Today I have been mainly -

preparing for the onslaught. Rather than have BIG posters up in the hall (not allowed anyway) I have decided to use the pencil pots Beth aquired from the now-defunct Woolwich. I've printed out some pikkies of me at age 1, 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 and I'm cutting them up to put in the pots. I think they look quite cool! I'll take a photo of the finished item, but here are the photos, converted to B&W, and I've printed them on RED paper - what else??

COUNTDOWN. . .

to the big day - the birthday I wasn't supposed to reach!! I've actually been feeling a bit down lately, and I think I've worked out that there is a certain amount of anti-climax about the whole thing. For three years now I have been aiming at my 60th birthday - having been told I'd be lucky to see 59 - and now here it is, on the doorstep. Am I going to find I fall apart now? Abigail reached her aim of 16, and died three weeks later. Now I don't for a moment think my timescale is that critcal, but I have been wondering if the determination will kind of seep out of me. Pathetic, I know. It's probably because my joints hurt and I haven't been sleeping well. Isn't it annoying when you can't even do the stuff you WANT to do, let alone normal everyday stuff.? Luckily much of what I WANT to do is sit and read, and that's OK, or do some scrapping, and that's OK, so it'd probably be good if I stopped moaning now
Anyway, Alan has challenged me to make it to our 25th un-anniversary, which is in the summer of 2009, so perhaps that's what I should aim for now!
Meanwhile, I have everything under control (If you believe THAT, you're dafter than you look) Maybe we'll muddle through as usual. I planned a party for about 60 people, invited about 70 and so far there are over 90 coming. Standing room only!! Food, drink and entertainment are organised. Family and friends are coming from miles around, so my small corner of the world will be mayhem for 24 hours - is that unusual???

Inchies!

Made these for a swap and decided to show you! See - I CAN remember to blog when I put what's left of my mind to it!!

Hello!

Missing in action again for ages. I actually can't believe its been that long. I'm SURE I wrote more recently than that. . .
Anyway, my best news is that I am still well enough not to have the dreaded drug treatment. I saw my consultant on Thursday and she agreed that I could still postpone starting it. I've been finding out a lot more recently, as there has been some publicity about the NHS refusing to fund new drugs for Renal cancer. The problem is that even these new whizz-bang drugs don't CURE the cancer. What they do is offer more people longer in a stable condition. The aim at the moment seems to be to find some sort of cocktail of medication which will turn RCC from a terminal condition into a chronic one, like they are managing to do with AIDS. You don't get better, but you can live with it for a long time. Currently available drugs can give 15% of patients some time and a very few of them 5 years. The new drugs can give 70% a better chance - doubling the current length of survival. These drugs are currently VERY expensive (£500 a week FOREVER), and there is no long-term survival, which makes it a bad bet for NHS funding.
Now I don't object to the Government deciding that it is too expensive for the country to keep me alive. What I DO object to is that they are too craven to tell me so, leaving it to the local PCTs to decide, so that SOME people DO get NHS funding, and some don't, and it's the poor bloody doctors who are forced to make the decisions, not the elected politicians. It seems to me that there should be centralised funding for drugs like this which are going to be expensive because they are still carrying their research and development costs - and in my case, because I've got a comparitively rare form of cancer, so there will never be real "mass production" of treatment.
I'll get a scan in August and we'll take it from there. Meanwhile I pass two milestones - my 60th birthday (9th June) and the third anniversary of my diagnosis (21st July), niether of which I was expected to reach. That's the bonus for being a stroppy bitch!!
I have actually been doing some crafting, too, and I really will drop by soon and post some pictures. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know - you've heard it all before! I'll show you. . .maybe.

I've been tagged!

I don't WRITE my blog often, but I don't READ it either. if I did I'd have picked up Linda's tag earlier - sorry Linda. OK , so seven random facts/habits about ME

1. I HAVE to read in bed before I can go to sleep (my granny taught me this a VERY long time ago)
2 I hate wearing shoes, and often have freezing cold feet before I think to put some on!
3 I can't talk on the telephone unless I am wearing my glasses because I can't hear properly
4 I can't bear the small of tomato plants, crysanthemums or pelargoniums
5 I lived in Cyprus for two years as a kid, but learned to swim in the October after we came home in the sea off the south coast of England!
6 I'm not scared of spiders and will cheerfully remove them from the house/garage
7 I AM phobic about slugs and snails - and consequently have NEVER eaten escagots (shudder)

OK, now I have to tag seven people. I think it's going to be hard to find seven who haven't already done this, so I'll be back later. Off to trawl some blogs!!

Whatever happened to April???

I do kind of remember promising to blog more often. Well, never trust a subversive elephant!! It's not that I have a boring life. I'm just totally lazy.
High points of the month were Beth's 30th birthday. How DARE my baby be 30!!! I remember when she was born, and it isn't THAT long ago - or pehaps it is. . .
Anyway, here she is, bless her!

The other main event of the month was my ex-mother-in-law's 90th birthday. i learned long ago that you never get rid of a mother-in-law, especially if your children are her grandchildren, and you have a conscience! Not quite sure why Alan and I count as "close family" to be invited to her lunch party, but we were, and we went, and most of her family are really pleasant people you could get on with anywhere. She's a bit of a liability, and her elder son is a class-A pratt, but his very sweet Peruvian wife keeps him in check.
This is a picture of the whole bang-shoot of them - minus Alan and myself - who took the photographs. One old bird, plus her two sons, and two step-children,7 of 10 grandchildren and 6 great-grandchildren, plus various partners, hangers-on, and dogs!!
Actually, when I look, various people have managed to escape, but it's still quite a heap of people to treat to lunch - thanks to my ex-BIL and his family!!

Oh, and just to prove I haven't stopped crafting, here is my Easter tree, feathers added after seeing Anso's

- and my first layout from the Design Collective, courtesy of the lovely Kirsty Wiseman

Beth's crop is catching up with me, so I must get on with the class layout for that. . .


I shall return - don't know when (two famous wartime quotes in one - lucky you!!)

LOOOOOOOOK!!!! ---> --->

I've got a Guestbook! That means if you don't have anything to say, there's a special place for you to say it!! Seriously, there are times I'd like to say "Hi" on a blog, but I don't have anything to add to a specific thread. Know what I mean? That's what the guestbook is for. Just pop in and say hello. If you want to tell me where you're from and how you found me that'd be great.
Off to bed now coz I've been out on the razzle and I can't keep my eyes open any longer