It can't be 23 degrees - It never gets cold in England

There's a widely held belief here among the natives that it never gets hot or cold, hence there's no need for air conditioning in the summer nor any need for central heating in winter or heating on public transport. There's absolutely no shaking the locals from this belief, even as they slowly turn blue from the cold, shivering and frost forming on their noses.

So this morning I had the joy of commuting in to work, at 23F, on buses with no heating. Not just not turned on or broken, but non-existent. Two hours, three buses, no heat.

The joy.

If It's Friday, This Must Be Bruges

Today is my birthday. To celebrate, Asti took me on a day trip to Calais on Friday. At least that was the original plan. On the channel ferry from Dover to Calais, we decided to drive through to Belgium for cheaper cigarettes. Once in Belgium, the friendly cafe owner recommended Bruges' Christmas market as only a short 30 minute drive away ... so it was on to Bruges for the day! And what a lovely city it is. We shopped and strolled and looked and ate Chateaubriand with Bearnaise sauce and drank beautiful Bruges Blond beer. We bought gorgeous Christmas presents at really low prices and had an absolute ball.

Thanksgiving!

I'm off to Asti's house for a massive joint family Thanksgiving dinner. Stayed up late last night baking homemade apple pie and pumpkin pie and making chopped liver and other savory bits. Now off to Asti's where the real cooking begins.

Rumour has it that Katz's deli is for sale/about to be sold. This is too cruel to contemplate.

The sad truth is that excellence makes people nervous.
- Shana Alexander

Left Luggage

from the reviews - A beautiful, warm picture filled with compassion and humanism.

This is true but the film is so much more. It's exquisite. It's worth watching. Please just watch this film.

As far as I am concerned, today is the first day of winter here. It dropped below freezing last night and this morning my car's windows all needed serious scraping. It took the car a noticeable 5 min to really warm up well - at 10 minutes before 6am.

Tonight, I made myself matzah brei for supper. A little drizzle of honey over the steaming plate and it was perfect comfort food. OK, it wasn't the Virginia Slims, coffee, and a bagel I heard Andrew order from the cart while we chatted on the phone, but then, I'm in a 3rd world country.

We have a brand new bus on the route to my office but no heat because the transport company hasn't enough mechanics to turn the mechanism on. They decided to save money on the buses by ordering them without standard turn mechanisms (a little handle!) to switch from heat to fresh air (forget about air-conditioning!). So now they need to have a mechanic dig into the bus innards and turn the heat on or off with a spanner. Charming, eh?

The matzah brei is fabulous.

Wagons East

I just watched a theretofor unknown to me film starring John Candy. What a little gem, a delight. No, nothing world shaking, but a classic warped comedy that had me snickering for almost 2 hours. I understand that John Candy died just before they completed the film. What a loss, I love his films, all of them including the serious dramas as well as the hilarious comedies.

Anyway, watch this film. Especially if you are a New Yorker or other Big City Slicker.

In Civilized Countries they have traffic lights. In Third World UK, they have traffic circles and pedestrians cross any road at their own risk. The joy.

The Shoulds

You know what they are. They're all the gratuitous, unhelpful, obvious, passive-aggressively hostile comments people make under the guise of helpful advice.

You should lose weight
You should stop smoking
You should get more exercise
You shouldn't spend money on that
You should buy a house
You shouldn't take drugs for that
You should ask for a pay raise
You should get a new job
You should cut your hair
You shouldn't take a pram on a crowded bus at rush hour
You shouldn't take 2 or more children by yourself on an airplane

You should. You shouldn't. You should have this, you shouldn't have that.

Yeah, well, woah! Let me write that advice down. Why didn't someone tell me this sooner. I'd never thought of that myself.

What sort of unsolicited advice is more unwelcome than "you should believe what I believe" or "you should act as I would act?"

John Ferriby - passed away Tuesday, October 2nd

I am sorry to report that John has passed away after fighting a Glioblastoma Brain Tumor for almost one year.  At the end, he was very peaceful and I was able to be with him.

Barbara Ferriby

Thank heaven for aspirin and codeine. The pain and swelling in my hand got so bad last night that I woke up about midnight with pain shooting up to my elbow and the finger swollen to immobility. The bandaging the hospital put on my hand became too tight and exacerbated the problem, so I cut that off and took 3 aspirin and codeine tablets. It's not just a matter of pain control, the aspirin brings down inflammation which is almost as important and gives great relief.

Anyway, what a miserable thing this broken finger is.

I'm working from home today because - drum roll - I sort of broke or fractured some tiny bone in the base of my pinky finger. It's in the joint where the finger connects so it effects the entire hand. Of course, the timing is perfect because Monday is my UK drivers license road test - and with this broken finger it's almost impossible to move the gear shift lever without excruciating pain. Assuming I can get it to move at all - sometimes I simply can't. Gonna be a fun test.

Anyway, my thought for the day - some simple obvious rules for life:

Do not touch a hot stove.
Do not to reply to an email message from the wife of a deposed Nigerian ruler.

(Note: no stoves or deposed Nigerian rulers were involved in breaking my finger.)

What do you say to a friend who is dying? A friend and professional colleague of mine just went into hospice with end-stage brain cancer. He and his wife decided not to do the desperate-crazy-witchdoctor-alternate therapy route, thank goodness. Part of John's immense charm was his intelligence and rationality.

But what do you say, what do you think, what do you feel when you must face that you are losing a friend? (I won't even try to get into what John is facing)

Damn! Damn!

Goodrich Castle

I'm still alive. But I never quite regained the level of well-being I was at prior ro falling ill in May. Perhaps it's exhaustion. Once I have my driver's license here I will save over 4 hours commuting time a day which may be the factor to regain my life.

I'm taking this new medication my doctor suggested I trial and see if it worked for me. So I've been taking it for about 6 weeks now and wondering every day - does it really work, does it really do anything for me? I feel perfectly normal, feel like my usual self, what can it be doing for me if I don't notice anything different?

Well, it certainly must be doing something because yesterday morning I forgot to take my tablet and by mid-morning I could feel the difference. As the day went by I felt worse and worse and it was made very clear to me that this was what my life was like before I started the medication. Amazing how fast one forgets.

Oh yes! First thing this morning when I got up I took today's tablet. Not going to let that repeat again.

What the world needs now is definitely not love sweet love. It needs a no calorie potato chip. Or 10 calorie pizza. Or no calorie cheetoes.

Who told them they could put * SUGAR * in shredded wheat???

I kid you not! I am finally recovering from that nightmare kidney infection. I have lost over 3 stone in less than 6 weeks. So, I am finally tying to start eating modestly but more normally again, keeping to a low calorie but nutritious diet. I go to Tesco and there's a huge long aisle chock full of alien cereals all of which seem to be primarily sugar when I dig thru the distracting and misleading info. We're talking even Cheerios and Special K! They were both too sweet as is from the box. Yuch! I actually threw out the freshly opened boxes.

So, I was just delighted to see good old reliable Quaker Oats Shredded Wheat (bite site). I get it home, measure out a cup and add milk. Taste...

Arrrghh!!!! SUGAR!

What is with these Brits?

Anyway, I'm back. Sorta, kinda. I'm starting to go through all the backed up mail and reply to it. I'm paying bills, filling out forms. All my personal stuff that I deal with not Alan. I'm determined to clear it all out by the end of the weekend.

Stay tuned, same Bat Channel, for my adventures in learning to drive in the UK.

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us all. One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride,
superiority, and ego.

The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, Which wolf wins?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

It seems forever I've been ill but I'm still not completely over this infection. What's more, I am still profoundly weak; too weak to get to work on my own and too weak to survive through a full work day. My Doctor is sending me to a team of specialist haematologists to look into the "peculiar" results she received to my latest, and more thorough, blood tests.

In a more cheerful note - Asti called and made reservations for us to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Savoy on June 22rd. This is incredibly lovely and I really look forward to it.

I presume the infection is basically over. I don't have a thermometer so I can't tell if the fevers have gone. I know, what an idiot I am, but I will pick one up this week.

I call my doctor tomorrow and see if she wants me to come in for another check up and to see if the new antibiotics she prescribed did the trick. I finished the course on Thursday night but Friday she was away for the weekend and her partner is one of those vile arrogant African Moslem's (a man of course) (and did I mention he hates Americans? He was so snotty about it that last time I spoke to him I said, I'm not just an American, I'm a JEWISH American and proud of it!) So, I decided to wait to see my own doctor.

Anyway, I'm putting off starting the Acomplia since I have no appetite for it to control. I'm so food-apathetic I could just sit and look at a dinner plate and just push the bits around till it was time to throw away. That's assuming food is placed in front of me. If I have to get it myself, I eat stuff like an orange or half a banana. I am, sensibly, drinking lots and lots of low cal cranberry juice. But food holds no appeal for me. Partly I think it's the stomach pain I fear. My brain has decided food = pain (or at least serious discomfort.)

Still taking antibiotics and painkillers. Still running night fevers. Still feel like death warmed over. Still no appetite.

Yes, it's true, only death would have prevented me from being at the generator installation on Thursday.

Still direly ill. Have lost 2 stone in 8 days - and that is after allowing for excess water loss. Not exactly what I had in mind as a quick start diet.

I just want the pain and fever to end. I seem to pass in and out of fever cycles. The pain never ends.

Back among the living again!

Yes, last Friday morning at work I sort of collapsed. I managed to be discrete about it, call a cab and get home to bed toute suite. From there it was a descent into hell. Monumental pain and cycles of high fever breaking to drenching sweats only to start over again. The pain? No way to describe it, bad enough that I could not read, think, at times could not stay conscious. But there was no way I would go to an emergency room on a Friday night. Assuming I could make it down the stairs to a taxi, which is a lot to assume since the 12 foot journey to my bathroom was a major effort. There was no way I could sit in a waiting room.

So it went through the weekend, till Monday morning when I phoned my doctor's office and was immediately given an emergency appointment. So - 4 days in absolute agony, no food, only ice water to drink and it turns out I have a raging kidney infection. No nonsense about NHS budget drugs, my doctor prescribed new heavy duty specific fast acting antibiotics.

I called Alan to let him know what was up and ask where I could get the script filled and he offered to come home immediately and get it filled for me so I could go right back to bed. I gratefully accepted - and just that - called a cab, went home and fell into bed. Just as well Alan was on the way home as I had trouble making it up the stairs and it was possible he might have found me on the stairs waiting for him. By 2pm I had taken the first antibiotic tablet. Its 2 a day for 3 days.

So no food for 4 days - I finally had a croissant and some sweet coffee at 6pm. I may have a soft boiled egg later with a slice of toast.

I'm starting to feel somewhat human again and the pain is reducing. The fever is still running but that will break soon.

Spoke to my old friend Bo today. Good to hear that he's surviving. Life's hard; survival is a triumph and a daily struggle for some of us. Bo's still programming and working on projects and occasionally writing. I hassled him to write more because I wanted to know the ending of an unfinished story he'd sent me last year.

I met my doctor after work Monday night - yes, at her office, my first NHS office visit. Not an examination like they'd do in the US. She just wanted to meet me and talk about my blood test results. Apparently everything was normal (in fact she admitted the results were perfect/ideal) except I was severely anemic. What a surprise. I did warn the practice nurse that I was chronically and seriously anemic with episodes of profound anemia. She was seriously worried that my test reult was 7. I was amazed and delighted it was that high. Normal range for female is 12-16. My doctor in NYC was always telling me to aim for 10, 10 would be nice. I would love to have my test results at 10. But 7 is a hell of a lot better than I expected considering how bad I've been feeling lately. And no, nothing really can be done. I'm trying out a new liquid iron supplement. It would be nice if it helped. We shall see.

Work continues. Next week the 400 Kva emergency backup generator for the new Alpha data centre arrives. I will take photos of the crane lifting it into place. I'm all ready for it - got my shiny new safety helmet and my eye cringing green safety jacket.

I just put a rabbit casserole in the oven for dinner. It's freshly caught wild rabbit in red wine with shallots, button chestnut mushrooms, and chantenay carrots. The flavourings are juniper berries, bay leaf, garlic, mustard. I added a glug of good Port, too. In about 90 minutes it will be gorgeous.

Raining all day here - now it's 6:30pm the sky has finally cleared (probably for all of 30 min) to give us a glimpse of blue skies and sunshine to end the weekend. It will then rain all night and gues what, tomorrow as well.

Once the week starts, I have no energy for anything outside of work each day. I need to sort out my drivers license and get a car and put a stop to the craziness.

Like sheep and marmalade

haven't been posting - anemia is very bad lately. Also my new fridge died so I'm not a happy bunny. Damn John Lewis! Their customer service/repair service takes forever. Over 1 week wait for a repairman and they refuse to schedule when he will arrive - just stay home the whole day and lose a day's pay. Bastards.

I made a classic Sunday Roast Dinner today.

Rare roast beef
gravy
Jersey Royal potatoes
Very fine green beans (those tiny French kind)
Yorkshire pudding
horseradish sauce

We also had prawn dim sum for starters
and
Bread and Butter pudding with custard for dessert (I opted out of the dessert but Alan enjoyed it)

Only problem was the dinner didn't like me very much and I ended up crunched on the bed waiting for the pain to end. This hasn't happened to me in several years and I thought it was over. Guess not but then I've been super anemic lately. So anemic that I have to stop after a block or to. I need to get my blood tested again soon.

Why do I know that the 3 meter Cat 5 cable on my desk is a cross-over cable? Worse, why do I know what a cross-over cable is and what it is used for, much less be able to tell that it is one from looking at the terminals. Actually I had a feeling it was one before I even snagged it out of the box of odds and ends in the comms lab.

That's just so sad.

Sent to me by my old AboveNet buddy Aida Salah.

Shangri-La is in you mind, but your Buffalo is not

Spent the morning researching what Google hath wrought and fixes thereof. Got my archives sorted after much misery. Lost my blog's original design tho. No choice about it. I'll create a new design tho since life has moved on, my blog design may as well, too.

You may notice that all my years of archives are missing. Thank you Google. Google forced users to migrate to the new blog version without warning us we'd lose all our archives. I guess that counts as a great big F U from Google to users. If they'd warned me, I would have saved the archives onto some other media or location before I migrated my account.

I thought Google's mantra was "Don't Be Evil". I guess that's for other definitions of evil than I know.

Just arrived back from Oxford. I was up there with Alan for the annual ACCU conference. Alan spoke on Network Programming. I was surprised how he packed the room for his talk since his time slot was in direct competition with Bjarne Stroustrup. Some of them were clearly fans because I see them at every talk Alan gives regardless of topic. Anyway, it was a really good talk despite Alan not creating the slides/slideshow he was supposed to have done. He actually (figuratively) kicked me out of the house for 2 days at Easter so he could supposedly create these slides. Instead, he write code for Federation's new front end and he played Sim II. Gotta lotta 'splain' to do there, Alan. For next year's conference, he's going to have his whole talk ready to be sent in by Xmas so it gets on the conference CD.

Anyway - stay clear of the Oxford Paramount hotel near the Peartree roundabout. It's crap and the food is dire! They have the facade and trappings of a luxury hotel but absolutely no foundation or follow through to make it actual luxury rather than just pretension.

ACCU - shame on you for the ghastly Speakers Dinner. Perhaps it was just as well that the food portions were so shockingly small because the food was so horribly bad, there was no temptation to eat it after the first taste. Many of us went out afterward missing the chip stand in Oxford since we were stuck way outsaide town this year - the hotel is at a park & ride roundabout so no walkable alternatives to the provided food. Even the food at the hotel restaurant, lunch bar and coffee bars was indifferent at best and generally revolting.

On the other hand, the speakers were great, the people attending were a really good bunch.

We're eating dinner at home tonight. I've had enough tough, overcooked, sugered and salted food to last me the rest of the year.

This is Andrew standing in front of the British Museum on Saturday. He wanted to see the Elgin Marbles, which he also photographed. We mostly wandered around the museum looking at the wonderful red & black ancient Greek pots, monumental statuary from the palace at Ninevah, and cuniform tablets - which are absolutely amazing! The BM is wonderful for simply wandering around and looking.

On the way to the museum we stopped at The Lazy Dog cafe for really excellent Hong Kong style dim sum nibbles. It was a whole day of serendipity because after finding the dim sum place, we then walked on to find a graphic books and comics store where Andrew garnered a few very choice items ( ask him what they are and for a peek at them). Then we stopped in at the Games shop and were sorely tempted to buy the (anti) Terrorist game complete with balaclava of Evil.

Andrew got a set of miniature canopic jars at the museum and other assorted lovelies. We then cabbed it over to Asti's flat in Bermondsey. The sun was shining, the day warm with a slight cool breeze. Can this really be London with such magnificent weather?

In a sense, I knew it would come to this - spam has so obscured my legitimate email that it has become too lengthy and demanding a task to filter it out anymore, the noise to signal ratio has gone beyond my limit. I've had my IBgames email address for so many years, probably about 15!At this point spam is 99+% of my total mail.

I've given up on filters, believe me I've tried them all, carefully and patiently training them. Useless. I saw an email fly by as it downloaded - from my friend Gordon, with a photo attached and before I could catch it, the filter had eaten it never to be seen again. Changed filters at that point and the next filter found other ways to mangle my mail. I just do not have a spare hour or more each day to go through my email any more and what's more I don't want that m,iserable task. It's not the US this crap is coming through, either. I did some experimenting and the bulk of the crap is from Japan and cyrillic addresses. Why spammers think I read cyrillic, I don't know.

Anyway, I'm moving most of my personal mail over to my gmail account. I hate the awkward email address on that but at least I do get my email there. I get so little spam there - perhaps 40 pieces a week tops, and Gmail manages to trap it all.

It's snowing. And it's even sticking. Heavy snow, big fat flakes and lumps of it. And it's cold.

Blech!

I just washed the windows - inside and out! and polished them to gleaming streak-free clearness. So of course there's a sudden hailstorm! Yowser!

I decided I had to to - something- about the apartment, so this weekend's project was the balcony. We have a berautiful view of the Duke of Northumberland's River/Silverhall park. But the balcony was dirty and dusty and unused and littered with stubbed out cigarette butts. So I cleaned up the litter, washed the windows, bought a really sturdy and comfy director's chair and bought a large rosemary plant in a terracotta planter. I need to add more planters of herbs and tomatoes and flowers and some hanging baskets and another chair and voila! It will be lovely and inviting very soon.

What's new here? Well, no point mentioning my work since it's still a 2+ hour commute each way which sucks up most of my personal time and leaves me exhausted - although my job and my workmates are still wonderful.

What's new is that Andrew is coming to visit for Easter weekend. He'll leave JFK Thursday night and arrive here Good Friday morning and return home on Tuesday. So a short but hopefully sweet Easter/Passover weekend together. The plan is to keep this visit firmly in the relaxed and leisurely category. Per Andrew's request, one whole day wandering aimlessly around the British Museum- yay! This is a wonderful thing to do. Other plans are for sitting on the terrace at the London Apprentice, overlooking the Thames, and drink and chat. A walk to Syon house, perhaps. Basically leave things relaxed and open to possibilities. No schedules, no rush, just float and relax.

Our friends Ginny & Nigel have sold their house and are about to leave for a new life in Spain. They have a posh new apartment on the beach near Alicante. We're going to a farewell do for them on Saturday. We're also dragging our friend Jude down from Leeds to be at the farewell bash since Ginny is her best friend and she needs to be there to say goodbye or more like aloha - till we meet again. We all plan to visit Ginny & Nigel and guest it in the sun. They're good people.

The chiller unit for the Data Centre build-out at work arrived on Wednesday. Great fun watching the giant crane hoist it into place on the new plinth outside the Alpha data room.

Same words - different food!

To start with, be aware that all your familiar brand name foods are generally made locally to a different, local tastes adjusted recipe. This means familiar comfort foods like Hellman's Mayonaise and Heinz Ketchup have a LOT more vinegar than you're used to in the US. Even old reliable Philadelphia Cream Cheese is not exactly the same. Still the best you can get here but not the same.

Two ubiquitous kitchen standbys to also be wary of are canned Tuna and Cottage Cheese.

They do not sell White (Albacore) tuna here. Period. End of story. Ain't available. The stuff they sell in cans here is more closely related to what we'd give our cats. It's not the lovely, firm, mild, and clean tasting Tuna we know and love. Don't even think of buying it. How I miss Starkist, Chicken of the Sea and BumbleBee's best solid, white, albacore.

The other gotcha is Cottage Cheese. I don't know what you'd call the dairy product sold here as "cottage cheese". It's nothing like Breakstone's", that's for sure.

Yes, yes, yes , of course there's scads of lovely food available here. The point is, it's different. And sometimes you just want the comfort of familiar tastes.

Alan and I are going out shortly to start taking photos of the lunar eclipse. It should reach peak totality about 10:45 pm or so here, so I should be awake enough to go outside and get some good photos then. I'll try to get a cycle of shots through the whole eclipse actually.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention - I bought myself a new camera. I love taking photos and I have not been happy with any of the cameras I've been given or used since my old wonderful Minolta 35mm film camera. This new camera is the first that is entirely my own choice. It's the Sony cyber-shot DSC-T50. In bright cherry red. I'm a happy girl.

I also paid off all the outstanding back bills I had except for 2 personal loans. I'll be starting to pay those off with my next paycheck.

Have I mentioned my husband and his lust//need for a new laptop? (For family members, think "Space shuckle" and you will understand everything.) The campaign for a new laptop began in early Dec 2006 with subtle murmurings about how long code was taking to compile. I'll spare you the remaining details.

The object of desire was a "Copper Toshiba" with a 17" wide screen monitor, full size keyboard with keypad, harmon kardon stereo speakers, blue LED lights along the front edge, and all sorts of cutting edge specs including a 200 GB HD, 2 GB ram, Intel duo core processor, top of the line Nvidea graphic card with 512 MG, etc. The people rejoice, the man is happy with his new laptop. We added in a new USB external HD - a 500GB red (lego) brick. Totally adorable - as cute as the laptop is sleek and sexy.

We staggered into a restaurant for lunch afterwards since we left the house only having coffee this morning. The happiest thing besides getting exactly, precisely what we wanted (and for an excellent low price) was that we paid for it - didn't put it on plastic, not going to have to pay it off. We agreed to wait till we set aside enough to pay cash for what we wanted - and we did.

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

I just got a Samsung 20" widescreen LCD monitor. Can you believe this is my first brand new monitor ever and what's more, the first one I have picked out for myself. I really hate when people give me something technological or push me into buying it (even worse!) but it's not what -I- want. (Yes, my husband in Mr #1 for things like that.)

I really needed a monitor because otherwise I just had the standard little laptop screen as my main monitor and recently a 3rd hand 8 year old cast-off 17" LCD wit5h major brightness issues. (As in dark and murky and belongs in the trash bin which is why the other 2 former owners dumped it.)

So, I survived the install and configuration and adjustment process (You do know that "Plug and Play" is one of the 10 Great Lies, right?). Now I just need to get a new computer or laptop - of my own choice, to my own tastes. I would get one now except my nearest and dearest has been putting on a "Space shuckle" scene daily for the past 3 months and I'm so worn down by it that I'm letting him buy a new laptop tomorrow. His former laptop will go to my son Andrew whose laptop died recently. What I realty wanted to do is get a new laptop for myself and give Andrew my Thinkpad which is less than a year old (no, I'm not happy with it because I did not choose it and it hasn't the features I want, but I got it for free so I've used it) I think it is powerful enough that Andrew would have found it very useful.

But my aim at the moment is to pay off debt not buy optional new equipment.

Anyway, I like the new monitor.

Health report - I'm still feeling exhausted and achey. I wish I had a real idea how long this post-flu whatever will take to go away, recover from. Useless to ask a doctor here since most of them seem to have become idiots following the politically correct line. According to them, I probably had a mild cold and my anemia is negligible and I am focusing too much attention on my high fever, heavy lung congestion, low hemoglobin test results, etc. The NHS has spoken. All hail the NHS.

Back to work, I think.

OK, someone asked for the recipe I used so here it is...

2 cups butter                                
2 cups sugar                                       
2 cups brown sugar
            
4 large eggs                                                     
2 tsp. vanilla
                                    
4 cups flour                                         
5 cups blended oatmeal*(see note below)
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. baking soda (also called bicarbonate of soda)

24 oz. chocolate chips (or more, more is good, I used more)
3 cups chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)(yes, I used more of these, too!)

*Note about what blended oatmeal is...Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender or food
processor to a powder.

Also note - most civilized people with a well equipped kitchen will have a sturdy
mixer to cream the butter and sugar and then mix the dough and a blender for the
oatmeal. We still have a basically bachelor kitchen from Alan which I am slowly
upgrading. So I made these cookies using nothing but a food processor to cream the
butter and sugar and a bowl and big spoon to hand mix the rest.

Cream butter and both sugars. Take time to make sure it is light and fluffy.
Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.
Mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda. 
Add chocolate chips, and nuts.
Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Lightly flatten balls
with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 10 minutes at 375F. (I baked them for 9 1/2 min at 170C in a fan convection
 oven.)
Makes a LOT of large cookies - like about 100 or so. You can halve the recipe but why?
They will all be quickly eaten and everyone will be very happy and grateful. Nah,
they'll be happy and ungrateful and demand more cookies!

I've been slogging in to work each day, making it barely, clawing my way through the day to get home and collapse from bronchitis or whatever it is I have that the NHS refuses to take seriously. Luckily I survived. There would have been a morbid satisfaction in Alan suing them as - She Told You She Was Sick and Needed Antibiotics- but alas I was strong enough to survive. However, this is NOT how modern medicine should be. This is medicine on the same level as 1 million years ago. Yep, that's about right for the NHS. Bastards!

Anyway, I'm Project Manager on a major data centre buildout for my company. It's to be the showcase model for all our corporate data centres worldwide.

Moving along, Alan's dat took the train down from Leominster to visit London for a few days and see some art exhibitions. We had dinner with him every night. Lovely to see him again but we are now all restaurant'd out and just want to eat home cooked dinners for a while. Which we are doing tonight - shoulder of lamb roasted with applies and shallots and cider and finished off with double cream. Yum!

Alan has 1 week left at his old job and then it's on to his new job - Infrastructure Director for a new Massively Multiplayer Game company. He's really happy to be going back into the Games industry and out of gaming. So to say goodbye he announced he would be bringing into work a huge pile of fabulous American cookies his wife wouldbe making for everyone.

Umm yeah- I'm making them now. The infamous Million Dollar/Neiman Marcus/Urban Legend cookies. I'm in luck because they came out georgous. Perfect. You would die just from the lucious smell. Let alone the taste.

"I have given instructions that I be informed every
time one of our soldiers is killed, even if it is in the
middle of the night. When President Nasser leaves
instructions that he is to be awakened in the middle
of the night if an Egyptian soldier is killed, there will
be peace."
-- Golda Meir

I managed to make it thru today at work - barely. I definitely sounded like I was spreading plague with my awful deep congested cough. I definitely would not have wanted to sit next to me. And I knew it wasn't as bad as it sounded.

The awful strength of addiction (and the morbidly ironic amusement) was brought home to me as I was leaving to go home. I had managed to fairly painlessly reduce a 40+/day cigarette habit down to about 4 (yes, really!) a day. It was working, I was holding at 4 or so a day, month after month. Not even buying any, just using up the American cigarettes my sons brought over before Xmas. Then this -illness- hit me on Friday and I was just too ill to even consider smoking or eating or even drinking coffee. Basically made it through the weekend sipping hot sweet mint tea or spiced black tea.

So I'm back at work today and people are going out for a smoke break and even the thought of it sends shudders of horror through me. And I'm thinking, wow! it's been 4 days since I smoked so maybe I might as well not start back again. The day passed and I was getting my coat on to go upstairs and wait for the cab to take me home (I'm really still too ill to be at work, no way could I make it thru my usual 2+ hour commute each way) - and I find myself thinking - not bad, I have enough time before the cab comes to smoke a cigarette. And a part of my mind was reacting with pleasure looking forward to it! And I thought, am I nuts? With me still hacking away like Typhoid Mary? And why not just give it up anyway since I haven't smoked for 5 days now. And then I thought, yeah but I still have a full pack of Virginia Slims Lights in my pocket! And that mattered to me.

This is nuts. This is addiction. Luckily I am far too ill to seriously consider smoking anything at the moment, no matter my addicted brain's yearnings. My body is digging its heels in saying OUCH! No! HURTS!

Back to sipping Pellegrino water, for me.

I had no idea that ...Land of Hope and Glory was sung to the Pomp and Circumstance tune. Yes, Pomp and Circumstance, known to most of us Americans as "The Graduation March".

1911 performance sung by Clara Butt from www.firstworldwar.com

The tune is much better used for graduations. It was first used at a graduation in 1905 when Yale invited its composer, Elgar to accept an honorary doctorate of music. It quickly spread to become the ubiquitous choice it is today.

I'm working from home today - feeling better than I did this weekend but then, I felt close to death much of the weekend so it doesn't take very much to say "feeling better" than that.

Anyway the fever seems to slowly be drifting down, the congestion is slowly breaking up , and my voice is starting to slowly return although I sound exactly like a croaking frog. I even managed to keep down a cup of coffee and 2 slices of toast this morning. Not bad considering that's the first food I've been able to manage since Friday night.

Of course, in the US, I would have called the doctor Friday to say I was feeling worse and it felt like my cold/flu was slipping over into bronchitis (because by this point in my life, I do know when that happens) and he'd have called in a prescription for antibiotics for me. I'd have started them Friday night so I'd never have gotten as sick as I did and I would have been up and lively by Sunday and back to normal (and back to work) on Monday morning.

But no, this is the UK where a call to the local NHS health practice got me the cold comfort of a suggested stop in to see the nurse - NEXT WEDNESDAY! When I asked for a prescription for antibiotics to halt the rapidly increasing infection, it was pointed out they don't believe antibiotics are necessary. Really! The NHS is psychic and able to tell this over the phone. So despite the NHS taking taxes out of my wages every week they are good for NOTHING. This is soviet socialised medicine at its best. NHS - the 3rd world standard for heath care.

It's not just me, either. The NHS decided modern medicines were too expensive so they would roll back prescriptions to older, cheaper medications. The promise was that if the changed prescription didn't work or had bad side effects they would restore your proper prescription. (Didn't medical experimentation on non-volunteers get addressed at Nuremberg?) So my husband's medication was changed to some vaguely related but totally different chemical. Too bad because it not only didn't work, it had horrendous side effects. When he informed his doctor of this, she switched him back to his original medication - but only for 1 prescription, no renewal. That was just to give the NHS time to come up with some other cheap alternative chemical for him. So he tried the 2nd cheap NHS stuff and again had major bad side effects. Now, in the US, we'd have been sitting in a good lawyer's office by this point and the issue would be settled because harm was knowingly done. But would the NHS accept that their 2 idiotic attempts to save a small amount of money were a failure? No, today we were informed they want to try a 3rd strange chemical. Obviously I told my husband to just say no and get a private prescription. What this country needs is a good major class action lawsuit - no, actually it needs a lot of major class action lawsuits. ::sigh:: No, even that won't help. People get the government they deserve. And it follows they get the institutions they deserve as well.

Readers in the US, no matter how bad you think the US heath care system is, it's heaven compared to the UK.

I am sure I will be able to find a private doctor who is willing and able to give me the quality level of health care I'm used to in the US. But it will cost me and it will be more than it cost in the US. No question about it.

I shall now return to my medieval level medical care - crawling into bed under a pile of quilts.

I spent almost all yesterday in bed, sweating and ill. This cold or flu turned into bronchitis and breathing was painful and difficult. Same through the night and all of today. I'm just drinking clear fluids like mint tea or sparkling cranberry juice.

Thanks, NHS - you run a perfect 3rd world country medical system. They tell me antibiotics are unnecessary. So now I've got a full blown 2ndary infection. No private doctors with weekend hours out this way or I'd pay and get proper medical treatment.

I haven't eaten at all since Friday night so I need to think about that

Blech! I have the most incredibly awful cold or flu or something. So bad I don't want to eat or drink anything except hot mint tea with lots of lemon. Sleep- that's what I want to do. Except I'm so ill I ache too much to sleep very long. An hour or so and then I'm awake and miserable again.

By sheer force I kept going all week and worked through each day, tho I'm definitely paying the price now. Even with the snow on Thursday where it took me 3 hours to get to work in the morning, I did it. Needs must. It's not just the money, tho that is a BIG part of it, it's that I've just been handed a major new task - I've taken over the Alpha Building Data Centre build out. My manager Gordon is off to Houston to repeat his magic with their data centre so this one here in the UK is being left in my delicate hands - must be the dark red nail varnish does the trick.

First project team meeting is Tuesday the 13th. I worked like a madwoman Thursday & Friday to get all the vendors, contractors, and staff committed to the time and date and prepped with the questions I need answered and details they are expected to commit to.

Other than that, it's been all blah!

I really, really wish we had a TV. I could flop out and veg in front of it and relax. As it is, I can use the computer or go to bed and read. This flat is way too small even for 1 adult, let alone 2.

I think that's enough moaning, back to shivering under the duvet.

In the news- before I end this - last Saturday I went with Hilary to The Sanctuary Spa. Woah - total luxury, total pleasure. Full body aromatheraphy massage, pedicure, manicure, foot massages, jacuzzi spa, steam room - way too much to mention it all. Total indulgence. Worth it for 1 day for hard working women.

Next Saturday I'm going with Asti to see a play called Sit & Shiver. Black comedy about a family sitting shiva. Good reviews, I'm looking forward to it.

Andrew built his own white box PC. Clever kid.

Alan starts his new job on March 12th. Game company - multiplayer games - massively multiplayer games.

For real now- back to bed.

Happy New Year 2007!

I see the holidays have come and gone since my last post. Yep, that's about it.

Well yes, all things considered they were reasonably nice holidays. Incredibly lovely to be with Adam and Andrew again. Incredibly frustrating not to have enough time to sit down for a leisurely meal and long chats with them. Next time I will send them tickets to come over, one long weekend each. Then it's the Kew Steam Museum, Syon Park and several long leisurely meals and visits to local traditional pubs.

We did New Years Eve at Ron & Hilary's with Ron, Hilary, Laurie and Pete, Alan and I as usual but this year I did the meal. A sort of Communist/Russian theme - Borsht with blinis and smoked salmon, dim sum (tiny chinese dumplings - yes, of course homemade!) beef stroganov with rice, onion and tomato chutney (with great thanks to Richard for the recipe. It was a complete rave! Everyone snapped it all up.) Dessert was Leningrads - a creme brulee made with kirschwasser and black forest cherries in the creme bit. The brulee bit was perfect and crackled and shattered deliciously. Watched fireworks on the telly - amazing display we want to watch live next year.

So the holidays have come and gone.

We definitely need a house. This flat is impossibly small.