:: new shoes!

Buying shoes is a doddle compared to buying clothes. I went to Schuh, and got a pair of sneakers (Skecher Scooters, in caramel & cream suede) and a pair of stylee jandals (brown suede Schuhs, Birkenstock knock-offs with a formed footbed). It took about five minutes. Then I went to BhS and got a cheap straw hat. Having got the jandals I'm now thinking, hmmm, they'd look good with cropped trousers... oh dear.



Update on the dents on my legs (front of each thigh, about fingertip level, worst on the left leg): the doctor was completely baffled. She has no idea what's caused them and is going to consult her colleagues. I'll go back and see her after my holiday. I phoned the embolisation research sister & she talked to the radiologist and reported back that it probably wasn't anything to do with that, but is making an appointment for me in any case, "so she can reassure you". They don't hurt, so I'm not too worried, just curious.

Bertie hates his muzzle. It is cruel and unusual, and apparently he's never worn anything like it in his life. I make him wear it on our nightly excursion and he spends most of the walk trying to get it off. He looks like Hannibal Lecter:



Last night was particularly frustrating for him because when we set out on our walk there was a hedgehog strolling along the footpath right outside the gate.

Faye came round the other day and took Bertie out for a walk. She brought me some flowers, trilliums. The gardener where she works has offered me some plants, and I'd never heard of these. They're amazing!


This was my favourite, it's such a stunning colour; the other one is pretty too, white with plain pale green leaves.

Here are another couple of recent pictures:


I took this at Braid Hills a while back. I have no idea what it is. A man also walking his dog said he lives nearby and saw from his window someone putting it up. It's too big to be a splint, he thought. "Maybe it's art," I said. I can't reproduce the noise he made, but I think it's what the Victorians would write as "Pshaw!"


Some lovely colours on an ancient building on a jetty at Port Edgar.

:: more catching up

I really am on a mad treadmill, organising this, that and the next thing. Today's ticks on the to-do list were: order a muzzle for Bertie, make a hair appointment and talk to returning officers about the constituency list results for the Scottish parliamentary elections.

Bertie's getting a muzzle because he's going to stay on the farm and the farm is home to approximately 12 cats, and some of them are geriatric.

Tomorrow's my day off and I've got appointments with the doctor and the dentist, what fun. These very odd "dents" have appeared on my legs and I'm getting them checked out; and I have intermittent toothache.

Next week is going to be wildly busy: I have Monday off, then I'm working right through to Saturday. I usually always have Saturdays off, but we'll be helping with the changeover to the new computer software. The election is on Thursday and I'll be working hard doing the results that day and Friday. Sunday Andrew comes down, Sunday night he drives me to the airport. I stay with David and Donna and hang out with them on Monday, which is a bank holiday. Then on Tuesday morning I go to Westminster to train our political staff (yes! on my holiday!); then over to Victoria to train the London reporter, then back to Westminster for the final reporter.

Wednesday morning I fly to Greece. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to a break!

The return journey is all worked out too: I arrive back at Gatwick on the 7th and get an easyJet flight straight away to Edinburgh. The next day I go to Inverness on the return half of Andrew's train ticket. Then on Friday or Saturday I drive back down in my car -- which Andrew will have driven up in. The whole arrangement is so finely tuned it's frightening.

I bought a pair of shorts on Saturday, least said about that the better. I hate buying clothes, it's traumatic. I tried on several skirts but ... I'm not really into skirts, and the ones that fit just look awful. Also, they all seem to be that fashionably pre-grubbied denim or heavy twill -- I'd want something a bit more floaty & floral to avoid looking like a diesel dyke. I can get by on what I've got in my wardrobe, but I do need a hat and some sandals. I shouldn't really wear sandals, because I can't wear my special insoles with them. But I'm hoping it'll be so wonderfully hot in Greece that I'll need sandals. And shorts.

:: catching up

Where does the time go? Today, it went in hanging around waiting for the gas engineer who never came. I waited from noon until 6pm -- his window of opportunity -- and he didn't show. I called Scottish Gas several times and got various stories about where he was: mostly he was "en route to your premises", but sometimes he had been called out on an emergency and was "doing his best". "He might be trying to call you right now ma'am!" said one operative snippily.

My final, very angry call, got the horrid truth: the engineer had been listed as "en route to your premises" since 2pm. In other words, it was all a big lie. By this time I was not only angry, I was also two and a half hours late for work. And Bertie was beside himself with frustration -- "Let's go for a walk! Hey, isn't it time we went for a walk?" So after a fruitless conversation with the Scottish Gas operative ("As you've had a broken appointment, we can make a two-hour window for the next available appointment, on 24 April.") I wheeked Bertie round the park at top speed & roared off to work.

My head still hurts.

It was a pretty full-on weekend too; I built shelves into the alcove in the livingroom but didn't get to paint the room due to difficulties getting the right colour. Went out for dinner on Friday night with Fiona and a friend. That was funny: I was meant to meet them in a bar, which was very crowded. I scanned the mob, didn't see anyone familiar and went on to the restaurant. I was early there, so sat at the bar with a drink. When Fiona arrived, it turned out the woman I'd been sitting next to for ten minutes was her friend! She's fun and interesting, so it's a shame we didn't figure out our connection while we waited. The food was good too, simple and tasty.

I've ordered a pair of varifocal glasses -- old age, sigh. They're wildly expensive -- the "frames" are titanium -- but what the hell. I say "frames" because they're hardly that, they're just thin little shreds of wire to loop over my ears and another shred to hold the lenses apart over my nose. But being titanium, they're very strong, hypoallergenic shreds. And light! Very light.

I've organised the car insurance for Andrew's Cunning Plan -- only £17 to add him right through until July! A bargain.

Thanks for the wedding photos, Mum, some lovely shots there. I have to say I don't agree with you at all about the fringe, I think your hair looks great. You're altogether stylish -- great bone structure, nice suit!

:: gawker

I read about Gawker in the Guardian recently and meant to go and have a gawk but didn't ... and now I have and here it is. Probably more interesting if you live in Manhattan and work in publishing; good collection of links but.

:: ms efficiency

In fits and starts, anyway. I made a strict list of phone numbers today and got through them all. Dental appointment: check. Optician appointment: check (bifocals this time ... I'm soooo old). Garage appointment: check. Vet appointment: check. Sister appointment: check. That last was to make sure Faye's coming round tomorrow to watch The Wedding Video -- Liz and Ken sent us a copy. Faye's going to sneak in early and take Bertie for a walk, then I'll whip up lunch once I get up and we'll sit down for a "Missing the Family" session.

I also phoned the car insurance people to check out Andrew's Cunning Plan for May, when I go to Greece. His idea is to come down the day before I leave, drive me to the airport, and then (eventually, once he's tired of the fleshpots of Auld Reekie) drive Bertie back to the farm. Then when I come back, I'll get the train or bus up there and drive Bertie home again. Cool plan, I like it. I haven't got a quote on the extra insurance, but it shouldn't be a huge amount.

Spring is blasting along at such a rate that I mowed the lawn today, the bit out the front. I haven't done the back yet -- it looks so awful I can't bear too. I should take a photo from the upstairs and put it here for you to see: it's a real dog-owner's lawn, a collection of bald patches interspersed with yellow patches. I read somewhere if you give the dog tomato juice to drink its pee doesn't yellow the grass and I tried it and it did seem to work, but unfortunately Bertie went right off tomato juice. I tried sprinkling it on his food and he went on hunger strike. Next thing to try is some weird chemical from the pet shop.

I'm still astounded by the war coverage: more "friendly fire" mayhem; still no sign of Weapons of Mass Destruction (although they did find thousands of boxes of white powder in a military complex; "initial tests indicate it is not a chemical weapon" -- soap powder then?); Saddam's ferocious elite Republican Guard turn out to be a bunch of cowardy custards; Saddam himself is nowhere to be seen.

My favourite story so far is the description of the paras entering Basra. Their commander got them all pumped up about the dangers of close urban combat: "You will need to use everything you learned in Northern Ireland and Pristina." They'd lost a couple of guys in a gunfight early in the day so were feeling scared anyway. Off they go, crouching and aiming their guns at anything suspicious. Next thing they're mobbed ... by kids! "Welcome, how are you?" And a lady going past in her car toots her horn and waves! No-one shoots at them at all. They go right into Saddam's palace and peer at his gold-plated loo-roll holder and marble shower. They find a huge warehouse stuffed full of machine guns and ammo and grenades. "This is more firepower than is held by a British batallion," said Major Duncan McSporran (no, I'm not making up his name). "It's sobering to think what a well-trained army with a bit of backbone could have done to us with all this." Oooooo! Duncan! That was mean!

I'm on late tonight, 3:30am finish. It was wildly busy earlier on, I didn't manage a break at all, but it should be reasonably quiet later.

:: don't do drugs, n'kay? drugs are bad...

Click here for pictures of drugs so you know what to look out for. Just say NO!

(This one's real purty though ...)

:: write your own entry!!

I haven't been up to much lately, so if you're missing me, you could recreate a day in my life with this: The Apathetic Online Journal Entry Generator.

Enjoy!

:: you go, girls!

Peace-activist nun cites Bush in sabotage defence
By Keith Coffman
DENVER, April 3 (Reuters) – A Catholic nun told a US court on Thursday she was obeying President George W. Bush’s call to dismantle weapons of mass destruction when she and two other sisters trespassed at an unmanned missile silo in northern Colorado.
Sister Carolyn Gilbert and two other Dominican sisters, Jackie Hudson and Ardeth Platte, are charged with sabotage and malicious destruction of property relating to an Oct. 6 break-in at the Minuteman III silo near Greeley, Colorado.
Gilbert and Platte are peace activists in Baltimore, Maryland and Hudson does similar work in Bremerton, Washington.
Since the trial opened on Monday, peace activists have packed the federal courtroom in downtown Denver to support the nuns.
The three have said they cut cables and made the sign of the cross on the lid of the silo with their own blood before they were arrested by military police.
Platte told the court in an opening statement on Tuesday they wanted to protect the children of Iraq with a “symbolic disarmament.”
“Our president has asked that weapons of mass destruction be destroyed,” Gilbert told the court on Thursday.
“I had a duty, a responsibility and privilege to try and stop a crime, not only under God’s law, but under US and international law,” she said.
Bush, backed by Britain, launched a war against Iraq on March 19 for what he said was President Saddam Hussein’s refusal to dismantle weapons of mass destruction.
The nuns have been in jail since October after refusing to be released on bond.
US District Judge Robert Blackburn has said the women could not make use of the Nuremberg defence, which allows a citizen to break the law in order to prevent a crime against humanity.
If convicted, the women face up to 30 years in jail and fines of up to 250,000.
REUTERS