short but pink and sweet, no sweat!

Oh the season of Good Will, indeed.
with a bail out and budget prior to, is hard to define the season of, er, good will.

Now there is a bloody war going on across the eurozone and not many are happy campers, and it hasn't really 'worked' so far for the zone! so maybe not only will Ireland be 'banjaxed' but maybe we will be zoning out or outzoned by the Euro as it seems that is the way its all going, and going fast.

well, as i usually say, That Said, it wont upset the birds, the snow will but not the eurozone right now, in the present.
the dying species or whats left of them 'the house sparrow' are ALL taking up residence or using it as fly zone for food here, right here, in my yardenette, once a beer bottle ground (so hope for the eurozone yet)!
so they wont sweat the small stuff and neither will i, both they and i have major problems.
they their food supply me and another, a 'forever home'
and apart from that its the Season of Good Will.
I am sure Good Will hunting in this instance.
and the hunting is for a tree, seasonal yes, native no.
real yes and er, no.
green no!
white no or nearly.
Pink defo as in definitely.
i missed out last year so i damn well will not this year.
And it will bring me mighty cheer for hard fought for Pink christmas trees are worth all the effort, as is hard work, hard play, hard talk and hard say.
NOT spending others money!
Gov Style.
We will sure know what way it will all pan out.
I have a gut feeling now that it will not go right for us or europe.
its not for Good Will that the friendlies came and rescued us, they were trying to rescue themselves, and we on the perifery, another bloody typo there, well wrong spelling really as i am better at typing than spelling and writing.  I dont 'do' spell checks for i dont know HOW on blogging.
anyway i am lazy and if a person cannot read between the...letters then cant be helped, some tend to be rather thick and lack the lateral thinking in joining up misspelt words.
All for thinking this through, if you really want to read the message, get it? the message?
 oh we on the edge, again, are of little consequence for the cluster in the middle of europe, we sort of float around or sea around us on the - edge, dont do much not even fish for our own fish for the zone wont let us.
we cannot use our own natural gas either cos it was stolen and allowed to be.
we don't even use our own best power, wind, cos we too lazy to start this up and running before we all went down.
We don't care whether we use real oats or ney, anymore and we a great agricultural country.
we chopped away all our fab bogs and fens.
we putting up awful sterile trees for wood (not for us either)
we buy presents from abroad when we are great crafts men and women and known to be and cannot even cobble together nicely made home made small gifts.
I am making wee origami envelops from my old 'bunty's which i had as a small child and popping in seeds i gathered from the fruits of my labour this summer.
thats right labour and fruits and not the chizler kind.

er, i have drifted.
sorry.
Very sorry.
And
my
stats
have
plummeted
and
i
blame
you
for
not
spreading the word!

end of a 'good feeling rant' that!

there is little i can say about the state of the nation or good will to all men etc until time passes, say a week, but it doesn't look as if it will take that long.
it didn't take too long to find a Pink Artificial Christmas Tree and not too bad in price for the time that is innit.
So whilst i am on the search for the ultimate in giggles etc. i do hope others are novel in their thinking, and that applies to the gov and the zone too.
and with that, i am zoning out.
i hope i have kept the stats up and i have had a giggle.
x

coldest on record - including in the soul of Ireland or mine anyway

We have the coldest November day on record.
We have too, a cold day for Ireland in its history, which is the coldest day in the souls of Irish people.
Has anyone read the 'doomsday book' or whatever, and when is this day to come, or has it already?
if you know let me in on the answer.

For me....
Snow, long avenues, hungry and cold birds, indoors, heat, sickness, trap, isolation and all that shite.
the snow looks really good.  I think it a necessity.
it does keep down the worlds population, for so many die frigid with icicles on their noses. Natures way of population control.
it also serves to remind us that all is not a hot sun, tan and seaside, naked.

Maybe too on the fiscal side as well, of that i know little and shall not be around to see the good bad or better of it all anyway.

we are now in for the long haul.  One and all.

What else did i mention?
Ah the cold birds.
this was interesting indeed.
the peanut feeders got cleaned out and filled, but on one i forgot to put the cap on again and once hung i wasn't re-entering zone freezing!

tactics and size of bird was a worrying development but its a free for all in this climate.
started off with the jackdaw, now i never saw him here last winter.
he tried a trick or two, stuck his beak down the middle at the top and managed as well to peck quite a lot off and into his beak.
once i saw him with a mouthful and he had a problem which made me wonder on another feature of our feathered friends.
he was finding it hard to 'lift off' and i couldn't make out why.
he crashed into a small open pocket of branches and then i figured his brain was too small to multi-task, so in the effort to keep the nuts his nut couldn't get round the flying part.
thats my theory and it looked pretty credible from what i saw.
then we had the pigeon, you do get used to these i have to say.
he did the stick-head bit too.  I was very worried and concerned, his neck was getting longer and longer and i feared we would have a stuck head.
certainly the nut head wants his  nuts in this case.
but worry i need not, for he got it out and flew, a better attempt than the jackdaw.
the magpie didnt hang around for some odd reason.
an influx of starlings was another worry for they do keep the smaller birds away, by shear number frights.
i saw few little uns today, but guess it could be hard in snow white.
i wasnt looking hard either.
the reliable dunnock was around and so too the robin.
now on the avenue and sickness shit i mentioned.
the former did not get swept, but in bed i heard the grate of a shovel so i was pleased someone else was making an effort.
i was grim again and must sort this bloody flare, it will destroy my glands otherwise, and i mean that.
my twin announced happily that she had made a snowwoman in her front grassy patch, with the help of her mad dog who ate its nose, (carrot)!
and my very bashed about hub cap served well as her crown!
the cap that was dumped not nicked from my van for it wasn't there nor myself either, whilst she was romping like a ten year old (along with my neice who i believe was doing the same in another part of the country), i was lying on the bed,going through my computer housekeeping and that should make mags b proud of me!
I suddenly longed to be with her to share some fun and get some air.

big mistake.
the chis loved it all, the windows of van had to be de-iced and i was glad it was pointing in the right direction, parked so to prevent a swirl of a slither this morning.
the f... waste bin was still on the road, i whacked the side with my walking stick and off shot the caked snow on its head.
i wheeled it up that f...avenue and left it in its place.  my hands were not feeling so good, i had left the gloves in the van.
i picked up rest of gear, as it wouldn't do to crash down with my precious laptop and the camera so they went separately, like parents do when afraid the plane will go down leaving chizlers behind to fight it through life alone.
Believe me, some chizlers do well without the bosses who go down!  Maybe more should.

well this plane did not go down, so my chizlers (chis) were happy as i sped off at a slow pace.
the roads were not good.
but i am fearless and took it easy, not a lot of the natives around, a few abandoned cars and one with hazard lights on and not a person in sight.
I got to twino, avoiding a saucer toboggan in the middle of the road, the blue one belonging to VERY indulged twin boys on my twin's avenue.
twin looked well, prepared.
Saffi looked well...prepared to commit suicide by van, as she skirted around, annoyingly as i tried to reverse and park sensibly, a act the brat was determined to wreck.
she had frozen fur and frozen globules in it.
my twin had plastic bags on her feet, yes prepared.
i was unprepared for a violent reaction to my outing, i was on verge of sicking up.
a pleasant meal was produced by twin so i began to feel better.
then the Wrecker came into play, and she wrecked it as only she can, the wired, no brainer who was determined to 'brain me out' and she did.
i left, brained out in confusion and disarray, my brain bombed by a pesky Saffi, whom i wish would grow up fast, if at all.
so with the snows and the snarls i forgot the state of the nation.
I wonder why?
a freudian slip or error?
no, i had nation amnesia and it happens often in my brain these days, it can get serious for long periods of time, but dont worry i see a very nice neurologist followed by a very nice psychologist on the 1st December.
alas 'nation amnesia' is not a speciality of theirs.

so whilst the population is depleted due to winter cold and the wrecker is around and the Wrecker (gov) is also there the state of the nation is the least on my mind.
I have swollen glands, pain, freezing birds to think about.
i willingly let the nation try to solve itself without my intervention.
by my track record, i doubt if i would be a great deal of help so while others deal with nits, i will deal with tits.
when i feed small nuts to smaller birds, will someone feed the bigger nuts to the lions?
much appreciated.

How fickle is the 'blogger's community!'

This is a REAL question and poses the question on the word of 'Fickledom.'
You leave your county for less than two days, take a break and the world goes on nicely without you.
so my question now is, who are the 'hitters?'
do they dance when the mouse is away? and dance off to some other blog to see if it is juicy and entertaining and leave the last one on the x-blog list of bloggers.
Actually partly true and partly - true.
I come back too to no snow and within a day i have heaps.  Yes, sweeps and sweeps of sparkling white for my long suffering eyes.
Lets hope now that i am back the bloggers will do the same.
Priority takes reign.
1) that damn avenue...lunatic style i sweep it with a yard brush and discovered that a large boot does just as good, the action has to be precise - you do so from left to right in a large arc in front, you hold the broom tight and when the left foot does swish one way you repeat with the right.

That is done, the blood is moving, the lower back has loosened up and all is reasonably well with my foot path and the clunky booty slippers are intact as well.

2) salt, well one wee pot as a left over for i will not add salt to  my diet is found and its effort was - helpless and caused a giggle!

3) the birds.
for this you require your trousers, Yes, dressing gown and large boots saw the path pristine, but legging it up to raised bed needed said trousers.
whatever it is about the angle at 6am in the morning when its up to your ankles in snow and its a Saturday.
One must be prepared for all eventuality like CCTV which i am told are everywhere by my neighbours, who make the little oldies of the 'valley of the squinting windows' seem small and catholic compared to the men with the spy cameras everywhere.
Am i paranoid, no.  they are everywhere!
anyway the raised bed ledge gets swept with the foot, i step up and remove a feeder to fill and the water basin. it gets turned upside down to remove, snow.
i decided that it was not prudent to walk the wall on this occasion so down i get and walk the yard, a few paces and up the other end of the raised bed to check that feeder there.
(good exercise for the knees)

this point you discover that you are as sick as you ever were.  the sweat is pouring out, the hands are on fire, the skin is dry and my head is buzzing.
well i guess its enough the mood has brightened.
you fight on, literally.
all the bird feeders get cleaned (fungus mould et al kill the wee ones so counter productive feeding to expire).
they all get filled with dry meal worms, nigyer seed and pin oats.  all i had.
the peanuts will go out later as their feeders are grand.
what happened next was a delight and a sight.
we had mayhem, the same kind really that had been occurring but with higher numbers and more aggressive behaviour,
beaks are sharp no matter what size, wings are weapons and feet are talons even on house sparrows.
we are snowing birds here, absolutely.
crammed into the small yardenette the shit should be mighty once discovered when the snows melt.
One silly nut of a starling landed on the stem of a withered water barrel plant, tall, thin and with an advantageous view.
but then i saw it keel, ever so slowly over and the bird didnt quite know what to do, i guess the ice had iced his poor little nut brain, and finally it gave up and flew, all such time as i laughed as i watched this mini circus.
dogs fed next.
ann fed last, (in proper order).
humidifier taken from bedroom to sitting room and back.
Ann is back in bed, dogs are asleep, the birds seem full in belly and are roosting somewhere, and i am worried, i am to collect my meds today and the roads are not good, believe me they are not!
blog watchers back please and soothe a bored woman who has nothing much to do at present bar blogging, which actually i thoroughly enjoy.
will i turn on the radio now and be fuddled back to dire depression or do i listen to the bird brains outside the window, the roosting period has shortned as with daylight hours and we have a hitchcock scene outside again..

Back with Bang and Hitting home!

One must, unfortunately, some time.
Hit...home.
two days away and you sort of forget 'home' or 'unit' or 18ft high walls and you reinvent self and your environment, whether internally, externally, both or otherwise, is sort of entirely up to oneself.
I defo reinvented self, which was the real Self, and did so by extricating the self from the stresses and pain of living, and that too, should be in capitals as well.
the real Self is amenable, fun and enjoys being herself, away from those who snatch and snip and scratch and claw (not the dogs now) at the real Me and cause Self to become 'self.'
so that the larger of the two comes to the fore when bloody left alone from the strife and put-downs from you-all-know who!
Environment gets sort of reinvented in the mind, oh gee aplenty of that, and its invigorating and energizing on the imaginative level to be reinventing the homestead.
You do that by saying such things as "Ah, hens!"
yes, that is strange alright.
there were a few strutters amongst the trotters alright, and i had been talking of coops etc, for hens (not self now), and my coop will be part of the shed, which will come with me and will turn from the x-studio (it became that with temperature drop and more so in fury) into a shit ridden hen coop that i shall visit daily to scoop the egg for breakfast for the protein then the shell shall go back to the soil for the...
GRASS, plenty - plenty of that i saw and so Grass is the next for the environment, of the mind at present where the cells are being activated and stimulated into a creative hub for the studio pods and bean, pea pods Ann shall have along with the hens, and Velveteen the Rabbit, hopefully and the chihuahuas and another, hopefully.
Body reinventing, alas rather superficial but imaginative as well, imaginative in the sense one has to pretend on its reinvention rather than do so hopefully or ..otherwise.
One must transcend the body, as in levitation (off the massage table 'slab)? Yes, actually, you do that, in the brain department, if there is any left, you levitate and then come back, see?
cos you cannot imaginate the body away, and i have coined a new word which i think is a sign of dementia, well making up new words is a sign of something, cos i read that somewhere...and i forget where,,,, which is another....sign of :(

In truth two days absence from base, gives soul, mind, body and brain a break, not a breakdown, or break-in just a break.

so i am now IN the cooped unit, with the chis, and  Self, and please note, it wants to be permanently  written as Self, so if anyone wishes to claw at or spit or worse at the self, go find another Self to redue to self, I in the meantime will levitate beyond, the massage table, the 18ft high wall, the bloody pain in the legs that is still there,ditto hands etc and the f..humidifier is still on (well it was on at the hotel as well, i have to say).
so this is called HITTING home and its all too real, really.
And on the 40yrs and half a day, the twin and i are again living apart and in two days out of 40yrs and a half day, we didnt scratch or claw each other either, so lets hope Reality enters and reality exits...if you get all that you are 'a wise woman!' Sorry boys, this gal rather thinks more on the feminine than the masculine for reasons best known to self and the inner circle.
and the men in my life are actually in that inner circle too, so all is well with the world (i didn't say Ireland).

The country and I have 'the lurgy'

we shall forget the country for the moment, what's left of it.
Now who said 'they couldn't organize a piss up in a brewery?' you have em, they drinking the stuff alright but only ones who are!
As for me i am as collapsed as my country.  I didn't do it for the country, i collapsed despite the country.
So Ireland is the last thing on my mind.
what is on my mind is bloody buzzing brain off the richter scale, ditto pain and lack of temperature control.
it was not a pretty night last night, all the meds plus plus (more on these anon) sweating, cold, no central heating on, then a blast, window open with plus plus below out there, then shut, then putting legs OVER the bed cradle as in 'elevated' then under.
the cradle got dispensed with, so did the duvet, but on came a lighter blankie and then that was shifted off.
it was a no winner, no brainer, but the brain was, and we will not use the F word again.  One has to improve on the adjectives.
there is none in this case for the brain was gone, yes, gone.
out came the screaming - not pretty.
yes, moaning and screaming.
we had (sorry I had) the humidifier on, which i carried into the sitting room and then back to the bedroom. windows as spoken before, i lay on the sofa which was even worse, i trashed in out and off the sofa or bed whichever.
i shuffled in the med drawer and all the packets and boxes and sachets got flung in the desperate bid for the baby aspirin, in case this was vascular, cos of the brain buzzing and confusion etc.
never found it, but paracetamol every four hours.
I was dead by this morning - well no, not dead cos dead people cannot drive their vans to the local out of hours gp. i wouldn't enter the war zone of A&E ever again.  i would rather die in peace than go into the fray there of blood, trolleys, drunks addicts and the poor elderly keeling over in the wait.  its inhumane.  and we shall briefly allude to my country, it will get even more so as health cuts are on the way.
poor doc was a bit out of his depth, as i am already on steroids for crohns, (medical education following as well).  Anti inflammatories wreck the stomach and so much is wrecked we gave them a miss, so it was painkillers until i see the 'real gp' tomorrow.
and i came back to bed.
watched funny chihuahua laughable loveables on youtube, which did produce a laugh, the chis i had were squeezed together under my right arm.

Now for the medical education, disease first then the medication, ok?
what i believe is happening as does the 'real gp' is a sjogrens flare and tis, off...the...richter...scale, and the my world is very shaky indeed.
sjogrens syndrome come in two sizes, Primary sjogrens and secondary.  Primary evidently comes out of the blue, and is usually confirmed by having the Rheumatoid Arthitis factor found by blood testing, which usually doesn't come with Secondary sjogrens.
and wait for it, Primary is worse.  and wait again...i have Primary sjogrens, well i would wouldnt i?
the crohns is not supposed to be THAT bad if you consider just a handful of gut blockages due to the gut narrowing and imminent surgery is being avoided like the plague.
but this sjogrens now this is a different colour altogether, very red as well.
In feeling that is.
I was on fire with pain, hands, knees, stomach and the lower legs.
oh I have mentioned the sweats too, thats all in this territory as well, low grade fever and so on so forth.
what IS sjogrens, well its an autoimmune disease, and as its a syndrome, it is multi-systemic and effects various body parts, well all body parts really.
its the second most common form of rheumatoid autoimmune disease but a lot of people go undiagnosed as some presentations can be mild.
it basically means that my moisture glands are being targeted as an enemy or alien and is being booted out by the small cells that boot aliens out, but actually this part of me body is not alien but the booter outer thinks it is.
so my moisture glands are dyin.  so i have to replace the natural tears and natural saliva with artificial.
this is to add to the artificial teeth, artificial ears in hearing aids, and artifical eyes or corrective lenses, specs.
Cure - none, just try ease the inflammation and use other meds to try sort and calm the red down to say orange or even yellow or blue would be even better.  But not RED.
Medications - Pills these are alien, and long term use of pills - medications cause side effects - ALL absolutely All with no exception.
thats my thinking.
steroids for the crohns to stop that autoimmune disease from being too active is also hastening the formation of eye cataracts.
meds for other things can cause sjogrens syndrome.  and so on so forth.
I avoid putting aliens in my body, as the body is turning into an alien - don't doubt me for thats what an autoimmune disease IS.
the body thinks some good parts are bad parts and we have a body turning on itself in full war fare fashion.
and i am sick of it.... please excuse my use of er, whats that, adverb?
I am fed up and bloody sick of it all.
I am too f.... young, no i did not use the full F...word, to be horizontal playing youtube video clips of singing chihuahaus and teeth bearing chihuahuas and alot of chihuahuas needing dental treatment.  And doing so in the dark with mist frothing out of a humidifier and the legs in prep to produce a baby that will never come.
tis not my idea of fun nor intellectual engagement of any sort by any stretch of the imagination.

Talking of the latter, i am bare faced blue terrified of reversing all the good works done to get the body into a vertical position and walking as such, without the intervention of physiotherapy which was asked for as needed by three consultants.

and the chihuahuas are scratching...so i hope that is not a dog to human transferrable illness or another bloody lurgy to attack my already alien body in an alienated brain, with alien feelings toward it and the country.
the latter is of secondary importance as at present my feelings on this being, i wont NEED to vote again, no choice.  I shall watch with interest alright, from a distance.
what i really want to do is be well enough to pluck weeds, feed the birds and the chihuahuas, walk a bit, not a lot, eat a bit, have amusing fun with the twino not youtube, and get  back to my creative endeavors which seem to be drawing further and further away.
so snap to it body and get into SHAPE, time slips by exceedingly fast, but not fast enough for a disease or a syndrome.

No jumping bugs this way please, i have enough, keep the bugs to yourself.
Bird flu??? who mentioned bird flu or is it swine flu now, oh god the brain is bothered!

All is well with my world, maybe not my country!!

Ah indeed, the world (inside the head, someway), but definitely outside the head it was.
Crisp, brisk and with an edge to a warm heart.
Just the way a sjoggie likes it.
Started off in a ghastly manner as unwell, couldnt breathe and legs awobbly.
but with slowness on the legs, carbs in the belly, few letters written and stamped, dogs and birds fed, the floor exercises done along with the balance one on the Pilates Ball (recommended), i seemed better.
we all stepped out.
I called to my area PA manager's office.  within ten minutes the sweats began, the bloody energy efficient lights kill me and all luppies are saying they are f...dangerous.  well i had to escape and couldnt sit under them, thought i would collapse.
You do FEEL it.  Some law that was, thanks to the  Green party.
Now down to basics, i escaped that alright and went to get some new eye shades, these have had to be about the 20th pair i have got off the RNIB, i am sick of it.  I lose them.  Just vanish on me before my eyes, well not quite but pretty much.  So more again.  This time two, to prevent me going down there again.
I did the pier to the bandstand with stick, the two chis were let off, now that was a bad idea as they went in different directions.  I am convinced too, that Maggie Mai wanted either a cold swim or to commit the ultimate act so she got reined in.

Great fun with walkers, great chat with two elderly women, who ask me if i find men for them do let them know!  Yes, the conversation had taken that twist ok.

Onwards we went, well this part was NASTY, getting back to the van, i could hardly move...it was a shuffle. a right shuffle, the legs slid in agony towards a low sun, very dramatic, but what was happening the pins was oh God, dramatic, flippin agony.
for some bizzarre reason i wanted a coffee and prepared to go to great lengths for one.
This is my level of addiction to Caffeine and i am not supposed to drink it either.
so i decided legs gone and too tired to drive, get out and all that sort of thing, so i took the scooter out.  sorted the chis on my lap in a scarf and off we took, the smiles and oohs and aaahs were plenty.
i went to the coffee shop that has a reputation with me!
Meadows and Byrne.  I asked a passer by to see if a girl could come out.  that was done with complete kindness.
A young Polish girl came out.  She was struggling but in the end my Large Latte and a muffin was presented out in the cold.  She sat down.

Er, yes, she sat and told me she was hiding and thus came the truth of the matter.
" people can be so nice and yet so horrible!'
"why, what happened?'  (tell aunti awnyah), she did.
"well first coffee i serve in the morning i was told by a woman 'education is the way, huh, i didnt even know her.  First coffee!  Do i need an education to serve coffee and do this job?"
Ummm I pondered the psychology on this one and a sad young girl.
"well, young lass why are you STILL bothered about it, its 3.15pm and still the first comment of the day is still on your mind?"
"hum..." the young girl said.
"Why she so nasty?"
"Why you so bothered, it sure hit a nerve eh?"
she shook her head.
"Now, if you are STILL thinking about it at this hour, it must mean that you are intelligent enough to have taken it in and it did something to you, if you really didnt care you would have forgotten it by now."
'hum.."
"Let me ask you...do you want to be serving coffee at 50?"
"I am saving money, and maybe i then go to college."
"You can do what you like, dont mind any Irish woman telling you what you should do, but we Iorish hold great store by education, and thats why she probably said it, not to be nasty."
"yes, i suppose so."
"Oh it is cold out here, in poland we would have all the jumpers and gloves and coats etc"
"You are not supposed to be out here, you are hiding!'
I warmed to her.
"I sat here cos you have such lovely dogs"
"HA, and what about ME?"
"Yes, you are really nice too.'
She smiled a warm smile had a little think and said she would go back.
"you go back now and i shall see you again eh?"
"Bye, thanks for being so nice."
Oh she was a lovely young girl.
we talked more about 'all work and no play makes jack a dull boy' etc, she giggled at that, she seemed to be having little fun, all in the effort to save.
I went on my merry way.  My latte was stone cold, my chi, the fat one nearly got garrotted by the lead which caught in the wheel and snapped away from the collar.  that gave me a fright, but she has a thick neck!

I will defo be more careful there.

The bloody radio is still spittin out 'ah its a sad day for the republic, my grandfather fought in the war for independence...' Blah.
I learnt a lesson and so too, i think the young polish girl who probably is still thinking of what the woman stranger said to her at 8.30am this morning.
I met a man i had known in a recent past life.  First thing he said "thats a great yoke there', the scooter.  It is.
"Ah, i never knew you had these two."
No 'Hiya, Awnyah, long time no see' but he saw the scooter and the trotters.  now thats a lesson in itself.
best go and see whats happening my poor independent country!

I feel a strange feeling coming on. humans get a day off!

well, not so much 'love' but lets say there is a truce.
a very nice gentleman helped me on the short distance i made with the chis up Killiney Hill, by chatting to me and staying the pace until i could go  no further.  It was not patronising.
I also received an email from my older sis, which was a daring and very kind thing to do and i thanked her - now is that a magnanimous gesture?
Heart felt it was too.
We had a few combo's that added to a slight shift in thinking.
i am at peace with self today.  i am taking things slow, because my body dictates that.
i have received a bed cradle which is great and much needed too, and a surprise bed table which i put together, fantastic and very very discreet not at all like a hospital one.
that was courtesy of the HSE!  Long since put in for.
its these little things that help a person like me so much.  they will last forever and be helpful for ever.
I hope the dumping of crutches and such will be banned when the budget comes in.  the old are now thrown out for some odd reason.
most orthopaedic equiptment once used gets the thumbs down.
its about infection i think but surely by now we have a way of disinfecting and we have used apparatus over and over without causing the 'black plague' before.
many times you cracked an ankle given some crutches at the local hospital and you brought them back and they were put in the store for the next person.
now all you see is heat sealed brand new crutches and no obligation to return em.

so this woman has a wheelchair to find a forever home and some crutches too.  Damn ridiculous someone cannot get the benefit of these items.

This woman is pleased, the wireless broadband is up and running again, ditto the phone and placed in a better position by a kindly technician (that restored my faith in mankind too i think).
my printer is working, my computer housekeeping is going really good at present.
I havent got a 'forever home' for myself, and neither does twin who will be virtually homeless before christmas. (that is a rather big negative actually, and not a positive)/
my sjoggies flare is dissipating due to time out from the stresses of 'thinking' of need for two.
there has been a calmness in the past few days, and i am grateful although i do have to appear in court.
that should be very interesting indeed.
I refrained from paying a lot of attention to the bloody news which is like a rough sea giving everyone sea sickness and there is no remedy, bar - jumping ship or flying to foreign lands.
certainly mortillium will not solve this illness for sure.
Valium might calm the nerves, i would suggest some of the TD;s take it for men are very prone to heart attacks under stress, but i fear the same effect can be got from whiskey etc and thats more acceptable and far less stigmatising than the people denouncing the guys as lunatics and i told you so.
by the way, lunatic as a noun is a derogatory word, much used for those who are different.  (Sorry, i had to get that in, anon will be giggling on that one)!
Well the pep in my step has been R&R and a fine rest, no sleep but rest yes.
I am pondering on having a chicken coop and another chi and a rabbit at my next 'home' and i shall be the very example of the estate mini farmer, eccentric to boot.
Hens dont make noise i believe!
Rabbits have a short life so i shall treat em well for the duration of the short haul.
chihuahuas have a long life and i shall treat them brill for the long haul.
now, i wonder where the humans come in.
Can i treat them brill for the long haul.
well anon, i am deeply suspicious of malicious intent, as in 'sheltered accommodation' and such, as a solution for the short haul to the grave and i aint in for a short haul of incarceration when i wont be able to chose my wallpaper, but have to put up with magnolia, i wont be able to choose my main meal menu or time i wish to eat it,  nor will i have a garden to plant the beans, have the hens the dogs etc and i may increase the snake population as well, well, they will increase after the budget for sure.
they will be human too, the very worse poison as well tis produced by em.
oh as a nation of gazers we will have another english wedding to drool over.
does anyone realize that when you go to London or other, the news does not even include anything  iorish at all, unless its something on the grand scale of the UK bailing us out as we are 'friendly aliens' but here, in the republic, most of the news actually does include english politics, law, international law, war etc.
we dont even get mentioned until the ship is sinking - ah a remedy for the seasickness, i forgot that one entirely.
now i am going to see if the twin is alive on the other side of the world, as its usual when i am thinking of bed, she will be thinking of the day ahead and may first look at her own emails etc so strike when the iron is hot, i say.
bye for now.
sleep well.

I lead a very exciting life - SERIOUSLY

You do have to retain a sense of humour i guess.
I am going to now write with a posh accent on this one.
whether it be a faulty towers accent, a middle class accent, ummm the english conservative posh accent, well one has to use the imagination.

Yes, this is not imagination, best part of a week in bed in pain and exhaustion and the delivery of a bed cage to keep the blankies off the body and a humidifier i myself bought to keep the air moist (yes moist, as i now cannot sleep on the swinger, did you feel the temp out there, not to mention the motion of the wind)?
No i need the moisture to counteract what bit of heating i have on - none at present and the window IS open.
as i was cosseted up in the bed, wrapped in the 'going slowly' in order to try rid a sjogrens flare and prevent the bloody steroids being added to the cocktail i hear a 'rap rap' on the door, dark, the said door was bolted. the curtain draft excluder and the sausage dog excluder should have been excluding but nope.
my teeth went in, my dressing gown on, my hearing aids in, my glasses on and i face the yapping chihuahuas growl at the potential intruder - turned out to be a law enforcer!
Dead right, one of them.
with FIVE summonses to appear in court, FIVE.  yep, AND what is worse, its to appear on the day before my birthday, the day i hoped to escape to enjoy two days pampering with my next in hair colour and age!
to say i was startled was putting it mildly.
i rang a friendly guard, whose wife is an avid gardener.  she gave me a massive lesson on what to do with my raspberry stakes, my cuttings and bulbs and do the prep for all the frost which will be thrown at us.
the uniform was hung as the body underneath was in a shower - at home!
I asked her would she bring a orchid to decorate my cell and could i come round to continue the lessons when i am let out?
the gentleman was now clothed, laughed and reassured me 'you are not going to prison' he knows of this case alright.
it happened a while back and the said enforcer was packed off to the midlands for she was deemed out of order, but not before she did a sting, there is a similar word used in the law enforcement agencies, a sting is a stake out where you find or get someone eh?
well she has put the stake in...this should be very interesting indeed.
i rather not spent the day waiting around the courts actually it can take hours and pain is rife in a sitting position for that lenght of time.
so we now have the distraction of a different kind.

this isnt by any manner of means, the case of A being the cause of a fatal road accident, but rather a case of a person with a tax disc out of date but i am tax exempt and it says so on the disc and i wasnt carrying drivers liscence for a very short journey, no bag, i said i would bring to local station and i did next day.
we shall fight it out in the courts, dont the film stars say that?
they go to court over the colour of their partners socks!!
well my moan and rant was of a more humous kind but i wont be feeling that after it, pretty much the same as after the incident, in bloody agony.
yikes the life i lead is sure interesting if nothing else - i wander am i a reincarnation? and what on earth would or could i have done when i was on the earth a last time, and if it aint going too good this time round, what will i come back next time as  ---suggestions needed....imagination is needed too on this one....c'mon, i need to liven up the blog, for the error of my ways what shall i come back at? and i deserve comments for putting my life on the block, er. the gilluotine is temporariliy out of order - yes, TYPOS! woo

Ms. Harney, this is SIMPLY NOT GOOD ENOUGH

 i feel it is an OUTRAGE for human beings to neglect the least well off in health terms and as i have said on these issues a CRIME - against humanity and i have to, simply have to point the finger at Ms Harney our Minister for Health.
When so much was hoped for, so many people ploughing in FREE time and expertise, into the valuable document 'vision for change' it is an insult to that input of hope and vision for changes.
Ms. Harney, when we considered all the implications of the then mental health services and considered them in tandem with providers, carers, staff and most of all the 'expert patients,' I unashamedly admit being one, to drop the level of funding to 5% is a CRIME - against HUMANITY.

All the persons involved in this document had integrity in common.
To CHANGE our service for so many Irish people suffering so badly.
You cannot slash the budget to this level.  You have thrown all and sundry basically into the streets of social housing without any community care team practises set up.  this was the first stupid act for so called change to 'community care,'
now we are going to see, no community care, no inpatient care, no community nurses, day centres and all the patients, actually not patients but PEOPLE who happen to be different, live a life of no worth or hope but growing brain dead on medication for want of stimulation, therapy and a place to go for company, security and friendship.

What Ms. Harney do you propose these people do during a day of say depression without a visitor.
A day with a psychotic episode which brings abject terror, to shut inside alone with that sort of thinking and despair and fright, again without a visitor.
What do you propose people to do during a day when they know themselves that they will not receive a kind word, a smile, a chat or even be able to build a relationship or a person for companionship. Do YOU feel the isolation all these groups of people have in common. NO, and many do not.

so you start a suicide prevention programme!  You start that before you start 'Vision for Change' and you start it on the cusp of degrading peoples lives through unemployment, repossesion of their homes, family strife and trauma and again the lonely and sick are left alone knowing this.  They know full well, a cut will mean more isolation and more dependency on strong medication.

This is a very shocking thing to say Ms. Harney, why don't you round up all the mentally ill and psychologically challenged, the brain damaged little children and adults, the people who have been raped and traumatised for life, the abused people children and adults of religious, the abused people of the various institutions through the decades, the poor on the bridges with the plastic cup, the heroin addicts, the alcoholics, the penniless, the adolescents who are engaging in anti social behaviour, those who have asperger or autism, those with learning difficulties, deafness, blindness and those in wheelchairs and those trapped in old age in the dying cages and put em all along the equivilant of the GREAT wall of China and shot them and me?
what will you then have left to deal with?
Rogues, the bankers, civil servants, the government, the universities and their staff, the museums and art galleries and their staff and participators, and of course you will need the plumbers to unblock your toilets.
but once you have the basics of money and its riches and what it can provide you can sit back and act, the zombie, the persons who have it all to yourselves and not think twice of the rotting corpses in the so called lower stata of society.
This day of human disintegration seems to be acting out in our political domain, irregardless of who it effects or hurts, and be sure it wont hurt you.
I am ashamed of my government who stoops so low to cap the budget on mental health spending to 5% of the health services provision.  That is more than half of what it was in the year of the publication of 'vision for change' which you were expected to launch but didnt show up!

The brief you have as Minister for Health means just that, but alas we also have the incompetent HSE, which was supposed to have been changed around (also) by Mr. Brendan Drumm and in fact, it is far worse under his charge than it ever was.

Lets all start 'praying' at least that costs nothing and may do more than our governments and departments of health!

Working through Flare and its working

Yes, I am!  also the brain is MUCH calmer today.
Lots of sleep yesterday (including on the swingseat outside) and a walk on the seafront.

It was a day for inner calm.  At times it kinda saddened me how few humans were in my life but then again, i have never quite known what to DO with them.  Its not if they are comfortable being on a lead for a walk up the hill or by the sea and sniffing poo all the way, and as for peeing on the wet and frosty leaves, oh what a come down, Ugh sorry, and yes, tad bit tickly frosty on the butt i should think.
but you cannot then say to em, "ah good girl' or 'Just a bit longer now and i will dry you when we get home"
I DO talk to my dogs, and I fare better than with the adults.
There are some gentle adults, tall and short, some spirited and spiky and some don't say a word but are sweltering with venom-spiky inside, that comes out on 'their good day' DO not be at the receiving end of this sort of spikyness, worse kind and worse effect, depending which side you are on.
They are the Malamutes of today, the ones that are just hell bent on picking on a small beastie a tinch of their size.
And a Malamute did just that to my Maggie Mai yesterday, but luckily all Maggie got was a fright, as she looked up at me and the hip dysplasia was surely displaced with fright!
i got the fangs in my legs but luckily i had very thick trousers on.  I got a fright too.
Like the malamute humans, these walked away with a sort of giggle and not much else leaving the weenies traumatised to get on with it.

As reported i slept on the swinger, i had to remove all the water, dry that off, go get the cushions which were in a long cushion box at the end of the raised bed and then came out the blankets, pillows, cream, artificial tears, sunglasses, a drink (soft), hearing aids, mobile and a hot water bottle.
for best results too, gloves and a foot warmer piggy with floppy ears, PINK.
that went on my head! yeps, he did or should that be she did.
the ears got in the way a bit, and i giggled.
Maggie mai and Ana soon joined me and slept under the blanket on top of the hot water bottle, we all snuggled up in the cold, eskimo style and i loved it.
watching me intently with glistening eyes was a pigeon, one, with glassy eyes staring and watching, when he fluffed up his feathers and went down on his belly i knew my enemy was in for the long haul.  But he was cute, being the only one, and curious too.

Do you think it worth it for an hour to do so much prep only to abandon for the bed.
Yes, how could you replace natural air, the sounds of the birds, and the vegation that exudes that special musty, grassy smell, it is all a joy to the natural senses God gave us.

inside your body does something, it fails to understand artificial heat.  your eyes go crazy with grit in, well no grit in but it feels that way.
and you squinch them up, trying to find the tears in a bottle is like looking for a needle in a haystack.
Oh and on goes the humidifier.
Sjoggies, i do believe this is a MUST in the dry air of electricity.
I did to prove i am not too lazy in illness, clear out the wheelchair hut which held anything but wheelchairs, it does now.  I put two washes on, went and bought bird feed and walked the trotters.
Bed found me taking two valium and more painkillers on top of my own meds cos i was in flipping agony.
a chair under the soft blankies worked, to not have anything touch a roaring body which was wrething in agony.
and off to noddy with me at around 2am.
on waking the chair still in place i had maggie mai one side of me on a cushion looking straight into my eyes, and the other, the fatty, propping me up on the other, so i was sandwiched, yep i was literally sandwiched.
it isnt any better now as maggie is On top of ana, and has head leaning over my left elbow to see if she approves of what i scribble.
From that start i hope i have a good day, and i wish you all the same where ever you are.  And g'day to my friends in Australia too.

Working through trouble times

I have had a poor few months, i think all would agree that is putting it mildly.
Well, you work through it, in little ways.
I put no radio on nor tv.  I slept a good bit, until dinner time at least and then drove to the Vico Road.  Oh my, it was beautiful.  Damp, slightly colder than anticipated, and no gloves as i used them to cover the camera lens.  it had begun to rain.
my little trotters were left off the lead and were on a heavenly stroll.  I think Ana is either getting old or is just a trotter's age, i do not know.  she pads along behind and a year ago she would be the one to watch as she legged it off.
Maggie is a tyrant, a brute of a tyrant, a strutter and trotter with attitude.  A brat!
a lovely comical brat, 'you get back here,' has no effect whatsoever.
a walking club walked by and one woman came to a full stop, the rest walked on.  down on her honkers she picked up maggie, she was overcome, i actually never have seen that.  she told me she lived in an apartment and couldnt have pets.  after a gentle squeeze and a cheek to cheek with the winner smiler and furry softness she took a picture of them both, and it was BAD, maggie and Ana had not been out yesterday so posers they were not.
we resumed.
maggie i think scented a rabbit for she went a bit wild and dying to dive into the bracken.  with amazing accuracy i stabbed the loop of the end of the lead with the stick.  she was stabbed curtailed.  Looking back at me with a 'how dare you,' and also 'what the h...?'
those big brown eyes, the fan like tail, the speckled dusty chin, she'd melt ya.
i hardly made it to the van.  I wasn't well, we only walked around in a small loop but what do shorties need and what do the big longgie need when her legs are agony.
back in the van i sat, supped a fortisip, to fortify me on my journey home.
as i was coming near Cunningham road, in the rain and cold i saw a very old man with a stick.
I stopped the van.  "would you like a lift?"
he was happy and relieved.
On went the hazard lights, I helped him in, tied him in and left him home, it was a bloody long way, 'did this geezer have altzeimers or what?'
He was surely not going to make it that far home i felt.
it was far too long for him.
he said he did it often.
with a salute and a smile i was happy leaving him and he said he would keep me in his prayers.  He did not know anything about me, but i will be prayed for which can only be good, i turned back then and went on my own familiar route.
back to bed.   and more sleep.
i mess a lot on the laptop now, flitting to and fro from facebook to different informative sites etc.
time passed.
I went to woodies to buy birdseed, i worn my brown felt hat and brown jumper.  I like the combo, the hat is in the style of the 30's and i adore it, it does i think look odd and i felt some stares.  i took it off.  others have said it is gorgeous.
seed was so expensive, i didn't quite get what i wanted.
to cut a long story short, evening came 9pm.  i got out of bed and for some reason decided to refill the bird seed feeders.
into the yard then, oh i just adore the air, the sky, the clouds and the sliver of a quarter moon look down on me.  the gentleness and the cool.  before i know it i was up on the raised beds in my slippers.  i stood there looking over roof tops, its a sense of something else.  not the area, not the yard, the other side i guess, something in the air of what i will meet forever, god willing.
I slowly filled and put the feeders back, my brain fog is bad and so is the co-ordination but i took it slow.
I then watered the cuttings in the cold frame and shed.
that once served as an office, so i sat on the swivvel leather, i sniffed decay and i felt a safety cocoon surround me, first inside the three shed timber walls and then in a type of musty webs of serenity and oneness.
i never had this before, the outdoors, i left it at 18 to start the neg journey of neg life.
once inside i was muttering. "I will get my life back"  I will, I certainly will.
I saw my appointment wipe board, i took a marker.
"I will get my life again.
I will find a safe home"
I will find safety and harmony and existance with my twin.
i have come to bed.  Ana is on one side, just under my right elbow.
maggie mai has dug deep and disappeared in layers and folds of fluffy throws and all is silence, all is stillness.
pain and tinnitus are there, but no one can touch me in my funny little shell of perfected tranquility, i think given by the man above, indeed i do.
and my Dad has had a hand in it too.  God Rest my Dad, my Ma and my sister, Louise and rest in peace.

40yrs after - School reunion

This was THE event i think for everyone, most tried to turn up but not everyone could make it.

I wouldn't have been the brightest of bunnies there and i was on the sofa with a pillow behind my head, my body was indeed, wracked in pain.

but I felt sitting there and watching,( for that is all i was really able to do), happy.
School was a horrible place for me.  I made no friends at all. Period.  That was for a number of reasons, being deaf did not help, neither did being a twin or the implied and stated "don't expect much from the twins"  which was actually said to my Mother!
The nuns and the girls were never nasty, we had no bullying, it was a fair enough regime, it was far gentler than at most schools at the time.
Some young left handers had their left hand tied behind their backs and learners were made to write with the non dominant hand, you start to see something in the RC ethos here.

It wasn't so at the HCJ.  Remembering it was an age of not yet enlightenment on possibilities of a young person and their mind and their feelings, it was a tolerable regime for education.

I saw the shiners there last night, so elegant, so chatty and really confident mature women.
All were easy conversationalists, all were happy to fill in the blank years with their class of 70.
I was happy enough to watch the exchange and see the women in a far easier light then through the terror of my school days.

There was the most brainiest in the class, who could converse with me with ease and i so with her. Gone was the competition and fears.  so too with the other brains and most of them were.
Time has panned out all as equal.
It doesn't mean that myself as i am now can become a friend in the true sense to any of them.

I am not that easy and now with disability probably worse so.  But the fright was gone.
I had spent a bad bad bad day, mostly in bed, a bad ending when i furiously spat out hurts and upset and pain, the emotional side of a young life being downgraded continually by a dysfunctional family.
I threw my two older sisters out, screaming like a banshee.  Very ill and in pain in all senses, i wanted shut of hypocrisy.  I cannot take that anymore.

so i went back to bed but then realised 'you were looking forward to this for months, awn'
and i was.
the clothes were ironed first thing that morning, the pictures were printed up and in a neat pile and the hockey stick of 40yrs, was worn and waiting as was the school blazer, showing signs of rigor mortis as it was stiff and dank.
I rang the taxi and shuffled the hair with gel, slapped on a bit of lipstick and bundled self off the soft warm bed and more or less straight into the taxi.
It wasnt that good to turn up first an hour early - why - I never put the clock back!!
Well, there is no need to, for time blurs with me and no structure at all and no one in particular in the life of mine, i timed time by more light and day than hours.

It was not wise to go in my boot slippers, not that they were 'out of place', which they were, but it had started to rain on the journey so by the time i got to the hall door, my feet were wet, the sleepers soggi and the tiny toes, frozen.
Yet, my friends all my cognitions have not gone astray, i had bought a second pair, for eventuality of getting too hot! so in this instance to - warm the toes up.

It was the noise, the lights (ah, had forgotten the eye shades) and pain that saw me try to sort out a way of 'disappearing' without the patronising 'fond farewell' the pain started at the beginning.  I had stood up as all were, and was chatting, leaning on my stick.  pain ran through my legs and i bailed out.  I was suddenly screaming inside, and knew that that was defo the bad idea of the evening.
I went into the kitchen to see if i had paracetamol in my bag, i didn't.
Emer the doc came in, yes in real life a doc, and said 'you look a bit worse for wear' and i added i was, in fucking awful pain.
then the nurse came in, yes in real life she was!
Barbara, do you have any paracetamol on you.  she didn't.  i begged her to ask around without too much fuss.
Emer met me in the corridor and passed over disprin as if it was heroin, whilst remaining chatting to Catherine.
I laughed at that, and approved.
surprisingly, disprin worked in a remarkably short space of time.
I moved further away from the babble and heat.
i was at the far end of the foods of delight.
i watched in fascination and approval, i repeat, i was happy.
Still at the corner of the brain, i was upset at being so different and so unwell.
But far outweighing that was my ability to lose the 'fear of humans.'
some came over to chat, and it was with ease and with no condesention at all.
they are lovely women.
Now for the grand exit.
Grainne, self and Vanessa were plotting the 'slip away' in the kitchen and i rang my taxi, but then a few others came into the kitchen and i told vanessa that i should just say good bye really and do it properly.
it was natural enough, i held up the beloved hockey stick and Nicola shouted, 'you were the bain of my life on the pitch.'
Nicola reminded me that her mother had been at school with mine, that was nice actually really nice.
Barbara took a snap with me and Sheila, i always liked Sheila, everyone did, i told her i would ring.
and so the long haul exit, down the steps of the grand house in Wellington Place back to the not so grand in the 'noggin, where one is listening to drunkards and body art, well, seeing the body art, defacement.
I cried deeply into Vanessa's shoulders just before i got into the taxi.  I didnt know it was going to happen.
"Oh God, Vanessa, i hate the difference, i hate being disabled and sick"  i hug her close and it was good really.  Vanessa is a ticket and fun and loverly.
I tried to collect myself for i saw she was upset i think.  I waved a weak smile, not of pity but 'i am ok, sorry V, sorry, I am ok.
the taxi man had a downes syndrome brother.  we talked about attitude etc.
i came home drained, very dejected but then again, it was all worth it.  it was what i wanted to do, it was where i wanted to be, to see them all again.  it could have been for the last time.
I had whipped the pic of twin and i at my twins graduation off the wall and showed everyone.  they stared and looked deep into it. Everyone asked for Mags, and when i said "she's in Australia," they gasped and drew in and then out, "what?" Yes, flew away just like that!

Emer during the evening said to me, 'we didn't know Ann about your deafness and stuff, we just didn't know,'  she tried to redeem my school ineptness, by saying, 'you actually could see you were not stupid,' there was a sense you were not stupid. ' I never saw that part for sure for sure!

Nonetheless, disabled or not, i saw the women of the day, good and kind, equal and i was without fears and demons on that score.
i am proud of self to go when so unwell.
I am happier for it.
Not so, the difference.  the noggin and what has happened in the past year.
but something inside has healed for sure.
it must mean something when they say 'confront your fears!'

End of Life Years

One has to be VERY realistic what you can and cannot do in a situation where there is no way out, or even around.  That is getting older...and sicker...and possibly more disabled....this is a personal review, but i feel worth it for general pilates/meditaton/tai chi 'think'

I can see, i can hear, its crisp out there, cold out there.  the wind has flattened some parts of my garden, parts are still standing.
a few plants are not their best and others are holding their own and the rest are...dead....or dying.

the dunnock will be the first on the bird table ah..I have just looked out!  yep there he is, he is a cute guy.  then will come the house sparrows, they flock down protection in numbers, amidst that the few pigeons still holding up, (on the roof) will try and disrupt and even destroy their brothers.

And also from my winder the laughing buddha on his plinth is doing just that, laughing, he laughs a lot in fact all the time....he cannot do anything else.
we, or rather I have a second Buddha, he, and this one actually is a 'she' to me, even if flat chested and half bare up top, is doing the meditative bit, the other day i found a white feather in her cupped hands, it had a grey tip, yeh, pigeon, nonetheless most of it was white.

right i think you get my drift...
tis life and we are at the end of the seasons of productivity until it busts again in warmer and welcoming weathers.
So too, my productivity is winding down, and all must rest to be ready, for the warmer times, and cheerier times.
Winding down also requires Peace, peace in your brain, your body, your breathing.
Winding down requires good food in your mouth, it is THE ONLY positive action you can take for a winding down body, plus exercise.
Winding down means 'setting down' and that means for me, the telling of what it was, and always has been and presently is....a flushing out and away for posterity how ones life panned to this point, the winding down point.
Sure for some, its a cleansing and a learning experience and worth the effort.
Its a re-evaluation of the times past.  'Was i wrong about that?"  "Are you sure with your feelings on all of this period?" and so on.

Most of all, it is how you experienced your existence and what you felt about being alive, half dead, or dying...most of all, was it useful, purposeful, fulfilling and most importantly, was it enjoyable. How many people did you actually HELP on their life's path?
It seems heavy stuff...for me i hope not for i want still to learn (oh, the 'Birds' is being re-enacted in the yard, the house sparrows have arrived)! I deviate, i need to learn how i am going to make it a creative and artful experience.  Tie in all the bits methaphorically too, with new methods.  I will have video, audio, collage, animation, word and digital art and photography.
it wont, i promise myself turn out a mismush of too many forces jarring.  And that is where the learning is.
Also for my body and soul i need Peace, the one with the feather peace.  The body that can still pluck the weeds away from the flowers, to create, (yes again, living is about creativity) beauty and a haven for myself a person with blood in my veins, and a haven for the peaceful, from the slow, snails, worms and slugs. to the flying, myself, the birds and all things good, (I include myself here). I too, want the elderly in their 'dying cages' to see, as i sincerely believe, you are a person with needs until you cast off the moral coil.  i want peace and happiness for them and my twin....I actually think most else can sort that part for themselves, its sort of also a personal right and responsibility.
Once a person gets to at least 50 or 55 they want to let go of the angst and pain, and want more slowness and more peace.
No one needs vicious anger, angry words, threat to mind and body from other humans.
No one would wish it for others either, but many do get this sort of distress in all its forms, daily.
and some get it not only daily but even by the nature of waking up are faced with it in body, soul and mind.
When you just have had enough of your human neighbour, here not only in real terms on the side by side neighbours, but people and you have learnt, yeh, i dont think i like em much.
you have choices....well you are led to believe you have....it depends on money alot, not so much on desire or the dependency on your family, those who should join in to see that you are safe, well and happy.
YOu need to make peace, Make Peace for the peaceful, yourself to regain true sense of value, and for all you can help do the same, your good good twin.  the birds, you also have a responsibility to care for the life's companions and in my case its two wee chihuahuas (right the heavies have decended, umm, more than usual actually, there are a lot of them..one sitting on the peaceful buddhas head! yeh, knew that white feather with a grey tip was surely a pigeons)

now the musing and prosaic, the kind of 'i tried to be philo and pro about the musings must have her cornflakes and banana (for the potassium)!
when you say it like that, thats the basics.

the other one is hope .... for peace...today and in the near future....just 'leave me alone, please, peace."
have a good day, twino down under, have a very good day.

Well, hopping all over with disadvantage

Yes, like snow balls here.
Tis very interesting to see the contrast in thinking on these.
The economic crisis is a must to address.
the Crisis in abuse in all areas of social disadvantage have either been denied or argued about and fought over, who should be accountable.
Firstly we all know who is accountable in the banking system, so too, everyone knows who is accountable in the social schemes and schemings of disadvantage.
We had the fight of tigers to get a sense that someone outside of Ireland can decide that the Magdelane Women should get recognised as being let down by the state, the health boards and the civic courts and just about everyone in fact.
And they are the women and children who posed such a threat to decency and the honour of men etc.
We always got the message on this one, fear not we did, maybe the clergy and oh, the women religious who too, were saving 'honour' of the women and the men, but in the process used the 'less than honourable' as virtual in house slaves, who were passed on to more dishonorable specs of horror on our planet.
So we have sorted one thing anyway and i want the world to explode with shame, anger and social reparation for all abused in such a horrible way in these laundries.
Now we get on to my pet hate, this has to be the horror of horrors, its not that one is worse than another but this seems to be so dreadful.
I call the activities in and around the 'dying cages,' the lack of respect, honour, humanity to our frailest and most dependent of our human bretherns, again i guess, we have a spell mistake there and probably a misuse of the noun as in single and plural.
But let there be no mistake we are talking on 'plurals' here, hundreds of elderly sitting it out, at the complete and utter mercy to all and sundry while they waste away and die more of depression than anything with abuse to their person, which they cannot voice in most incidences, abuse on their intellect, they STILL have a working brain!  This seems to have been forgotten along the way.
We have abuse of the worst kind, these are the elderly who were once young, your mothers, fathers and grandfathers and grandmothers.
Under the guise, of 'its best Ma' that you go and be properly cared for, these old people are literally dumped away and basically forgotten.
when the HSE deny so strongly that they have not created a misery for these people and also a misery of great uncertainty in the financial abuse areas and more, its like one more stab onto the cruelity of what one person can do to another.

It means really that the top 'brass' pleas innocence of misuse and abuse of the far more innocent in our society and go to bed after the draught of whiskey or whatever with peace in their minds and sleep the counting of sheep in the form of the euros leaping into their own off shore accounts.
many women and men are trundling off to bed in a darkened annoymous ward, thanking GOD another day over, and maybe thanking god too for the draught of the sleeping pills that will keep them quiet so as not to disturb the night staff on duty who would rather sleep than think of their charges.
I feel we have a partial response to the Cystic Fibrosis young people of Ireland.  This Unit at St. Vincents is going to serve need, but there has been a proviso that it will also cater for others too, so how secure in our economic times, are the beds for the vulnerable young with a life shortening illness?
How quickly can these be allocated out to others?
IN all matters Irish and medical, it depends who is who, and what they can give, by way of economic or social status to the ones at the top.

Also like a bolt from the blue it has been discovered we have very bad governance, poor governing policies and laws and all should be reformed, monies capped but please note, the mercedes stay!

When abuses come to light and fight for the side columns of the papers for the crisis of economics are stuffing our brains with depression and stuffing ever letter space on each line of every newspaper, social depravation continues, and we all have to 'pull our weight.'
I ask the government, when there is a general election, where will all the people BE when needed to vote?
I would content, most will have emmigated, others will be in the lunatic asylum, many will be in the homes for the bewildered and many just couldnt be bothered now.
What are our choices on the ballot papers, I couldn't cope with Enda, I kinda now don't trust, Eamonn, I fear for the Socialists, Sinn Feiners, and the extreme leftists, so aint much left.
I hope to be bottled down to a quiet end decade, will pluck the weeds from the garden.
feed the birdies and the chis, hopefully stroke a black rabbit who i have given a name to already 'velveteen'
try to keep my twin happy and self of course, but i am anything but that at the moment.
but before i do this peaceful old person thingy prior to getting to the miserable 'dying cages' i have to find a roof over my head, away from the fist slingers and the underage gun yielders popping shots and lingo and more such in my face.
Peace, yeh, comes dropping slow my friend.

Ps. didnt get to my 'gang' dressed ok in the uniform and all, but the legs were very wobbly and the breathing very suspect so it was back to bed and a upset cancellation, believe it or not, they, the gang give me the greatest of pleasure, every wednesday.
and if you read this, are you ok about the design and pic change to the blog, i was BORED last night, nothing like being bored and sick and alone to go changing your face around.

According to.....

We shall come to 'According to.....' a tad bit later.

Now a very non womanly quote (but we are all pretty much aware of the status of women and other now) 'it would freeze the balls off you," meaning its turned nasty, very cold. the tender plants are now in their small secure units for a while, although one secure unit wasn't that secure as the howlers knocked it down two nights ago, what a mess!
in bare feet, i struggled to find the cuttings and remains among the mush and more of compost.
After a while i realized, thus was my enthusiasm and fears for the living babies that i have bonded well with, better than people, my tiny feet were frozen.
 they got wrapped up in their woolly secure padding then.
All my babes seemed to be secure then, the chihuahuas fed, so the wild birds and last the self.
that is not a matter of bad priority in the matriarchal situation here, i cannot eat on rising,  it takes a short while for the inners to wake up for the munch so they munch first.
Yesterday was a beauty, no not weather or nothing.
I had to sort the bills so it was down to the main street, i parked some way away, when the rain pours down, so do the disability blue badges hop off the pavement and slap themselves stuck against many a 'borrowed the granny today' car.

interestingly, they are providing my town with one or two extra disability bays, you have to seek out and do a rescue and you feel very grand and happy, but it seems that the more bays we get, the more disability people find them too.  Well, we shall use that word losely when it comes to the blue badge scheme, we have many nanny borrowers around.

I went shopping too, this is bizarre, I have to do the shopping in a large cheaper supermarket so that my 'home help' can cook a ceoliac meal for me.  It was pissing rain, i was on the mobility scooter a good distance from the shop and there i was scootering in the howlers and the pissing rain whilse a warm able bodied woman, (young) awaited the ingredients i was to supply.

the HSE taught up that brill one, to save money!

My sister rings, she the one who has shot me character to ribbons, i am in a mess already and she adds to it.
i put phone down, but am in tears, depression you  know!
do the shop, scoot back to the van and on the way i meet the Manager of the Community Physiotherapy in the er, community, walking up that road to his office, with a very sick umbrella, he welcomes me and i am crying, told him 'i am fucking sick of being sick in Ireland' with their nonsensical rules to save a penny or two.

I park a bit away from the back of the van, he hands me the walking stick i have strapped to the back "i dont need that' i bark petulently, well spell it please for me!
open the van, prepare to drive it in but there was my physio clearing away the obstacles on its floor, i drive in.

 In brilliant hind sight, would it not be better to use his skill in clearing obstacles  within his brief of a HSE physio manager - like more than four physiotherapy bouts in five going on six years?

I also had a visit from the boat builder social worker today.
He was quite efficient, I, as onlooker felt, less pen pushing and he listened, that is a good sign i guess.
Not much offered except arranged a date to have the holey emersion removed and a new one (the third in a year) put in, they must get these things from the recycling centres!
he rang the corpo, still no move on the housing list, no units available for a person like myself. Well, we knew that!
I am still without wireless broadband, changing my provider has meant that i cannot use my 'emergency response unit' (lots of units around here), it seems i cannot use my wireless broadband either, but hope the latter is a temporary situation.
oh According to the Arts Award people I have been given a discretionary 'time out' on completing the award, well that is the jist of my belief, i will have to inquire more, but this is great news actually.

well on the worsts note possible, i have peeped the news yesterday, only a peep, our cost of borrowing has now being upped to eight percent and a pip.  umm.
we aint talking about grapes here, man.
On better news, i visit my grannies and nans aplenty with maggie mai as the 'pet therapy' dog, now these are the genuine articles and i love em to bits.  better spruce up and get dressed and washed, and dog alike for duty calls.
talk soon.

ELECTION PLEASE-to have a say who is in-out, of the HSE!

Yes, you can say I want a peoples' choice of who should stay and who should be booted out, not by proportional representation, but first past the post.  We are talking HSE this time.

I worry, you see, who will elect themselves to go, and for an easy life, and those who will stay for an even easier one - with pay!

I do have ideas, there are many all across the board i would tell to go back to the skilled jobs they had before they decided, whoppsies, i better use my degree before i get much older as the day job is not producing much now.
Yes, they exist, too many.  Sorry if i offend, but those whose career was a mother, or a craftsperson etc, needs to do re-training before they launch back into the workforce.

I believe little is offered in this respect.  As one astute person (within the HSE) told me, "i think the inadequates are there purposely."
I would tend to agree.

You would worry, wouldn't you?
But a collective response for the citizens of ireland to put on the ballot, 'Please boot out that bloody shitzer of a consultant who is so RUDE!"
or more politely "Boot her out, what does she know about knob spoons or spinners?"

It kinda gets awkward for instance, four physiotherapy sessions in five years within the public health sector, is that an admin error, communications error, purposeful error, or bad mistake that?
Did someone forget to put the stamp on the letter, or lost the physio on the way to work?

Or, have i made a record here, certainly i have one of the musically vocal kind of a screeching nature, and a type response to discussions which were not allowed on IrishHealth.com because of fears of litigation.
I have been refused publication in our fantastic Irish Times, lettersed too, yeh, i tend to hit bones on this one certainly.
Ditto Joe Duffy and Drive time.  Well the former know i am a ex psych patient and since discovering this fact i am 'off air.'
No, i didnt disgrace myself, i hit close and a lot of people don't like that much, you get zipped if you get close, litigation again, i have no doubt.

I contributed my 'expert patient' knowledge for recommendations for change in the Mental health service, which after years of Experts input, hit the deck pretty fast, indeed it never got past the off the printing deck, and indeed again very nearly never turned up in print form the day it was launched, supposedly by Ms. Mary Harney, but she didnt show, her dep did.  I wasnt impressed.
the Vision in 'Vision for change" is just that, as predicted by a beautiful woman with a sad son in Dundrum Mental Crimminal Hospital whom i met at the launch.
I was very skeptical then, but many were visibly  vibrant about Visions.  Myself and the Beautiful elegant woman were not.

Craziness is not in my mind, but we do have a crazy country with crazy services for the ill, bewildered and disabled.

It is worrying too to find that a day centre for elderly can be 'manned' by a young boy of 16yrs., an ex psych patient (vetted by police though, so i guess i am ok there) with a tiny dog, all unqualified except for the dog i think, for a few hours.
Yes, elderly, frail and vulnerable with not a pro in sight for all that time, and no lessons in first aid, emergency call in, or out.  Nothing.  What do you do, sent the chihuahua to alert the reception that Mrs. K has hit the deck and then get the reception to alert the Day Manager who alerts the receptionist to call an ambulance, that is after the care worker has checked to see if the elder person is alive and still kicking and to verify she hasn't had a fainting fit rather than a stroke, and not a doc in sight and the chihuahua has not passed its term as intern or other at a major medical teaching institution.

Yes, may sound very funny, or shall i add that to be examined in a very busy local A&E, in the corridor, having my top pulled up for the stet, while a young man leant against a door post watching.  I was on a trolley in the corridor, he was taking time out from a cardiac arrest invalid, beside me in the cardiac special care A&E.
great entertainment for him to see a boob or too of a middle aged woman,yep, that would keep his mind off his job at hand ok. with fright rather than arousal too.

I dont know where we are going, we have a structured plan for the HSE development yesterday and today we have loud noises (not mine) that the HSE is gonna be demolished.

So we have a third health service being dreamed up in a stretch of nearly the same length of time, well thats a stretch too far i guess.
it will take treble that time to get this structure and communications and all on high tech, rather than doing the pay slips for thousands of workers by pushing pens for days on end.
And by that time my friends, like it or not, most of us will be DEAD, yep, friad so, gone with the wind in the willows, DEAD!
Sorry to upset you but it cannot be as bad as what is happening in real time eh?  and i read about quantum physics last night, time and such does not exist, ask Charity!

An entire rethink on being disabled!

Yes, humm...tis not good  i have to say! no other word, nothing like 'accept,' get on with your life, day by day (the song is nicer), so on, so forth.
I was excited starting off - was going to meet my wee great neice after the hospital.
unfortunately the hospital came first.
all ok really, nice woman lecturer in psychology from Galway waiting in the same clinic as i, we had a chat.
don't you dare give up the consultant, they are like gold dust, i say.  anyway prof hardi is Gorgeous, she is!
i came out, met the psychologist waiting to see the physio i had seen and i got as far as paying for the parking ticket.  the trick again is the juggling one, (oh, on way in i thought i had lost my eclair cake) until i finally realised it was squashed under my armpit in the brown paper bag), i deviate.  its the juggling, stick, mitts,hat, bag and finding the money for the little white ticket that will spit out at you once done.
it didnt take E50, shit.  I had just got my disabled persons pension, but while fumbling, the stick fell onto the ground, a young woman offered to help, a child looked on bewildered, the E50 then fell to the ground followed by the E20 which was an acceptable note.
I sing 'ha, you cant have that!' as the young woman picks it up and meets the E20 on the way down and ditto that! the child is bewildered, i am befuzzled and embarrassed, i am sweating now and the machine duly spat the ticket out once it received the E20 in its mouth.
I had some coins in return but they popped out one, slowly, one slowly, etc.
I felt paranoid over that damn machine. I felt it was mocking me.
relieved to get away from humans (child and machines) as i felt alien i went up to the 2nd carport floor, around i strut with the stick slapping and the hips swinging in a very tired and laboured way, i couldnt find my van with the psych flowers.
back to the machine area, into the lift, down to the first floor, walk, slap and swayin' i find the van.
Lights on, check stuff, key in ignition, no ticket.
sweating again, out of the van, slap my pockets, slap the seats and slap anything in sight, as well as curse.
I find it.
off i went.
drove rather fast to catch my wee great niece of four months, fearful Ma and the bab would have gone out.  I cut across double solid white lines, into her street and parked in a loading bay.
Yes, thus far day going well, eh?
out the stick, couldnt find the camera, even though i had powered up its battery over night.
disappointed. was sure i put it in.
went to see Juno and Judy.
OMG, she is a gorgeous wee thing of four months old.  A real giggler, gorgeous dimples, fab eyes, and that laughing smile.
the dystonia did probably what was right, made a strange dystonic prayer and hug up of the shoulders as in 'ooh, ahh. oh she gorgeous!'
I held her and - felt SO good, a baby in my arms now is a joy and utter bliss.
She threw up over my left hand.
i laughed. back to Mama.
we talked some and Judy Meg is a great young woman, sensible and thinking ahead wisely.
continuing her music, glad to hear.
I get a pic! a lovely picture of my newest but one, great niece.
I feel privileged and proud.
where next?
Conn's to get my camera which was having its sensor cleaned.
well to cut short a long disastrous day, row with a private car parking guy, lost more mouth guzzling tickets.
crashed the scooter as couldnt pass a parked bicycle on the pavement, i trapped my fingers in part of its anatomy and bent them back.  that hurt.
asking directions you felt the depression of my beleaguered country, and my banjaxed body.
i felt ridiculous in the rain sitting there waiting so that someone would notice and tell me the way.
Well surely you'd NOTICE!
i think they do but walk on...its linked into disability, but fair dues, three were non nationals of a european kind, without the lingo and blanked out with confusion themselves i guess.
I move on.
I decided i didnt like town, and it was too difficult. the external stimuli buzzing the internal workings and sending the dysfunctional crazy.
I didnt feel good, paranoid, yep, truly and godly paranoid.
STOP TREATING ME DIFFERENTLY, you know that wee smile and 'oh let me move that, just in case' that smile that moves a stick cos you might fall, when still you can actually step over it.
its the smile, all in the smile.  "take that bloody smile off your face" nah, they didnt, but i did.
i wasnt smiling.
i fumed.
heading home, friday night pissing rain, out mainstream to streams of bumper to bumper traffic.  Thinking self smart i head off baggot street for the dual carriage way, bad idea, i turn, three point and kind rover let me.
headed for the lower road by the american embassy. no better.
i bail out at what once was Jurys, i had not eaten since 8am and it was now 4.30pm
too tired to eat, i picked at a dinner, it was disgusting anyway.  I wanted to sit on my jigging legs, i succeeded, i didnt want to sit up at the table, i succeeded. i sort of slithered on the legs, with the chips in a bowl on my lap.
the teeth, the falsies couldn't bite into them, jaysus this is turning real good.  I suck.
that bad, yeh that bad alright.
I cease sucking and wrap em in a napkin. Not discovering them again until i am outside my van at the other end, they were to provide nourishment on the journey!
asked for the bill.
I am being watched. yep, watched.
take your glare someplace else, i wanted to say to a largish woman with a gin and tonic.  I overheard the word, 'funeral.'
I was out.  lost the bloody mouth eating ticket, again.
up to reception, i head out, phone rang.
couldn't hear, bags, mitts, ticket, stick as well as mobile slammed into the hearing aid.
i sit in the smoking covered area, it was the 'dog whisperer' who was going to talk to saffi and tell her to behave, truely.
what a time to ring, as the guy who wanted to collect the fire place surrounds, as i was sitting in beaumont clinic.
what next, have you guessed, do guess i ask you to guess.  I lost the ticket. once in the van couldn;t find it. i was feeling ill.
found it, so out again into the friday, dark and rainy rush hour.
i was pissed.   -Off.  I was into the bus lane. Paranoid. was a screeching cop gonna get me? i was planning my 'get out clause.'
i didn't care i wanted bed.
body in bits, agony, agony, bed...bed...i dreamed as the lights flickered madly and i drove sharply and well ---fast.  Bus lane all the way, no cop.
i get home.  trundle the pink plastic trolley with cameras etc up the avenue, head my chihuahuas and i am greeting them before i hit the hall door.
guess what, please guess... i beg you to guess - no key, some of you were right, other clueless.
rang friend, rang mags in london, i went to her place, fed the cat and got all the keys i could find, the second fitted.
i was in, ana went balistic and ran around like a demented captured chihuahua in the wet grass, maggie sniffed the damp and changed her mind.
i undress, feed the dogs, and door bell rang, the friend, to make sure i was safe.
short chat.
i tell her i had lost the mobile too.
she suggested she check in the van, i consent.
guess what....omg...tis a bad, bad day, couldn't find the car keys.
we give up, felt i would find them on the morning.
well i didnt, i found them there on the porch wall, along with twins letters.
right, i could have been...raped....as i lay...naked...i was...naked with the keys outside my hall door, in er, bandit country or more or less.
hum some day, blog badly written. am whacked tired and drunk with pain.
buzzing head and buzzing brain.
oh please dont DO this to me. i have a serious rethink on being disabled.
well it will take more than free cheese to sort it too. (for those who are not enlightened, the gov are offering us poor devils free cheese from the cheese mountains in brussels). We cheese free-ers are livid.
rightly so, i remember queueing for the free food mountain in the 70's, prime beef stock we were told, the legit legs and mutt.
what did we get, tins, dozens, and heavy for walking folk, with a stamp on the plastic carrier bags and the stamp of red embarrassment on the face. they were sorry at the centre where you showed your social welfare card, they had run out of the legs of cow or mutt.
tins opened it was i think....horse...defo horse, with congeal...remember?
that went OUT for the rats, we had them aplenty and probably far more after the free distribution of horse.
i will end, someone asked on the radio, do we get a free mouse trap with the free cheese.
yikes off the theme, but its been a LONG day.

You cannot pick your family....Independent Living not on THEIR agenda!

Ah the 'bloody family' how many able bodied and disabled people say this?
everyone.
Its always angst when you are fighting.  Angst when the fight is right, or you believe so.
When do you 'put a person away?'
and the family say "its not like that, you can be independent and get on a bus!"
Yes, you probably can but its in THE PSYCHE of a person who is disabled  who knows what lack of Independent living really is and means.
You start putting people away at a relatively young age when the person is no where near senile or in a veg state that person loses their soul in the process.
When i quote a person i know who has muscular dystrophy who is still at home with carers the sis says "she is a very wealthy woman!"
Ha, now we really have it, in this statement.
SO, you can be in your own home when you are wealthy but not if you are not so wealthy eh?
'We are in an economic crisis" comes the next defense, and my social worker stating that 'all the family are asked to pitch in with their disabled relatives.'
"All?" I ask of him.
Well not all of mine pitch in.  None in fact, NONE!
So its to the workhouse, basically, if you are poor and don't have family enough to care.
the next was "i have to go, i cannot deal with this, i will only get depressed, i haven't seen the news all day so i have to go and see what is happening.
Well, i am depressed every day and do we really want to see the news?
tis all bad and Ireland is down the S-bend anyway and that would depress a saint.
there are few of them around too, accordingly.
Bloody families.
Well also mates of many, you shoot yourself in the foot for even carrying on a discussion of this nature.  They disown you then cos you dont actually comply to the 'dying cages' theory.
They disown you if you suggest that they offer a tenner here and a tenner there for a bit of home help or such.
I dont ask them to spit and polish personally, no never but if the wealth is there and we are in an economic crisis on a power next to never before, war like, then a tenner here and there would go a long way.
It wont get me to Istanbul, canada, france, venice, wales, france again and australia all in the one year but it will get you a meal!
thats the difference between the 'sheltered accommodation' and 'dying cages', tis best for the poor, see.
There simply isn't the money!
There is actually.  There very well is, and your ma and da had a social consience but they didnt produce the same moral fibre in their kiddos for some odd reason and less in the next gen and the one after.
well there you go, the news is over now, so one sis is probably very very depressed and this one is probably happier, because i knew i was depressed anyway!!! (i didnt watch the news)!