24/08/2009 by Aileen.

I’ve been working on the Viewfinder’s website over the weekend. Then Paul gave me the details for the church website. So I’m all webbed out. Anyway it’s Monday, so it’s housework. Raining, so probably no gardening. Viewfinders tonight is in Howden, so very near me. Hope weather improves or it’ll be an evening in the pub.

Viewfinder’s site doesn’t come up straight away if you search. I think you have to put the full URL in

http://www.viewfinderphoto.co.uk

That reminds me- only half a bottle of wine and about four cups of coffee all week, in an attempt to lower my blood pressure. Coffee is the hardest thing to resist. I put some on after Mass yesterday (had two cups then) and ooooh the smell. Heaven.

I had a funny turn in the York Designer Centre on Friday. Just dizzy - no pain like the previous week - but I was scared. I think it’s just like my mum used to get with bright lights. A sort of painless migraine. Poor John had hoped to look at clothes and buy some chocolate, but we had to go home. He thinks it’s a nefarious plan on my part!

Anyway, I’m just putting off the housework. Bye.

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20/08/2009 by Aileen.

Off to Hull this morning to sort out some Building Society stuff. Then we’re going on to York for lunch, as Hull doesn’t have a Pret a Manger! (No, we wanted to do York Designer Centre too)
I think John is finally getting back to normal after a year! He has seven clients on the go at the moment, and we went for a cycle ride last night.
He has an MRI scan on the 10th September, to see what treatment, if any, he still needs. He has a slight suspicion he still has an abscess, but is feeling fine. (Apart from his constant pain!)
I haven’t heard about my blood test, so assume it was normal. This means I have to have a Spyrometry (or something) test to see why I am so breathless.
Oh well. Onwards and Upwards.
Oh, I’ve been working on the church website. I can’t do that much as Paul still hasn’t given me the details, but what I have done is on here
www.sacredheartstjoseph.org.uk
It can only get better!

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19/08/2009 by Aileen.

I didn’t tell you the news yesterday, computer problems, but I’m glad I didn’t cos it’s even better now. She’s stopped feeling sick.

Oops! That’s the wrong way round. First, the lovely Fiona is pregnant.  She’s expecting the little darling in February. They told us about three weeks ago (maybe two, whenever they were up) but although she had been telling people I didn’t want to broadcast it, in case someone heard from me who ought to have heard from her.

Poor girl has been sick as could be for weeks, but she emailed this morning to say that after 14 weeks and 6 days the sickness has finally stopped. I can’t call it morning sickness as it has lasted the whole time.

Anyway, we’re over the moon, all of us.

Bye! Websites to design!

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17/08/2009 by Aileen.

Well, I’m late getting up and I nearly forgot to put out the rubbish, but here’s another lovely day ahead of me. Usual housework, and house seems worse than usual. I haven’t been doing much as I’m still stiff. Also, grass is so high. I did the front lawn last week and think it was too much too soon.

I’ve also spent ages trying to get my laptop to start up. BLACK SCREEN!!! Think I’ll have to get someone in. I hope I don’t lose the last few months’ photos.

Viewfinders tonight, and we’re going to Spurn. I’m driving Dave, Kate and Sarah. Poor Kate was burgled last week. That must be so awful. I’ll hear the details this evening.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you my (well not mine!) GOOD NEWS.

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15/08/2009 by Aileen.

There is some (fantastic) thing that I can’t tell you!… And a really wonderful thing that I will tell you next week.

In the meantime. Oh dear. I was driving home from Hull yesterday, and I felt a bad pain in my chest. It went up to my throat and teeth even, and I decided to stop at the next layby. When there, I felt really faint, so opened the door and put my feet outside. I thought, if anything happens inside the car no one would know for ages. Anyway, I had two really bad dizzy spells, where I thought I was going to black out. After a few minutes I felt better and drove home. I told John and he said to phone the doctors, so I did. They said come down straight away. I had an ECG and my heart was normal, thank God. But what caused it? Nerves after the accident? It was a similar pain to what I used to get before Barrets Oesophagus was diagnosed, and the dishy doctor  said it could be oesophagal pain. If anything like that happens again and lasts 10 or 15 minutes I am to phone the amulance straight away. My ‘attack’ lasted about 5 minutes, and I did actually have my mobile out, ready to ring for an ambulance, but then I started to feel better.

The other thing that has gone kaput is my laptop. It was ok on Thursday. Paul from church came round, as I’m  taking over the church website from him. He recommmended COMODO as a good antivirus application, so I downloaded it. Trouble is, it blocked Firefox - my favourite browser. Also, Flock and Opera if I remember rightly. Anyway, Internet Explorer was alright, so I Googled and discovered this can be a problem with Comodo. Unfortunately, my whole laptop is dead now. I only get a blank screen with a little cursor in the corner. I’m on John’s laptop now, as I’m suffering from such extreme withdrawal symptoms, and I keep trying to restart my own lovely little laptop.

Other news - John is getting a new motability car, as the red Focus is a write-off. We went to order it today. We knew exactly what we wanted, but in all England there is only one automatic estate Focus Titanium. And it’s Tango Red, same as the last one. Oh well. we should have it in about a fortnight. John had said I could choose the colour, and I chose Sea Grey (or something) but we would rather have any colour than live with the courtesy car for any longer. The hand controls are so different from what John is used to, and I can’t drive the car. John actually drove it for three hours, going down to Stoke Mandeville, but he wasn’t happy with it. So roll on the new car.

Talking of cars, Martin has just bought a red Porsche. He said it has been his ambition to have one since he was twelve. He is probably getting it out of his system before…………… oh no - I’m not going to tell you the news until next week!

If my computer is kaput I have lost a lot of photos, but I do have the Porsche in my camera still, so will try to download it and upload it now.

Cheers.

P.S. I don’t know if I told you all about Stoke Mandeville. (Yes, I could look back, but I’m on a roll with typing now) We travelled down on the Sunday, and had a sort of barbecue (leftovers) with M and F. At the hospital John didn’t actually see his surgeon, but was really happy with the man he did see. He has to have an MRI in a couple of weeks, to see if there is another abscess forming, and he is seeing the ‘top man’ in three months. He doesn’t have to have any bedrest, and no anti-biotics, so hopefully he can get back to normal now. He has seven clients at the moment, so it is good that he can be up and about all the time.

I need to nag him about exercise now!

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12/08/2009 by Aileen.

Went to the doctor with pain in rib still from accident. Came home with high blood pressure and heart murmur. I’m not going there again. (Except for blood tests this afternoon) <faints>

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06/08/2009 by Aileen.

To sit in my living room in the evening, french doors open to gentle rain, and to hear a green woodpecker yaffling in my neighbour’s garden. Heaven.

(I know it’s a green woodpecker. I saw it a couple of days ago, flying into Sharon’s enormous willow tree. I’ve heard it each day since.)

Also - while I’m in sentimental mood - here is a swan gliding over the pond at the back of the house.There are two of them, and although it’s a bit late in the season, I do wish they would mate.

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06/08/2009 by Aileen.

It makes sense now. I got 71% for the story and 92% for continous assessment which brings my mark to 82%.

This is much nearer what I was expecting. Thought 71% was the overall and couldn’t understand it.

Hey, three marks off a distinction isn’t bad. The story was probably a bit too chick lit. I’m still a bit peeved at not getting a higher score for presentation though. Maybe I sent in a draft copy!

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06/08/2009 by Aileen.

A215 results were out today. I got 72% and a Grade 2 pass. It might sound daft, but I really thought I would do better than this. My five pieces of course work gained 88%   95%   94%   96%   95%

I don’t think it’s the sort course where you do worse on the exam, as the conditions for writing are just the same and we had ages to work on it. Of course there’s a different marker, and creative writing is so sbjective.

Looking at the breakdown of the marks I got ‘good’ (between 70% abnd 84%) on language, voice and ideas, but only a ‘clear pass’ (between 55% and 69%) for structure and presentation of the story, and the analysis and presentation of my commentary.

My presentation was spot on as you can’t go wrong with this. (the typefont, line spacing etc) and with four more marks I could have got a distinction. How could I not have got four more marks for presentation?

Actually, I think I might query this. I know it doesn’t really matter, but I find it puzzling that I didn’t do better.

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05/08/2009 by Aileen.

When I was teaching I would have a really good day, and wonder what I did right and how could I repeat it. I couldn’t! Well, Monday was very productive, but for the last two days I’ve done nowt. Really lethargic.

Tale of the Missing Car

Our car was supposed to be taken to a garage near us after the crash, but when we rang up they didn’t have it. Nobody knew where it was. On Monday they decided they did have it, but it hadn’t shown up in their paper work or something like that. It was only two miles away, but they couldn’t release any of our our personal effects from it.  Well, today, the police released it but it had gone to a garage in Hull, and I had the keys, so had to drive all the way there to pick up our stuff. So annoying. Anyway, I took some photos. Here is one of them.

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