Happy Mother's Day

Here in bonnie Scotland, the sun has been shining and it is Mother's Day. Today is the first day in a long time that it has felt like spring has arrived. It is also the day the clocks go forward. Of course we forgot and were happily just languishing around the house and doing nothing in particular until #2 daughter came down and asked why her computer was saying it was an hour further on than she thought it was. It then dawned on us that we had once again forgotten to change the clocks. Luckily for Gary and I neither of us were working. Unluckily for me I have a chest infection and aren't able to work at the moment. I'm sick of being sick. I've only been back at work for a week and a half after being off with my knee and now I'm laid low with this damned infection. My doctor is one of those who usually prescribes paracetamol and ibuprofen or a herbal remedy rather than antibiotics, but he took one look at me and listened to my chest and threw the lot at me. I have to take the usual dose of antibiotics, but he also prescribed a course of steroids to really get a grip of it. My lungs were so congested that when he did a peak/flow test my reading was over 200 points less than it should have been. This was after doing a best of 3 and each time it got worse.
On a brighter note, I got some nice cards and pressies. Kylie bought me a lovely card and a Russell Watson CD. He's not my favourite singer, but I wouldn't tell her that. Natalie bought me a card and a toy sunflower that I've nicknamed AudreyII from here. Sad I know, but I thought it fitting. Rachel bought me some yummy chocolate truffles and a card. Unfortunately my sense of taste has gone to pot, so I only know that they taste nice from having them before. Gary didn't buy me a card, but he did buy me the Lascivious Biddies - Get Lucky and I'm enjoying listening to them whilst I write this. If you listen to Brenda Dayne's Cast-On you will have heard them on more than one occasion, she uses one of their songs for the start of today's sweater and has also played a couple more of their tracks in past pod-casts. I keep laughing because every time one of my family come in to have a word they listen to what I'm playing and all of them have had a little dance. Now my family have quite diverse listening preferences, and the Biddies are not on any one of their lists, but they are enjoying them. One more notch on mum's bedpost for introducing my family new music and artists :-)
On the knitting front things have gone slowly again. I love knitting and my head is buzzing from all the ideas that I have, but I just haven't hadn't the energy to think about it this week. I did start the front of the effing sweater, but I made about 6 mistakes in the first few rows. Luckily I saw them, but have been too tired to sort it out. Once more it lies unloved in the basket. I have to get cracking, I'm almost a month behind and I hate that. I want to get it finished, but haven't got the inclination or the energy to do it.

Woo hooo

It's stitch and bitch night tonight and I can go :-) I really need some girlie bitchy time, I've been feeling a bit down this week. I know that if I let it get a hold then I am going to be in a funk for ages, so I'm just going to grin and bear it. I'm going to show off my new knitting bag and my little family of metal sheep that I bought at Lakeland. We are really lucky that we have a branch in Aberdeen and it is so easy to just wander in and spend so much money in there. They have some great stuff and I love browsing at their craft section. Once upon a time they hardly had anything crafty and just had storage items, but now they have so many different ranges that it is too tempting. They do large bags of soft liquorice that is so, so moreish that you have to buy two bags and at £4 a pop it aint cheap. I try to stay out of there, but sometimes, a girls got to do what a girls got to do and that's blow the hubby's bonus on goodies :-)

I've almost finished the back of the sweater, only 6 more rows and then I can start on the front. I think I'm going to do it slightly different this time. I don't know if I can cope with sewing in millions and millions of loose ends. I think I'll take it along to show the girls tonight, and then I might do some crochet to calm my nerves. I got two new books last week and am really enjoying flipping through them, so I think I'll have a bash at making a few and then I can sew them all together to make an afghan. The first one is this and the second one is this. It's ages since I've done any crochet and I feel that it is now time for a change.

In Loving Memory

Kelly
1990 to 8th March 2006

Today I had to put my dog to sleep. Her name was Kelly and she had been my constant companion for the last ten years. We got her as a rescue dog, and she was in such a sorry state. The first time I saw her she was crawling round on her belly and urinating every where because she was so afraid. I fell in love with her, but didn't take her home there and then because she was going to be a gift for my parents. I phoned them and told them about her, but they said that they couldn't take her if she hadn't been neutered in case their other dog tried to mate with her. He was a big collie dog, so it wouldn't have been a good idea. Once we got home I started to talk to my husband about the dog that we had seen and he said that if I wanted her I could have her. I phoned my friends straight away and they brought her up the following weekend. Now this was no little journey it was a 300 mile round trip, but they were willing to do it for me. We took her everywhere, even on holiday. When we went abroad, she went down to Yorkshire to stay with my parents and they loved having her as much as she loved being there.

I woke early this morning because I could hear a strange noise coming from the floor next to my bed. When I managed to get my eyes to work I found that it was Kelly and she wasn't well. The whole front end of her body was on the floor and she was sort of pushing herself along with her back legs. At first I thought she might have got her paws stuck in her collar because she has done that before today. Don't know how, but she managed it. Anyway, I picked her up and realised that she wasn't caught, but was very limp and not like her own self. Of course dh was in Glasgow on business and not able to get home. I phone the vet and she said that she would meet me if I got a cab down to the surgery. I got a cab and set off with my little pal in my arms. By this time her breathing had gone and she was foaming at the mouth and I knew in my heart that her time had come and I didn't want her to struggle any more. The vet agreed that she was too far gone and it would only be prolonging the inevitable if she tried to do anything. I didn't cry, well not much and stroked her whilst the vet injected her with this blue fluid. I removed her collar and asked the vet to handle all the necessary funeral details. I paid the bill and walked out of the building.
My oldest daughter was staying over at her boy friends house and I walked there and rang the bell. She came to the door and in I walked I sat down and told her what had happened and then broke down. She cried and I cried some more. I then had to go home and tell the other two. They were still in bed when I left and hadn't even known that I had gone. We all cried again.

I miss my baby and can't get my head round the fact that she isn't here any more. I keep looking for her in her favourite spot and my heart drops when I remember that she isn't there.

We've decided that we aren't going to get another pet. It's too damned hard to let them go.

Storm in a podcast

As you may know, I love listening to podcasts and at the moment my favourite one is Cast-On with Brenda Dayne. I am at present off work with a dodgy knee and am re-listening to all her podcasts whilst trying to get this damn sweater finished that I should have completed for the Knitting Olympics. I think I was just being carried away with the challenge and didn't really look at what needed to be done. I did manage to finish one sweater, but not the one I wanted to finish.

Anyhoo, back to the podcast. I regularly check the comments on Brenda's site to see if there are any new podcasters out there and have found a couple that I have listened to and quite like. However, one comment that was left today was so rude and obnoxious that it really got my goat. Of course the person who left it didn't have the guts to leave a name, they just left this long ranting post that was full of vitriol and down right nastiness.

There are a few comments that I would like to make about this, and feel that I want to speak here where it is in the public domain and where I have the right to hit the delete button.

1. By all means point out any and all flaws that you might find in a podcast or blog, but do it constructively.
   
2. If you feel the need to vent in public there are better ways to go about it.
   
3. Leave your name and that way the person who is at the receiving end of the abuse can contact you and tell you what a nasty b@st@rd you are
4. Learn how to spell
5. If it were an open forum and there were mediators or assistants, then the delete button would have been pressed and you would have been blocked and reported as a troll.
6. No one insists that you have to listen to anything that you dislike, so why abuse someone who has no say on what or how you do something.
7. Don't piss off knitters, for we are a formidable bunch and we will retaliate.
   

I'm not someone who simpers and panders to anyone, but I do like listening to Brenda, and she seems a nice person. I emailed her about another post recently and true to her word, she replied with a lovely email. Long may she want to podcast and let us see in to a little bit of her world.

At the end of the day podcasts are free to listeners and even if something is a pile of shit, it hasn't cost anything to listen to it and you don't have to listen to it again.

I think that I've said enough for today.