Travels with my camera

Without going into every detail and being terrible boring (as if...!) Okay Wednesday I went to visit my ex and his new partner at Neath. Barry is still one of my best friends, and Christine is a real laugh and I'm really pleased for him that he's met someone else. So anyhow I see them every few months I suppose, but I'd built a backlog of videos for him because I was recording the Speedway from Sky Sports for him all summer and ended up with 5 full vids, 30 hours of it for him! Had a nice day out, apart from one thing, but it won't put me off visiting them, I couldn't possible tell them either, but they both are heavy smokers, and we went in a caff at lunchtime, and it was like a fog. My eyes were streaming and I had a good cough, but thankfully I got used to it after about 10 minutes! It was awful to see an old lady at the next table, who had hardly picked at her food, but still had the fork in one had, and a lit fag in the other! Oh well, I believe it's to be February here when the ban will come into force, I guess Barry and Christine won't be eating out very often then. Anyway, I saw the new place that they are doing up, (they do up derelict houses to re-sell for a living) God they've got some work there, rather them than me but that's another story... I also met their new dog, Misty, a rescue dog from Bridgend Dogs Trust Centre. Border collie cross. After a few uneasy moments with me and Emma, she was then fine and wanted to play and kept trying to round Emma up who was decidedly unimpressed. Got home and had to put all my clothes in the wash and have a bath to get rid of the stale smoke smell, yuck. Sorry to all you smokers, but if you ever get around to giving up yourself, you will know what it's like. I am however blessed (or not) with a very oversensitive nose, and the slightest smells tend to make me feel queasy, however faint, so perhaps not everone is affected quite as badly.

This is Misty














Thursday stayed in all day apart from a short walk with Emma, as my friend Irene came round. But I did at last get round to doing my 24-hour urine collection test for my diabetes insipidus. Won't go into great detail, you can use your imaginations! But I had to collect every bit for 24 hours, put a bit of each one into a small tube and make a note of the time, and then the bulk into a big plastic container. Interesting to note that I actually wee'd 2,200mls of wee in 24 hours, and I drank 1,500mls of liquid, and I went 11 times. I'd be interested to know how that compares with other people, so if anyone else has every done it...

Yesterday went to Carmarthen looking for Christmas pressies, and picked up my new glasses from Specsavers. I've got varifocals, they are going to take a bit of getting used to, but I only need them for when I'm on my laptop and trying to watch telly at the same time, I don't need them for out and about, I've got a pair for driving which are okay. My prescription hadn't altered this time, which is nice, at least something isn't wearing out rapidly - my eyes are still the same as two years ago. I also bought a bit of lino for the kitchen. I've always hated the floor in there, it's those red quarry tile things, and whilst they look okay, they are so cold and make the room echoey, so I've always had various mats and rugs down. Now that Diddy comes in there all the time though, it's not such a good idea.

So today I put the lino down in the kitchen. Went pretty well, much better than I expected, because I did the bathroom a couple of weeks ago and got very angry and wound up doing that, it nearly ended up outside on the lawn in the dark! (Nightmare cutting it round the loo, washbasin etc) However, the kitchen was a doddle compared with that, but with bodger being my middle name, I'm afraid I had to cut it round my fridge/freezer. These are actually a separate fridge standing on top of my freezer, and there is no way I could ever lift them to put lino underneath, so the piece I cut out is now under the doormat and can be stuck in the gap should I ever need to move. Pretty chuffed with it though, it's so much warmer underfoot, and will be easy to keep clean. Yay, I can buy a proper squeezy mop now, was useless on the quarry tiles, because it just ripped all the sponge off on the uneven bits.

Diddy Boy approves I think...


















And finally, I took Emma round the park. The weather has been really weird today, sun and blue one minute, hailstones and dark the next. I managed to avoid the latter on our walk, but it did start to spot with rain, and got a nice piccy of the rainbow as I got back to the car ...

















Oh and one more thing. I bought a little fibre optic Christmas tree in the pet shop. Had been looking at them on eBay, wondering whether to bother (I don't normally "do" Christmas) but thought they are so pretty. Anyway, this was a good price, and I said to Clare I'd seen them on eBay, and they were hers! She's been selling them on eBay, I got the last white one. I know it's early but I couldn't wait to see it going, have got it on the little coffee table by the window, it shimmers in pink, gold, silver, green. Now all I got to do is all my cards and get some presents....



There's still some more stuff, but this blog is now so long, I won't mention all my reality shows that I am loving at the moment, or the fact that Take That are on tonight either, but I shall be glued to the box for sure.