I mentioned my enormous spot on my Twitter postings. It truly was enormous - half of my nose swelled dramatically and it was positively purple on Tuesday! It had, of course, begun to swell on Saturday so I was busy with make-up and when that failed, resorted to standing behind taller people in the wedding photos!
I also picked up a head cold when I was in Scotland. It was messy!! I couldn't be more than 4 inches from a box of tissues for fear of sneezing and...I won't go into details. It is sufficient to say it was messy!!!! I was concerned enough about the nose thing to actually go to the Doctors on Wednesday. It turns out I have the remains of a chest infection (which I didn't know I had), a red, inflamed throat (which I did know I had!) and swollen glands. Oh, and the spot was more of an abscess. I was prescribed antibiotics and booked in for blood tests to try and get to the bottom of my spots which have flared again.
Since starting the antibiotics I have been on the Erythromycin diet! I have never, ever felt so nauseous EVER. I felt pretty bad on Thursday. During Thursday night I couldn't move as moving triggered overwhelming waves of nausea. I couldn't get out of bed on Friday and managed to eat a whole digestive biscuit in 36 hours. The nausea passed (mostly) by Saturday afternoon, but now the little I'm managing to eat is turbo charged. Also, my slightly achy shoulder is now causing pain. JOY! My body has turned against me!!! I am a delight to behold! I tell you - I feel so much more sympathetic for pregnant women now. If that is what morning sickness is like then, phew - hats off to you amazing ladies!!
Sunday 27 February 2011
A wee trip to Scotland
Poor Stephen wasn't very well last week. He came down with a cold just a few days before we were due to drive to Scotland, which caused us a little debate about when we should drive up. Fully expecting to abandon the original plan to travel on Thursday afternoon we did no packing, until Stephen announced around noon that we may as well get it over with as there was no guarantee that he'd feel any better on the Friday. We had looked out what clothes we were taking and this was quickly and neatly packed, but we ended up throwing shoes, phone chargers, hair straighteners etc (ie all the odds and sods) into carrier bags. I was like a bag lady taking all my possessions out to the car! Must remember for next time that we do have holdalls for that sort of thing - it would certainly have made dragging the stuff in and out the car at each location much easier!!
The first stop of the Sparks go to Scotland tour was to East Kilbride to see Stephen's family. It was something of a whistlestop tour - compressed by Stephen's need for a 2 hour nap on Friday after taking far too much out of himself going to the driving range. This rather squashed the time available to get round everyone, but we made it!
The second stop was Loch Lomond, via the Romanian Orthodox Church in Glasgow, for Monica and Adrian's wedding. What a fabulous wedding it was! It was the first time at an Orthodox ceremony for most of the people there and I, for one, was quite fascinated by the ceremony and the priests singing the responses. Monica was telling us the next day that the priest was shaking as he doesn't normally have to conduct any part of the ceremony in English. I did have a smile when he welcomed us to the "weeding".
I had to work hard to suppress giggles, thanks to the small children behind us. In a bid to keep 3 young children amused during the ceremony their daddy was very quietly going through a picture book with them.
"Horse" said dad
"Horse" came the reply
"mumble" said dad
"SHITE" came the rather loud response
"Cow" said dad
"SHIIIITE" was the plaintive wail
By this time I was having to dig my nails into my palms to stop the giggles!!
Stephen had already bonded with Kenny (Adrian's brother in law) who was taking the photos and who had even more camera equipment than Stephen. I can only feel sorry for Elaine his wife, if she - like me, gets to carry it about! Stephen was taking loads of photos too, and between them they got a lovely set of photos. Kenny and Elaine were also exceedingly useful in a "follow that car" kind of way when it came from getting from the church onto the M8 to get to Ross Priory!!
The reception was wonderful. It was so good to catch up with all the Strathclyde University folks whom Stephen used to work with. Its too easy to forget that it was 17 years ago we left!! I was shocked to find that Helen's cute little daughter was now 21 years old!! Scottish water must be good for the skin as Helen doesn't look in any way old enough to have a 21 year old! She has barely changed at all.
The band were excellent too. It was ceildh, but now as you'd normally know it! They did all the traditional dances, but mixed in very modern music. So, for example, there would be Iron Maiden during the Virginia Reel (but not in a head-banging way). Very, very clever musicians indeed. (Have just googled The Big Shoogle - check out their My Space page for some music clips.)
To add a little frisson of excitement, Stephen managed to misplace his car keys. Hopefully this will teach him a lesson about putting things down behind him.... When the bridal car arrived at Ross Priory he'd dumped all his keys and camera equipment on a table at the top of the steps to the entrance in order to take photos. Someone helpfully swept everything up and took it inside...but they must have shoved his keys in a sporran or pocket - out of sight, out of mind! Thankfully I had my set of keys so we were okay, and thankfully Adrian got a call in the morning to say they'd turned up, and by a convoluted route we got them back to Stephen's mum so all we had to do was detour back to EK to collect them on our way home on Tuesday.
Our third stop was bonny Edinburgh to see even bonnier baby Leo....and the rest of the family too, of course! Poor Eve was loaded with the cold, so we were a fairly sorry lot coughing and sneezing away! It was funny as I'd had a dream that Leo was talking (in sentences no less!) and he is talking - just not in a language that we understand as yet! He chatters away quite the thing! Chad had taken a video of him chattering and we showed it to him. Leo's face was screwed up intently watching himself, then suddenly he burst into smiles and giggles. He was obviously telling jokes!! This was borne out by the fact that, from the video, we could hear Chad saying "You sure can deliver a punchline little fella". How funny!!
The first stop of the Sparks go to Scotland tour was to East Kilbride to see Stephen's family. It was something of a whistlestop tour - compressed by Stephen's need for a 2 hour nap on Friday after taking far too much out of himself going to the driving range. This rather squashed the time available to get round everyone, but we made it!
The second stop was Loch Lomond, via the Romanian Orthodox Church in Glasgow, for Monica and Adrian's wedding. What a fabulous wedding it was! It was the first time at an Orthodox ceremony for most of the people there and I, for one, was quite fascinated by the ceremony and the priests singing the responses. Monica was telling us the next day that the priest was shaking as he doesn't normally have to conduct any part of the ceremony in English. I did have a smile when he welcomed us to the "weeding".
I had to work hard to suppress giggles, thanks to the small children behind us. In a bid to keep 3 young children amused during the ceremony their daddy was very quietly going through a picture book with them.
"Horse" said dad
"Horse" came the reply
"mumble" said dad
"SHITE" came the rather loud response
"Cow" said dad
"SHIIIITE" was the plaintive wail
By this time I was having to dig my nails into my palms to stop the giggles!!
Stephen had already bonded with Kenny (Adrian's brother in law) who was taking the photos and who had even more camera equipment than Stephen. I can only feel sorry for Elaine his wife, if she - like me, gets to carry it about! Stephen was taking loads of photos too, and between them they got a lovely set of photos. Kenny and Elaine were also exceedingly useful in a "follow that car" kind of way when it came from getting from the church onto the M8 to get to Ross Priory!!
The reception was wonderful. It was so good to catch up with all the Strathclyde University folks whom Stephen used to work with. Its too easy to forget that it was 17 years ago we left!! I was shocked to find that Helen's cute little daughter was now 21 years old!! Scottish water must be good for the skin as Helen doesn't look in any way old enough to have a 21 year old! She has barely changed at all.
The band were excellent too. It was ceildh, but now as you'd normally know it! They did all the traditional dances, but mixed in very modern music. So, for example, there would be Iron Maiden during the Virginia Reel (but not in a head-banging way). Very, very clever musicians indeed. (Have just googled The Big Shoogle - check out their My Space page for some music clips.)
To add a little frisson of excitement, Stephen managed to misplace his car keys. Hopefully this will teach him a lesson about putting things down behind him.... When the bridal car arrived at Ross Priory he'd dumped all his keys and camera equipment on a table at the top of the steps to the entrance in order to take photos. Someone helpfully swept everything up and took it inside...but they must have shoved his keys in a sporran or pocket - out of sight, out of mind! Thankfully I had my set of keys so we were okay, and thankfully Adrian got a call in the morning to say they'd turned up, and by a convoluted route we got them back to Stephen's mum so all we had to do was detour back to EK to collect them on our way home on Tuesday.
Our third stop was bonny Edinburgh to see even bonnier baby Leo....and the rest of the family too, of course! Poor Eve was loaded with the cold, so we were a fairly sorry lot coughing and sneezing away! It was funny as I'd had a dream that Leo was talking (in sentences no less!) and he is talking - just not in a language that we understand as yet! He chatters away quite the thing! Chad had taken a video of him chattering and we showed it to him. Leo's face was screwed up intently watching himself, then suddenly he burst into smiles and giggles. He was obviously telling jokes!! This was borne out by the fact that, from the video, we could hear Chad saying "You sure can deliver a punchline little fella". How funny!!
 |
| The very happy couple |
 |
| The wee cutie (and Leo!) |
Wednesday 16 February 2011
My first twitter follower
How funny! I got my first follower on Twitter this morning...and its Michael McIntyre. Yes THE Michael McIntyre - King of Comedy!!!
Obviously he has recognised my genius and wants to read my pearls of wisdom every day....or it could just be an automated reciprocal arrangement because I follow him. But still....Michael McIntyre!!!! My very first twitter follower!!!! How many people can say that???!!!!!
Tuesday 15 February 2011
Tweet tweet
Just because I can.... I've signed up to Twitter and linked the feed to my blog page - for on the hoof updates! Goodness knows if this will work. Might be a bit advanced for me!!!!
What is it they say? Follow me on Twitter @sparksgoto
:-)
What is it they say? Follow me on Twitter @sparksgoto
:-)
Some photos
Contrary to rumours we DO occassionally take photos with people in them!
 |
| Our gorgeous and very talented niece Adele singing "Sway" on the stage in George Square in Glasgow |
 |
| Me with my very gorgous and very snuggly nephew, Leo - aged 1 week |
Back by popular demand - okay - actually by demand of Phil...!!!
Hey I'm back! From Outer Space.... Well not quite Outer Space, but it may as well have been! I've had a succession of lurgy pretty much back to back since Christmas and its robbed me of my writing mojo. Given a choice between coming home from work, flopping on the sofa and having a snooze or coming home from work and opening the laptop...well the snoozing won hands down every time!! That serves me right for not taking my Beroca and for working in an open plan office where everyone has a cold. We're all throwing our germs into the primordial soup and watching it mutate. I reckon at this rate we'll have brewed bubonic plague by next month!
Its not all been grim though. We had the pleasure of seeing Sir Willard White (amongst others) sing Verdi's Requiem at Malvern Theatres last weekend. It was a superb performance from all. I had goosebumps! The tenor scheduled to sing was taken ill and his spot was taken by an exceedingly brave tenor from the chorus. He did a great job - a little wobbly for the first few bars but he got into his stride very quickly and did a superb job.
It was our second visit to the Theatres last week. No, in fact it was our third! We had gone on Monday in the hope of seeing The Kings Speech only to find it was sold out. We booked up for Thursday instead and toddled along in time for a swift pint beforehand. Stephen was determined to get a drink down his neck before going in, expecting to see a Rom-Com. I was expecting a serious drama. It turns out we were both wrong! I wasn't expecting to be rolling on the floor with laughter for one thing!! I deserves every Oscar that its bound to win. It was one of the best films I've seen in years!
We've also FINALLY finished our photo wall! YAY for us! We started it waaaay back in the summer when I bought 30 frames and mounts and finished it about 2 weeks ago when the final print was hung. We had fun and games along the way!! We had all 30 printed and ready to go just after Christmas. Stephen got the drill out, marked up the wall and drilled the first set of holes. (We have an old house with solid walls so picture hooks just bounce off - which is why hanging anything on the wall is a job Stephen needs 6 months build up to!) I handed him the first picture and KEEEEERASHHHHH. It slid off the screw and hit the floor. The frame burst into 4 pieces and the glass into many more. Great. I had bought exactly the correct number of frames. No spares. And bought from a place that deals in bulk orders.... I breathed deeply and we pressed on. I was busy modifying the frames with picture wire to tether them to the screws in the wall and it was working brilliantly - clever me. The drilling stopped. The drill had run out of charge...which was just as well. I looked and did a double take. Someone (not me!!!) had measured and marked up wrongly, so all of the holes were a little too close together.... I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry!! At least we had time to charge the battery whilst we filled the holes and the polyfilla dried!!
To be honest, DIY is maybe not Stephen's strongest suit. Most of it goes fine, but there is the occasional little screw up, just to keep me amused...
We've turned the dining room into a second sitting room and opened up the wood fire again. It was all going great until he had to rehang a wall light (one of four in the room). All I heard was "Oh %$#&$^&". I was next door and walked into the room jokingly saying "Oh, what's happened. Don't tell me that you've hung it upside..." Yes, he had. It was upside down!!
Then there was the saga of the curtain poles in our bedroom. We were tired, we were niggly, we were rushing to go to the cinema. It was not the best time to be trying to do a spot of DIY. A mild marital was definitely in progress! I was taking great pains to point out to Stephen that the poles came in two parts and were joined by a screw so it was very important that he cut the excess length from the correct ends (ie not the ones with the pilot hole). He was ignoring me, so I was explaining again when he got ratty.
"Why on earth do you think I'll cut it from the wrong end?"
"Why on earth did you hand the wall light upside down? Because you can"
At this point thankfully we both dissolved into giggles. I went downstairs to make dinner and he carried on drilling and sawing. I looked in expectantly a little while later. The pole was up...but...the pole sloped down to the left at a good 20 degree angle!!!! I wasn't sure whether to say something or whether to just put up with self-opening curtains!!! I'm beginning to think we should buy shares in Polyfilla given the quantities we use! And I'm definitely thinking that I won't be letting him install the bathroom!!! Can you imagine?? I'd get in the bath for the first time and plunge through the ceiling into the kitchen below!!
Its not all been grim though. We had the pleasure of seeing Sir Willard White (amongst others) sing Verdi's Requiem at Malvern Theatres last weekend. It was a superb performance from all. I had goosebumps! The tenor scheduled to sing was taken ill and his spot was taken by an exceedingly brave tenor from the chorus. He did a great job - a little wobbly for the first few bars but he got into his stride very quickly and did a superb job.
It was our second visit to the Theatres last week. No, in fact it was our third! We had gone on Monday in the hope of seeing The Kings Speech only to find it was sold out. We booked up for Thursday instead and toddled along in time for a swift pint beforehand. Stephen was determined to get a drink down his neck before going in, expecting to see a Rom-Com. I was expecting a serious drama. It turns out we were both wrong! I wasn't expecting to be rolling on the floor with laughter for one thing!! I deserves every Oscar that its bound to win. It was one of the best films I've seen in years!
We've also FINALLY finished our photo wall! YAY for us! We started it waaaay back in the summer when I bought 30 frames and mounts and finished it about 2 weeks ago when the final print was hung. We had fun and games along the way!! We had all 30 printed and ready to go just after Christmas. Stephen got the drill out, marked up the wall and drilled the first set of holes. (We have an old house with solid walls so picture hooks just bounce off - which is why hanging anything on the wall is a job Stephen needs 6 months build up to!) I handed him the first picture and KEEEEERASHHHHH. It slid off the screw and hit the floor. The frame burst into 4 pieces and the glass into many more. Great. I had bought exactly the correct number of frames. No spares. And bought from a place that deals in bulk orders.... I breathed deeply and we pressed on. I was busy modifying the frames with picture wire to tether them to the screws in the wall and it was working brilliantly - clever me. The drilling stopped. The drill had run out of charge...which was just as well. I looked and did a double take. Someone (not me!!!) had measured and marked up wrongly, so all of the holes were a little too close together.... I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry!! At least we had time to charge the battery whilst we filled the holes and the polyfilla dried!!
To be honest, DIY is maybe not Stephen's strongest suit. Most of it goes fine, but there is the occasional little screw up, just to keep me amused...
We've turned the dining room into a second sitting room and opened up the wood fire again. It was all going great until he had to rehang a wall light (one of four in the room). All I heard was "Oh %$#&$^&". I was next door and walked into the room jokingly saying "Oh, what's happened. Don't tell me that you've hung it upside..." Yes, he had. It was upside down!!
Then there was the saga of the curtain poles in our bedroom. We were tired, we were niggly, we were rushing to go to the cinema. It was not the best time to be trying to do a spot of DIY. A mild marital was definitely in progress! I was taking great pains to point out to Stephen that the poles came in two parts and were joined by a screw so it was very important that he cut the excess length from the correct ends (ie not the ones with the pilot hole). He was ignoring me, so I was explaining again when he got ratty.
"Why on earth do you think I'll cut it from the wrong end?"
"Why on earth did you hand the wall light upside down? Because you can"
At this point thankfully we both dissolved into giggles. I went downstairs to make dinner and he carried on drilling and sawing. I looked in expectantly a little while later. The pole was up...but...the pole sloped down to the left at a good 20 degree angle!!!! I wasn't sure whether to say something or whether to just put up with self-opening curtains!!! I'm beginning to think we should buy shares in Polyfilla given the quantities we use! And I'm definitely thinking that I won't be letting him install the bathroom!!! Can you imagine?? I'd get in the bath for the first time and plunge through the ceiling into the kitchen below!!
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