"What have you eaten" Parallel Chat

In a octopus's garden on a bike.

 

wow! How cool is that! Your friend is very lucky to have you!
Haha, that feeling when I turn on the vpn just to look at your photos

 

www.theguardian.com has an image of a document in his own garden, using batteries, cans and so on:

 

Dogs! Who would have them - not me for sure. They are wonderful looking and I really like them but wouldn't have one. The Leonburger is fine - he's grown up a bit and though he won't happily walk on a lead, he is reasonably well behaved and he's not great at jumping fences - given a chance he will climb over though. The St Bernard, on the other hand, is too clever by far. And she can jump. And she can open doors (she holds the handle down with her front foot and either walks forwards or backwards to get the door open). And she wants to get away from her brood. She can clear the fences around her garden so my son has built a pen with chain link fences about 7ft high and she managed to get over that. Luckily, she didn't then go out of the garden, she opened the front door and went back into the house, leaving the pups in the pen with their dad. Last night's job was to put a Rylock roof over the pen to stop her jumping over. She's more deer than dog! St Bernards are not supposed to be so active.

Only another couple of weeks before the last of the pups go to their new homes. Thank goodness. Maybe she'll stop trying to escape then. Actually, I dread to think what the last pup will be like when he grows up. He is staying and he is already big. If he's as smart as his mother and as strong as his father and grows as big as he promises - he's going to need some handling. I've warned my son that he really must start training the pup very soon and make sure he is well trained before he grows big. Dogs! Who would have them?

 

can we ask for a photo of the puppies? especially this one

 

I'll see if I can get one. A cat is much more acceptable to me but we can't have one because Neil is allergic to cats.

 

you can get yourself a sphynx cat. This breed of cats is hypoallergenic

 

Sadly. they aren't hypoallergenic. It isn't just the fur that causes problems it's something in the cat itself. Wouldn't be able to get one locally anyway. On top of that our cold and wet climate really wouldn't suit a hairless cat. It would need to stay in all the time.

 

My favourite cartooninist has come up with a classic recipe Fox Soup.



Foxes are a introduced species in Australia, so are classed as a feral pest to be eradicated as they kill native fauna.

 

I think I have found out why I become constipated every know and again, it seeem s to happen after I eat a certain brand of liquirish from Woolies.

So as much as I like the stuff thats off my list of foods, one of the nurse at the oncology unit asked what I eat and I mentioed liquerish. She said to be carefull as it can bind you up.

More Gaaaaaaaaaaaah!

 

Has exactly the opposite effect on me! I have 3 liquorice plants growing pretty well now to try just chewing the twigs, so not having much fibre. Bought some from the internet in the interim but the taste was not great. Em just spat it out and threw the twig away. Still, sadly, had the same detrimental effect on me as the processed stuff.

 

So far - nothing but tea. I'm desperately trying to finish off the cakes and biscuits for tomorrow and have had too many tastes for my own good - just to check. The new recipe turned out very well, if looking a bit "rustic" - could have carried on and eaten them myself, but I didn't. One of the cakes is a bit of a disaster - don't know how, but it wasn't cooked through even though I tested it before taking it out of the oven and, being a traybake, I didn't realise until I had put the topping on and cut it into little squares. Never had that happen before. The rest are fine and topping is setting on them - the lemon one is cut up and in a box already. The rest of the biscuit doughs are out of the freezer, but not defrosted enough yet to bake. Just have to fill and ice a coffee cake but I've almost run out of icing sugar! Probably just about manage it. Also just discovered that I am to introduce the whole event (because I'm the one making a fuss about health and safety checks) AND I am supposed to be a "facilitator" for some of the sessions. No idea how to go about that but I'll figure something out before tomorrow, no doubt. But I keep finding myself looking around and wondering what the devil am I doing? Confused is what I am. I am hoping to get something to eat sometime soon.

 

I wonder why someone thought it would be a good idea to introduce foxes into Australia. I can vaguely understand rabbits (which in itself was a bad idea) and camels but foxes! Those old-timers have a lot to answer for.

 

The lords and lady muckety mucks bought the foxes for the Sunday hunt just liked they had in England,

The fisrst lot of rabbits died, so they tried again and they managed to survive and so staretd the local food chain in the early days of settlement.

The camels came in with the Afgan traders that opened up parts of Australia in the early days, they were better at survival than horses were. The camels are live exported to countries in the sandpit mainly the Saudi's, camel meat iss also exported and sold on the local market

 

Come to that what were the lords and ladies doing there? Not their sort of environment I wouldn't have thought.

I'd never heard that the first lot of rabbits died - that makes importing them even more stupid. I guess that second lot were a hardier breed than the first ones since they didn't just survive but proliferated.

I've heard of camel meat, but never had a chance to try it. Any good?

 

Well. Going to the conference wasn't such a great idea. Today I am completely crippled. My own fault, mostly because, although I use the wheelchair, I don't usually have to propel myself around in it - my left arm started playing up immediately and my shoulders and right arm joined in very rapidly, followed by my back (I usually walk a little and sit down a lot but I spent all day sat in the same position from 9.30 am to 8 pm) and my knees. By the evening my legs and ankles looked very much like elephant's legs or the proverbial tree trunks and were letting me know how uncomfortable they were about the whole thing.

The centre is not designed for wheelchair access - doors difficult to open and at odd angles to the corridors, making the approach to fairly narrow doors quite difficult (scraped my knuckles several times trying to get through). The "accessible" toilet was behind 2 of these heavy outward opening doors (grabbing the handle with one hand and trying to push a wheelchair backwards with the other). Finding how difficult it was on my first visit, I drank very little to avoid having to go back. So woke up around 2 am with all the symptoms of a hypo, which turned out to be dehydration not low bg. Also managed to have 3 hypos during the course of the day. Must have been because of all the energy used.

The single person lift was also behind one of these very heavy doors and impossible to access without help. To get out I had to back against the door very hard and struggle to get through and clear of the door. The lift opened into a "domestic" hallway on the ground floor - where the cleaning staff stored their equipment and blocked doorways with boxes and baskets, making life even more difficult. This was also one of the main fire exits. Doors all had quite high cills to get the wheels over. Even people helping me found it hard to get the chair through the doors. Shan't be going there again in a hurry.

Stiff as a board this morning despite taking pain killers so I can't go for the 2nd day. I did, however, manage to bake off the remaining biscuit dough last night and Neil will take them in for me a bit later on. Not being there, I hope I get all my bits and pieces back. One thing that always goes missing at these events is teaspoons so I hope I get mine back (just some odds and ends from old sets, not my best ones). I'll also need to make sure I get back my plastic boxes used for transporting food. That's more important than the spoons.

 

Actually able to move today. I spent the whole of yesterday in my dressing gown, taking pain killers and resting. Neil was very good and did a lot of the clearing up I had left undone. After resting and dozing so much, I only slept in my bed for a couple of hours last night and came back through to take some more pills and doze in the chair again. But now although the pains are still there, I can move around (the only one that hasn't eased off is my neck - always have had problems with that right back to my teen years when I used to lug a huge school bag full of books around with me - our school didn't provide lockers or our own desks to store books in and somehow I always carried twice the amount of books compared to everyone else).

Have to go out again today - Neil is taking me to the Health Centre where the nurse plans to bind my legs up with thick, heavy bandages in an attempt to reduce the swelling. I'm a bit uncertain about it because it involves keeping the bandages on until I go back a couple of times a week to get them re-applied. It's gong to be a bit hot. And what happens about the ointment I am supposed to put on the eczema twice a day? And with so much padding, will I be able to bend my legs to ease the pain or even move around? Well - I'll find out at one o'clock and it's worth a try to get the elephant to take its legs back.

 

Just back and sitting with my cup of tea. The bandaging only comes up to my knees, so I can move reasonably well - apart from the fact that I have to wear a pair of size 8 men's wrap-over slippers to accommodate the bandages and my feet, so I have a tendency just now to drag them across the ground rather than step. I'll get used to it. Have to go back next Monday to get them adjusted. They are feeling rather hot and my eczema is burning just now but with any luck it won't take too long to reduce the swelling.