December 1st
On that date I talked about a British soldier who had died in Iraq because he was too poorly equipped to defend himself. This week the powers that be have finally acknowledged they were at fault. I found this article which was written during the month of December

My exciting past?
This is a part of an e-mail I sent to Michelle at Wind Spirit.

"One of my colleagues from work who I had been to school with got engaged and threw an enormous engagement party. We were all invited from the bank and I thought it might be a nice chance to meet someone... As it happens I was the only single person there out of over a hundred. When the smoochy music came on she urged everyone to get up and dance. Everyone did, except one little girl all on her own, ME!!! I also managed to be at a table right in the middle of the room. I think you can imagine how awful I felt. I didn't run crying to the ladies. I sat proudly, head high!!

Rob was certainly worth waiting for. However, her first marriage didn't last very long."

As I explained to Michelle, I laugh about it now. The girl in question was always a little jealous of me because my hair was blonder that hers!!

Hej
To anyone who happens by from Denmark ; Hej !! I know it’s Norwegian but you‘ll understand. Rob is half Norwegian, one day we’ll look up the family. In summer, when it’s reasonably warm, I hope!

Tonight on TV, we were treated to a Drag Queen Weakest Link. They were gorgeous. How do they do it?

School News
Olivier doesn't have any lessons on Friday afternoons so I pick him up after lunch (They like them to stay for lunch) He recently found out that one Friday afternoon the Police visited the college and did a surprise check. They found drugs on three pupils and confiscated an awful lot of cigarettes. Friday afternoons are pretty quiet as a lot of people don't have lessons. Last year I had a class during the last hour. There were about 10 out of 80 teachers left at that moment.

As I was talking about ‘Eloise’.

Another book that I love, illustrated by Hilary Knight, is ‘A Tiger’s Chance’. My Aunt bought it me for my 9th birthday and I still read it from time to time. I still read ‘Eloise’ from time to time too.

Talking of teeth
I think that a filling must have moved. One of my teeth is very sensitive to hot and cold.

I discovered that my site appears on a site for orthodontists. I didn’t think that I talked about the children’s teeth that much. Anyway, for the benefit of any dentist who happens to pass this way: Our orthodontist is called Dr. Billard and he is very kind and gentle. He reminds me of Eloise’s tutor, Philip (“shall we settle down Eloise?”) and wears Snoopy socks. Dominique has a very sensitive mouth and threw up on him so he designed her braces without a mould. (One in about 5000 people have this problem). Dominique’s teeth are nice and even now. Olivier has the same problem so Dr. Billard got him to concentrate on his breathing, which really worked Olivier has a brace at the front of his mouth at the bottom. It is helping his bottom lip to push back his teeth. He takes it off to clean his teeth, a real fiddle but he’s got the hang of it now. Later he will have a brace on the top set.

Christian has perfect teeth.

When I was at junior school, we had the school dentist who used to arrive with his dreaded caravan. When I was six I broke one of my front teeth. I had years of treatment on it. I was terrified and used to scream and cry. When I got to secondary school I stopped screaming and crying because the caravan was parked under the boy prefect’s common room window and they could see in through the skylight. I was still terrified. When I left school I knew that I should see a dentist every six months so I booked an appointment with Mr. Barnby. The first thing he noticed was the white of my knuckles as I gripped the arms of the Dentist’s chair. He took time to explain to me about relaxing. Then he said “Give it a try, it can’t be any worse”, so I did. It worked!!!! Over the time that I saw him he put me crowns on three of my front teeth which was a great confidence booster. I used to enjoy going to the dentist! Mr. Barnby moved away and I later found out that he had become Chairman of the British Dental Association. Thank you Mr. Barnby.

When my children were small I bought a very nice book about ‘Going to the Dentist’ and I took them for check-ups with the dentist in the village, Mr. Canard. He always takes time to explain to them (and me) exactly what he’s doing Fortunately, they’ve needed very little work done to their teeth and treat going to the dentist as just one of those things.

weird
I have been having some strange problems recently.
1. I see the comments have disappeared.
2. I can't get my favorite game of Mah Jong, just an empty board.
3. I turned on the computer earlier and the screen turned off. How do you turn off a computer without the screen? Eventually Rob phoned and said to just pull out the plug, not easy as we have a whole load of stuff to stop a power failure to the computer. Anyway it worked and here I am.

I spent yesterday tidying away all of the Christmas decorations. We have so many, they have to be put away so carefully as we don't have much space. Then I put back all the books, videos and photo albums which had been put away to make room for the decorations. The room looks bare but tidy now. I feel as if I've done a good job. Only 10 months till we start all over again. Rob hasn't got round to putting away the outside lights yet.

My Ukky mood picture seems to have disappeared over the holiday.

Migraine
I had my second migraine last week. I was supervising exams again and had a bad cold. I think that it was triggered by trying to keep awake. Anyway, I had an early night and was fine the next day. I couldn't take anything for it as I had taken enough paracetamol for my cold

Talking of things medical.... I had my regular check up with the doctor last week (before the migraine) and all my results are bad, plus blood pressure is still a bit high. He gave me a lecture about what not to eat, but I don't eat any of those things so I said perhaps my thyroid is mucking it all up. He said no as my results for that are okay. I'm sure I read somewhere that these results aren't always reliable and that individuals don't always fit in the norms. So what I shall try to do now is get my results and compare levels with cholesterol etc. and see if I can work out when I'm at my best. I could do with losing 10 kilos too. I do agree with that.

Thank you, thank you....
Well, I was amazed by the warm welcome back I received! I posted an entry yesterday and couldn't see it till this morning, very strange. Has anyone been onto blogshares recently? I don't seem to be able to look at all of my shares. I've got round it by looking at the RSS and then doing a quick search for that share. A bit of a fiddle. I've gained ?1 million recently, I'd like to know whose site has gone sky high!

Happy New Year!!
Sorry it's a bit late. Thank you to everyone who popped by, even though there was nothing new going on, thanks too for all of your good wishes. Christian and my Mother-in-law have gone back home now. Three weeks went so quickly!! It was lovely to see Christian looking so well and eating well too, he had plenty of energy and spent most of his time catching up with his old friends.

If you travel on Ryanair it costs 18 pounds sterling for a wheel chair.

Hello to Christian's friend who visits in order to improve his English (Wouf wouf)

Thank you to Patch for your e-mail, I was really worried about where your site had gone for a while.

Jody, I'm back.