Blogging or Living ....

Feature on Radio Four this am as I was driving to town, about bloggers and time . Apparently most of us who blog incessantly ( and they were talking more of the young male bloggers who blog about politics and Important Stuff ) do so using the Time we would have previously spent wasting in front of tv . I find this slightly irritating as I've never been one for tv much ( though of course I do watch Holby City . This was all in response to someone ( female ) having been asked why she didn't blog , and urged to do so , replied " to what End and with what Time ". Good enough questions , for sure , and no doubt we all do it for differing reasons .
For my own part ( how can you tell I have no commitments at the Day Job this week , or not till Wed anyway ) I blog because I love to write and take pictures and I often really amuse myself in the process . And how much more satisfying is blogging than writing a journal or Journaling as they call it now .
Satisfying entirely because in my case its legible again later .( I cant read my own handwriting .) And of course the main reason , the feedback from commenters , and the Statistics record showing that week in week out people from all over the world are reading , even if most of them don't say anything .

Interesting , the word Journaling conjures up images of postmodern squirrels all reading their Foucalt as they spoon up pomegranate infused granola ( with summer fruits ) . Has anyone ever managed more than three pages of Foucalt by the way ? I'm no lightweight when it comes to reading matter ( hollow laugh ) but this is harder going than trying to give Kitty a foot massage on the occasion of her birthday . Whereas the word Blogging ( as opposed to saying Writing a blog , sounds just right . Funny that , isnt it . Its probably an example of postmodernism at its best , but since I never finished Foucalt .....

Silliyak made a comment about this and I confess as I took the pics of Alice's horrid wounds I did feel a tad guilty knowing they were for the blog but telling myself they might also be useful for the record ( what record ? ) . What is worse though is that in the very middle of the barney , as the Other Woman was examining Alice and tearing up , I did actually for a split second contemplate whipping out the camera ( it was sitting in my fleece pocket , almost whirring with indignation ) and photographing Naughtly little Molly the bad little Jack Russell . the thing that stopped me was , well there were two things . Three things .
First she might have thought I was gathering evidence for a civil suit against her and her neighbour's dog ( which I wasn't .
Dogs bite each other and its up to the adults to stop them , in my book . We had failed as much as her ) . Second she might have guessed I wrote a blog and thought I was a terrible woman using details of Alice's misadventure to tell a stupid story .
And finally D might have thought it was terribly insensitive to Alice . Oh Hold on Alice we will get you home in a minute but I must take a few snaps first .......

So no pictures of Bad Molly or her little pal ; they were working as a team .
But it seemed reasonable enough to encapsulate Alice herself before her stitching and after her op . She was delighted to hear of the good wishes of the commenters and I held up the e card of dolphins ( which are known to have healing properties ) sent by Joan for her to look at .

Resting :Such hard work

Alice manages to make even resting look like something of a trial .( I love that expression in close up ) So far so good . She knows there is a discomfort and keeps kicking her neck with her back leg , or nibbling at the good leg . But so far she hasnt managed to bite at the wound . So we are letting her off with the lampshade collar , though once she realises what is itching her , I suspect the collar will need to go on . The nurses told us they applied it three times and each time she took it off . Her neck being too skinny to keep it on . I see trouble ahead ....

Happy Birthday Nat

Somehow in the general mayhem that was the weekend , Nat's 14th birthday has been almost sucked down the tube . However , today is the day , St Patrick's Day and although she had her party proper on Friday night she is having a few friends round tonight so I am despatched off to Millie's cookies to order a giant cookie with writing on it . She ( secretly ) still likes the fact that I call her silly names so I asked her did she want her proper name piped on or one of her other names ( there are a few ) and she dares me . The young woman at Millie's goes cross eyed when after several attempts to get me to understand how it all works ( red chocolate or vanilla border ? red chocolate or vanilla piping ? and various other options mumbled in very thick accent , combined with my slight deafness against a backdrop of loud music and no Nat there to translate for me ..... it is hard work ) clearly thinking Nutter Alert ( in so far as she does thinking at all ( Oops Snob Alert ) and when she asks what I want piped on the cake and I say Happy Birthday Noodle she goes quite cross eyed .

This is a look Ive seen before .

In fact I really should be formulating my seven wierd things about the list for the I've been tagged by BetteJo business which has also been overtaken by events .

This slightly cross eyed look came over D yesterday when we were driving away from the pet hospital . Having just left Alice to her fate with me having scared everyone with my tales of having read on the net that greyhounds dont survive anaesthetic the way normal dogs do , D was quietly driving and trying to contain himself , whilst I was reading the texts that had arrived for me whilst we were talking to the vet .

Liz , having no idea that we were in the throes of such a nightmare , had brightly suggested I come to her house for an afternoon of Origami . Liz is a great and dear friend of mine who I've known almost for ever and who despite being a scholar and an academic also has a keen interest in all sorts of other things like lace making ( she goes on conventions ) maths ( she goes to maths conferences for fun) and origami . Of course I like the fact that she will occasionally drop everything and spend three hours over soup and tea in a coffee shop hooting with laughter with me about this and that ( mostly that ) .

I read her text out to D , and he repeats slightly incredulously , people are going to her house to do Paper Folding ? From 2 till 5 pm ?
Yes I say and I would have gone except that it might interfere with collecting Alice , and it feels too complicated .
Though , I muse , I could always make a little figure of a Jack Russell and then .... ( rip it to shreds , I am thinking , but I hopefully taper off and finish this sentence in my head ) .. that would be very therapeutic , I say , possibly .

D looks as me , then glances out of the window and I think again , not for the first time , that I am glad I do not know in detail the thoughts that pass across his brain .
I suppose if I had a therapist he would be ringing her now . Or not as the case may be .


As I drove into town at 9 36 am I started thinking that fourteen years ago today my labour was all over , I was back in my bed , and there was this tiny little blonde haired girl with a rosebud mouth in a goldfish bowl thing beside the bed . Across the ward from me was another woman, Ann, of around the same age as me who was also mobile , though like me , somwhat shaky on the pins after an epidural . It was a big ward and all the other women were post caesarean section , so much less mobile than we were ,and all of them bottle feeding their babies . I find that hard to believe . We were unique in that we were breast feeding . Or rather we weren't breast feeding , though we were trying very hard . Nathalia was the most wonderful baby and she did everything right , latching on , as did Patrick across the way . But I can still recall my relief when I looked up and saw the agony in Ann's face and her hands clenching when in unison with my baby , hers latched on and we were in some kind of joint agony as the midwives would say , very much in passing " you dont have to do it you know . We have ready made up bottles here you know . " The temptation . Oh the temptation . And we would reminisce about how we had been warned in our parentcraft talks about the agonies of breast feeding but that we had been too busy fretting about the labour stories to bother about the next bit ....

There was a desparate shortage of staff so although we had fabulous new facilities and a great area with drinks machines etc , we were terrified to leave our babies as it was not long before that a new born baby Abby Humphries had been stolen from her mother's side in the maternity unit . Ann and I soon staggered over to each other and got chatting and agreed to babysit for each other whilst we did our hasty ablutions and got ourselves endless coffees. ( Abby was eventually found and reunited with her parents ) .

Happy memories ....most people are so desparate to get home with their new babies . I loved those five days I was in hospital ( they used to let us stay in a long time then .... ) having my meals delivered , washing done and nothing to worry about except taking care of Nat . It was all so simple !