Life and The Hunter

So...needed some shopping...went to Farm Foods...£9.98. Presented Visa card. Rejected! WTF! There is more than sufficient fund there!
Went home, looked online...yep, more than sufficient funds, even after the £9.98 that farmfoods just took!! WTF!
Waiting for a return to my email asking just what is going on!

Monday and Tuesday were spent trying to get over Saturday. I know it wasn't supposed to be painful, but I felt as if I had been kicked in the stomach by a camel. Tuesday evening, broadband and fone packed up. All the lights in the house died...

Wednesday...work. Got wet. Got wetter. Got incredibly wet. Went home. Stopped at shop to get bread. Car refused to start...the starter motor that I got replaced is dead...

Thursday..battery in car totally flat. Couldn't even bump start it. Removed battery, got it charged. Took day off. Managed to repair most of the lights whilst battery was charging. Took battery to car, and discovered that someone had run a sharp blade right across the sodding bonnet. Put battery in car. Car wouldn't start. Pushed it and got it started. Went back home. BT engineer trying to fix fone and broadband. Went back to car. Battery totally dead. WTF?

Rang work, told them not to expect me until Monday, book Thursday and Friday off as holiday.

Today...car still dead. No clue as to what is wrong. Received letter from hospital with an appointment to see specialist, in November. On the same day I am supposed to be with random at the car show! I was told that I should be seeing my GP for the results, and only would be called back to hospital if there were real problems. Oh good!

And the upshot? Well, no Con for me this year. I can't afford to get the car fixed before the end of the month. Hopefully I can at least make arrangements for random to be able to get there and back.

Me? I've had a gutfull.

Ugh.
They said that the anaesthesia would mean that I would not feel anything, nor remember it.
They lied. Oh, how they lied. And it was unfunny, uncomfortable and unpleasant.
However, apart from that, and a 2 hour wait to come home, I am well.
Oh, of course, due to being doddery on my feet, when I got home the lift was out of order, 10 flights of stairs.
Naturally, 5 minutes after I get home it is fixed...

So, there I was, workin away, *work work work* when an attractive young blonde girl approached at speed. I stopped the machine and she ran over to me, crying and gulping and whittering that she needed help.

After I had got her to take a few deep breaths, she'd calmed to the point that she could say *I've escaped. I've been locked up in the house by my Aunt and her boyfriend for four days. Can you help me? Oh god that is their car!* and she promptly hid behind a wall as a green Mondeo estate car drove past.

After the car went past she kept begging for help. She really was hysterical, scared, shaken and shaking. I couldn't smell alcohol, nor see any real signs of substance abuse (and trust me I can recognise most by now), so I got my work colleague to stand with her, and walked a little way from her and called the police.

The chap on who's garden I had been working at the time (A guy, it turns out, with the unlikely name of Frank Wankler) was observing, and offered to let her hide in his house if she so wished, until the police turned up.

Oh my, don't you have to wait to get a person when you dial 999? Finally got the information through, and our location, and as the dispatcher told me that she was sending a car, the girl ran off and jumped on a bus!

I was, by chance, able to relay the registration number and service number of the bus to the dispatcher, and also give a description of the girl. 5 feet tall, aged 23 (I asked her...so sue me). Blonde hair in a ponytail down to 4" below her collar. Hazel eyes. No makeup. Blue cardigan over a white blouse. Blue Falmer jeans supported by a white leather-type belt. Black sandal-stle shoes. Carrying no handbag/phone etc.

Eventually a police unit arrived, and as we were giving statements to the officers they got news that one their units had stopped the bus and managed to pick her out using my description (go me!) and she was safe. We (my workmate and I) then had to go and give statements, wait, give joint statements, wait, be questioned by an officer, wait, wait some more, drink (horrible) coffee, wait, answer more questions, sign statements, and were then kicked out (although we were given a lift back to our vehicle...)

All I know, after all this, is I lost 4 1/2 hours work time, and that she is safe. *Something* had happened, and the officers seem to think (although they didn't say as much...I suppose they couldn't) that something worse *could* have happened...but...to be honest, my first reaction was *Okay, where's the cameras*, and just fleetingly my second was *Don't get involved*. I really dislike myself at times...

I forgot to check caller ID, so have just been informed that Goldfish Girl has returned from Hospital, having been diagnosed with *Angela Fever*, and is currently coughing up blood *from both ends*

The strange noises you may here will be me with my head buried in a pillow, smothering the laughter...

My wossname plant is flowering, for the first time in 8 years (ie, as long as I have had it...)



And this is a self-portrait of me on Friday

Oh, for crying out loud!
What is the POINT??
No, really, what is the point in hospitals scheduling operations on a Saturday?
Saturday 9th August, 10:50AM, in fact.

1st, I have to be up at 4am, because I can neither eat nor drink for 6 hours prior to the op, and I *have* to have coffee in the morning, and co-codamol.
And more importantly...how the hell am I s'posed to take time off work if the operation is set for a Saturday? I don't WORK on a Saturday...so not only is it a good weekend ruined, but I can't even take the next day off, 'cos I don't work on a Sunday either...

Come on, NHS, get your act together or I'll simply stop being ill at you! So there!

A couple of Very Large pics taken today. 1 at the macro end of the lens, one at the very far optical zoom (10X)
The catterpillar is easily explained. It is a catterpiller. The Hellychjopper is the local air-ambulance, seeking a landing site to collect a woman who had fallen from a ladder and impaled herself on a fence.

( Big Pics...not dialup friendly )

Making coffee. Dead easy. Get jug. Fill jug from tap. Empty jug into kettle. Boil kettle. Pour boiling water into mug pre-filled with offee, milk and sugar.
Today, however...
Get jug, fill jug, empty jug into kettle, stare bemusedly into the kettle now containing a tasty-looking mix of water and dog biscuits...

I have a Corsa 1.7DTI (Isuzu engine, for those in the know)
Last night, for no reason whatsoever, it failed to start. No warning, no slow failure, just...ignition lights, heater plugs, all working, starter motor...nope.
Got it moved home, then decided to take it in to work this morning and fix it.
Up nice and early, push start it...(parked on a hill, rolled 10 feet and fired up), drove to work nice and early, jacked it up, hauled my sorry ass underneath and...
Where the Mother O'Reilley's Goat was the starter motor. Heh! you'd almost think it was that bit there! See it? The one beside the aircon mounting brackets, behind the bell housing, above the gear linkage and engine mount and just below the opil filter, turbo ducting pipes and wiring loom. Obviously not though. Nobody would be so stupid as ti stick it there where you can't get at it. Would they?

Oh...


Balls...


I can see two ways of getting it out. Either phase the molecules to pass *through* the brackets and the linkage nd the engine mounts and the steering box (which wouod requre that I do similar to my hand so I can get a spanner on the top bolt) *or* take the engine out.


The part itself is not expensive. £70ish +VAT. Bad enough though. What is worse is that I have been quoted from £160 to £300+VAT to do the job.

Looks like I will be push starting it until the end of the month, then. Just hope I don't get a call from the hospital in the mean time :)

Taken today from my balcony...

http://flickr.com/photos/the_hunter/sets/72157606073276691/show/with/2653401756/

Well...if *jubilant* is another word for *stoned out of his mellon* :)

The procedure went...well, it went.
The sedative was less sedatey, which made for a certain level of discomfort, but the procedure itself was curtailed because apparently there are CIS* present. CIS stands for 'carcenoma in situ'. and means that there are cancer tumours about, but they appear not to have invaded the underlying tissue. Lazy buggers, it seems.

In effect what this means is that in 6-8 weeks i get to go back and have another one, done under rather heavier sedation, at which point the CISs will be removed with a garotte and lasers, checks and more biopsied done to make sure all the nasty stuff has been removed, and then hopefully I'll just be put on drugs and have to attend for regular endoscopies, possibly at no more frequent intervals than every couple or three years, depending on their certainty about how completely they've removed the CISs.

So, I have more info, and a Plan is in Operation.

Woot!

Now I'm off to sleep off the rest of this damned sedative.

'night folk.

NB: I've read threw this three times to remove the spelling errors and make it make sens. Any other faults, well, i did my best :)

Okay. So, Dr Who watched, Top Gear watched...I had a looooong day yesterday, partying and karaoke-ing until, um, 4am today, when I came home and have yet to go to bed...
This is possibly not the best way to prepare for what is, in reality, a fairly important hospital appointment in the morning. Oopsey...
So, a quick baff and bed, and hope I'm awake before my 10am appointment :)

Oh, and for the record, I really enjoyed Dr Who. Only...no more until Xmas? Booo!

Okay, crunch time.
I need to decide fairly soon what I am going to do with Trucking Hell. There's been no reply either from the publisher or the agent, so I'm guessing that they're both pretty much dead ends.
so, I have to decide whether to go looking for another agent, go looking for another publisher, or simply POD it with Lulu.
If I go for the first two options this could mean an interminable delay, which, on top of the 12 month delay caused by the previous publisher going Tits Up is getting to be Too Long, a\nd my enthusiasm is beginiong to flag.
On the other hand if I POD it with Lulu, then as I don't have an ISBN then I won't be able to promote it at Amazon and other online book stores. It'll be out in the public domain, but only in a limited sense.
I'll have to have a long hard think...

Tonight I got a piece of apple pie out of the freezer, unwrapped it and then took a dish out of the cupboard and placed the pie in the dish.
I opened the microwave oven, put the pie and dish in, set the timer for 4 minutes oin *defrost* and wandered off
Microwave went *ping*, so I wandered back, got the cream from the fridge, opened the microwave, and the pie was gone.
And then...I frisked the microwave! I found myself patting the insides, looking for the pie, or a trapdoor, or secret passage or similar, I guess.

Finally, the pie turned up, still in the dish, back in the dish cupboard. Which is dumb, and quite bad enough.

But...I gave my microwave a body-cavity search!

I have managed to acquire a friction burn on the top of my foot...

Bizarrely, since the prescription of drugs to aid in the control of the oesophageal problem my morning headaches are more intense and difficult to control...and even more bizarrely seem to wait until the weekend to be really *really* obnoxious.
The main problem with this is my inability to think in a straight line. The actual pain I can cope with. Lord knows I've had 15 years to get used to it, but of late it is accompanied by the inability to think in a straight line. Witness the fact that it took me no less than seven attempts to go and fetch a glassfull of painkillers. Six attempts resulted in my making Random a cup of tea, the dog some dinner, two wandering into the kitchen, looking at the clock on the microwave (pointless in itself, as it isn't actually displaying a time) and then wandering cluelessly back into the livingroom...it is a bit annoying.
Also, it means that I find I am unable to drive to Mancunia-ish to see two dear friends, and attend another dear friend's 21st birthday party, and to meet lots of shiny people who I adore, and have been really looking forward to seeing again.
It isn't my fault. I think :) But...I hate letting them down, and I hate letting me down.
Also, Random is here, and...well, I am not being as good a host as I should be. Sitting cluelessly in a daze, being led around by the hand like a dribble nonogenarian is not the kind of behaviour I enjoy.
I can think, but only in sprints. If I try to work out anything that takes more than 3 or 4 steps I forget what I'm thinking about and get the *Ooh, shiny!* thing. And I don't even notice I am doing it. My take on it is the pain is so much more servere that it is distracting me. Or maybe I already said that. See what I mean.
Finally, I hope this all makes sense. I'm not going to proofread it, because I'll get lost half way through.
Roll on Monday 7th, when I can get some answers, and discuss the pros and cons of the pills and potions, their side-effects and mitigation thereof.

Listen again or podcast.
The poem recital based on Poe's *The Raven*
Listen, and be awed by genius.
Really.
Do it now.
NOW I said!
Yes, you!

Brain: lets see what time it is.
Eyes: Sorry mate, can't see the time on your watch.
Brain: Well, you've not got your contacts in, squint!
Eyes: Sorry, got nothin'
Brain: make some effort, god damn you! Squint harder.
Eyes: Nope, still got nothin'
Brain: Ah, yes. Well..maybe it'd help if the watch was actually on your wrist, and not on the bedside table. My bad!