It was the Grand National Saturday before last.
I have a fairly good record where that particular race is concerned. I've picked every winner since 1992, maybe 1991 (Party Politics is the first one that stands out, that was in 92).
I don't follow the form guide, nor do I tend to look at the odds. I pick a name I like, or that resonates to me. It must have a meaning to me, ideally. Party Politics - there was an election the week after, connection there, bet on that one. Mister Frisk - loved the sound of the name, all fast and swishy and prancy like a highly-strung horse.
Minnehoma...was a last-minute pick, I heard the old boys on the street corner talking about it and had to dash back to the bookies to put a quid on it. My mum used to call me (among many things) Minnie Ha-ha, which I think might be something to do with Hiawatha, but may not be. Anyway, I thought Minnehoma sounded quite close to that, so on went my quid. I remember Michael the bookie laughing at me and telling me it was a total nag. *g*
So, this year's race. I was drawn to Numbersixvalverde, and put £3 on it to win. Which it did.
Why that horse, when it would appear at first glance to have no connection for me at all?
Well, this is mostly tenuous - CtOR laughed at me before the race.
'Come in number six, your time is up' is something my mother and I would often call to each other. (Don't ask me why the hell we would, we just did, and it always cracked us up).
My mother's name was Valerie, but mostly she was called Val.
And her favourite hymn of all was 'There is a Green Hill Far Away', and verde is I think Spanish, possibly Italian, for green.
It works for me, okay?!
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
The Marvels of Modern Medicine
Well.
After nine months of fretting, worrying, cancelled dates and various pre-operative tests, the Operation has been and gone.
What should have taken two to three hours took more like five and a half. There were various complications; deep layers of internal fat blocking access to the required area and oozing along the stitchlines being the worst of them. He came out of it all with an extra wound on most folk who have the same procedure, six wounds for the op and one drain wound. The extra wound was required to gain access to the aforementioned area. The Prof says it was a very good job he'd followed the liver-shrinking diet to the letter because if that had been enlarged, things would have been very black indeed.
Yet again, that man of mine excelled himself whilst on morphine. He had the medical and nursing staff in fits of giggles. He has a new catchphrase, courtesy of the anaesthetist, Dr Dearden, who talked him through the inserting of various lines and needles pre-op. 'We're just going to go for something a little more saucy now, so I'll give you a local anaesthetic first', has resulted in cries of 'Let's go for something a little more saucy!' from himself whilst indulging in a spot of PS2 gaming.
Much of the last couple of days since his release from hospital (in on Wednesday, op on Thursday, out on Saturday) has been spent playing Champion: Return to Arms, or as we like to call it, Fake Baldur's Gate. It's one of those very rare beasts, a computer game we both like playing that is also two player. Baldur's Gate as a 2-player PS2 game is just stonkingly good. Sadly, the PC version is duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll.
I want to play Tombraider: Legend quite badly, too.
Right now, I am just enjoying an extended break from work. Most of all, I am enjoying spending it at 'home', with the man and the cat, though I am missing the guys a little. We may drive over for a day visit later in the week, I don't know. Must ring the landlady and check she is okay to keep feeding them - if she isn't, then I will have to return!
We've both had tons of messages from friends online. I sometimes forget that one of the sites I frequent is also frequented by him, and that my friends there know him and tend to repeat stuff to him. Not so good when things get back to him that I'd prefer he not know! So he got quite annoyed with me when a particular friend mentioned the op to him months ago when it was all hush-hush. I think now he realises that I needed to talk about it because I was worrying about it and he is glad that I had some back-up.
Anyway, this has been and will continue to be a life-changing event for him, and in a way for me, too. Food has been a huge part of our relationship from the outset. You could describe us both as large. Certainly each of us has had a 'weight problem' for most of our life. My weight has spiralled mostly upwards over the last twenty years or so, and in the last two or three in particular, as has his. It is never a good idea to attempt to match one's partner in portion size when your partner is very large as opposed to just large. He could out-eat me by a very long way indeed. It was more the weekends that hampered me, as they tended to consist of at least one takeaway, a big Sunday roast and as much in the way of chocolate and crisps as could be consumed. Not forgetting the bacon and egg baguette from the local bakery on Saturday morning. I am hoping that eating more normal-sized portions (both in digs and at home) and not being able to eat junk around him (so not fair on him if I do) together with the increased exercise we will both be getting will lead to a normalising of my weight eventually.
I did do very well at WeightWatchers...I'm not sure I have the discipline to keep at it for months on end. What I am able to do is to eat fairly sensibly and get more exercise, which also works. He was bought a recipe book by someone which is no use to him at all, but I may borrow it and try the eating plans suggested in it.
I just don't want to be the fat bird waddling around after a slim young hunk!
After nine months of fretting, worrying, cancelled dates and various pre-operative tests, the Operation has been and gone.
What should have taken two to three hours took more like five and a half. There were various complications; deep layers of internal fat blocking access to the required area and oozing along the stitchlines being the worst of them. He came out of it all with an extra wound on most folk who have the same procedure, six wounds for the op and one drain wound. The extra wound was required to gain access to the aforementioned area. The Prof says it was a very good job he'd followed the liver-shrinking diet to the letter because if that had been enlarged, things would have been very black indeed.
Yet again, that man of mine excelled himself whilst on morphine. He had the medical and nursing staff in fits of giggles. He has a new catchphrase, courtesy of the anaesthetist, Dr Dearden, who talked him through the inserting of various lines and needles pre-op. 'We're just going to go for something a little more saucy now, so I'll give you a local anaesthetic first', has resulted in cries of 'Let's go for something a little more saucy!' from himself whilst indulging in a spot of PS2 gaming.
Much of the last couple of days since his release from hospital (in on Wednesday, op on Thursday, out on Saturday) has been spent playing Champion: Return to Arms, or as we like to call it, Fake Baldur's Gate. It's one of those very rare beasts, a computer game we both like playing that is also two player. Baldur's Gate as a 2-player PS2 game is just stonkingly good. Sadly, the PC version is duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuulllllllllllllllllll.
I want to play Tombraider: Legend quite badly, too.
Right now, I am just enjoying an extended break from work. Most of all, I am enjoying spending it at 'home', with the man and the cat, though I am missing the guys a little. We may drive over for a day visit later in the week, I don't know. Must ring the landlady and check she is okay to keep feeding them - if she isn't, then I will have to return!
We've both had tons of messages from friends online. I sometimes forget that one of the sites I frequent is also frequented by him, and that my friends there know him and tend to repeat stuff to him. Not so good when things get back to him that I'd prefer he not know! So he got quite annoyed with me when a particular friend mentioned the op to him months ago when it was all hush-hush. I think now he realises that I needed to talk about it because I was worrying about it and he is glad that I had some back-up.
Anyway, this has been and will continue to be a life-changing event for him, and in a way for me, too. Food has been a huge part of our relationship from the outset. You could describe us both as large. Certainly each of us has had a 'weight problem' for most of our life. My weight has spiralled mostly upwards over the last twenty years or so, and in the last two or three in particular, as has his. It is never a good idea to attempt to match one's partner in portion size when your partner is very large as opposed to just large. He could out-eat me by a very long way indeed. It was more the weekends that hampered me, as they tended to consist of at least one takeaway, a big Sunday roast and as much in the way of chocolate and crisps as could be consumed. Not forgetting the bacon and egg baguette from the local bakery on Saturday morning. I am hoping that eating more normal-sized portions (both in digs and at home) and not being able to eat junk around him (so not fair on him if I do) together with the increased exercise we will both be getting will lead to a normalising of my weight eventually.
I did do very well at WeightWatchers...I'm not sure I have the discipline to keep at it for months on end. What I am able to do is to eat fairly sensibly and get more exercise, which also works. He was bought a recipe book by someone which is no use to him at all, but I may borrow it and try the eating plans suggested in it.
I just don't want to be the fat bird waddling around after a slim young hunk!
Monday, April 03, 2006
They Don't Call Me Muppet for Nothing
True, is that.
Having moved out to the country, I have rediscovered my love of long walks. So far, I've been trying to get out for an hour or so most days that I'm here. In practice, that means there are four nights in which I can get out into the woods for a while and escape inside my head as I wander where the path may take me.
Last Thursday, that turned out to be a total dead end. I thought I was walking round in a rough square - I was, as it happens. Unfortunately, the third side of the square didn't actually reconnect with the top side of the square from whence I came...this was after a good two hours of walking, by which time I was pretty much worn out. Oh, it was also dark. I'm not fond of the dark, and this was rapidly veering from twilight to darkest night.
And I was desperate for a pee. Now, Sod's Law says quite clearly that anyone taking a leak in the woods is a) bound to be spotted by someone, and b) also bound to widdle all down one or possibly both legs, and probably all over one's trousers or shorts too. So, discretion having warred with valour for some little time, discretion won out.
Let me tell you now that the next three quarters of an hour seemed very, very long.
I realised that there was no need for me to walk back through the woods for an hour and a quarter just to get back to the top of the bridlepath some 45 minutes into my journey. This was because, while I did earlier indicate that this road was a dead end, it was in fact not. Where the top side should have been was a branch off to the left, leading down to the main road. As in, the A1. A nice dual carriageway, speed limit 70 mph (except in the Elkesley accident reduction area where it is 50, or cuurently 40 cos of the roadworks).
There are no footpaths beside the A1. Pedestrians aren't banned from walking alongside A roads, but they sure as hell are not encouraged. So. There I was. Hot, tired, feet killing me, staggering and stumbling along the grass verge, which I quickly discovered took a steep dive to the right into a nice drainage ditch. Not to mention all the ruts, rubbish, burst tyres and general roadside detritus. It amazes me, the kind of crap people happily fling out the window of a moving vehicle. Fortunately not at me, on this occasion.
I walked in alternate pitch darkness, intermittently pierced by headlights of cars, lorries and vans. I only got hooted the once, which I thought was quite good.
The scariest part was actually walking through a huge layby where lots of truck drivers pull up overnight on long haul journeys. All these giant, silent lorries, with mysterious trailerloads of who-knows-what going who-knows-where. And all these great big lorry drivers, ditto. Not the best place for a lone female late of an evening. Not at all.
Happily, the rain stayed off till I was at the top of the driveway and so a minute's stagger from the warm and dry.
On getting home, I may have had just about the most delicious wee I have ever enjoyed.
Having moved out to the country, I have rediscovered my love of long walks. So far, I've been trying to get out for an hour or so most days that I'm here. In practice, that means there are four nights in which I can get out into the woods for a while and escape inside my head as I wander where the path may take me.
Last Thursday, that turned out to be a total dead end. I thought I was walking round in a rough square - I was, as it happens. Unfortunately, the third side of the square didn't actually reconnect with the top side of the square from whence I came...this was after a good two hours of walking, by which time I was pretty much worn out. Oh, it was also dark. I'm not fond of the dark, and this was rapidly veering from twilight to darkest night.
And I was desperate for a pee. Now, Sod's Law says quite clearly that anyone taking a leak in the woods is a) bound to be spotted by someone, and b) also bound to widdle all down one or possibly both legs, and probably all over one's trousers or shorts too. So, discretion having warred with valour for some little time, discretion won out.
Let me tell you now that the next three quarters of an hour seemed very, very long.
I realised that there was no need for me to walk back through the woods for an hour and a quarter just to get back to the top of the bridlepath some 45 minutes into my journey. This was because, while I did earlier indicate that this road was a dead end, it was in fact not. Where the top side should have been was a branch off to the left, leading down to the main road. As in, the A1. A nice dual carriageway, speed limit 70 mph (except in the Elkesley accident reduction area where it is 50, or cuurently 40 cos of the roadworks).
There are no footpaths beside the A1. Pedestrians aren't banned from walking alongside A roads, but they sure as hell are not encouraged. So. There I was. Hot, tired, feet killing me, staggering and stumbling along the grass verge, which I quickly discovered took a steep dive to the right into a nice drainage ditch. Not to mention all the ruts, rubbish, burst tyres and general roadside detritus. It amazes me, the kind of crap people happily fling out the window of a moving vehicle. Fortunately not at me, on this occasion.
I walked in alternate pitch darkness, intermittently pierced by headlights of cars, lorries and vans. I only got hooted the once, which I thought was quite good.
The scariest part was actually walking through a huge layby where lots of truck drivers pull up overnight on long haul journeys. All these giant, silent lorries, with mysterious trailerloads of who-knows-what going who-knows-where. And all these great big lorry drivers, ditto. Not the best place for a lone female late of an evening. Not at all.
Happily, the rain stayed off till I was at the top of the driveway and so a minute's stagger from the warm and dry.
On getting home, I may have had just about the most delicious wee I have ever enjoyed.
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