Bex and Sarah on BBC south news for Cancervive.

As a follow up to the Newspaper article i blogged about Bex let me know tonight that she was going to be on BBC south news. sadly not living in sussex anymore i couldn't see it on TV but thanks to the internet i know have it saved on my laptop. I remember when Pam died and the pain and distress, but for it to happen a 2nd time......I'm so proud of them. they are the only friends i kept in touch with after i moved to essex and i'm so glad i have.

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A very busy week

no, i haven't fallen down a rabbit hole and gone missing. it's just been a very busy week, and i don't think it's going to end there! i'll go through it day by day starting last thursday:

Thursday 6th - babysitting got home about midnight but at least managed to get peter's christmas card order sorted - 25 cards, not bad in one evening!

Friday 7th - did food shopping all on my own this week, nan and grandpa arrived 3pm, sat showing off my laptop to them, watched my starring peformance together when having dinner.

Saturday 8th - weather crap so stuck indoors, peter picked up his cards, offered us a trip to london to see Handel's Messiah @ St Martin's in the Field (going just before xmas), went out to Van Haage's garden centre in the afternoon just to get out the house, not soon enough in my books but by that time i'd had enough so when we got home at 5pm i escaped the house and went down to the pub with my diary.

Sunday 9th - left home 10am to go to Tryst on the Green for a family lunch with Alison, Joan and others from that side of the family. got there just after 12pm, not bad as the weather was horrible so the spray on the motorways was bad, i'd stopped for petrol and stopped for a 5 min break at Clacket Lane services, and i managed to take a "detour" as i got close to my destination but again that was only about 10 minutes of the 2 hours.

lunch lasted 4 hours and by the time we'd finished sadly it was a bit late for me to go back to their house especially if i wanted to get home for dinner. and its quite a good job i did as driving conditions were still bad with spray and after i passed through the tunnel i hit the tail of a queue from an accident which then delayed me by about 45 mins. so it was near on a 3 hour drive home.

whilst i was out nan and grandpa had gone home.

monday 10th - needless to say after the weekend i was shattered and spent monday half asleep!

tuesday 11th - i don't actually remember what i did, still half asleep i think. mum had her work christmas event so a quiet night in.

wednesday 12th - emotional rollercoaster of a day, ended up driving to meet mum for lunch as i needed to see her, then took my time getting home, got back about 4pm. had the evening to myself as mum and david went to the local panto. settled down to a dinner of mussels, something to keep my fingers and mind occupied!

thursday 13th (last night) - popped into town in the morning still on my hunt for coloured sand, and still no luck. i was it for my "green" christmas lights - homemade candle lanterns not electric lights outside this year! i'll try and take some photos later when its dark tonight.
babysat again - screaming tantrum lasted about 15 minutes this time. she's starting to learn that screaming the house down isn't going to stop mummy going out and i'm not going to give in and let her go downstairs or call her mumy back - i feel so mean and nasty but a 3 year old needs to learn she's not ging to get her own way. she got 20 mins of TV on her parents' bed and then a story anyway. the TV was mummy's compromise, not cartoons tho as only analogue TV upstairs due to renovation works, so it was nice and boring for her! and the quick story was just to make sure on my part and to be fair she hadn't had one earlier, but then to be honest she didn't really deserve one. so i read through the book quickly and put little emotion into it cos i was tired and pissed off by this time! but i was home by 10.30pm as the father had been away on business and got home before the mother.



but i could be going through all that again tonight! the mother phoned to check all was ok, and asked me if i was free tonight, as she had been invited out again during the course of the evening. My mum is right though, i need to work outwhether i need the stress though, as nice as £7 an hour is - is it worth the stress?

well at least i don't have to worry about getting up early or anything like that. todays plans include the post office, which will mean a huge queue at this time of year. but i have ebay items to send out and a postcard to send out for a swap-bot partner. her mother had cleared out her postcard collection when she moved out of home, so she's trying to rebuild it.
and then when mum gets home about 4pm today, as she's been on earlies this week, its off to do the food shopping at tescos.

why does this time of year have to be so stressful and tiring??!!

My five minutes of fame on BBC1

it was tonight!! i sat there with my heart racing, my body shaking with nerves and excitement, but it was a really good edit.

as i expected not too much from all the filming we did but it was really well put together.

if you didn't catch it have a look here and you can watch it online!!

The beeb are coming!

i didn't post about if before now because things kept changing and it seemed like it was going to be impossible to arrange a mutually convenient time.

Of an evening we've started watching The One Show on BBC1 at 7pm. A few weeks back they did a series on the brain and whether you had a male of female brain (regardless of your gender) and which brain was better at which type of things such as spacial awareness and map reading etc. As part of that they had a quiz to do online, so one morning i decided to check my brain out (according them i have a female brain) but while i was looking round their website i noticed a bit that asked for your views on certain topics and one of them was junkmail. this was very soon after my "bad day" so that was fresh in my mind and i emailed them telling them about that.

i didn't think anything more of if but the a couple of weeks later got a call from a researcher at the BBC. he originally wanted to come with the presenter Justin on the 29th, but obviously i knew i was in Kent that day. i did say i might beable to get back for early Wednesday morning, but after more thought i decided that wasn't sensible. after telling them that i was expecting them to say never mind, we've got other people we can interview/film. but no, he then suggested the tuesday the next week, the 6th and passed my details onto another collegue who was coming this way.

it then seemed like it was all going to fall through again when she called to say she couldn't make that day, but she did have yet nother collegue who was in Essex the week after. so thats where we are. however i was almost thinking that it wasn't going to happen again as i hadn't heard from this latest researcher. but she called at 7.30pm last night to see if it would be ok to come at 2pm not 1pm. which to be honest works better for me regarding lunch anyway!

so all i have to do in the next 6 hours is tidy the dining room tables, decide what to wear and make myself look presentable, which will take 6 hours alone! had better get started then.....

Another fun fact from The Wright Stuff's paper review

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/21781/Bangers-and-mash-for-dinner?-You’re-going-to-be-ditched


what are you cooking tonight?

The Joys of a laptop

tonight the laptop worries and doubts are fading. today i installed both Norton 360 and office. i registered windows and Norton online, however couldn't find how to register office, but when i opened word tonight to transfer these blog entries that i had already typed in word pad, it then told me to register. by that time of course i had disconnected from the phone line upstairs and had moved to the dining table. when i clicked cancel it told me i could open office 24 more times without registering then i would expire. so i am back to typing in word pad for fear of using up those 24 chances.

however tonight proved another good side to the laptop for all of us to benefit from. when mum and i were in tescos they had some reasonably cheap DVDs, i spotted "stranger than fiction" which stars Emma Thompson. I'd seen her on BBC breakfast a few months back talking about the film. so we got it tonight when in tescos. but then when we were unpacking the shopping mum pointed out something that we had both forgotten about which is the fact that the HDD/DVD player has given up the ghost, and in fact at the moment there is a DVD of the modern version of "Alfie" stuck in the damn machine which now simply refuses to even turn on! so anyway we've had a nice evening watching the film on the laptop. the sound quality was good.

i had one small issue though - there is one pixel right in the middle of the screen that doesn't work it seems. its fine typing this, i don't notice it at all as the background is white. but when we were watching the film i found it so annoying. technically its a fault with the product so there shouldn't be an issues with getting it fixed i would hope. seen as I've only had the product a week and with the guarantee and extended cover I've paid for etc. David wasn't so sure though. so i will give comet a ring. mum was asking if i had to get it fixed whether all the stuff I've installed etc would be lost. but unless they can't just change the screen and have to give me a brand new machine that shouldn't be an issue.

i really should turn my light off and go to sleep. i can see when the wireless is up and running i am going to have trouble turning this off even more. i have to be in Harlow by 8am tomorrow morning. its flu jab time of year again and once again i have volunteered to help at Lister medical centre with David. I'm really not looking forward to it tomorrow. i just really don't feel in the mood. however apparently there were only 1000 jabs to start with and one of the GPs has been giving it to all the eligible patients he's seen in the last few days so with a limited number f jabs to give it should be a short morning.

to be honest though i am starting to dread and hate this time of night again. my dreams are upsetting every night again, not in a nasty way, bu more to do with the people in them or the places. I've had dreams about being in hospital again recently or things like self harm which have landed me in hospital. last night the upsetting thing was a person - Hazel Bailey my old German teacher from the college. i think about her often. i guess i kind of miss her. she's someone i respected, trusted, looked up to and i guess in someways depended on whilst i was at the college. know i was one of her star pupils and i don't care if the other kids thought i was her teachers pet. that woman helped me gain more confidence and belief in myself than anyone else ever has. for some reason my father's been popping up a lot recently. that's always a distressing one. it just means i dread going to sleep though because i don' want to dream. as far as i know though there's no way to stop dreams.

i ordered some flowers today to be sent to the hotel for mum and David. 3 gerberas, each in a bud vase. and I've started work on ideas for the picnic basket. so far the menu is:

· port and Stilton pate
· smoked mackerel and avocado pate
· Melba toasts
· bacon mushroom and rocket quiche
· quails eggs and watercress salad (details still to be decided on that one)

and for pudding a little individual tiramisu each.

11.13pm time to face the dreaded sleep, never mind only 7 hours til i have to wake up again, lets hope they pass quickly.

Would a Singles Night be so bad?

i was watching the Restaurant tonight on BBC2 and the challenge was for them to host a singles night. one couple did a fun filled jungle evening, with a love shack and silly games and the other did a romantic more sedate evening.

i'm not sure which i would have prefered. i don't think i'd have the confidence for the games and love shack of the jungle evening but then the romantic evening looked a bit boring. the entertainment there for the night was a raffle!

made me think it would be a way to possible meet people. something to look into maybe. but then it would probably involve going to a pub. my problem is the type of people i look for and the things i look for in them. i'm just one big snob really!

so what am i looking for? well, i want someone older than me for starters. but then how much do i tell them about my past. that big black hole that i seem to fall back into. that huge invisible suitcase of baggage that i carry with me. that drags me down. goodness knows huge much it would cost me in excess baggage if i was flying with Ryan air. it would never fit within their 15kg weight limit...

i don't care about colour, creed, race, size etc. i think thats one good thing about my personality - my ability to accept others whatever their race, nationality etc.

my dream guy though would be scottish, with a thick scottish accent. he'd be a farmer or a fisherman, we'd live in a little croft on the coast. we'd have access to the sea and have a couple of our own lobster and crab pots. i'd have a huge veggie garden and grow all types of produce. we'd have chickens, who would lay us eggs.

but thats all it is - a dream.

back to reality and i've been thinking about mum and david's anniversary. it's their 3rd. the traditional gift its leather, the modern is crystal, the flower is fuschia and the colours are white and jade green. they're going away for 3 days from the 29th and i know i told mum i'd be ok but i'm starting to worry and panic. i don't know what i'm going to do for those 3 days. i was thinking maybe i should go away myself. then at least i wouldn't be stuck at home and driving myself mad. i haven't found anywhere that i really want to go as yet. becasue it is mid week there aren't any festivals etc so i guess it needs to be somewhere with somewhere to visit. i just can't think of anywhere though.

i'm going to make up a picnic basket for them to take on their journey down to dorset for lunch and then also have some flowers send to the hotel room. it works within my budget that way.

the question still remains though - what the hell am i going to do??!!

Bring back 80's kids TV

BBC breakfast TV this morning was talking about children’s TV and how that only 17% of kids TV these days is "home grown", so made in the UK. They were saying that there are more cartoons these days and not as many factual or drama programmes for children. So I thought I’d list the things I remember watching on TV.

· Mr Ben
· Bertha
· Charlie Chalk
· Fireman Sam
· Sharkey and George (US I think)
· Poddington Peas
· Play Days
· Spot
· Blue Peter
· Byker Grove
· Art Attack
· The Really Wild show
· Morph and the art show he featured on - can't remember the name of it.
· grange hill
· live and kicking
· the racoons (US)
· postman pat
· noddy
the demon headmaster

I know noddy is still going today, (although it has been digitally remastered and now looks more like a computer game!) and also the really wild show, art attack, blue peter. I’m not sure about grange hill; I think it is still going.

Things like postman pat and fireman Sam are available on DVD and video I think. So parents who remember then could show them to their kids that way. I know I would.

I caught a glimpse of a kids programme on BBC the other afternoon, it’s this latest craze called Lazy Town, which seems to be set in the future and the space age. The main character is a young girl who has bright pink hair. With one other real human being and then the rest of the characters were cartoons. What confused me though (as I think it is supposedly a "home grown" programme) was that the main character has an American accent yet every other character has a British accent.

One programme I do think it positive these days which is aimed at pre teens I think is Tracy Beaker, based in a series of books. It looks at children’s home, fostering and adoption - dealing with real issues as well as the light hearted day to day stuff of a pre teen likes fashion and boys etc. In my list it was Biker grove that used to handle these issues.

The news says teenagers are the most poorly served with TV. With channel 4's hollyoaks being the only programme really. But I never watched hollyoaks as a teen, but then we all know I was never a normal teen!

Surely these days’ teenagers are probably more likely to be online, on msn chatting to friends etc than sat in front of the TV.

And anyway normally in the news they are constantly saying that kids should be out and about playing with friends, being active, so they don't become obese! So which is it more British TV? Which they want the government to put more money into. Yet then you can guarantee that they will say kids are sitting in front of the TV too much again.

Talk about mixed messages!