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Fleas begone!

For a long time I’ve been using the recommended Frontline to try and control Hamish’s fleas. He frollicks in the field daily and picks them up like a furry flea magnet. He trots home for his tea with a smile on his face, unaware that he’s dragging in thousands of fleas and infesting the other poor kitties and the house. Bless him.

Hamish

Hamish

The family has struggled with fleas for a while now regardless of how much Frontline was applied to all kitties. It’s not cheap stuff either!! I didn’t really have any idea there was anything else available either because all the vets and other cat and dog owners only ever spoke of Frontline.

Cats Protection then told us about Advocate. I cannot find a homepage for the company. This stuff is slightly more expensive but young Hamish was completely free of fleas within a week! No signs whatsoever. I’d have expected fleas to still be knocking around the house and thusly some evidence on his fur but some thorough combings have proven that there are no signs of fleas and no flea droppings on him. I’m so pleased but it’ll be costly to keep all kitties on this stuff monthly. I might see how long it lasts for and then work out my own timetable.

That’s my recommendation though. Try Advocate if you are finding that Frontline is becoming ineffective. I have heard from several people including vets that UK fleas are becoming resistent to Frontline and it seems to be the case from my own experience. Better start looking at your formula again Mr Frontline!


Exeter Website Design - West Web Technology

A Web Design and Development consultancy in Exeter called West Web Technology are doing some really great websites with professional designs for businesses in Exeter.

They are very friendly and professional and I might see if they can do a design for my site! I think it might be time soon to have a new look.

Check out their website here: http://www.westwebtechnology.com


Family additions

I now have some additions to the family and they are lovely and gorgeous. Meet:

Kira

Tux

Tara

and Ella

They all get along with Hamish really well and are gorgeous and lovely:


Ruby, we will miss you

Sadly, last week, Ruby passed away. She was taken from us far too young. One moment she was there, the next she was gone. I feel like I have lost one of my best friends. The house feels very empty without her and Hamish seems completely lost.

Goodbye Ruby. You were dearly loved by us and the whole neighbourhood and we will miss you so much.


Question received

Dear Q,

Thank you very much for your question which I have quoted below:

Comment by Q on 5 Jan 2009 at 00:56 | Edit this comment
Well I just had a full blown seizure and was diagnosed with a Cavernoma in my right lobe. I am on Trileptal. I am scared to all ends. My main comment or question is my dad read something on your blog that described what I am experiencing and I can’t find it. I believe you call it auras and my doctor calls it absence siezures. When they hit due to stress they are nothing what I found you describing they are more of a helpless feeling with a bout of a hallucination and anxiousness all wrapped into one. The meds have reduced that to just a confusing anxious feeling but I had the prior for a year. Can you post what you feel.?

I shall try to answer in a useful way but please remember I am not an expert and am just a fellow sufferer with a bit of experience over the years.
Yes, I get what is called an “aura” before and after I have a seizure. This isn’t a seizure in itself and it isn’t the same as an absence seizure really, although I should imagine they can feel a bit similar.

It basically feels a bit like being slightly dizzy and getting a feeling of being “detached” from the world around you. I feel as though my conciousness shrinks into my body and it’s the closest you can get to realising quite how separate your mind is from your physical vessel. People seem much further away, maybe not phsyically but, more external to yourself. Having a drink tastes somehow different yet you can’t pinpoint why and you almost feel like you’re going a little crazy and that there’s no way to explain it to anyone without them thinking you’ve gone super weird.
When i was little, before my parents knew I had epilepsy. They’d never witnessed a seizure and I would never remember - most of the time they were in my sleep. I used to tell my mother “I feel strange” but couldn’t explain what it was and she’d say “see how you go on” and pack me off to school. It’s very difficult to explain how it is because the very nature of it means that you just can’t put your finger on what is wrong. Everything just looks, smells, tastes different very slightly.
I think absence seizures are different. I think that they involve a loss of conciousness to a degree, or moments of true fuzziness where your brain gets “stuck” and can’t fathom your way out of something for a few seconds or minutes. Sometimes you can’t remember and you lose a few minutes. Other times it must be confusing and frightening because you just lose full focus on what’s going on for a short time. With auras, you tend to just feel differently and know that something is wrong but you aren’t sure what. Obviously now I’m aware of what it is and can recognise it but when you first start having them it’s very strange and worrying.

I don’t tend to get anxiousness as a cause but sometimes as a symptom. My heart will beat faster and I start towards what would turn into a panic attack if I wasn’t careful and made an effort to calm myself.

Please post again if you think there’s anything I can help with. I hope you start to feel better soon.


Seizure Update

Well it’s been a while since I had to write about seizures but I know it’s been coming for a while. They will always come back eventually due to the nature of my personal condition.

A few weeks ago I had a semi-scare whilst out at work but last night I had a more real one whilst at home. It didn’t progress very far and was exceedingly minor compared to usual but it was definitely the real deal. I’m sure it’ll be a matter of time until a proper one but hey ho. Christmas is coming and lots of relaxation can occur. :)


The myth of record debt

I found this article rather interesting and funny too:

The myth of record debt


Getting back on the straight and narrow

Well it’s about time I return here and make a note of how things are going.

Weight wise - put on a lot. The least said about that the better, however I am making a conserted effort to improve and am feeling optimistic about tonight’s weigh-in, even though I haven’t been super amazing.

House wise - i’m trying to sort out a few things that need doing. The transfer of equity seems to be going to plan so I’m hopeful for that.

Pet wise - Hamish and Ruby are doing fine. Hamish recently scratched his eye but it seems to have gone better swiftly and he seems fine now. Ruby put on a lot of weight in a short space of time recently…to the point where we thought she was perhaps preggers even though she has been spayed! I took her the vet last week and he said that she seemed very healthy and he wasn’t concerned. That put my mind at rest.
I have booked the two of them into a cattery for Christmas whilst Frankie and I will be away. Reagan said he would feed them but I’d just be out of my mind with worry about them being safe if they didn’t have someone giving them some decent attention. They may not be overjoyed by the prospect of being put in a cattery for a few days but I know they will be much safer there. It’s apparently a nice place with large living quarters. They’ll have each other to talk to as well. I didn’t want Reagan to have to go over to my house on Christmas day either. That would have been lame.

Bread wise - I was given an AMAZING bread machine for my birthday a couple of weeks back and I’m having so much fun with it. I’m going to write a website about all my bread adventures but it’s not up yet. Look forward to that!

Jive wise - I took a break from dancing for a couple of months but started back this week. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it. I’m hoping to go once a week now on Thursdays to reduce costs whilst still keeping it up. It can be quite expensive now at £11 per week if you go twice. It adds up to more than a gym membership however it’s 10 times more fun. Hopefully Frankie can come sometimes as well.

Work wise - ongoing as ever. What fun! Speaking of which…better get back to it.


Weight

Well, recently I have put on some weight and I’m not happy with the way that I’m looking in the mirror. I’m trying my best to get back into things but have found it harder than usual to resist nice foods. I associate nice food with enjoying myself far too much and need to get out of that habit. Rewards that do not involve food and relaxation that doesn’t involve sitting and eating snacks.

I’ve also been lax with exercise…not even walking to work enough. Perhaps a good way of fixing this would be to get the step counter out again and start keeping a little record of how many steps I do and identify ways to improve it. Bad weather hasn’t helped with the walking. When it’s pouring with rain it’s much easier to get the bus to work.

I’ve not been fantastic this week but I’ve also not been great. I will be disappointed though if I do not lose or at least stay the same. We will see tonight.


I ain’t said much

Well i ain’t said much recently. Sorry bout that. Will take some photos of the new house and stuff. Just feel like i’ve been really really busy!


Typing

James pointed me at an online typing test. I think I did ok.

283 words

Speedtest

1111 points, so you achieved position 324 of 1657392 on the ranking list
You type 1603 characters per minute
You have 283 correct words and
you have 16 wrong words


Finally…our own home.

I haven’t given much in the way of updates recently - I think it’s been quite a busy time.

We had a lovely Christmas up in the North with Mum and Matt and a fun time for New Year down in Bristol at Becky and Dave’s house.

Since then, we have been really busy looking at houses to buy in and around Exeter. We have viewed so many but we have now finally found somewhere lovely in the hilly bit of St Thomas. We’ve been so busy because the whole process is going quite quickly. Obviously there is no chain our end due to being first time buyers, and there is no chain their end either because it is a second property for them. It’s a 3-bed semi with garden around 3 sides. It has a parking space and a garage so perfect for us with two cars now. The kitchen is the biggest we have seen in a house so it was perfect.

So far, we have arranged the mortgage and we’ve had the survey. I’ve yet to see the full survey but our mortgage company have and think that it’s ok to continue with the money lending so that is good. Our solicitor should now be continuing with searches and wot not so we’ll have to see how long that takes. Generally when I was at SWW we used to get them done within 48 hrs of receiving them but if there was any sort of problem, we had some kind of deadline of about 28 days or something so it could be longer. Let’s hope not!


Whoever knew that the Chinese mafia and penguins were related?

Last night I dreampt that I was training to be in the Chinese Mafia. Lots of kung fu was involved but not only that - animal taming.

Many animals were involved and my animal was a penguin. I don’t remember his name. I don’t remember much about my penguin except that the task of the day was to get your penguin to come to you from a few metres away. Eventually I trained my penguin to come to me and gave him lots of cuddles and strokings. I went to the other side of the training area so that he could come back to me, but he didn’t like waddling that way and wouldn’t come to me. I went to get him and he pecked me :(

At the end of the training, our leader / trainer took us inside for dinner. For some reason we had to sneak inside - maybe part of our training. It was all dark but you could see in the corner some spare ribs and some chicken frying. We managed to sneak past the people we had to avoid and later we ate some fried chicken and it was lovely.

Then I woke up.


Finally some results!

Weigh-in today: 2.5lbs off!

YES! Finally. Let’s hope I can keep it going.


I Am Legend

I am Legend

 

 

On Thursday, James and I went to the cinema with Mum and Matthew to see the new Will Smith movie, I Am Legend. I am quite fond of large-scale disaster movies such as The Day After Tomorrow, 28 Days Later and Independence Day and I Am Legend did quite well.

I quite like Will Smith. He’s a good actor and is quite versatile, doing action, comedy and serious drama all equally as well. I do hope he doesn’t go down the Tom Hanks route and get all serious for every movie though. I Am Legend would be a seriously challenging film for any actor because for the majority of the film, Will Smith is the only person in it! The down-side seems to be that not a great deal happens. Most of the film is just that - this one character going about his business. The movie’s sub-title could just have been “Will Smith does Acting“.

If you are really sensitive about spoilers, don’t continue reading this post but to be honest, there isn’t much to ‘give away’ because not much happens. Will Smith’s character is living alone in New York because he is immune to a terrible air-born disease that has either killed, or infected the rest of the world. The disease came about due to a doctor trying to harness the power of an existing virus (the measles), to enhance the immune system and therefore cure serious afflications such as cancer. This virus however, mutated and sent people’s metabolisms into hyper-drive to a point where their bodies could not sustain themselves without getting more blood. It spread massively due to also mutating to an air-born strain. Everyone who was infected became a bit crazy due to their body’s changes and thirst for the blood of others therefore even though there were quite a few survivors who were immune, they were all killed by the infected. All the senses of the infected were hightened, breathing became faster and skin became far more sensitive to UV rays forcing them to stay in the shelter during the day. Sounds all a bit vampire-like doesn’t it. Apparently in the book they are vampires however this isn’t expressly mentioned in the movie I Am Legend.

Anyway that explanation of what the hell is going on is all skirted over very quickly in the movie and you don’t really get enough explanation of what’s going on. I always think part of the true scariness of these types of movies is seeing the fall of the human race. In this film though, it is relegated to a few very short flash-back scenes. The scenes of the deserted city are very impressive though and are understandably used as much as possible.

My major gripe is one that I have with quite a few movies recently - the overuse of CG for characters that could have been played by real people. I am willing to admit that computer graphics are very very good nowadays and can be very successfully integrated into live action sequences. I do however think that some film-makers are deluding themselves into thinking that they can churn out anything in CG and it will look believable. Wikipedia notes that some reviews of the film said that “the infected just aren’t that scary” and they are right. The reason for this is that the depiction of the infected has lost all association with a recognisable human origin. I understand that the affects of the virus are supposed to have changed the body’s abilities etc but what was presented bore no real resemblance to the human it supposedly started as. The movement was very strange and the sounds the infected made didn’t sound anything like what would come from even a mutated human voicebox. There is no way that these characters could be truly scary in the intended manner unless you can look at them and have at least a tiny recognition of something human and be able to say ‘oh my god, look what’s happened to that person as a result of their infection’ rather than ‘what the hell is that? Oh, it’s another gross movie monster.’

The way that CG is executed is not yet good enough to have fully computer generated characters in my view but we see it all the time. It is good enough to add effects, but the characters just aren’t good enough alongside live action characters. The technology may well be there, but the people doing it haven’t got it yet. The close-ups should have been actors and CG used to complement this in wider scenes. In the context of CG, it was fantastic. In the context of trying to look real and scary, the movie bosses are deluding themselves if they think they’ve got it spot on yet. I still think we are years away from that.


Admiral’s dinner guests end up in hospital after fondue set explodes

Guests at a dinner party held by one of Britain’s most senior admirals needed hospital treatment after a fondue set exploded and showered them in molten cheese.

I read this in The Times this morning. Online story here.

Molten cheese burns…eek! Get well soon Admiral dinner guests. Next time, you’d be better off going to the Ambassador’s reception and having Ferrero Rocher instead.


New look

Fresh new look for 2008. What do you think?


Work stress

Do you ever get those working weeks where you feel everyone is on your back? “Have you done x, have you done y, why isn’t z done yet?”. I just wanna say “bog right off!”. I really don’t think I’ve been slacking recently either.

Can’t wait for the Christmas holiday!


Weigh-in

Yey! 1/2 lb lost this week. Not much, I know, but every little bit counts.

Have decided to stick with Core Plan this week but try and reduce the amount I’m eating somewhat. Because I’m sticking with Core Plan for I think, the 4th or 5th consecutive week, I have boxed up my remaining Weight Watchers chocolate bars and put them in a cupboard. Of course, you are allowed to spend points on them, but I would prefer them to be out of temptation’s way so that I can stick to actual core foods as much as possible.

Here’s hoping this week is another successful weight-loss week.


The Weekend

I think generally I have done very well this week. I have had a few naughty things but hopefully not too much. You can’t be perfect all the time.

On Friday I went out to the pub with Reagan, Dave and Damo. I opted for the usual Wetherspoons zebu sirloin steak (which may have been fried…it was Wetherspoons after all) [mmm zebu] but didn’t eat the fat. I accompanied it with a jacket potato with no butter, which turned out to be helpfully small, and a side salad. Sadly the salad had some dressing on but not too much. I still ate it. I also had one pint of Fosters. Following all of this I quickly felt very ill. I’d had a sore throat from the beginning of the day and I started to feel very cold indeed. I got James to pick me up and when I got home I was freezing, shivering with cold, but James said I had a high temperature. I felt really ill and had to go straight to bed.

I still felt a bit crappy the next day but by the afternoon I was feeling well enough to pop into town and have a coffee (cappuccino with skimmed milk and no chocolate). The rest of the weekend was ok diet-wise.

Then this evening I ate 3 squares of James’s M&S Rocky Road Bites. Bah! I’d done so well to resist buying anything for myself whilst in the shop purchasing them earlier this evening (James had to take a snack to Badminton Club to offer to the visiting team). I started to pick up some delicious looking cookies and then screamed (inwardly) “NOOOOOO!!!!” and ran away. Hopefully this erratic behaviour didn’t attract too much attention. I almost nearly bought a delicious looking peshwari naan but thankfully also resisted that.

We’ll just have to see what the results are tomorrow. Still need to get some exercise although I feel that Rob is probably doing enough exercise for about 10 people so I’ll just try and absorb the healthiness that radiates from him through osmosis.