Did the earth move for you??

Wow! We had an earthquake!! And just in case you haven't heard or seen any news about it, you can read more at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7266136.stm

The wife and I had only been in bed for about 15-20 minutes last night, and were just dropping off, when we were rudely awakened just before 1 am by a strange noise... it sounded like a huge gust of wind, followed immediately by what sounded like something sliding down the roof of the house.

(My immediate reaction was that a roosting pigeon must have been been blown off its perch, and slid down the tiles.)

Anyway, I jokingly said to Chris "Don't worry, it was probably just another earthquake." (We'd had reports of a very minor local earth tremor a week or so ago...) So I was VERY surprised when I turned on the radio this morning and heard on the news that it actually WAS an earthquake!

And before you ask - I've checked the roof, and there's no sign of any damage caused by falling pigeons.

Catching up with life!

SIGH... now I know I'm getting old! I've just realised that I haven't updated this page since last August - and that's not because there's been nothing happening to report, quite the opposite... I've been so busy dealing with all the s**t that's been hitting the fan, I haven't had any time to write about it!

So - what's been going on over the last 4-and-a-bit months? Well, I've had another birthday (although I've now had so many I try to forget them!), another wedding anniversary (very scary - it's 30 years now... equivalent to 2 life sentences - you get less for murder...), Number One Son has announced he's going to be a Daddy (so that'll be our third grandchild), Number Two Son has been on crutches, and in and out of hospital with a damaged anterior cruciate ligament (because he was the victim of a vicious tackle during a game of football), and Number Three Son has moved (again), this time to Lancashire.

Plus we've had continuing fun & games with "The Elderly Mother" - various falls, hospital visits etc... and add all the hassle of Christmas (personal and business)... so you can possibly understand why I've hardly had time to draw breath!

Still - it's a New Year and a new start, so maybe things will be a little easier in 2008... and I hope they are for you too!

Made up words...

What is it with advertisers making up ridiculously over-complicated, unneccesary and nonsensical words at the moment? Haven't we already got enough perfectly good words in the English language, for goodness sake?

The two that REALLY irritate me every time I see them on the TV are:

"Scrappage" - in (I think) a Ford car commercial... what the heck is that supposed to mean? And:

"Terrorisation" - in a commercial for some god-awful film, which according to the blurb "contains sustained terrorisation"... aaaarggghhhh!!!!!

It sounds suspiciously to me as if that ill-educated buffoon George Dubya is being employed on the side as an advertising copy-writer... God help us all!

Rihanna - Umbrella

Dear Rihanna

I'm sure you're really a very nice person... but that Umbrella song REALLY gets on my nerves.

It's a very uncharitable thing to say... but may I suggest you stick your Umbrella-ella-ella up your bottom-ottom-ottom.

Thank you!

Fave flicks confirm sad sense of humour...

I spent a happy couple of hours last night watching two of my all-time favourite films that happened to be on the TV, one after the other...

"Spinal Tap" rapidly followed by "Porky's".

Oh dear... what an unfortunate insight into my mind!

HUGE thanks to all at Stoke Mandeville!

Hurrah! After almost 4 weeks in Stoke Mandeville Hospital, The Elderly Mother is now back at home, complete with fully-functioning new titanium hip joint. (As a result of which I think she may now have to be referred to as Robocop... I wonder if she'll understand if I start calling her "Murphy"? Probably not!)
So, a massive thank you to all the staff at Stoke Mandeville for looking after her so well - we really couldn't have asked for more.
(She even had a visit from Princess Anne while she was in there - now that's what I call service - although to be fair PA was there to officially open the new wing of the hospital, not just to visit Robocop... heh heh heh...)

Elderly Mother etc...

Well, here we are, it's the day after the Summer Solstice (and no, I'm not at Glastonbury this year) and its almost a month since my last post! Sorry, there's been rather a lot happening...
Most of the hassle we've had has been with "The Elderly Mother", who's been having health problems for a little while now - and she's managed to fall over (and not be able to get up again) several times in the last few months.
Well, that last time she did it she broke her hip... so she's been in Stoke Mandeville Hospital for almost a fortnight now, where they had to operate to replace her hip-joint. However, the good news is that she's getting along very well - in fact she should be having her stitches removed today - and she might be going home next week sometime.
(As you can probably imagine, we've been visiting her almost every day, so we haven't had a lot of time to do anything else!)
Our worry now is that she won't be able to cope any longer, living on her own as she does... so we're trying to persuade her to move into sheltered accommodation, where there's always someone on call in the event of any further mishaps... easier said than done!
Anyway, I'm probably going to be taking Granddaughter-Number-One (Bethany) over to visit here a little later this afternoon... which should be fun!