A war of words

Does anyone else have this problem?

Miserable receptionists at their GP surgery? I am so annoyed by the people working behind the desk at my doctors who are rude, unhelpful and shouldn't be working for a service if they don't like people.

I needed a repeat prescription recently and because I have been working late I would not arrive at the surgery to ask for the prescription. I confess I have lost the form you are supposed to put into the letterbox, but it's hardly the end of the world, is it? So I phoned up and asked if they could ask for the prescription for me. Quite simply, they couldn't. It was too much trouble for them. I explained that I need the prescription and that if she would write it down it would help it along. Still no. I know that they have rules to follow, but the manner in which you are spoken to is unbelieveable. I think these people (and doctors as well, actually) forget that the majority of people work the same hours they do and cannot easily get to the doctors.

Anyway, I was told to write the information myself and put it in the letterbox. So yesterdayI set off for work a little later and to my surprise the door was open. I went in and a receptionist was there and she just looked at me. She didn't even say 'hello' and that is the experience I always get there. How unacceptable is that? I asked her who the head poncho was and I've decided to write a letter of complaint. I think that these people need some humility and humanity. It's the National Health Service; for me that means you'll be working with and working to help people. It gets me so angry that that is the way in which they speak to people and I've seen them do it to other people there.

I know it might seem trivial, but these tablets help me sleep and my sleeping pattern has been messed up now and my prescription won't be ready until Monday and both Ezzie and I arrive home after the surgery is open so getting the prescription is not so easy. I'm really cross about it all. I'm waging war on those people.

Do not squander time

One of the things that I say to the kids at school is: 'Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of'. It's apparently a quote by Benjamin Franklin, but my knowledge of this comes from the Gone with the Wind film. The contradiction for me is that at the moment I would really love to squander a bit of time and do nothing. Doing nothing can actually be a really good thing sometimes.

With two grandparents in hospital at the moment mine and Ezzie's time has been taken up by that. My grandma is fed up. She is incredibly independent at home and is finding being in hospital very frustrating. She manages a couple of steps a day with a walking frame, but it's painful and she is making slow progress. We don't know what is going to happen yet, but it's clear to me that it will be a while before she is back home and will have to have some sort of respite care when she leaves hospital.

Ezzie's grandad is feeling similarly frustrated. They have found some polyps which they are doing a biopsy on and we are awaiting the results.

Work continues to be as crazy as ever and the webcasting project starts in earnest next week. I'm starting to feel quite worried about it and hope that everything works out. There have been press releases about it so we should have some local media coverage, which is exciting but also daunting.

Mandarin is proving to be slow progress. It is incredibly difficult. I knew it would be because it is so removed from our own language, but I'm really struggling with pronunciation and the four tones. You can have a word and say it with four different tones to create four different meanings. I've been practising the tones with my neighbour who speaks Mandarin and he just laughs! I'm going to stick at it, but I'm wondering about getting a private tutor so that I can make greater progress and practise what I'm learning in class. I've bought alsorts of CDs and books but I need to practise with a person for it to click.

I have managed to do a little knitting recently, and today we even have photos. Back in May I showed you this wool which Esther bought for me.

They have knitted up into some lovely warm socks which should come in this winter. I had only a little wool left at the end of the second sock, which was luck rather than judgement. I was worried I would have to knit the toes in a different colour, but in the end I pulled it off and am really pleased with them.

These were a particularly enjoyable knitting project because they were the first socks I knitted on my recently purchased Knitpicks needles. I bought these at The Wool Baa and they are nothing short of amazing.

This photo does them no justice; it must have been the light at 5am this morning because in the flesh they are stunning. They are the most beautiful needles ever and I think I am going to buy the set of straight needles I also saw at the 'Baa. A knitter needs a bit of bling from time to time and they are divine in the hands.

At the weekend Ezzie and I also went to buy the stuff for our new bathroom. We chose the suite and tiles a couple of weeks ago and have now made the deposit and are waiting for things to arrive. It is going to be gorgeous and I cannot wait. It's amazing how crazy you can go with a bathroom, but ours is so awful that we want and deserve something nice. I wanted a 'bat cave' with dark slate coloured tiles but I've had to compromise with lighter grey tiles instead. It will look really nice and it looks like it will be fitted when I'm on holiday from school so I can keep an eye on things. I'm really looking forward to it now.

As you can see, no one could accuse me of squandering time and being a layabout but sometimes it would be nice to do nothing. I think when the holiday does finally come some lazing about is definitely in order.

More worries

It seems that at the moment all I ever do is talk about my worries on here. It's not really what I want to do on my blog, but it seems that we are having a really hard time of it at the moment.

This week has been busy again. Unfortunately Ezzie's Grandad went into hospital on Saturday. He has some health problems and has had a mild stroke as well. He's still there and doesn't look to be leaving soon.

That's bad enough, but now my Grandma's in hospital as well. Yesterday at school I was interrupted to be told to phone my mum. Basically my Grandma fell in the house and has shattered one of her knee caps and fractured the other. She fell into a glass door and has also broken her nose. I dashed over to see her in the hospital and she didn't look too great. She is fiercely independent and is generally fit and spritely. Seeing her yesterday was upsetting and being further away as I am makes it worse for me. I know she is having lots of visitors and will have a lot of support because we are a big family, but I feel pretty helpless.

Ezzie and I are going to visit her again tomorrow. I had already planned to visit home this weekend, but this doesn't feel like something to look forward to anymore.

Sorry for the bad news post again but I thought I'd keep you all updated.

PS I fogot to mention...

that I've started learning Mandarin. My first class was on Monday. It is not going to be easy, but since when did I ever do anything which was easy? I've practised a little with my Singaporean friend and he knew what I was saying (after I repeated things at least three times). I'm certainly going to give it a go.

It's getting hot in here

When we came back from Germany (that was back in July) the boiler had decided to call it a day. We had no hot water in the sinks and no heating. Thankfully we had hot water in the shower, but that was it. Washing up pots meant boiling kettles of water first and it was all rather frustrating but I think we just got used to it.

With one thing and another in the summer we didn't get around to sorting out the boiler. To be perfectly honest we didn't really know where to start and thought that it would be a terrible job and didn't know who to trust. I think we have watched too many episodes of 'Rogue Traders'. Anyway, with the weather turning much colder recently the impetus increased and we found someone to do the job.

Last night I came home from work and walked into a lovely warm flat. It was a revelation. I watched tv last night and didn't have to curl up under a duvet with a hot water bottle. It felt nicer to be home and my teeth weren't chattering.

I've been feeling really out of it recently. There was a knitting meet this week which I didn't even know about because I've not been on the forum for ages. I'm sad to have missed that, though it's unlikely I would have felt up to it. I've been working late at work, we had an open evening on Thursday so I didn't get back until 9pm, and quite honestly I feel like I don't know what I am doing. It is only a few weeks until the German party do the return leg and that is always a lot of work for me. I'm also involved in a webcasting project at the moment. It's really exciting but all I know is that it has generated a huge amount of work for me. I keep remembering that through the project and its organisation I'm becoming more skilful and this can only be a good thing when you're looking for a new job.

On the knitting front, once again there's little to report. I've just finished another pair of the Regia Nation socks in the rainbow colours. They're for a friend who looked after Granby Percival when we were away. I've now got a few balls of this hiding in the wardrobe so that me and Ezzie can have a pair of these eventually in the future. It's amazing the fear the word 'discontinued' creates in a knitter. I'm not making any socks for a while. I'm now back on with the Rowan Twisted Jumper. I really want to be able to wear it this year so I need to get cracking.

I also feel really out of it with blogging and reading other people's blogs. Sorry to all my blogging friends whose blogs I normally visit. It's nothing personal and I'm hoping to get back into it again soon.

A busy weekend

The first week back at school seemed to go by so slowly, and in typical fashion the weekend has just flown by. My timetable has altered considerably this year with changes to PSHE & Citizenship, so I am no longer just teaching languages. This has meant getting to grips with change for both teachers and pupils, but with the first week behind me I'm now feeling as if I know what I am doing and tomorrow feels a lot less daunting.

I went to the opticians yesterday. Once again my eyes have deteriorated and I'm having to pay a fair bit for ultra thin lenses. I find choosing glasses difficult because my face is so small and narrow. I wanted some designer ones, but had no joy whatsoever. In the end I've opted for some small red ones from the kids section. The shame! I'm not sure they are great, but I'll get used to them. This is always the way with glasses. Ezzie was a star at helping me choose because I can get stroppy at the opticians.

Afterwards we decided to go out for a meal and then to the cinema. En route for something to eat I spied a guy who I'd seen on BBC Breakfast this week (and not just the Look North part, but the actual national section). He and some of his pals forage for food and he was suggesting ways in which people could do this in urban settings. I was interested in the feature because I have been known to forage for bilberries and other berries around Sheffield. Anyway, we ended up speaking to him and his group of people and we ended up going foraging with them. It was really cool. They were looking in new areas for food and about ten minutes in we had found a wonderful apple tree. The fruit was only small but a stunning red colour and the flavour was better than anything bought in a shop, and even more superior to anything ever found in a supermarket.

Eventually we had to say goodbye to make it in time for the film. The film we saw was 'Ben X' about a guy with Asperger's Syndrome. The film was reasonable but I felt it was spoilt from the off because the main character was supposed to be about 18 but looked about 25. We struggled a bit at the end. I always struggle to know what's going on in films but afterwards we pieced it together. It was too late to eat before the film so we went for a curry afterwards, which was nice.

Today I've got on with some work, spent a few hours at the allotment, made a nice Sunday roast, accompanied by six of our own vegetables. I am now about to watch some tv and do some knitting. I've been a bit out of sorts with my knitting recently but need to get back into it. I visited Lucy (Knitbird) yesterday and she was wearing the Rowan twisted jumper which has given me the impetus to get going with it again. There's no excuse really as it is simple and I've done so much of it. Photos later this week.

A farewell to the summer

It's September, so it's all change for me again. The summer is officially over and the reality of work has bitten me hard today. I'm not complaining as I've had a lot of time off, but getting back into the swing of it is always tricky.

Since I last posted I've been to the lovely weddding of my schoolfriend Catherine to Stuart. It was a lovely wedding and she looked stunning. I've been friends with Catherine for eighteen years and it was really moving to see her moving on to the next period in her life.

I don't normally post photos of myself and Ezzie, but here I am, all tarted up. I really love this picture of us. I loved getting dressed up for the wedding, so if anyone else has a wedding for me to attend, please let me know because I just don't have enough events to wear this dress to. My cousin is getting married in 2010. Surely I won't have to wait that long to parade around again!

After the wedding we went on our holidays to Mayrhofen, in Austria. We had a superb time. The weather was fantastic, the accommodation was nice and the food was great. Ezzie and I really needed a break and we just had so much fun. We climbed many mountains, talked lots of German and were feeling fitter by the end of the week.

This was the most difficult mountain we climbed. It's the Brandberger Kolm and took over five hours to reach the summit. The path was precarious at times but well worth the time and effort. We really do love Austria. It seems to bring out the best in us both.

On another walk we came across this little fellow who enjoyed being stroked and fed grass. I really love goats and I had a pet one for a while as a child. One day a small goat made its way into our garden and didn't leave for a few months. We tried to find its owners but had no success so we adopted it because we had a shed for it to live in and a large garden. Eventually someone heard we had it and collected it. It was all really random when I think back to it, but it seemed perfectly normal at the time. As a result I cannot pass them without making a fuss of them. I'm not into horoscopes at all; I think predicting your day to day life by stars is just ridiculous. But, at the same time, I am a capricorn and do identify with goats. They persevere at getting to the tops of mountains and will carry on regardless of knockbacks. I feel like that a bit at the moment.