I'm a little bit...

...fed up with the fact I've caught the flurgy twice in the last four weeks.

Partly cos it nearly killed me yesterday morning.

I was nicely asleep and having a surreal dream about Grandma Mazur (reading too much Stephanie Plum methinks) when I was woken up by a sneeze.
I reached down to the box of tissues...empty.
I woke up Anthony to check his side for tissues...nada.
So I hauled myself out of bed to go downstairs to the bathroom and grab some toilet roll.

Except the fact I was still rather sleepy meant that I didn't put my left foot where I should have done at the top of the stairs.

This resulted in me sliding down the stairs on my right side and landing in a heap at the bottom. (Anthony was out of bed and nearly at the top of the stairs before I hit the bottom).

Ow.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, OW!

These are the stairs that I went sliding down (note the white marks on the edges of the bottom seven stairs).

Below you can see what my right calf and right thigh looked like just afterwards (those white marks on the stairs...the skin from my calf). The swelling on my thigh just kept growing, it was a B cup size before any bruising started to come though.





I trotted off to the doctor (ie Anthony gave me a lift there and then I took 20 mins to do the 5 min walk home) since I'd also banged my head (no bruising there, sorry) and he was quite amazed that I hadn't broken anything (as was I). I just had to wait for the swelling to subside before I tried to spend a large amount of time on my feet. He also said "You'll probably have a little bit of colour change around that swelling in the next few days".

He wasn't wrong.

So for your viewing hilarity I present to you.

Kate's Rainbow Leg (over the course of yesterday afternoon)




The bit above the crescent shape is where it is still swollen (although probably only an A cup now) from a haematoma that is "probably going to take a few weeks to come out properly" - as in the swelling to go and that bit of bruise to come out. Since this is me...the folks in the Center Parcs Spa will probably be wondering how I got that bruise when I go there in March!

Urgh...

more animals

Good news...

...I'm not dead. Although, I don't feel fine.

I went and had a blood test today.

At least I was supposed to have a blood test.

But I failed to bleed a single drop.

Nothing.

Nada.

Nowt.

And that was with two different people trying to get blood from me. Both arms tried, couple of different needles too.

So, I am here still, and a bad blogger. And I also appear to have turned into a vampire while I wasn't looking.

Sorry.

Last week...

...in fact the very day of my last post, the lovely Michelle tagged me. Thank you Michelle!



Since I am a bad blogger (and currently ill) I have not responded to her tagging. So while I am having five minutes of not feeling terrible, here it is.

One word answers only. (and I've done my best not to expand!)

1. Where is your cell phone? Sofa

2. Where is your significant other? Birmingham

3. Your hair color? Blonde

4. Your mother? Essex

5. Your father? Deaded

6. Your favorite thing? Chocolate

7. Your dream last night? Reading

8. Your dream/goal? Ongoing

9. The room you're in? Cold

10. Your hobby? Cross-stitch

11. Your fear? Loss

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Family

13. Where were you last night? Bed

14. What you're not? Organised

15. One of your wish-list items? Framing (for one of my many finished cross-stitches)

16. Where you grew up? Billericay

17. The last thing you did? Yawn

18. What are you wearing? TWO jumpers

19. Your TV? Off

20. Your pets? Crazy

21. Your computer?

22. Your mood? Poorly

23. Missing someone? Yes

24. Your car? Broken (still)

25. Something you're not wearing? Contacts

26. Favorite store? Work

27. Your summer? Grey

28. Love someone? Anthony

29. Your favorite color? Turquoise

30. When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday

31. Last time you cried? Earlier

I am now supposed to tag five other people, but since the five other people I would normally tag have all been tagged already, I shall not bother this time. Edited to add: Emily has just done it off her own bat. I forget about tagging my sister!

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going back to flake out on the sofa and feel ill. Although I shall have to do a little tidying as a man from Virgin will be here between 1-6 to fit a V+ Box. (and just to reassure my sister who worries about my money, I got mine for £30)

My week...

...was pretty good really.

Yes, the event was hellish in parts (I forget how rude teachers and librarians can be), the changeover was complicated by the staff shortages and the fact that half of my colleagues have a really nasty cold meant that we've all been flagging a bit.

But I have been extra kind to myself in the evenings, doing daring things like leaving the electric blanket on low all night (so that I don't wake up freezing cold) and not doing any washing-up again (which sounds terrible unless you realise that this means dirty plates/forks/knives/glasses x 4, and that's it).

Today I also finally got the affidavit for my divorce signed! I've been ringing the solicitors across the street ever day for the last few weeks and there's never been a solicitor in. (Always in court, says a lot about Wolverhampton). Today the receptionist went "Hi, there's someone here today! Will you be straight over?" (we've become quite chatty). So that is done and now just needs to be sent back to the courts and in 4/6 weeks I should get my decree nisi! The reason it's all taken so flipping long is that the Yeti took months to reply to it, I suspect his mother took her own sweet time about forwarding his mail.
Anyway, step 4 is now completed, not too much further to go!

I'm looking forward to this weekend. Anthony's car is still playing silly buggers, but he's being dropped off here later after work. Tomorrow we have plans for a lovely lie-in and then a day of doing who-knows-what. I have to get to bed early though, it's the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday - race start time, 13.30 local time, 05.30 BST.

Now I do actually quite enjoy the early morning races, once I manage to haul myself out of bed. The one thing that always throws me is when I decide I want a beer about mid-way through the race. I walk though to the kitchen, get a bottle from the fridge, open it, turn to walk back through the dining room and spot the time on the clock on the bookshelf - 6am. Yeah...
Never gonna be as bad as when I was tipsy by 8am after watching one of England's World Cup games back in 2002. That was the day I got together with the Yeti, think the match drinking might have been a factor?

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious...

...(oh yes, you knew that was coming)

I have never been a big fan of soup. I don't remember it coming up as a regular meal option at home, it would always be a choice of last resort when I was ill and particularly grumpy. Then it had to be Cream of Chicken, no other type would do.

But recently I have been wanting soup.

So I went out and bought some.



That receipt has had to be saved as proof that I had a soup moment, although the entries on it do not do my soup shopping justice.

Farmers Soup = Heinz Farmers' Market Roast Parsnip & Caramelised Onion Soup.
Soup = Heinz Farmers' Market Beef, Mushroom & Red Wine Soup
Ckn Broth = Heinz Classic Chicken & Barley Broth
Soup = Tesco Finest Sweet Potato, Butternut Squash & Pumpkin Soup
Soup = Tesco Finest Cream of Chicken Soup

(the Finest ones come in very cool pouches, and I was glad as the bag was very heavy anyway!)

As you can see, if I am going to eat soup, it has to be fancy soup.

We bought some nice ones from Waitrose yesterday too: Frances Robson's Tweedside Honey in English Parsnip Soup and Laura & Simon Thearle's Goats Cheese in Red Pepper Soup.

I have even been looking at some cookbooks at work to find myself a soup I can cook in the slow cooker one day. It's all part of looking after myself with this horrible lurgy that just won't go away.

I'm probably never going to eat soup in a restaurant (they always have either goats cheese or pate for a starter) but at the moment my diet is becoming soup based which is rather scary. I think it must be Anthony's influence, this last couple of years I've taken to eating all sorts of things that I would never have touched with a bargepole before.

Next thing you know I'll be drinking coffee!

Sorry...

...that I didn't post about soup the other night, I didn't get out of the bath til about 10pm (mmmmmm, lovely three hour bath) and then I got distracted by the widget again.

There will be a soup post at some point.

In the meantime I would like to say HELLO! to all the lovely people who have been here via the widget and hoped that I get better soon.

So hello and thank you to:

Trousers, nmj, spacedlaw, ken, Susan, Lady in red, Country Girl, Ashley Ladd, Kathryn, Papercuts, Brom, hullabrouhaha, liz fenwick, Nik's Blog, DK Green, Twinville, Pamela Terry and Edward, Crystal Jigsaw and Leigh. (I now have 35 new blogs in the Widgetness folder on Google Reader - wah hoo!)

Also big hugs to Michelle who has also had the lurgy (as have her two adorable boys), and of course the fabulous Caroline who wrote the book that needed the widget (as built by Stray) in the first place!

I am feeling much better today after an unfortunate incident yesterday when I laughed so hard at Lewis Hamiltwunt qualifying in 15th that I actually made myself sick.
Nice...
Luckily the afternoon/evening spent flopped on the sofa, flicking through cross-stitch magazines to find my next project (this one at last) while watching Season Three of Buffy has restored me to nearly normal again.

As I am feeling better I have been very grown-up and written myself a To-Do List.

1. Do washing-up.
2. Watch Italian GP, hopefully laughing at Lewis throughout.
3. Do some work on either my mothers present, or this cross-stitch (that I found in a drawer, half-finished and neglected since 2003).

I hope that you all have a very nice Sunday and I will leave you with Sebastian Vettel's reaction to getting pole position in qualifying yesterday (and becoming the youngest driver ever to do so)


(I just want to give him a hug!)

Edited to add: Hooray!!! Vettel just won his first Grand Prix. Youngest driver to do so and an absolute sweetie to boot!

Atishoo...

...meh.

I have got the horrible lurgy.

I hope it is not transmissible by widget because it is so nice meeting all these new people and I would hate to make everybody ill.

*sniff*

In an attempt to feel better for tomorrow (when I will hopefully see my man since he has been on night shifts and had car problems all week), I shall be spending this evening in a hot bath.

A hot bath with a Blackberry Bath Bomb in it.

With a mug of Lemsip, and possibly a large mug of an Instant Tea too.

Also a relaxing lovely book, haven't quite decided which one yet though.

Of course, I might well be really lazy and just stick the audiobook of I Capture the Castle (read by the lovely Jenny Agutter) on.

*sniff*

I shall try and post later, possibly about soup.