Blood Orange Cider

 Some months ago I received am email from Thatchers Cider promoting their new Blood Orange Cider, and giving some cocktail suggestions.  They sounded interesting, so I added some to my next shopping order.  They've been sitting on the side ever since, waiting for me to (a) be able to drink alcohol and (b) have the inclination to make the drinks.

I'm making Chinese style crispy duck with pancakes for dinner, and I thouhht Id give a couple of pre dinner cocktails a go.

I tried the Autumn Equinox  (Spiced Rum, Ginger Ale, and Thatchers Blood Orange Cider) and a Spritz (Alperol, Blood Orange CIder, slice of orange).    They were OK, probably better for summer than New Years Eve. 

I'd bought a bottle of Alperol a couple of years ago for something else, and hadn't made whatever it was, so the bottle was unopened.

I recently decided I'd start making a note of every odd ingredient I buy with a view to making a particular recipe,  because I invariably forget why I've bought stuff.  That was post buying the Alperol though.

I might try and search my internet history and see what it was that inspired the purchase.

  

Baggage handler

Cats and bags.

Our cats love bags.   They want to get on, in, under, any bag that is placed on the floor. Everything that comes into the house is for the cats, therefore any bag must be a cat toy.  Ee bring in bags of logs, and the cats are all over them, and trying to get in them.  If we leave a carrier bag on the floor for a second after removing the shopping, it has become a cat hidey hold.

We keep a couple of 5kg feed bags in the kitchen, full of stuff for the Girls. One usually has mixed corn in, and one has some other variant of non heating treat.    The 5kg bags are compact in size, and are light enough to move around easily. When empty, we refill them from 20kg bags in the metal feed bins in MyShed.

We give a small amount of corn late afternoon, as it helps keep the Girls warm overnight.  We usually put it in hanging pecking feeders, so it takes them a while to eat it. This afternoon I emptied the last of one of the bags into a jug, and went out to top up the Girls' feed.  I left the bag on the floor,  planning to come and get it and refill it when I'd seen to the Girls. 

I came back in, followed by Lewis.  He was in a Tiggerish mood and had been pouncing on me all down the path.    In the kitchen,  he pounced on the empty bag,  and then tried to get in it.  I chuckled. Daft cat.

And then he tried to reverse out of the bag.  

Unfortunately, his head had gone through the handle when he put his head in the bag, so the handle was now around his neck like a necklace. When he backed out, the bag handle was still round his neck,  And the bag handle was attached to the bag,  He shook his head, and the bag made whatever loud sound large papery bags do.   

Lewis panicked.

I tried to stop him and calm him down, but he ran.  Of course, the bag clung round his neck and was banging up and down on the floor as he ran.  He skidded round a corner, and the bag ballooned around the side as it followed him round.   I kept my voice calm, but he wasn't listening.

He ran up the stairs, still with the bag around his neck. The bag thudded menacingly on every step.  He was in full blind panic at this point, because the monster that had hold of him was still clinging on.    He ran into the bedroom and skidded across the floor, still being attacked by the Klingon bag around his neck.

He turned and tried to run again. By this time, I was upstairs and DH had managed to get in the doorway, blocking his exit.  DH grabbed Lewis as he tried to run past,  and held him. He managed to get the bag off.

From the safety of his Dad's arms, Lewis stared at me in bewilderment.  He had a real feline "Wtf?" look on his face.  Evidently it was my fault. 

He's now having reassuring Daddy cuddles.

 

Crafty

I'm trying to regain my sewjo...or any sort of creative mojo.  

I had a couple of "wins" this week, and I'm going to try and keep the motivation going.

Firstly was the amendment to the footbag I'd made for DH last year (was it really that long ago?).  Dh suffers from cold feet at night so I'd made him a sleeping bag for his feet.    The downside is that his feet sometimes hadtrouble finding where to go,  and i needed to fix it.

Firstly, I sewed part of the duvet style opening to make it a bit more enveloped.   Then I used a couple of poppers to actually popper one part of the cover to the wool duvet inside.  Finally, I added poppers to close the opening properly, and it all looks fab.

DH hasn't actually noticed that his feet are no longer struggling.  He probably thinks he's just developed the knack, chuckle.     

And the second thing, which took several days of crafting (lapsed time, not actual time) was kitting out one of the bespoke boxes for Kallax made for me by Creations by Rod.      I didn't want to glue anything to the floors of the drawers,  in case I changed my mind about layout,  so I wanted a false floor.    Rod would have been happy to make me whatever I needed, but the truth was, I didn't know until I had had a chance to play with the unit.

DH said he would make me the floors and put the dividers where I wanted them, so I set about doing some mockups to try things out.  I used foam board (that I'd bought to put a jigsaw on) and my new Gloria Glue Gun.

I was really pleased with the results. In fact, I was so pleased, that I decided to stick (ha ha) with foam board, and to just use wooden dowelling or balsam.  I bought some different lengths of lolly sticks from Hobbycraft, and completed the job.

DH shuddered a bit at my haphazard placement and glueing,  but I don't mind it.    I like that I can redo it all if I find it doesn't work well.

Binders and Feet for Coverstitch

Attachments and Accessories for COverstitch

Feet and Accessories for Overlocker

CS and Overlocker storage is the right hand box

It's Christmas Eve today, and I'm trying to clear my craft the kitchen table!

I see.

I managed to stop the descent into irreversible grumpiness the other day.    

The fake tree is up.  It's too big and, despite costing a fortune, looks like a fake tree -   but it looks pretty  when the pre-installed  lights are on.  The lights default to a really annoying setting (why don't they just default to 'on') and have to be press-press-press-press-press-pressed to get to the plain "on" setting. 

 

I knew I'd miss the smell of a real tree, and  I bought two variety of Scentscicles to hang. I'd read a review shiehc said that the Christas Tree scent weasn;tas Chrostamas treelike as the Winter one,  so I bought both. I've tried both, and and they both assaulted my senses without really smelling like a real tree.   I'm now using an open tin of a lovely St Eval candle to provide the missing scent.    

The tree was up, lights on, for a couple of days before we decorated.  I waited till Miss Teen came, but shen she was here she wasn't too bothered about tree decorating.     Time marches on.

I attempted to get a plain wreath earlier in the week, but failed.  I tried again a couple of days ago, and failed again.  First time I haven't done my own wreath in 17 or so years, and the first time the door hasn't had a wreath in even longer.   I might use one of the inside wreaths, just so it doesn't look so bare.

The boxes of house decorations are down from the loft, and we've opened and strung up the cards.  

The Christmas shopping delivery came, and has been packed away.  I made Nigella's Christmas Puddini Truffles, and I have some to my friend Y, and some to my cousin.   I made extra Christmas Pudding just for this.  

My normal reading vision went doolally on Sunday.  My distance vision is fine, I can see perfectly when driving or reading road signs.  It really did go suddenly, and I knew I need to get it checked out.   I made an Optician appointment on Monday,  and the earliest available was late afternoon yesterday.   

My prescription hasn't changed, which surprised me more than I expected.   The eye (and the blood supply)  looks healthy;  I paid extra to have a 3D image of the eye so they could do a thorough check.   Apparently it's my eye muscles that are not working so well.   First my shoulders, then my triceps, and now my eyes!  I was a bit fed up.

 The optician made perfectly sensible suggestions about the crossword.  Move it directly in front of me.  Have a bright light directly above.  This would be fine if it was just me doing the crossword, but it isn't.    Sharing the crossword in the space between us at breakfast time has been something we've done every day since forever, and I don't want to change it.

She suggested having a pair of single vision glasses for reading,  so I've sent an old pair off to be re-lensed today,   What with the strikes and Christmas,  they won't arrive at the glasses place until Wednesday or Thursday next week, so it'll be a while before I get them back.  In the meantime, I feel like Sybill Trelawney and I'm just hoping the single vision glasses really do help.

 

Banana skins

Sometimes it takes just one small thing to start a chain reaction,  a downward spiral.

I had a bit of trouble getting up this morning. I did it eventually, and felt better for getting up.  Last night had been mostly OK, with one issue,   and I wanted to see what my readings were.  I couldn't get in to the App, I had to update it first.

The updated App wanted me to store my data on their servers rather than my phone.  No thank you.  Then it wanted information which wasn't relevant to the device, but I couldn't proceed without providing it.  It asked me if I wanted to import historical data or discard it.  I've got 6 months of data, so of course I wanted to import it.

The new version of the App is horrible.  I don't mean "it's a bit different and I don't like change.". I mean, it's horrible.   They've corrupted some of my historical data.    The graph and info I need is now buried many clicks in to the app (rather than being the defualt landing screen) and now spreads acrposs 3 screens rather than 1.  The graph is childish, hard to read, with only start and end info on the y axis.  I could go on, but I'll just get wound up again.  I joined the FB user group to see if anyone had any suggestionns, but it seems to be a group run by the supplier.   I asked for some advice (without venting) but no one has yet answered.

I put my phone down and got on with my day,  coming back to it a few hours later to see what I could salvage and see if there were any alternatives.    That pushed me further down the grumpy slope as I wasted a couple of hours finding and installing 2 alternative apps and then getting nowhere with them (and them not having any help).

I've contacted the original company directly now and explained what I'm now seeing on the app, and politely expressing my disappointment at how it's now working.    I doubt it will do any good.

In the meantime,  other irritants of the day occurred. Most would have been mild at worst, but  were magnified by the inner frustration that I was feeling. My back ache got worse.  The smell of the scentsicles I put on the artificial tree has been....artificial and irritating.  I removed 2 of them. 

I've done very few of the tasks I had set myself.   I couldn't be bothered, and my own apathy irritated me further.  I annoy myself when I'm like this.

A walk cleared my head a little.  Bringing logs in hurt my back a bit more, but also helped.

I'm writing this to try and clear the rest of the fuddle.

 

 

Back Off

The NightShift device is doing it's job, making me shift off my back at night.   It's been interesting.

Firstly, it thinks I'm snoring.  I'm sure I do sometimes,  but I know it registers me snoring when I am awake.  It might be my husband's snoring that it picks up,  or it might be the noise of the radio which is on until 2am or so.   I haven't had the energy to do any tests to confirm the cause (apart from noting the time when I am awake and DH is snoring, and checking the report the next day). 

Sometimes, I desperately want to lie on my back.  My neck calls for it,  my back calls for it.   Sometims,  lie on my back and ignore the vibrations, and then turn over when I've stretched enough.    Then, I tried tuning the NightShift off, lying on my back for a few minutes while stretching my neck,  and then turning the Nightshift back on.    Of course I sometimes/often would then fall asleep before turning it back on,  waking up later and doing so.

That's where things got interesting. Well, interesting to me.

It's definitely, definitely, definitely all related to me lying on my back.  There is a correlation between me being on my back and me being in pain.   That's no surprise, I've been saying that for 18 months now.    What is interesting, is that it sometimes happens when I am awake  

I remember noting (and mentioning to at least one of the GPs that I spoke to) that it also happened when I was sitting on the sofa in the evening, but I didn't have any evidence to back this up.   I need to try wearing the Wellue ring in the evenings, to see if I can catch it happening.     If it's happening when I am sitting upright,  it presumably cannot be positional apnoea.

The not-laying-on-my back hasn't consistently improved things and has't yet improved the other things that have gone wrong since this started.    I've had the odd morning where I've felt human. I've still felt like there's a knee in my upper back,  but there's been no additional pain across my back, and no headache. I've still not been able to stretch, or look up, or reach for things) .  But I wasn't getting this consistently.  I'd wake up in pain and, on checking my reports, find it had indeed been a bad night. 

This morning is the 3rd morning of 3 good mornings.   I did Pilates yesterday, although I couldn't complete some of the exercises which required upper arm strength, which was welcome.     I've managed to do a load of sorting,  and I've been cleaning downstairs today.

It's 1.30 in the afternoon, I've been at it all morning, and I've had enough now. 

Compared to the Me before this all started,  I still feel like crap.  But compared to the Recent Me,  I feel quite bright.

 

It's been bitter the last few days, and this morning we woke to a small amount of snow.   It wasn't a surprise, the air outside last night had a sort of "muffled" sound quality.

It's a thin layer, and very soft. It had already started to melt by the time I took the pic. 

I've been out and got the snow off the tarpaulin on the ru.  It makes the run quite dark and, if I don't dislodge it , it causes lot of water which gushes into the Run and puddles when it melts.  I've dislodged a lot of the snow which had settled on the netting.  I wish I'd filmed it, because the snow fell o me through the netting, in huge lumpy flakes; it ws like a scene from a film.

We went to the Panto on Saturday night, seeing our friends S&K for the first time in 3 years.  It was lovely to see them, to pick up as if there had been no Covid, no gap.  Miss Teen joined us for the Panto,  and I wonder if it'll be the last time she'll fancy going.

The bruise on DHs back is now purple and black.  I noticed today that it has spread round the side to under his stomach. Poor chap.

He's very stiff, unsurprisingly.

 

 

 

Yesterday, I finally made myself do some scanning, using the recently repaired A1 scanner.   I cleared and cleaned and set it up,  and then scanned half a dozen pieces.    I then fired up the projector, to check that the pieces were scanning without distortion.  There was a problem:  one dimension was far too long.

I was puzzled by this because the engineer who fixed the scanner had calibrated it carefully (He had done the original recalibration when I bought it and found that it was not scanning accrately enough).

First thing to do was to project an electronic pattern, one that I had used before, so I could see if it was the scanning or the projecting that was the issue.

It was the projecting.

Most of me was very relieved, because the scanner had cost a lot of money to repair, and I hadn't tested it as soon as I got it back.      The rest of me was wondering how to sort out the prohection issue.

Fast forward several hours, and we were back on track.

The several hours  required me to do a lot of reading up,  moving stuff, tweaking, adjusting... I now have the case for the interactive pen wedged between it and the stand (sadly I left the pen in the case, so I won't be using that any time soon).  It's now OK. Mostly. 

I did a bit more scanning, but I'd had enough of it by 4.30 and I put it all away.

I've got another pile to do and I'm going to do that today, so that the immediate need is satisfied.  I can then put the scanner and its case away in the sewing room, and that will unblock the kitchen somewhat. And if I can complete the check of the scanned pieces and their scanned versions, I'll  be able to remove most of the many, many attern pieces from the kitchen as well, and I'll be able to breathe.

Of course I should be doing that now and I'm actually standing here writing this blog entry.  And then I'll brave the snow to get some logs in. And then I'll have a hot drink.     

I think I'm procrastinating.

A sneeze and a setback

What a bizarre few days it has been.

After being very unwell on Friday, I was OK on Saturday, and I felt really quite well on Sunday.  I looked at my numbers and saw that I had only had 1minute at <90% oxygen,  the second time it's been like that in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, DH had a minor (but potentially major) accident.

Lewis, our male cat,  has not been quite right.  He had been drinking a lot over the last couple of days, and we'd locked them in on Saturday so we could see if he was being ill, and to check his poo.  I offered him some Cat Malt from the tube, and he happily ate it.  It was wonderful. Such a change from trying to force it into Izzy when she needed it. 

Late evening, Lewis started to choke, as they do sometimes when they have a hairball. He was in the ceiling level cat tree section.    DH jumped up and went to step on the swivel chair to reach up to check he was OK.  I told him to stop, too dangerous,  and I'd get the steps.  

I got the steps which is a small 2 step step. .  DH went up the steps, got the cat, and started to climb down.  And then it was horrendous.

He slipped as he put his foot down,  fell backwards onto the knuckled arm of the sofa.  He slid down, and howled.   He initially thought he might have broken a couple of ribs (that may still be the case) and we were concerned that he might have done damage to his kidneys.   His back had marks on it which described exactly what happened.

The security cameras were on, so we've been able to see exactly what happened.  Luckily, luckily, LUCKILY, the sofa is at an angle, away from the wall. It's a big gap, as we have a kitty play room behind the sofa. 

Luckily, luckily, LUCKILY when he hit the sofa knuckle,  the sofa went backwards, backwards, backwards,  and slid to a stop before it hit the wall.  Luckily, luckily, LUCKILY  there was  that huge gap there.   If there hadn't been.....

.....

By Monday, DH was doing well.  He was still in pain but was a lot more mobile.   And then he sneezed.

His body went into spasm, and he was back to the pain and situation of Saturday night.   Heat applied to the area, by means of our little electric pad.   It took ages for him to be able to move.    

A hot shower might help, although that meant negotiating the stairs.  He did it.  When I helped him get ready for the shower,  his back looked worse, and there was some shadowing which should have been bruising but wasn't.    I couldn't even touch it, the pain was so bad.     

He had the shower,  and I contacted 111 for advice.  They gave us an appointment at the local minor injuries unit, and a paramedic there checked him out. They don't think there is any internal damage.

Last night was worse than Saturday,   but I hope he gets back to yesterday's mobility tomorrow.

Poor chap.

 

 

Bad health, Good Elf

Yesterday was almost a wipeout.

We were due to go and see Elf The Musical, in London, with DSD and DGD,vvMiss Teen came to stay on Thursday night. She wasn't at school on Friday, it was an INSET day.  I told her to bring her  homework.

All went well on Thursday,

On Friday, I woke up with an apalling headache, not a migraine.   I was threw up, a lot,  but couldn't shift it.  I took paracetomol (I can't take Ibuprofen) and went back to bed to try and sleep it off.

It didn't go.

The pain lessened a bit.  I got up at about 2pm and had a long shower.  So long that I emptied the hot water tank.  I then sat on the side of the bed, trying to work out if the headache was eased enough for me to think about going to London.    I knew that DH would step in if he really had to, but he hates musicals and hasn't quite mastered the art of faking it.

I spent about an hour sitting on the side of the bed, flexing and stretching.    In the end, I got dressed and went downstairs.  I had a banana and some cordial,  and I managed to keep that down.  I did a covid test,  just in case, and I also did a DDimer blood test (which I fully expected to be negative, but because of the nature of the headache I wanted to make sure).

DH drove us to the station (I decided driving was a bad idea).   We were going from a station I hadn't used for 40 years,  and we were going to be using the Elizabeth Line all the way to the theatre, no changes.

It was marvellous.

The station is right by the theatre (you can hear and feel the trains underneath, actually!),  so getting there and getting back was just easy.     

We'd planned to go to Pizza Pilgrims, but I couldn't face the thought of eating cheese.   Miss Teen suggested Five Guys.  so we went there and just had small burgers and small chips. And their delicious milk shakes.  It took me ages to drink mine.  It was lovely,  but I was worried that I'd make myself ill.  I was sipping it in small amounts to see how I got on

We then found somewhere to sit and have pudding and a drink with DSD and DGD,  and they arrived with plenty of time to spare.  We caught up, the girls chatted a bit.  It was lovely to see them.

And then the show.

I was sat behind a tall chap with a large head, who had a habit of tilting his head to the right hand side.  Or putting his right arm up and scratching his head!  It was better that I was in that seat rather than the others though.

My view

View from the seat next to mine

The show itself was much, much,  better than I expected, really enjoyable, and it made me want to watch the film again.   The chap playing Buddy (or playing Will Ferrell playing Buddy) was really, really, good at it.

Afterwards, we were back on the platform with plenty of time to spare before our train departed - and it was again a no-change train. 

DH picked us up from the station, and we dropped Miss Teen at her home. She had to get up early to go to work at the stablesthe next day.   We went home and I crawled into bed,   happy that I'd held it together but desperate for sleep.

This morning,  I had a small headache when I woke up.  I stayed in bed for a while, and when I eventually got up, the headache had gone.

I've eaten without being ill, so that's good news.

I'd definitely use the Elizabeth Line to go into London theatre land again.