The Saga of the Flat Tyre (by sarah)

Yesturday Barbara was getting ready to go out and as always she went to drive Madge - her canary yellow MG convertable round to the front of the house in to await when she was ready. Jean loves to rid in the car for these little manoovers and so it was that I was sitting there working on a book review at the table in the garden when I notice that her rear wheel was - erm as flat as a pancake.

I call to her and she looks and is startled and then confused that she hadn't felt that it was flat.

Anyway (stupidly in hindsight) I wandered off to check the washing on the line and to put some more up in the workshop on the drying rack.

When I come back Jean is standing up in the car whilst Barbara jacks it up on on of those little tiny jacks that looks like two metal brackets bolted together. Jean is playing with the wheel nuts and is absolutely covered in grease.

I tentively ask if I should remove Jean from the vechile Barbara says no it wont make any difference and continues to jack up the car on a slope. I look at the set up and its shifting!

Barbara hasn't noticed and I'm shouting and pulling her away - I have no idea if she was already moving or anything like that. The car smashed down with a wide eyed Jean in it.

'That bumped me mummy' yes and thank god she hadn't been leaning over the side as she had been a few moments earlier when I came upon the scene.

The car was now sitting on its wheel hub 🙁

I removed Jean and took her to wash the grease off her hands - thinking of how I should have seen what was coming. We came back and Barbara had rejacked the car up and Jean tried to run over to the car as she wanted to go back in it and I grabbed her fearing the car would come back off of the Jack. Jean thought I was being very mean and got very grumpy with me.

But the car did slip again - the searing pressure on the jack just too much - this time it landed on the spare wheel.

Barabara then got another jack out of the garage and started jacking it up again - fearing that she was going to squash herself I stayed in the garden trying to occupy Jean in the 'jungle' so she wouldn't go near the car.

I went back to check just as the car slipped off of both Jacks - Barbara got a third out and Begain again. I was worried by this point - I'm sure that with jacking cars there are only certain places on the chassi that you can put them without twisting the car making it dangerous too drive.

Plus I knew she would just carry on until she either succeeded or something catastrophic happened 🙁

I couldn't offer to change the tyre for her a) its too physical for me to contemplate at this point in time, b) who would keep Jean away from the car? c) I would never ever risk a car jacked with one of those jacks on flat ground let alone a slop. I grew up playing with jacks and the ones Barbara has really are not safe at the best of times 🙁

Anyway she then asked me to keep an eye on the wheel and the bolt bits on the hub - so I stood on the bank with a fierce grip on Jean praying that Barbara wasn't going to get hurt and panickig everytime she put her arm between the wheel and the car - my mind couldn't help but think - if the car falls off now she'll loose her arm etc...

All I can do in these situations is voice my concern.

Barbara thought I was being silly not letting Jean near the car as she would have been fine inside it. (not if it then squashed Barbara she wouldn't have been - Jean loves Barbara and that would be a bad bad thing to happen and yes I am probably being a really paranoid mummy again.)

Anyway - she got the wheel back on and then went of to Gloucester in one piece and came back ok too which was a relief.

Diverticulitis (by sarah)

Mum came out of hospital about this evening and it turns out that though she may well have a 'grumbling' appendix the CT scan showed that she has Diverticulitis which is were pockets and pouches form in the gut where there is pressure on the system.

These get filled with erm.. 'stuff' you find in your intestines - ie half digested food and poo. It then becomes infected and inflamed. Interestingly it normally occurs in the sigmoid colon in Europeans but mum has it where Asians and Africians get it - were it is mistaken for appendicitis!

It says that it is cuased by a lack of fibre in the diet but mum drives us all potty with her insistance of eating Brassicas all the time (stinking the house out!) so I'm not really sure how she is going to increase fibre intake - dad already adds bran to her porrage - maybe he will finally get his way and get her to eat brown bread?

Anyway they are not going to opperate but will do if it comes back - they said that she also has the grumbling appendix but again they don't opperate for it grumbling and they wont touch the hernia either - mainly due to the risks of surgery and the anasthetic.

Still she is out - on yet another lot of antibiotics - I am starting to get worried that they will run out of ones they can give her - these are broad spectrum again - she must have bacteria resistant to alot of antibiotics in her system by this point which with super bugs infecting her surgery wounds and the cellulitis etc...

So fingers crossed its all ok anyway.

Of Internets and Appendixes (by sarah)

And so continuing in the vain of my general bad luck field - I was here on my own with Jean this week from Wednesday when Alaric headed off to London.

I had decided to stay here to try and get stuff done when there was a phone call from my Dad saying Mum had been rushed into hospital with a suspected appendicitis but that she was ok and not to worry - she's in with the surgeon.

Eeek and arg!

I stayed awake waiting for news but eventually fell asleep just after midnight - at some point during the early hours my brother phones me to say that they can't operate on mum as her sugar levels were too high and she'd been put on an insuline drip (she is a type 2 diabetic). He also said there could be complications with all the cancer meds and that she's on so they were waiting for more tests and things to be done.

One thing they did discover however was that she has a huge hernia across the middle of her stomach that has been there since she had David over 20 yrs ago :/ How the hell has that been missed for so long?

Anyway I got up the next day and as always it was absorbed with entertaining Jean which included us learning about the Aztecs and Mayans via Mysterious Cities of Gold and doing lots of glueing and sticking with abit of 'helping' Barbara in the garden.

Barbara wanted me to help with the Goose grass pulling but I had to refuse - I was already in alot of pain from having to deal with the getting Jean dressed and loo stops and getting into bed and being jumped on and I can not risk anymore of a flare up than I have already when in sole charge of Jean. The other thing is that the goose grass pulling definatly acts my shoulder up as we've discovered in previous years and Alaric has actually band me from doing the task - this didn't make telling Barbara who naturally didn't believe me, any easier.

I did however discover that putting a film on for JEan ment that I could have my afternoon nap - but only becuase shes a good girl and I dislike doing it - I look the door so she can't get out and she knows shes not allowed downstairs under pain of no films in future.

Dad phoned to say mum was waiting for a CT scan and that Alaric shouldn't try and come and visit becuase of the way the hospital are being militant about visiting hours :/

I went to blog about the fact mum was in hosptial and lo! No internet - I phone Alaric in a panic and he talks me through things that should work - ie the power connecter to the wireless hub thingy - but I couldn't get the lights to shine on the front of the thing no matter how I wiggled the connector and then stuff with my laptop to try and use the ethernet with the cable - but alas and alack - it turns out my laptop is slightly broken too :/

So no internet which also ment no tweaking of websites, no blogging, no photo sorting, no instant info on things Barbara wants too know, no free communication including video calls with Alaric and no blogging - oh sorry already said that 😉

Also it ment no kitten cam which made me very sad though I did get a kitten pic texted to me 🙂

So I felt stranded and like I really couldn't even attempt to do any work which was frustrating.

Anyway back to mum...

The results show that it wasn't an appendicitis but that she has a pocket in her gut that has developed which traps digestive waste and has become infected - she is still in the hospital being thourally fed up from what dad saids 🙁

I just feel that everytime I resist going to London becuase I'll be on my own here stuff goes wronge - ie internet goes down in one way or another - if Jean's around and if she isn't I get sick sick ick!

If I was paranoid that is...

... you know I think the little green men are stealing the rubbish 😉

Cranham Country Fayer (by sarah)

Today we went to the Cranham Country Show which is basically the school fete but in a truelly grand and exciting country village way!

No I'm serious!

On top of that Alaric arrived home with Seth and Hamlesh! Seth was getting his motobike MOTed to take away with him as he has finailly gotten his liscense!

So we headed up early as there was the Scout recruiting stall to set up and Barbara had to get Mag (her MG convertable in sunshine yellow) into the classic car show. So we headed up on mass. Dad parking the orange van in the car park which was a bumpy lumpy field with me stating we'd probably get stuck (I shall say no more about this other than when it came time to leave - guess who had to sit over the rear axil? Thats right all of us).

Seth took one look at the classic car show and brought his bike in to join in the fun!

BBC Gloucestershire radio was there much to our amazement and they had this car with a humungous aerial on the top of it! I just had to take a photo of it!

Painswick Fire department turned out again though they didn't appear to be giving out free smoke detectors like last year (ie the origin of our smoke alarm - I wanted to pick one up for Barbara).

At some point we were pounced to enter into raffles and a pound pot thing. We only had £10 on us and hadn't had lunch so we had to be a bit sparing! Seth and Hamlesh where horrified to be told they had sold out of veggi burgers at the BBQ about 5 minutes in - someone miss calculated but this was also a little fib - there was one left but the BBQ people were saving it for Alaric!

Anyway there was lots of fun things there like dogs for a dog show where they ran round a course with jumps and things - I managed to somehow not get any photos of them but did get this photo of a dog driving a car with canine passangers!

The first thing we actually did when we arrived was go to the cheek/face painting - 50p a design! There was a board of designs and I was expecting her to go for the hearts or pink at least but she has been abit obsessed lately with 'canoes and so she picked the volcano and was quiet adamant about it! I am a proud geology mum 😉

Barbara was ecstastic as there were horses/pony rides and she got Jean on a horse - Jean hesitently picked the brown one but was unsure - they went round came back. She got off had her helmet taken off and asked to go on the other horse now! Barbara hastily paid another pound and off she went again :/

I was most impressed with the Think Bike Dudes who were doing some cool tricks - some of which I was never brave enough to even attempt on my BMX! I wish I'd had time to get some better pics of them and the dogs.

Jean followed Barbara around everywhere - this is a photo of them waiting for the dog show to begin - shortly after this I found Barbara giving Jean a skiff of cider which I confiscated :/ For some reason round here some of the older generations think of cider as non-alcoholic :/

This photo looks very similar to the last but there was actually quiet alot of time between them! Instead of waiting for the dog show they are eating Jean's hot dog! Though Barbara had filled JEan up with sweets at this point.

Jean's day was completed by her being the youngest climber on the climbing wall - She actaully managed to climb a bit herself though she had alot of help! She loved being swung around in the harness and went on all the different climbing faces! Proud ex-instructor mum 🙂

At the end of the day there was the dismantling of the marquees and the like which Jean wanted to help with - I on the other hand had managed to start shaking and had to sit down and have my cup of coffee brought over - I was not happy and felt a bit stupid about this but then Jeany was having such a great time I was glad I stayed the extra - I had been going to go home earlier on!

And off course there was the slight thing of we had run out of money and then - we won £72! Which is very fortunate as there was a slight incident of me forgetting to pay our water bill and getting two at once and one of those scary red telegram things :/

It was a fantastic day which ended with us all going for a meal as well which was great 🙂

Alaric Summer of ’82 (by sarah)

Lionel, Roderick and Barbara have been turning out the old family 'junk' and they found a few photo's of Alaric as a small child!

They gave me this one - I took it with flash as well as that one shows the colours more truelly than the one with out!