Dammit I keep being too ill/busy (often both at the same time which is.. tiring.. to say the least) to update LJ and then I keep forgetting what I've been doing, and the whole point of this thing, other than interacting with you delightful folks, is to keep track of stuffs.

Don't think the seizures help with joined-up thinking much, had one on Tuesday and then one yesterday and another one today. Tedious.

Work on the St Andrews Cross continues despite the universe conspiring to make life complicated, little things like the folding/portable aspect suddenly not being so portable or folding - lucky Forest is a genius and came up with a nify solution involving metal rods and some hasps, and a tricksy way of using two hex nuts locked off against each other to act as a sort of screwhead.. still not quite sure how he did that but it rocked, I assure you :)

In between I've been reading nifty books, such as the missing Charlaine Harris one, Definitely Dead which was great fun, plus the first three chapters of Cheburashka in Russian, extra cute, and I'm making good headway with the Hebrew, more of it is turning into meaningful words rather than squiggles, though I'm glad I found a handy page online about the differences between some of the characters, as its easy to get them mixed up at this early stage.

Been very tired and stressed and crying a lot, though doing my tai chi out in the garden the other day really helped ground and relax me, really do need to get back to doing that as often as possible... oh and eating a more varied diet is hopefully helping my general health, corn on the cob is much nicer at snacktime than toast, plus mum & I worked on making soda bread the other day, was sure it had gone wrong as the mixture was more batter than dough, and then it sort of erupted out of the loaf tin and looked rather burnt, but was in fact eminently edible. She made some more today and despite it again trying to do the bread monster from the black lagoon deal escaping its bounds, made a lovely dinner for me with bacon and eggses. Yum.

Weather is weird but sun and showers and storms and blue skies then drizzle at least gives me something to look at when I'm stuck in bed. And then there's bookses, treated myself to an Amazon order earlier in the week, a Tanakh with a parallel English translation and very clear print despite being pocket size, the teach yourself beginner's hindi script I was trying to talk myself out of (more obscure squiggle practice) and a book about angels which looks groovy, have always wondered where people found all these beings, and the levels of research in this are amazing. Mum was fascinated, but didn't want to borrow my new Biblical Hebrew tutor, how odd ::giggle::

I played a whole five minutes of guitar the other day, always a sign I'm worn out physically when instruments are too challenging, lucky one can do languages in one's head and memory or I'd be really frustrated...

Worn out hobbits, the seizures and the scampering out to DIY shops and helping with the woodwork aren't doing much for my attempts to rest, though as I admitted to a friend the other day rather shamefacedly I do actually *like* wandering round B&Q, all those nifty tools and bits of wood and fixings and things, all that potential for creation if you have the skills, very inspiring sort of place if you're in the mood..

Inspired a bit of ad-hoc woodwork in the carpark in fact.

Well, they do a timber cutting service in store, with a big efficient machine and the damn thing was out of order, and we'd already worked out the length for the final bit of wood needed for the cross, and made sure it would fit in the car, but no way could we fit a full 8ft length, and it would mean coming back another day, and maybe the machine would still be out of order and just arggh!

"I'm tempted, " says Forest, after some wandering around looking in vain for shorter lengths of suitable timber, "Just to buy a saw and cut the wood down in the carpark"
"You *can't*", says Hobbit, shocked, "You can't just start doing DIY outside like that!"
"Why not?" Forest replies, "There's no law against it, and it would only take a few moments, and its not our fault the saw is out of order.."
"Where would you do it though, you'd need to rest it on something,"
"On a bollard, or put half in the boot of the car, " Forest says, confidently
"We-ell", says a hobbit, looking down at the trolley she's been pushing, "I could hold this steady and you could use that--"

Exit Forest stage left to find nice cheap tenon saw, grab wood, pay for items, we leave store.

So there we were 5 minutes later, with the length of wood laid out over a low trolley we found parked against a bollard, bit of tape-measure-and-pencil work and me holding the other end steady, and he's sawing away rapidly, saw cutting through wood like knife through butter, and a couple of rather bemused expressions on passing B&Q staff, who make no protest.

And then we drove home with two nice shorter bits of wood in the car.

Sorted.

I still can't believe he did that! *mad giggles*

Definitely making progress here, the strange squiggles are starting to turn into meaningful letters, some of which I can actually read. Curious beginner type question #1:

Is there any rule/reason why sometimes you find an aleph with a vowel and sometimes an ayin or is just random and something to get used to?

today's post brought to you by the letters B and Q and that's where we're off to in 5 minutes. I've been promised munchies after though, yay!

Hrmm.

Clearly the brain wanting Hebrew before breakfast on Thursday and then later being very keen on learning guitar scales (one of these days I will get the hang of those, was going better than previous attempts..) was a sign that a seizure was on the way, methodical type stuff pleases the pre- and during-fit mind.

So yeah, seizure. Passed out under a blankie afterwards while somebody got drilly with it on the landing (perfectly clean vaccuumed floor needed a new layer of sawdust, clearly.. : ) )And then I dragged some clothes on and we went out to the shops, and then read books and chilled out and did not manage a shower at all, all day, because I was so tired, but Forest did all the tidying up and carpetswooped after his DIY and I just curled up with Jon Pertwee Dr Who which was very cool, need to watch the rest of that today.

I somehow managed to be late for *every* meal, which mucked up my blood sugars nicely, meaning despite a nice early night I was down at 4am eating toast and then sitting reading a French book till I was able to try the sleep thing again, ugh.

And then yesterday I thought I was fine, planned to phone my auntie in Australia to give advice/support on something to do with my cousin when *splat*, another seizure.

Bah.

Yay library bookses and doing very little, though I did make mashed potatoes for Forest & I to go with dinner, lovely with my chicken and brussels and a tasty change to go with his sausages, and much nicer than my dad's mash, said Forest *preen* Gots my shower too so no longer slimy stinky hobbitses.

Yet another trip to B&Q today for the final few bits for the Cross which is doing splendidly, and other than that I'm going to be resting up with Jon Pertwee and some fluffy fantasy, I hope.

So damn tired :(

Anyone who loved the robot in Short Circuit might find the wee character in the new Disney/Pixar flick Wall-E a bit familiar - and equally as cute! No clue when its out over here in the UK but I love Pixar and I love robots with expressive eyes and I've just spent way too much time watching the little animated clips on the official website (the video section). Its like Luxo Jr all over again.

*loves on the robot*

The library has been good to me of late, the last few Dick Francis that I'd not re-read, the newest Kim Harrison (For A Few Demons More, excellent read) and the latest J D Robbs. I was really pleased to have managed to order the new Charlaine Harris Sookie novel, All Together Dead, which I settled down to read this morning.

Hmm, thinks I, I don't remember a character losing his head
Hmm, thinks I, dont' remember a were/vamp cross
Hmm, thinks I, I don't remember a room-mate...
And I really don't remember someone doing that! Poor Bob.

I think I missed a book.

*scampers back to library to order Definitely Dead, of which I now know a few plot points, drat*

Other than scampering out I played a little guitar, and read some of my Cheburashka book, the introduction is so cute, all about how the author as a child had some favourite toys: a plush crocodile called Gena, a plastic doll, and this weird fluffy creature that could be a monkey or maybe a dog or even a small bear, with big eyes and a stumpy tail and when his parents first gave it to him he was scared and wouldn't even sleep in the same room as it, but then they became best friends and had lots of adventures, hence the stories he later wrote. Awww. And ooh, understood all that perfectly without having to guess or look up dictionary words, excellent. My grasp of Russian can cope with 8 year old level :)

Harry Potter is still good bedtime reading, though as it sends me off to sleep after about 10 minutes its lasting a nice long time.. Harry's just found the Mirror of Erised and the way they have the Russian words reading backwards is very nice, though I had to squint a lot before working out how to separate them out, hard enough reading forwards, thankyouverymuch. Fun though.

Hunt for correct trans of The Hobbit still drawing a blank, at least I'll have a much improved vocabulary if/when I ever do track the damn thing down.

Am a bit sleepy and groggy this morning, was slow to get up so sat on the side of the bed learning Hebrew vowels and sounding out some simple words.
Before breakfast even.
Mad or dedicated, you decide!
:-)

Mm, our chinese food the other night was very tasty - I really couldn't face a kebab as it disagreed with me so much last time but was way too tired to cook so took a risk on a couple of starters, not really advisable for me to have Chinese from an allergy point of view, and then of course there's the diabetes issue.

I'm pretty sure that crispy fried chicken balls with a dipping sauce (aka sweet and sour chicken) is *not* a good meal, white flour dough (bad), deep fried (bad) and then a sweet-ish sauce (really bad) but it was sooooooooo tasty, and I only spiked a little bit, home-made rice and a long walk helped, and definitely a treat worth savouring, also much easier than trying to cook.

And yesterday you could tell Forest was back as we did some DIY and of course found we were short of something and had to head out to B&Q. Which is doing wonders for my levels of fitness actually, given we were wandering around there for nearly an hour and its a big place with lots of walking. Lots of fun driving up there too, zooming along the motorway and then further zooming with the windows open (lovely weather) and the stereo blasting out good classic rock tracks, We Will Rock You, Boys Are Back in Town, Born to Be Wild, Won't Get Fooled Again, whee! :)

The bolts we'd got to fix the central section of the Cross were too long, but they didn't actually sell any of the right length so we picked up a new hacksaw and Forest simply cut off an inch on each of them and they fit perfectly. Also picked up a couple of countersink bits for the drill (damned expensive items even in generic flavour) and within, ooh, 2 minutes, had drilled and sunk and bolted and tightened and there we were ready for the next step. Course it had got quite late by then, had to do food shopping too, so as is often the case, DIY was taking place gone midnight. tanngrisnir got blow by blow accounts via text and told me to take things gently, but I was: lying down on my bed watching Forest sweating away, until it was time for me to hold sections of wood at precise angles for hinges to be attached, and then I got to clear up and do the carpet sweeping, u-banking, whatever you call the things.

Hobbit: Those u-bank things are ok but I pushed it at the wrong angle and the damn thing spat out sawdust and I had to do that section again...
Forest: You shouldn't use a u-bank you know
Hobbit: (all unuspecting) Oh?
Forest: No, be much better with an Ali or a Henry Cooper!
Hobbit: *thwap*

Gots a Forest, yay! :)

I am knackered, takeaway should turn up soon cos I also starving hungry....

Good grief. Forest done and dusted and on earlier coach back here.. *is gobsmacked*

Ooh, remember the Lion cam at the Norwegian zoo I linked to the other week, and the cubs were tiny and mum was mainly sleeping? Just clicked through today and everyone is awake, little cubs playing at pouncing games and lioness watching them very carefully - cos they are pouncing on and chewing her tail! ::giggle::

Yesterday was lovely, though I think I overdid things a bit.. am on my own currently as Forest is off away in London getting his ITIN sorted at the Embassy, train fares and timing etc meant the best option was him getting the coach down and staying over in a hotel, so we were texting back and forth while he travelled and then I was sitting out in the garden with my Russian bible when he phoned from the pub. Was very sociable and pleasant, me sat in our garden enjoying the late afternoon sun sparkling through the trees and watching a thrush drinking from the fountain, bluetits playing in the branches of the beauty bush and a blackbird hopping round, couple of magpies, oh and a Dyson* flying overhead. He meanwhile enjoyed a much deserved pint of Guinness and observed the local "bird" life, also involving tits and beauty, it seems ::giggle::

I did a little Hebrew and read my French book, but used most of my energies after lunch getting ahead on the washing etc and preparing dinner, decided to treat myself to the Oven Fried Chicken I adapted last week, much better results this time as I used tastier bread with nuts and seeds for the crumbs, and zuzzed my toasted bread as soon as it was done rather than leaving it out to go a bit soggy and strange. Managed to munch happily through nearly a pound of chicken breast all by myself, along with crushed potatoes and some baby plum tomatoes, mmm, stuffed hobbits!

This modern technology stuff is fab because the hotel has wireless internet in the rooms (chosen specifically for that, and why didn't we realise it was Wimbledon this week, no wonder it was tricky finding a cheap place to stay), so I was chatting away on msn last night with Forest on his laptop, he's even got a small webcam for it so I got to see his sexy bare chest too as he was just out of the shower, yum :)

A nap in the afternoon meant I didn't get round to watching the classic Dr Who dvd from amazon rental, will settle with that today I think.. and I've not heard a thing from Forest as he's not allowed to have his mobile to hand at the US Embassy, which seems really daft, hoping he's not going to have to queue for too long there.




* our name for woodpigeons, have you seen those things eat? Fat feathered vaccuum cleaners!

Its not all been DIY fun and games here mind, I had another seizure on Saturday but we'll ignore that, and focus on the fact that I made my lovely potatoes dauphinoise for dinner on Friday, and spent most of the weekend reading and chilling out while Forest sorted some stock photos of Albert Dock he took the other week.

My idea of "resting" isn't necessarily anyone elses, mind you, as someone rather gently pointed out, given that I spent hours on Sunday researching Devanagari script, Hindi and Sanskritwith a view to maybe learning the latter, or at least the letters, but then I got distracted back to Biblical Hebrew so have a) made a new start on learning the alphabet from my slim beginner's volume and b) have another tutor book coming at some point this week as the Cambridge Biblical Hebrew Workbook I got ages ago really doesn't work on its own, only as a supplement (or at least it makes my brain cry each time I try and use it).

Yay language geeking - also been happily reading French books and still snuggling up at bedtime with Harry Potter in Russian, though I fully admit I'm not understanding more than about half the vocab, need to do some proper memorisation on Russian at some point.

Oh yes, and I sat happily out in the garden this afternoon with the Bible in Russian, reading the story of Noah, and then promptly went and re-read it English to be sure if it really is as repetitive on the matter of animals and pairs and Noah being 600 years old. Why yes, yes it is. Handy for vocab building, all those same words over and over and over... :)

Ooh and I treated myself to a lovely thing last week, an amethyst and silver pendant from Booth and Booth which do some fab stuff, go and look. I was very tempted by the leaf pendant but its a tad too delicate for me so chose "Anna" instead. Here's a photo of it, though mine doesn't have the fancy expensive chain, just got a plain curb chain on Ebay which is a tad longer than I expected, or at least makes the pendant hang lower as the bail is so large (I'd still have been puzzling over that one if Forest hadn't pointed out that was why my two pendants, both on 24" lengths, hung at different levels... he's a smartarse :) )





I do love amethyst on silver, and have been wearing this most days, including the first day it came even though the purple clashed *horribly* with my red t-shirt ::giggle::

I hate it when we're so busy I don't get chance to update LJ about what we're busy *with* - not that I want desperately for everyone to know and applaud my every move, just like to have posts to look back on and keep track of things...

I was worn out after the Klimt thing and then the seizures at the weekend (1 on Saturday, 2 on Sunday and yet another on Monday, arggh!) and then Tuesday we did shopping to catch up with not having managed it previously, also got mousicles for Zebedee who was getting to be a Very Hungry Snake: the pet shop had a whole load of tiny bearded dragons in a tank, some sitting in branches gazing out, one extremely cute one with his little forepaws up on the glass watching intently and a couple of others sitting on each other's heads, Rankins dragons which are a dwarf variety. Very, very tempting to bring at least one home with us.. also admired the wabbits and the ratties and awww, a cute fluffy chinchilla, never seen one of those in the flesh before, or rather in the fur, see previous description of fluffy, mainly eyes in a ball of fuzz :)

The main plan for the week was to make a start on constructing the St Andrews Cross for the upcoming shoot; having spent several hours trawling B&Q for the various bits required we were all set, so curled up on the landing floor with timber, pencil, engineers protractor and the instructions and marked out the test pieces of wood and the proper ones, having really got the hang of angles and geometry by the time the 4th piece came along.

Wednesday was a stressful day, had to be up early to take the cat to the vet, poor Buffy cat needed a tooth taken out and I was worrying immensely about this, gave her big cuddles in the morning (she doesn't especially like being cuddled by me but tough!) and then sent her off to have her operation, and then crawled back into bed for a bit: possibly a bad move as I seemed to be behind for the rest of the day once I got up again. So much scampering as things went wrong, with a time constraint as the healers were due, and the cat needed picked up again, and we did want to make a start on the DIY.

First of all we had to figure out how the router worked, and not having used it before and with rubbish instruction manual that took an hour of googling for info and video clips. Then we took router and wood etc down to the garden and Forest went into the annex (covered store on the side of the house) to fetch the workbench. All through the B&Q trips with lists and plans the single question had always been, "Do we still have a workbench?" "Yes, definitely, its in the annex, " and I'd checked with mum to be sure, and she assured me there was one in the annex, in a white box, we'd got 2 on special offer from Screwfix ages back and wasn't that lucky as the first one had broken.

My mental image of the workbench? A large white box in the annex containing a bench folded neatly, possibly needing its top attached.
Mum's knowledge of the workbench, which came horribly to light and was a bit of a surprise? One rather small white box containing all the bits needed to assemble the workbench, which is really *not* what you want to discover five minutes before starting a project. And then it started to rain...

*sigh*

Having taken white box upstairs, emptied out bits, looked at instructions blankly and panicked we did what any sensible people would do. Put the damn thing back in the box and sent Forest up to B&Q for a proper workbench, at which point I scampered to get some food, and scampered to get a shower, by which point Forest was back bearing a very nice folding Black&Decker workmate that only needed a leetle bit of assembly (handing having the healer to help with that, why are instruction books so lousy?) and then away we could go!

Except, not.

Big chunk of wood needing channeled out was more than a match for the router, which screeched and sparked and created some funny burning smells and ooh dear, that's not going to work, thank the gods that was the test piece! Forest resorted to a hammer and chisel and a saw (and a bit of cursing) and amazingly did the job perfectly, I'm so impressed with his skills and determination not to be beaten by the damn thing. Um, except for the last section of the second piece. which split nicely.

Thursday afternoon, back to B&Q!

The cat is fine, bit groggy for the anaesthetic and the bill was as long as your arm with various treatments (and cost an arm and a leg). We got more wood and a tenon saw from B&Q, marked out the angles again and Forest did a perfect job with saw, hammer and chisel, which he finished off with sanding outside on Friday in that lovely sunshine we were lucky enough to have.

Having been out to the Tattoo Convention the previous weekend, and then the eye test thingy I didn't think it was wise to be going out again last week but Forest persuaded me that heading into town on Friday for the new Klimt exhibition at Liverpool Tate would be a really good idea - and I'm so glad he did, cos it was indeed fab.

We'd wanted an early start but mum's still not 100% right now so we had to stay in all morning to "baby-sit" while dad did his weekly town shop, but that was ok, the exhibition is time-limited entry so it just meant we had to work out when the tickets should be booked for. And then had a reasonably lazy morning, plenty of time for showers and lunch and much coffee before heading down to the Albert Dock, and wandering around for a little while, browsing in the shops, until it was 3pm and time to go and be cultured.

There's been a lot of media attention for this show, and many of the arts review type critics in the mainstream press have been pretty scathing - the fact is, the exhibit is not a whole gallery full of Klimt's best-known works, fragile and dripping with gold leaf, though of course that would have been amazing. Thanks to the difficulty of transporting his stuff, plus a competing show in New York, what the Tate people rather cleverly did was make it an exhibition of Klimt in a wider context, that of the artistic movement and milieu of Vienna of the early 20th century. This meant that along with some of the famous works you also got furniture and clothes and architecture of the period, scale models of various buildings and interiors lovingly designed to showcase everything about the Weiner Werkstaette movement, and even extracts of letters between various artsy people, old photos, postcards, posters and the like. I do know a little bit about this period and later, having studied Expressionism, but hadn't realised Klimt had been so inspirational for the likes of Egon Schiele and Oskar Kokoschka, both favourites of mine.

The whole thing was laid out chronologically and with plenty of background info to read as well as things to admire, and things linked together very well, such as the scale model of a nightclub and sat next to it, one of the fancy chairs designed for and used in said place (that got secret smiles from quite a lot of people as we twigged what was what). I also got a kick out of mentioning to Forest that the lines of the decoration and furniture reminded me a lot of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and was there perhaps a link, only to find the very next section discussing that, with various examples. Um, and Klimt did a nice line in erotic drawings too... :)

I think the best bit was the reproduction of the Beethoven Frieze which has been recreated in glorious colour on plaster with gold leaf, following the same techniques Klimt himself used, plus plenty of photos and info about the original frieze and the show it was designed for.. it took us a good two hours to wander through everything and it was all utterly fascinating, plus so cool to see things like Judith II and The Three Ages of Woman close up, all that detailed brushwork, gorgeous.

The gift shop was full of everything Klimty you could think of - postcards, magnets, notebooks, no bookmarks sadly, but rather encouragingly a very wide-range of books on all aspects of his work, was tempted by a few titles I'll probably try and get second hand, but I did treat myself to the exhibition catalogue, we're getting a nice collection of those from various places. Forest couldn't resist a framed reproduction of Water Serpents which I'm looking forward to seeing hanging on the wall once it gets here!

We'd planned to wander around taking some photos of the water and buildings but it was getting rather chill and dull so we went straight to get some food instead - the restaurant we used to go to there has changed hands, but I spotted an interesting Irish menu outside one place so we wandered back there for grub. Called Raven, its billed as an Irish-American Bar and Grill and has lovely decor, all old brick walls and then floor to ceiling bookshelves with various cool things on, some comfy leather chairs down one side and a bar somewhere out back, and big solid wooden tables with big candlesticks on, and great music - about the only thing spoiling it for me was the widescreen television showing football but at least the sound was down. And the food? Wow, you can keep your fancy dishes, I definitely prefer simple food done well, such as their home-made pate in proper glass jars with those weird lids with wire to hold them down, rich coarse paté topped with thick creamy butter and served simply on large breadboards with soda bread and Branston pickle on the side, almost a meal in itself. Then Forest's steak was done to perfection, and the beer-batter on my cod was to die for, as was the lovely creamy tartare sauce, though I think the fish itself could have been a tad fresher, more soda bread helped though. Oh, and proper Guinnes with a thick head, I couldn't resist a few sips even, lovely stuff. Definitely a place to go back to for the paté alone, I bet its good fun to hang out there of an evening too.

Culture and good food, what more could a body ask for?

Yay, parcel from Amazon Germany, the replacement for the wrong copy of the Russian Hobbit translation!

*tears excitedly into package*

Oh look, a copy of the Hobbit in Russian.

A very familiar copy.

Yep, they've sent the wrong one *again*, this being the third copy to pass through my hands now. Wrong copy, wrong ISBN, wrong publisher, wrong translation, wrong cover, wrong contents (this one has various short stories as well as the Hobbit)

Grargh!

::sulk::

Time to email them politely again, this time pointing at a pretty picture of the correct version...

Luckily the Uspenskii kids book from Ebay about a smart little boy and his talking cat also turned up so that has made me smile.. want my Xobbits though!

(Also spent all weekend having seizures, but will update about our Friday adventures soonest).