Still Here

Warning - long and self-indulgent anecdote! When I was six, over fifty years ago, I needed an emergency tonsillectomy. Yep, I had to have my tonsils out as an emergency procedure. Sometimes I wish that I could have a medical event without drama. Not only was it urgent, as the tonsils had swollen enough to affect my ability to breathe, but I reacted badly to the anaesthetic. When I say that I reacted badly, I mean, it was a serious question whether I would make it. I went under a fortnight before my seventh birthday and woke up the day before. Did I mention drama? As a kid, I thought it was amazing. I got spoiled rotten and had loads of ice cream. Looking back, I really feel for my poor parents. 

The drama continued when I was, I think, thirteen, so around forty years ago. I had glandular fever that was treated as flu until I was actively away with the fairies. I was not in any sort of reasonable condition. My mother trundled me into the doctor's room and the nice old doctor told me that my tonsils were very swollen. In one of the only times I have contradicted a doctor, I told him that they weren't. He assured me that they were. I told them that they weren't. He told me that they were. I said that I'd had my tonsils out, then apparently (I can't remember because of raging fever) I collapsed and was taken to hospital in an ambulance, because I had to have the drama. Again. 

As far as I can tell, because I had such a bad reaction to the anaesthetic back when I was six, and because my tonsils were in such a bad state at the time, instead of a neat prune, I got a ragged hack. This means that their remain still swell and do the job of fighting infection. However, if they are already irritated because of something like a cold or hayfever, anything can set them off and I feel like there's a crumb stuck right over my windpipe and I find myself feeling like I'm choking and I'm absolutely not active. Which is the long story why the seedlings didn't get done today and it's getting serious to get them replanted.

But I did make a cake (and failed to get a pic). I made Yorkshire Apple Loaf, and the men loved it! Apparently it's light, crumbly and very sweet as well as utterly delicious. According to them, I'm going to have make it at least once a week going forward. The website of Yorkshire recipes looks like it could have a lot of fun ideas.

Cherie asked about a close up of the curtain. 

It is just plain knit with King Cole's Opium on 6.5mm needles. The recommended needles are 6mm, and the yarn is extremely thin thread then a big fluffy stretch, then back to extremely thin. I cast on 100 stitches, knitted a couple of rows, did an eyelet row (knit some stitches, yarn over, knit two together) then just did straight knitting until I'd knitted two 100g balls of yarn. I love it when a yarn does all the work for you.

Someone mentioned salt on the weeds. I've considered that, but I was worried about  salty run off affecting other plants. Gladys is downhill from a lot of the weeds. I plan to go out with a kettle of boiling water on a regular basis.

Writing stuff - I posted an article on my blog about Facebook friends. At the start of the year, I had 4.6k Facebook friends and I had physically met two of them. I was concerned that I was heading to the limit of 5k Facebook friends and I wanted to get rid of the accounts that weren't being used or were the remnants of scammers or creeps. I thought that I would share the process. I've also started the process of getting physical copies of my books to a wider distribution by using Draft2Digital. Of course, the more important thing is to get new books out there, but I'm a work in progress.

Hugs and good health to all.