro for a while. Still not sure whether to use purely digital designs or whether to draw and paint - think that I'm siding with the latter as I quite fancy doing some actual painting for a change. I'll let you know later in the week what I end up doing! I also finished reading "The Kalahari Typing School for Men", the 4th in the No. 1 Ladies Detective series. I really have enjoyed the series (2 more to read yet). The characters are wonderfully portrayed, the setting (in Botswana) is a pleasant change from the normal American or British settings and the stories are gentle yet addictive. As for my own writing - that appears to be in deep freeze! I have done virtually none since the writing workshop in January, apart from in my personal journal and this blog. I keep meaning to do some but somehow nothing gets written. Blame it on those ATC's!!! Posted 12.50pm GMT
Thursday 17th February Contrasts Yesterday was a beautiful morning. Cold, admittedly, but white frost adorned the roofs, cars and anything else still in shadow, even down to a small spider's web draped from my almond tree to the fence. Unfortunately a cat broke the magical silk strands before I got to my camera so I can't show you what it looked like. But with blue sky and sunshine, the day was colourful and cheery. This morning, however, it is milder but at a cost. Rain, grey skies and dripping branches put me in a gloomy mood. Especially after I stood for several minutes at the bus stop outside of what used to be our local post office but what has now been converted to an, as yet uninhabited, rented flat. It used to be an easy task to post letters and parcels - just pop out for five minutes around the corner. But now it costs 80 pence for fares and the inconvenience of a return bus journey. Such is the price we pay for the Post Office's economy drive... Still, I had a pleasant surprise on my return as there was a parcel containing 3 ATC's and some extremely intriguing ephemera waiting for me on my door mat. From a newly-made friend, it was a lovely gift and cheered me enormously. Now, though, time for lunch, a nice hot cup of tea and then snooker... :) Posted 12.40pm GMT
Monday 14th February More ATC's Finished whilst watching snooker...
Posted 3.35pm GMT
Monday 14th February BoingBoing After reading an item in the The Woolamaloo Gazette I've added a link to my site for BoingBoing (under Sites That I Enjoy). The article that persuaded me to add the link concerned a guy called Steve, a journalist in the USA who was stopped and harrassed for taking photographs at a railway station. See BoingBoing for the story, or stop by at the Gazette. It's not the first story that I've read concerning the problems being faced by American citizens trying to go about their daily lives in the aftermath of 9/11 but who have come up against officials seemingly determined to prevent people from enjoying themselves. A worrying trend. On a brighter note, Valentine's Day started off well with an exchange of cards, gifts and kisses! Tonight we're planning on having a snug candlelit dinner for two in the comfort of our home. We used to go out to dine on Valentine's Day but got fed up with limited menus and not-so-brilliant meals, even at our favourite restaurants, as they catered for the mass lovers market. So we've bought prawn starters, duck for the main course and chocolate heart-shaped desserts. My partner has promised that he'll get home early, having failed to get the day off because his boss was away and thus not around to sign his leave request. As for this afternoon, I'll be snuggling down in my reclining chair for a front-row seat at the Masters Snooker tournament. If you don't hear much on the blog this week, you know why :> Posted 12.35pm GMT Monday 14th February Doncaster... We had a nice time at the railway model exhibition yesterday. Although it was bitterly cold outside we were able to keep warm indoors. It meant that I didn't get any pictures of the vintage bus that took us from the station to the exhibition or of the race course where the exhibition was held, but here are some of the photos I did take:
Apart from the trains and the other models, I found some interesting ephemera to use with my artist trading cards, as well as some coloured art pens. My partner bought several items as well, so all in all a good day out... Posted 11.50am GMT
Sunday 13th February Still coughing... ... but not quite as fed up!!! Especially after meeting a neighbour yesterday who claimed that his cold lasted nearly 2 months before it finally expired completely. Which probably means that I've another month to go but somehow, knowing that someone else had suffered for weeks too, it cheered me up!!! On Friday, I posted out my first ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) to 2 friends that I've made since starting out on my new hobby. It was very satisfying to think that I'd finally gotten (A) enough cards made that I thought were good enough to post out and (B) getting emails from them both to thank me and to say how pleased they were with the cards. Apart from the pleasure of being able to give something that I'd actually made. Unky appears to be having problems agin with his bandwidth, hence no mood appearing. I suppose you could say that I'm reasonably content... We're heading out in a bit to Doncaster, a town that's only about half-hour by train from Sheffield but a place that we rarely visit. Today, though, there's a big railway model exhibition at the Doncaster Racecourse and it's always fun to go - plus I'm hoping that I might be able to find some 'ephemera' for my ATC-making :> Posted 11.20am GMT
Fed up... Think most people would be. I'm still struggling with the cold that has plagued me now for nearly two weeks. Every morning I hope that it will have left me but nope - not yet anyway. After having had one really bad night where I hardly slept at all, I've taken to having a dose of Night Nurse before going to bed. For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about, see here - and have a chuckle at the spelling mistake in the first sentence under the picture! Great stuff. I sleep really well. Problem is that it takes me all morning to fully wake up so that I'm running on half a brain for much of the day. Tonight I'll do without my nurse and hope that I'm more awake tomorrow... On a brighter note, I had another nice surprise in the post yesterday - another contact made via the Postcardx site. This time from California. With some lovely little goodies enclosed. I'm still making ATC's - or mostly experimenting with different ways of making them. Some haven't worked very well and they've been unceremoniously dumped in the bin. Others have been reasonably successful, although I still don't have many completed cards that I'd feel happy enough to send out. But there are now enough to display on my site, so yesterday I revamped my pages and included a new one - Linda's Art. Not much on there yet but if you want to take a look, it's here. More about the RFID style spychips in the news, this time on the BBC site. Slightly confusing as it suggests that these chips can't be used to track people and their purchases. But it has some useful links that are worth checking out and that help to clarify the issues. Posted 10am GMT
Tuesday 8th February Well Done Ellen! I'm no sailor but I can still applaud and recognise the superb achievement made by Ellen MacArthur on beating the Around the World solo sail record last night. We watched her cross the line live on tv with a mix of relief that she made it and absolute incredulity at her abilities and willpower. How she managed to go without sleep and sustain the daily battles to survive, let alone win, I can't imagine. She truly deserves all the recognition she can get for her epic journey... Posted 10.14am GMT Monday 7th February Having been full of cold for the last few days, and still suffering, I've done very little. I have watched 2 films on dvd that we treated ourselves to after xmas but hadn't actually sat down to view. The first was the digitally improved version of Star Wars 4 (the first that was made); the second was "Spirited Away" - a delightful animated film made in Japan that received various awards. Wonderfully fantastic and uplifting. Just what I needed. I have managed to make some ATC's as well - digitally produced either using my original photos or by playing around with paint tubes and the like. Great fun. An unexpected but welcome surprise was an invite to join a new European ATC group. I took up the offer immediately and am finding it a very welcoming and friendly group to be in. This morning I received an unexpected surprise in the post - my first contact made via the Postcardx site that I mentioned on 24th January. From Australia, my new penpal included part of her local newspaper as well as a card and letter so an intriguing start to what I hope will become a long friendship. So all in all I'm extremely content, despite still having the occasional coughing session. And am hoping to continue with some ATC making later... Posted 12.05pm GMT
Thursday 3rd February Hooked! Ok I admit it. I'm hooked on ATC's (Artist Trading Cards). For those of you who may like to check out what ATC's are, visit CedarSeed's excellent pages. Now to show you what I've been doing this morning (both have digitally produced backgrounds using my own photos altered in Paint Shop Pro):
Posted 1.15pm GMT
Thursday 3rd FebruaryTesco Boycott Thanks to An Incurable Hippie for drawing my attention to Tesco's 'spychips'. All UK shoppers who use the store (and I often do) should take a look at Boycott Tesco. I certainly will do from now on... Posted 10.25am GMT
Thursday 3rd February Updated blog link My friend is currently moving her blog from Xanga so I've put her new site, 2Queens, on my link list and deleted her old one (Greetings from North Sheffield). I find her site really interesting as it's written in both Dutch and English - great fun trying to work out the meaning of certain Dutch words!!! Plus there are some lovely photos and occasional recipes to try. I'm still full of cold but my partner has returned to work this morning, though still coughing badly. At least he's had a rest and is feeling much better than he was. And of course he only has 2 days before he can rest again at the weekend... Hopefully I'll feel up to doing another ATC today. I have loads of ideas and have started a list of ones that I'd like to do or explore - bet I never get around to doing them all though :> Posted 9.30am GMT
Wednesday 2nd FebruaryBroken Dragon  My 5th ATC....
Watercolour, pen & ink, collage. Posted 10.40am GMT
Wednesday 2nd February Wonderful surprise I received a lovely package this morning from one of the people in the postcard swap on Writerspark (a Yahoo Group) - not just a postcard but also a handmade notebook, 3 ATC's, a bag, and a bead bookmark. As I'm full of cold, like my partner (who is off sick for the first time that I can remember!), it was a wonderful cheering gift. I also got another lovely postcard with a great writing prompt. My thanks to you both - you know who you are!!! Oh and for those of you who have asked - my partner was upset but not surprised by George's death (see Jan 27th). Gilbert, the remaining gourami, seems very happy on his own, patrolling the tank with glee now that he has no opposition and the tetras appear happier too. So we're not replacing George just yet although we may buy some more tetras in a couple of weeks... Posted 10.35am GMT
Tuesday 1st February
New blog added Posted 10pm GMT
Once again, Tony Blair seems set on getting people on Incapacity Benefit to return to work (see BBC article).
Now if it was possible for me to get a job with a kind employer who
pays a living wage for part-time work and who is willing to allow me to
have frequent rests and a lot of sick leave, as well as appreciating
that there are days when I just can NOT concentrate or work at all,
than by now I would have done so.
I recently had a long discussion with someone else who has FM but who has returned to work. It appears that he is not doing very well. Despite all his efforts, his condition has worsened. He looked ill and it was obvious that he won't be able to continue. I also know that he's not alone - people like me and him were forced out of work through no fault of our own when we became too ill to cope with the daily grind of a job. We have conditions that are difficult enough to cope with on a daily basis without having to undergo the stress of regular interviews by some incompetent set on increasing their own targets to get people back into jobs. I've written a lengthy mail to my MP in the hope that she'll object to Blair's proposals. Or at least raise some of my concerns when he presents them to the House tomorrow... but I suspect that she'll take his view of rights and responsibilities. And hundreds, if not thousands, of people across the UK will end up forced to attend interviews and become stressed, upset and more ill because of it. Posted 2.30pm GMT
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