Well done Britain :/ (by sarah)

As an expected but highly depressing result sorry but Britain but collectively we are thick as two short bricks or votes are tampered with either I concede is possible but I feel the first option is the most likely.

And so as always change is feared and people opt for a system that allows compound error via rounding up maintaining a two party system which has lead to MP's believing they can take the funny bone out of the population.

The worse bit is that those who actually think and reason are starting to think that they have been the stupid ones for voting - as if my generation wasn't stressed out and disillusioned enough as it is.

Interestingly I know to people who were vocal about voting NO and at least they did it because it was part of their politicial beliefs - I don't agree with them but I respect them. I feel that the voting has been done by panic and scare mongering and that most people have followed like sheep. But that's the thing isn't it - most people are sheep and that means those that aren't have to look out for the majority which is why I still went around reminding people to vote even when I knew they would vote against what I wanted.

I am getting that twinge again that makes me want to go into politics to sort things out - I'm not going to as it is extremely stressfull and I think it would be just too depressing.

p.s. (I really wonder if there is an age democratic here with how people voted after all don't the 'greys' heavily out way all the other democratics?)

Propaganda (by sarah)

I am starting to come to the opinion that propaganda material should be not banned but discouraged - people need to be informed of choices they do not need one opinion rammed so far down their throats that they can not think.

The way I would do this is by having a leaflet with the urls and library where abouts of the official material for each group/side/party. That way people can choose what to look at. There can bee a phone number for the house bound so that leaflets can be delivered for the parties they want to know more about.

Why do I feel this?

There were lots of leaflets and bill boards saying vote NO so much so that I struggled to keep the phrase out of my head - now I was prepared for this sort of thing but first time voters and much of the population probably didn't even notice the subliminal message sinking in. The YES campaign had similiar things I just didn't see as many. And to make it worse there was a vote NO leaflet in the polling booth which threw me so much I had to recheck I'd done the ballad correctly. Especially with having to put an x next to the choice you want - I always think eek I'm marking it wrong due to x being used to mark things as wrong on childrens homework.

Not everyone in the UK is literate and I've known people who assumed you put the x next to the one you don't want. But that is a differnet matter.

My point is that humans are highly suggestible creatures we are designed to live in groups with some sort of hirachy even if it is only in times of danger. Politicians like any leaders have to know how to tap into the getting people to do things systems it is part of their job. But the thing is with propaganda is that it becomes a game of money - which group can put out enough flyers, adverts and fuzzybugs.

Alaric asked me how having a website with all the information on it was different from a leaflet and I said the thing is you choose to look at the website with leaflets and TV they just sit there even if say they are on the scrap pile looking at you, getting their message to sink in.

Now the thing is I am looking for this sort of thing as just having a baby I know I am highly susceptable to being swayed (it's so you listen to the rest of the group on how to look after babies first time mothers are affected worse) this is why advitising is not supposed to target new mothers.

And yet all those little tricks Darren Brown knows for getting people to vote a certain way/pick a certain box are nothing compared to what the population receives with every election.

Of course the general issue here again is apathy and the fact that most people do not care or worse think they are not intelligent enough to understand or even worse that it doesn't matter what or how they vote everything will still continue to be crap for them. So the issue then is how to get the population motivated to vote without it being a war of money - ie those who can afford the most brain washing techniques win?

I don't really have an answer other than perhapse the leaflets should have been about using your right to vote rather than YES or NO.

May’s Challenges (by sarah)

I am going to be taking part in NaPiBoWriWee (National Picture Book Writing Week) again this year - I will be attempting to write a picture book a day for seven days - I am focusing on more Little Books of Poetry as these seem so popular with Jean at least.

I will hopefully have 7 more Little Books by the end of May This does however mean 70! poems which I'm not entirely sure is doable - ok they are formulaic and tending towards the rhyming end of things which I find easy but still :/

If I somehow get this done then I will probably expand the challenge to be an hour a day working on children's books. I now have several Little Books of Poetry which I really should make into proper books:

1. The Little Book of Spoogy Poetry (still needs some illustration work and more poems)
2. The Little Book of Festive Poetry (needs more illustrations including front cover)
3. The Little Book of Sparkly Poetry (Poems and illustrations need work)
4. The Little Book of New Baby Poetry (I want to draw 4 more page borders for this and rearrange the text into it so the pages can be double sided and readable in A6 format but it is almost there!)
5. The Little Book of Easter Poetry (Got most of the illustrations done for this one - want to tweak some of the poems too)

I'll be doing write ups on all of this on Orange Monster

So what is my second challenge for the month?

I think I'm going for Flash Fiction writing - I've fallen behind with this so want to aim for a story a day They will be appearing on Magenta Monster.

Womb Infection (by sarah)

This week has seen me back at the hospital with complications from the birth. Unfortunatly I started bleeding very heavily again - I thought the bleeding was stopping as I'd only 'spotted' for a couple of days but then suddenly I was bleeding again. I assumed that as the smear test had come back clear I was alright and it was just a period, I said to Alaric I just wished I'd had a chance to stop bleeding from the pregnancy before I got a period.

But then the amount of blood I was loosing increased drastically. It was now heavier than it had been after the c-section but not what I would call 'life-threatening' ie it was no were near what I was loosing after my delivery of Jean (virginal birth with complications and heavy blood loss). With Jean I only bleed for 10 weeks, you are supposed to bleed for no more than six but I'd had a bit of placenta left behind which came out and all was fine.

But that couldn't be the case with the c-section as they had had to do a big clean out why they were at it due to what they found there. I just thought that was what happened with c-sections.

Anyway - the bleeding got heavier and with a couple phone calls and several referals I got sent to A&E, I was soaking through my clothing if I didn't change my pad about once an hour and I'd started throwing up. Al phoned for me initially as I kept still saying I was fine.

Anyway I wont go into the gory details but it turns out I have an infection in the womb lining and my bodies been trying to flush it out and it was the start of my first period but my body couldn't cope and so the bleeding was really heavy. It's concerning because it wares you down. I have now been bleeding for 12 odd weeks and had four days of extremely heavy bleeding (so far) when I'm already suffering from anemia

But I am now on antibiotics and (yes again I know) and am going back for more scans and things this week. Hopefully this will have everything sorted out.

Dear NHS (by sarah)

Dear NHS

I love you, you save my life, keep my children disease free with immunisations and keep my parents going. But sometimes I think you need a big hammer taking to your structure.

The main issue I have today is appointment booking. Getting to the Drs today I booked in and found it was only saying Nurse, I did not worry at first as I had double checked when I made the appointment that I was booking both nurse and Dr. So I finished booking in on your funky touch skin panel and waited for my nurse appointment.

Getting into my appointment I find that the room is double booked and the nurse has to move use into another room she knows is free, then the smear I'm having because I'm still bleeding and loosing gloop 9 weeks after having my baby apparently shouldn't be done whilst I'm still bleeding :/

That all done along with blood tests I've had to starve for I leave - the nurse was lovely but I still felt disorientated which is why when I tried to book in for the Drs appointment I felt I must be doing something wrong and asked at reception - where it turns out I don't have one :/

Now I wasn't thinking so left thinking this was my fault until Alaric reminds me that I double checked and that he hadn't called NHS direct at the weekend when I lost a load of black jelly ribbons as well as blood because I was seeing the Dr this week.

Getting home I check and find that my doctor doesn't actually have a clinic on Tuesdays which I summise is part of where things have gone wrong.

I find this sort of error so frustrating because it shouldn't be able to happen - they printed me out an appointment slip and we noticed it had said just nurse and asked and they said no I was booked for both and they would be one after another which was why there was only one slip of paper. Now I think this was a combination of us not knowing the Dr didn't work Tuesdays and the receptionists not listening and assuming things as I had two things needing doing by the nurse. As a patient I myself made the mistake of assume the two things to be being done in ONE appointment where as they must have been thinking of it as two.

This is not the only time this sort of thing has happened either - I've had cases of letters with dates on them when the hospital clinic doesn't run, or has a day name (Monday, Tuesday) that doesn't correspond to the date given. I've turned up to an appointment at the Drs to be told I'm discharged from a clinic at the hospital I hadn't even known I was supposed to be attending but was supposed to be at a week ago. And so on... some of these things are easy to sort out and some are not. Like whilst at university I waited two years for an MRI scan to sort out my pain and muscle stuff only to find out that in agreeing to go on the pain management course had taken me off the waiting list. To be fair the Dr I had at the time was very angry that I had too wait so long for the diagnostic tests some of which I 'fell' off the waiting lists for three times through clerical error :/

Dr surgeries and hospitals still rely on post to get appointment letters too you - why they can not email, text and post I don't know - they say it's a security risk - and I suppose having neighbours end up with your post and opening it isn't?

The other thing is they are expected sick people to remember stuff which really is not going to work very well.

How they relay information, store it and use it needs an over haul, the amount of money and resources lost due to patients not turning up when they should could be drastically reduced with sending reminders. Plus it would save people having to book so much time off needlessly for appointments that then don't happen.

Plus there have been situations were what I have been prescribed by a locum at the drs surgery never getting into their records - that I find scary - I would prefer all the A&E departments, Drs etc... to be linked up - because I can't remember all the meds I've had and if I'm treated in Essex the Dr in Gloucestershire still needs too know. Obviously there might be need for nominity in say the family planning clinics and SDT treatmets and the whole issue of domestic violence and control can be thorny but there should be a way of exempting people not having it so everyones in a muddle all the time.

I was really pleased when I saw computers appearing in Drs surgeries as I thought this would help but they don't even keep all you files there accessible they still do things like printing out the old stuff and keeping it in boxes in the antic :/ So your entire medical history is not avaliable to them there and then.

This does not make sense to me.

The same as not having the medicines in a searchable data base as to who can and can't take it - rather than have the Drs having to flick through huge books.

You may think this is a mountain out of a mole hill but were the NHS is concerned an error of miss filing can cost lives as we very well know.