Hello, and …erm… happy new year!
I’m going to start off with a quote from Kira again:
Kira: What job does Auntie Joy do?
Kim: She’s a nurse in the eye department
Kira (sounding confused): What does that mean?
Kim: She works in the part of the hospital that deals with people who have problems with their eyes
Kira: Oh I understand now! I thought you meant the ‘I Department’ where they deal with problems starting with the letter ‘I’
She is doing really well in her indoor rock climbing. She shimmies up the wall very easily, and now has a couple of climbing partners. “She’s like a spider” said the mother of one of the other girls.
She now has her Level 1 NICAS climbing certificate.
Jordan’s had to curtail his climbing as his climbing partner broke his collarbone so it will be a few weeks until he’s well enough to get back on the walls.
We’re in the depths of winter at the moment (minus 6 degrees, some days) so I was quite impressed when I saw a sign today advertising an ‘Undercover Car Boot Sale’.
“What a good idea!” I said to Kira, as I’m not one for wandering around in the freezing cold.
“But what does it mean?” she asked.
“It’s a car boot sale that's indoors so you don’t have to get cold and wet.”
“Oh” she said (again) “I thought it was a car boot sale for spies.”
What an interesting view on life she has!
And talking of winter, a couple of weeks ago we had freezing rain. I’ve never experienced it before. As the rain came down it instantly froze. Our car looked like it was covered in sheets of hailstones all joined together.
Prior to this we had very strong winds in Blackpool. One time I went into the shoe repairers. A man came in just after me and the cobbler said to us “I’m going to have to lock the door as the winds keep blowing it open”.
Impressed, the man said “This is the first time I’ve had a lock in in a cobblers”.
Jordan has been doing his mock exams in readiness for his GCSEs starting in May. The exams were set by his teachers. On one of his papers Jordan wrote ‘Win a free iPhone if you give me 100%’. Fortunately his teacher has a sense of humour!
We went to his parent-teacher interviews recently. It takes about 3 hours going round all the teachers, and by the time we got to the last teacher, he was tired and we were tired. However he animatedly told us all about how Jordan had been doing. It was only when he got to the end and said “and that sums up Ollie’s report” that we realised he had been talking about a completely different student … and that he wasn’t even Jordan’s teacher! So we know a lot about another student but not that much about Jordan.
My dad, a former French teacher gave Jordan this brain teaser:
‘Un petit, d’un petit, sept on a vole’
(If you need a hand working it out, they are French words which when joined together don’t make sense. However if you say them in a French accent it sounds like the first line of Humpty Dumpty.)
My friend Linda and I finished it off, so it became:
Un petit, d’un petit, sept on a vole
Un petit, d'un petit, a de gris folle
Au de qui sort Cezanne au de qui semaine
Coeur d’un peut un petit
Tu guerre vert regain
Anyway Jordan took it into school to show to his French teacher who thought it was hilarious. She got the teaching assistant (a young French man) to read it out. He didn’t understand it at all and kept saying “ah but zees ees wrong; eet does not make ze sense”.
We’ve all spent a lot of time going to my dad’s house and doing up the kitchen – most of the painting and tiling is done and Jon has fitted some kitchen units. Almost there!
My shoulder and arm are still not right. After nine months, three doctors, six therapists and several hundred pounds I am worse off than when I started. I still can’t use my left arm properly and for a period of time over Xmas it got so bad I couldn’t drive. What on earth can I do???
I’m going to start off with a quote from Kira again:
Kira: What job does Auntie Joy do?
Kim: She’s a nurse in the eye department
Kira (sounding confused): What does that mean?
Kim: She works in the part of the hospital that deals with people who have problems with their eyes
Kira: Oh I understand now! I thought you meant the ‘I Department’ where they deal with problems starting with the letter ‘I’
She is doing really well in her indoor rock climbing. She shimmies up the wall very easily, and now has a couple of climbing partners. “She’s like a spider” said the mother of one of the other girls.She now has her Level 1 NICAS climbing certificate.
Jordan’s had to curtail his climbing as his climbing partner broke his collarbone so it will be a few weeks until he’s well enough to get back on the walls.
We’re in the depths of winter at the moment (minus 6 degrees, some days) so I was quite impressed when I saw a sign today advertising an ‘Undercover Car Boot Sale’.
“What a good idea!” I said to Kira, as I’m not one for wandering around in the freezing cold.
“But what does it mean?” she asked.
“It’s a car boot sale that's indoors so you don’t have to get cold and wet.”
“Oh” she said (again) “I thought it was a car boot sale for spies.”
What an interesting view on life she has!
And talking of winter, a couple of weeks ago we had freezing rain. I’ve never experienced it before. As the rain came down it instantly froze. Our car looked like it was covered in sheets of hailstones all joined together.
Prior to this we had very strong winds in Blackpool. One time I went into the shoe repairers. A man came in just after me and the cobbler said to us “I’m going to have to lock the door as the winds keep blowing it open”.
Impressed, the man said “This is the first time I’ve had a lock in in a cobblers”.
Jordan has been doing his mock exams in readiness for his GCSEs starting in May. The exams were set by his teachers. On one of his papers Jordan wrote ‘Win a free iPhone if you give me 100%’. Fortunately his teacher has a sense of humour!We went to his parent-teacher interviews recently. It takes about 3 hours going round all the teachers, and by the time we got to the last teacher, he was tired and we were tired. However he animatedly told us all about how Jordan had been doing. It was only when he got to the end and said “and that sums up Ollie’s report” that we realised he had been talking about a completely different student … and that he wasn’t even Jordan’s teacher! So we know a lot about another student but not that much about Jordan.
My dad, a former French teacher gave Jordan this brain teaser:
‘Un petit, d’un petit, sept on a vole’
(If you need a hand working it out, they are French words which when joined together don’t make sense. However if you say them in a French accent it sounds like the first line of Humpty Dumpty.)
My friend Linda and I finished it off, so it became:
Un petit, d’un petit, sept on a vole
Un petit, d'un petit, a de gris folle
Au de qui sort Cezanne au de qui semaine
Coeur d’un peut un petit
Tu guerre vert regain
Anyway Jordan took it into school to show to his French teacher who thought it was hilarious. She got the teaching assistant (a young French man) to read it out. He didn’t understand it at all and kept saying “ah but zees ees wrong; eet does not make ze sense”.
We’ve all spent a lot of time going to my dad’s house and doing up the kitchen – most of the painting and tiling is done and Jon has fitted some kitchen units. Almost there!
My shoulder and arm are still not right. After nine months, three doctors, six therapists and several hundred pounds I am worse off than when I started. I still can’t use my left arm properly and for a period of time over Xmas it got so bad I couldn’t drive. What on earth can I do???
I had to go to the Medical Walk-In centre on Xmas Eve to get some pain killers.
“What are you here for?” I was asked
“I need some pain killers”
“What for?” she asked
“I think I may have torn my bicep and I’m in a lot of pain”
“Which leg is the pain in?”
Help help! No wonder I’m not getting any better.
I’ve been doing a lot of writing, either new material or sorting out books I’d previously written or part-written. There are about 16 books so far and growing. All part of my master plan to be a published writer again.
I’ve formed a mastermind group of writers – there are 4 of us – with the aim of supporting each other in our quest to be successful writers. One is a crime writer, another a technical writer, one a sci-fi writer, and I’m calling myself an ‘action-based writer’, which means I write books that people ‘do’ rather than simply ‘read’.
I’m also the guest editor for a website for writers (http://www.lancashirewritinghub.co.uk/category/guest-editors-writers/) which is a very interesting experience.
And so to thoughts of Africa.
I did read somewhere that all the ants in Africa weigh more than ALL the elephants. I don’t think that’s right. I think it should be that all the ants in Uganda weigh more than ALL the elephants.
I was also reading an interesting article on malaria. I went to university in Edinburgh and several times a year they send out a magazine giving updates on what is happening at the Uni.
University scientists have created a malaria vaccine to target different forms of the disease and help those most at risk. The vaccine is designed to trigger production of a range of antibodies to fight the different types of malaria parasite. Scientists created the vaccine by combining multiple versions of a key protein found in many types of malaria parasite.
Great news!
And I see that Uganda are aiming to re-instate the anti-gay bill. Very disappointing.
And as I finish off, let me leave you with a couple of items.
Firstly, one morning when I got up and looked out of the window I said to Jon “It’s been raining”, to which his response was “How do you know?”
Erm….
And finally, I was round at a friend’s house. One of her children brought in their guinea pig and gave it to me to hold. As it was munching through my top I said “Does it ever wee on people?”
“Oh no, it doesn’t do that” she replied.
Well, guess what happened …
Over and out from a cleaned-up Kim with a new top.
