A Nice Change

I'm over weight. It's no secret and there's no point in denying it - it's a fact.

I went to see the nurse this week about something unrelated, but while I was there I told her how bad my IBS has been recently and joked that it hasn't helped me to lose any weight and that these days I can't even get my wedding ring off. Do you know what she said? Go on, guess. I bet you can't guess.

"Here, have this diet sheet because you really need to try to lose some weight, otherwise you'll develop diabetes and heart problems and you'll be dead by the end of the week"

That would be the usual response wouldn't it? But no, she didn't say that, she said:

"You've probably got some water retention. You want to try to detox by drinking plenty of fluid, and body brushing. Green tea is good for detoxing, and also try some pro-biotics for your stomach"

She then went on to explain the correct technique for body brushing, adding "measure yourself rather than weighing, I guarantee you'll lose some inches"

Umm... ok. Thanks. I'm just a little stunned. I mean, like I said, I'm under no illusions - I'm fat, I know that. It's just so nice not to be nagged about it! In fact, this has given me more incentive to try to lose weight than any previous scare tactics.

Two Blog Posts for the Price of One!

Yes I know; I don't update my blog for... ever, and then I post twice in one day! That's like "two for the price of one"! Or like "buy one get one free"! Don't you just love special offers? Well here's another one for you:

Tesco are selling packs of 12 bottles of J2O for £4.49! (Well, they are here anyway!) That's approximately 37p a bottle!

Don't forget to take the empty bottles to the bottle bank though - every little helps :)

Shaken not Stirred

It seems Inspector Gadget was right – the public believe that every thing that goes wrong is the fault of the Police. Why else would so many people ring the Police to report that they felt a tremor last night and that it woke them up?

What do they expect the Police to do about it?

A Commercial Break

I realise I haven’t updated this blog for quite a long time. View it as a commercial break; time to put the kettle on, nip to the loo, get the chocolate digestives out, or whatever else it is you do to avoid watching those annoying TV adverts.

For those of you who like to stay put and be entertained by the adverts…

Tesco have an amazingly special offer on Crunchy Nut Cornflakes at the moment. Buy one box for £2.58 or buy two boxes for £2.50! They’re paying you 8p to take a second box! That’s better than Buy One Get One Free!


Every little helps.

Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been?

“I’ve been to London to look at the queen”
Pussy-cat, pussy-cat, what did you there?
“I frightened a little mouse under the chair”

I travelled to London on Friday with my Curly Haired Friend. It’s something we had planned quite a while ago; not for sight seeing or shopping but to go to the M.A.D (Making a Difference) Art Installation at the Draywalk Gallery.

“We’re cultured we are” my Curly Haired Friend said to me the day we made the plans. Yeah, like bacteria in a Petri dish.

Having become accustomed, as I have, to meeting stupid people wherever I go, most of the day had a surreal quality about it. I’ve never met so many damn happy and polite people in my life. Complete strangers smiled and wished me farewell as I left the train. And what is it with all these free news papers being handed out at every street corner? As I looked around at the homeless-free clean streets I must admit I wondered if we had got off the train on another planet.

“Are we in London?” I asked my Curly Haired Cultured Friend.

My previous memories of London were busy, dirty streets; full of freaky people pushing and shoving; and homeless people tugging on my heart strings at every corner. This time the experience was more pleasant than a trip into the hostile town centre of the Country Bumpkin town I live in.

But it didn’t last; it never lasts. We were refused permission to board the 4.30 train with our off-peak tickets after missing the last off-peak train due to the tubes being stopped…

On the tube it was announced that two other lines had been closed due to “radio failure”, so we had to wait for others to climb aboard. Finally we were moving, but it wasn’t long before this tube stopped as well, with the driver announcing:
“I’m not sure, but I think there’s another tube ahead…”
I looked at my Curly Haired Friend and laughed:
“What sort of announcement is that?”
Then he continued:
“Well, I wanted to stay in Liverpool Street, but the Fat Controller* wanted me to move on…” he began. Blimey, I thought he was going to give us his life story. There was no head on collision and finally we were moving again, but it’s these events that led to us missing our train back to Bumpkin town.

The Female Fat Controller at St Pancras was very unsympathetic.
“Well, you’ll just have to buy another ticket”
“But it’s not our fault” my Curly Haired Angry Friend protested.
“And I haven’t got any money” I added.
“Well you’ll have to go to a cash point and get some then”
I was stunned at this response. For some of us, a cash point isn’t an endless supply of money. Luckily for both of us, the hormone problems I had a few months ago which made me experience intense rage had settled down. I just looked at her in disbelief. Finally she suggested we go to the ticket office to see what they could do for us there.

The man at the ticket office was friendly and sympathetic, but sadly unhelpful. He suggested we go to Kings Cross and ask for help there.

My Curly Haired Friend kindly offered to deal with the problem at Kings Cross, whilst I rested for a few minutes, and the man at the ticket office there suggested that we go to Thames Link, as that was the head office or something, and ask for help there.

The man at Thames Link wasn’t only unsympathetic; he was arrogant and irritating.
“The tubes are nothing to do with us, we have no responsibility for them at all; you’ll either have to buy another ticket, or wait until after 7pm”
He didn’t tell us anything we hadn’t heard already, but it was the way he said it.
“I hope you die” I told him before I walked away (as you do), although it lacked the venom he deserved. Why do so many people who work with the public lack basic people skills?

Eventually we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to wait until after 7pm to travel home again. We found ourselves a friendly little café (which had flies on the food) to sit in, and had a drink.

I didn’t see the Queen, or any mice for that matter, but despite the Female Fat Controller, and the Thames Link ticket office man, we had a really nice day.



*He didn’t actually call him the Fat Controller.

My Best Buy

And now for a real top tip…

This evening I bought a 200g jar of Nutella Chocolate spread to dip my mini doughnuts in. Yeah, that’s what I thought, a fantastic idea wasn’t it? But there’s more…

Recently I’ve had a problem with drinking glasses falling apart – usually in my hands while I’m washing up (bear with me on this; it’s not as completely random and unrelated to the jar of chocolate spread as it may seem). This leaves me with two problems: scarred hands and no glasses.

Whilst dipping my doughnuts in my jar of chocolate spread (as you do) it occurred to me that this jar would make a perfectly strong drinking glass – it’s thick glass, there is no screw thread at the top, and it’s actually drinking glass shaped rather than jar shaped. What’s more, the plastic “pop on” lid doubles as a can top for half used cans of food. All for 79p. What better excuse do you need for rushing out and buying half a dozen jars?

Oh, and the scars aren’t really that noticeable when your fingers are covered in chocolate spread.

Superstition Ain’t the Way

A line from “Superstition”, a number 1 hit in the US for Stevie Wonder in 1972, reaching number 11 in the UK charts. From the album “Talking Book”.

It was Friday the 13th today. Statistically, I wonder if more people were late for work today than on any other day of the year. I wonder if more people burnt their toast this morning, or spilt their milk. I wonder if the Accident & Emergency departments were busier than usual, or if the Police had to deal with more Road Traffic Collisions. And I wonder if the Fire Service had a busier day.

I just wondered.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

It was a sad day when the chip shop at the end of our road closed. It had been there for at least 30 years from my memory, maybe longer. Strangely enough, I actually lived in this very same road when I was a child. My Mum used to see me across the road and then after I’d got our fish and chips I’d wait by the lamppost for my Mum to see me back across the road again.

The little row of shops that has stood there for so long is now being knocked down, to make room for more flats.

“I forgot to get a loaf of bread when I popped out for loo roll last night” I said to my Mum on the phone today.
“Can’t you just nip to that shop?” she asked.
“What shop?” I asked, confused.
“The shop at the end of your road” she replied.
“Mum, that shop hasn’t been there for the whole time I’ve lived here, and I’ve been here for 10 years in August!” I replied.

My Mum’s often a bit scatty, but where on earth has she been for the past 10 years?

“I’d heard that the chip shop was closed, but I didn’t know the shop had closed as well” she said.
“Mum, that shop hasn’t been open the whole time I’ve lived here!” I laughed. “They’re knocking that row of shops down now to build flats” I continued. “Anyway, was the chip shop run by an Italian family when I was a kid?” I asked.
“No, it was an Indian family. Don’t you remember the shop?” she replied.
“The chip shop?”
“Don’t you remember it?” she asked again.
“The chip shop Mum. Not the shop. The chippy”
“Oh I thought you meant the shop”

Blimey, it’s like visiting an old peoples home. I wouldn’t mind, but she’s only 57.

“You could do with a shop there really” she continued.
“Well, I know, but it isn’t going to happen now is it? They’re knocking it down!” I swear she’s a few chips short of a bag herself sometimes, bless her.
“I know; it’s a shame…”

Genetically Modified Tomatoes?

Listen, if you’re going to waste time trying to reinvent the wheel, why don’t you do something really useful and make the cherry tomato square so that it doesn’t keep rolling off my plate? (And for some reason it always seems to roll towards me when it’s covered in an oily dressing)

And while you’re at it, how about genetically modifying the plastic bottle so that my shopping doesn’t keep falling over and rolling around all over the place? I can’t possibly be the only person in the world who absolutely despairs at trying to get these bottles to stand upright, so why has no one redesigned this utterly useless piece of plastic? It's as pointless as storing liquid in a balloon - both roll all over the place, and have you ever tried untying a balloon with liquid in it? It makes a mess doesn’t it? Yeah, the same thing happens when you open a bottle of pop that’s been rolling around on the floor.

How can human kind possess the knowledge and technology to enable them to propel satellites into space and yet not realise that the design of the Pepsi cola bottle is seriously flawed? And why waste time trying to make a tomato red when it’s already red, and juicy when it’s already juicy, when all I really want is to be able to eat the smeggin’ thing without it rolling under the table?

The Night is Filled With Music

Instrumental written by Irving Berlin, 1938. From the film “Carefree” staring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rodgers.

She looked so beautiful. Her perfect curls secured in place, her long eyelashes, and her sleeveless gown that revealed her elegant, slender arms. The handsome man in the perfectly tailored suit took her by the hand and they seemed to float away. Gracefully they swayed across the floor; the only evidence of their feet touching the ground was the occasional tapping sound in time with the music; her long flowing dress as fluid and light as their bodies.

“I wish I had a dress like that” thought the little girl. She was mesmerised as she sat right in front of the TV staring at the screen. The rest of the family were doing their own thing; this wasn’t to their taste at all. The end of the film was always a bitter sweet moment; she hated the fairy tale moments to end, but she couldn’t wait to run upstairs and create her own fantasies behind the closed door of her bedroom.

Drawing by Chuck Rose

In her room she could forget the madness of being part of a one parent family with 3 older siblings and 3 younger. Although she shared her room with her two younger sisters, they were too young to want to play in their own room. She had arranged the furniture herself so that there was a space in the centre of the room. Imagining those beautiful melodies in her mind she would drift away, skipping and twirling in her imaginary ball gown. There was even a patch of bare floorboards, right by the door, where the carpet hadn’t quite reached to the edge of the room, and there she would make up her tap dancing steps.

She loved all kinds of dancing and music and singing. Even now, 25 years later, that little girl still loves to sit and watch old musicals. They’re just so happy and gay and they take her away to a much simpler place in time – a time before she was even born. A magical time. A time that probably doesn’t even exist except on the silver screen and in every little girls imagination.

Just lately I’ve been watching musicals every night - hence the lack of posts. I go through these phases sometimes; it’s just something I need to do. I swear I was born 50 years too late.

Yabba Dabba Doo!

I had my slimming club meeting tonight.
“How much did you lose?” Mr Man asked.
“Blimey, he’s optimistic” I thought.

Unbelievably I did manage to lose some weight though. I say “unbelievably” because when you hardly sleep there are more hours in the day to eat food. And when you’re tired you can’t be bothered to cook so you eat any ol’ rubbish.

On my way home I popped into the local supermarket. I finally gave in and bought some sleeping tablets. They’re just herbal things so I hope they do something. I didn’t want anything stronger because I don’t want to feel drugged up all day. Right now though I don’t feel like I’m going to need them tonight. I’m resisting the urge to go to bed, because I know that if I sleep now I will wake up again in three hours time and then be awake again all night.

I wonder how many people I irritated tonight? When I’m tired I do everything in slow motion. I shuffle along with my trolley and every now and again I stop and stare at a shelf even though I have no idea what I’m even looking at. Strangely enough I drive really slowly when I’m tired as well. I have no idea why. I could understand it if I had a Flintstone car.

Man alive, I wouldn't look that happy if my car was leg powered. It's too much effort to press the accelerator.


Picture from Google images.

Is there no end to the stupidity in this world?

Just when I think I have heard or read the most stupid thing I am ever going to hear or read in my entire life, ever, I come across something else that is even more stupid than the last stupid thing I heard or read.

I suppose the subject of this post on Mental Nurse is something I would usually write about in my other blog, and I have, but then people’s stupidity is usually something I blog about here.

Is there no end to people’s stupidity?

But maybe it works. What do I know? I’m only the wife of a Schizophrenic.

"Riddle Me This, Riddle Me That..."

- The Riddler, played by Jim Carey, in Batman Forever 1995.

Pop over to Trainee Paramedics blog where he has posted a couple of riddles for our amusement. No peeking at the solutions in the answers post though!


So, there's 8 balls...

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

Lyric written by Sammy Cahn and music by Jule Styne in 1945. First recorded by Vaughn Monroe in 1946. Although traditionally thought of as a Christmas song, the lyrics in this love song contain no mention of Christmas at all.

“Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful…”

Ahh… is there anything better than listening to some old tunes while curling up by an open fire?


“And since we’ve no place to go…”

Actually, it's not so much having no place to go, but Mr Man has banned me from driving in this weather in case I have an accident. Also I received an email from a friend the other day asking me: “Have you crashed into anyone recently?” Blimey, knock down one telegraph poll and you never hear the end of it! Still, if I know I won’t be driving it means I can relax with a glass of Bailey’s by the fire, so…

“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!”


I'm afraid I have to disagree with our friend Tom Reynolds (sorry Tom), who thinks it's stupid that schools close for the day and that the whole country comes to a standstill when it snows. It seems to snow much less than I remember as a child. I don’t think it snows often enough in this country for people to really know how to cope with it, and people certainly don’t know how to drive in it. I think everywhere should close for the day and kids should be able to stay home from school and make the most of the snow while it lasts. He's just jealous because his brother (who is a teacher) got a day off work and he didn't!

Spare a thought for people who have to go out and work in it too – like our postmen/women. Imagine them walking around in it for two or three hours while it’s still snowing; getting wet and cold, and trying to stay upright with a heavy bag of mail on their back.

Desperate Measures

I don’t know why but I have this strange desire to share every useless piece of drivel that pops into my brain tonight – unfortunately for you, my dear reader.

I’ve had trouble with my sinuses over the last couple of days and I think I may be coming down with a head cold or have some kind of infection, so I’ve been dosing myself up on chopped, raw, garlic – unfortunately for Mr Man.

You’ll be glad to know that I haven’t decided to adopt the rather unusual method of self administration by inserting a whole garlic clove into my bottom, as demonstrated by an auditionee on last years Xtra Factor!* Instead I have been washing the garlic down with diet Pepsi, which probably isn’t the best choice of beverage for health benefits, but at least it makes the garlic semi palatable. I have a piece of metal in my kitchen which, when used to wash ones hands with, removes odours from the skin. It’s magic! So I decided to use it to wash my tongue with as well. It worked a little, but I couldn’t get to the roof of my mouth with it. Needless to say I am getting through quite a bit of mouthwash at the moment. It’s worth it though as garlic has amazing health benefits, including antibiotic properties. I always use it when I suspect an infection (that green stuff you cough up is usually a bit of a giveaway) rather than going to the doctors for antibiotics. Mr Man said to me on Friday “You should go to the doctors about it” to which I replied: “No, I was only there a couple of days ago, he’ll think I fancy him!”.

A friend told me today that garlic can also be rubbed into the soles of the feet and absorbed into the body in this way, but this would bring a whole new meaning to the term “smelly feet” which couldn’t be contained with mouthwash.

Mr Mans answer to everything is Lemsip. My answer to everything (or head colds at least) is a hot drink with a measure of Bailey’s in it. It clears the head and eases aches and pains far better than any of these modern day cold and ‘flu remedies. The trouble is I haven’t actually got any at the moment, so I decided to try hot chocolate with Malibu instead (I didn’t think the coconut flavour would mix well with Barley Cup).

The other problem I had was measuring it. I don’t usually measure anything in the kitchen; cooking always seems to go horribly wrong the moment I start weighing ingredients, so I usually use the old fashioned method of guessing, taught to me by my mother. But I’m actually supposed to be dieting again/still/at the moment so I wanted to be sure of the amount I was drinking. I finally managed to find a measuring cup for cough medicine and I used that to measure out my 25mls!

The drink worked quite well, but you can’t beat a bit of Bailey’s in a hot drink, which of course is made from Whiskey – the original cold remedy.



*The Xtra Factor was the itv2 “behind the scenes” show of The X Factor, presented by Ben Shepherd. The auditionee didn’t literally insert a garlic clove into his bottom live on air, but demonstrated the most effective method by inserting it into a clenched fist!

Mug Shot

I bought myself this mug today. I realise that it's not an entirely new concept, but I think it's a fantastic idea! Mind you I have a bit of a weakness for novelty mugs. It comes with a couple of sticks of chalk to write on the mug with and you can even write on the underneath. The downside is that you get covered in chalk when you use it, but let's not be picky.

I'm tempted to take this mug with me everwhere I go and use it to reflect my feelings. That would definitely work for someone who works in an office I think; you wouldn't have to talk to anyone if you were in a bad mood, you could just write "GO AWAY" on your mug and leave it on your desk. Or you could hand someone a cuppa and hope that they don't realise that you've written "I smell" on the other side... the possiblities are endless.

Model Specification - Human v 1.1

When you don’t feel well bathing is such a chore. Humans should be designed more like self cleaning ovens – you only have to wipe the bottom occasionally and the rest stays clean.

Experiment

I'm sending this via my new phone. I have no idea how much text I can add to this entry; this is all very new to me. I have to say I am stunned at the level of technology these days. Last time I bought a mobile phone I had to buy a brick sized PDA phone to be able to have the kind of features I wanted. Now I have a cute slimline girly phone in pink with more features than my brain could ever imagine! I may be posting more photo's in future and possibly blog on the go!

“Early to bed early to rise…”

Proverb: “Early to bed early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise” Penned by US author Benjamin Franklin in “Poor Richard’s Almanack” 1753.

...2am is not exactly what I had in mind though.

One day seems to be blurring into the next at the moment; my disrupted sleep pattern means I’m never quite sure what day it is. Friday night I tossed and turned until some time past 4:30 Saturday morning, which was the last time I looked at the clock, and I had my alarm set for 10am. That’s not very early I know, but early for me, and especially considering I’d only had half the amount of sleep that I usually need.

Due to not being able to sleep well at night I’ve been sleeping in very late during the day time. People often make the amazingly simplistic suggestion of getting up earlier in the day and then forcing myself to stay up all day, to force my body clock to “reset” itself. That’s a brilliant idea. Why didn’t I think of that? That wasn’t my reason for forcing myself out of bed at 10am after about only 5 hours sleep, but I had hoped that after propping my eyelids open with match sticks all day I would be tired enough to sleep through the night by Saturday evening. Unfortunately sleep problems are never quite as simple as that.

Saturday night I went to bed at some time around 11pm, which I thought was a reasonable time – not too early, not too late. Then at 1:56am, after about only 3 hours sleep, my eyes pinged open like the doors of a department store elevator:

“Ground floor: Perfumery, stationary, and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food. Going up . . .” Doo do dodo doo… Doo do dodo doo… *

And here I am: completely exhausted but wide awake.

Man alive, I feel like death.



* Lyrics of the theme tune to “Are you being served” – a British TV comedy which aired from 1972 - 1985

Let me sleep, and dream of sheep

A line from "And Dream of Sheep" by Kate Bush, "Hounds of Love" album 1985

Well, it’s silly o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep. I haven’t slept all night. Another one of these stupid phases I go through. I tell you, sometimes I can sleep 10 or more hours a night and have a nap in the day as well, and other times I can’t sleep for toffee. When you can’t sleep you become obsessed with it. As soon as you wake up you want to know what time it is and how long you have slept for. The tiredness drives you insane. I swear I could murder sometimes just through lack of sleep. And that’s another thing: why am I having trouble sleeping when I’m already run down and exhausted anyway? I’m really not very happy about that.

Back to the murder thing though. Last night I couldn’t sleep either. Mr Man was tossing and turning, bouncing the bed around and huffing and puffing, and moaned “I can’t sleep”. It made me laugh when I saw this happen in a comedy sketch recently. Not so funny when you're lying next to it. Finally he got up for a cup of tea. Of course he had to bring it back to bed with him – which means the light has to go on until his tea has reached the optimum temperature for drinking. “Finally, I’m going to get some sleep” I thought, once the light went out.

It was only a few hours before my alarm went off for Mr Mans medication. I nudged him and then rolled over to go back to sleep. Unfortunately though we have the creakiest floor boards in our bathroom in the whole world. So, awake again I thought “While I’m awake I might as well use the loo, and then I can go back to bed and have a nice long sleep”. How wrong was I? I got back into bed and that was it – I was wide awake.

I decided to get up for a while and catch up on some blog reading instead of lying there looking at our ceiling. It’s quite a nice ceiling though. Mr Man painted stars on it in the shape of some constellations with some paint that glows in the dark. Very romantic. Still, not much to look at in day light. You can barely make out the greenish yellow dots in the day time.

By about lunch time I thought maybe I could manage to have an afternoon nap. It still took me ages to drop off to sleep, and then…

the phone rang.

It’s a friend of mine. “Sorry, were you asleep?” “Yes, it’s ok though, don’t worry”. Where did that come from? Of course it’s not ok. I was asleep, and now I’m awake again, how is that ok? She apologised and said goodbye so that I could go back to sleep. That was the theory anyway. I lay there for a while, struggling to get comfortable, and then just as I could feel myself drifting…

the door knocked.

It was nothing of great importance; just a leaflet. I say that as if there could possibly be anything “of great importance” worthy of disturbing my sleep.

By this time I want to put a very large notice on the door saying “GET LOST” for anyone foolish enough to want to knock on my door again; and unplug the phone, switch off the mobile and go back to sleep.

Sleep. Is that too much to ask for?

Now here I am again, and this is where the murder comes in. I have Mr Mans axe here; as you know, all Schizophrenics own an axe in case they decide that they want to run around chopping peoples heads off one day. So if you see the headline "Wife of a Schizophrenic Kills Postman with Axe" that will be me.