Best Reads of 2009

Being some what out of the media loop, not reading magazines or newspapers, nor having book shops to browse through, my book selection is often somewhat hit and miss. Browsing through this years reads on the bookshelf I can come up with only a handful I would recommend out of the hundred or so I have read, here are my top three.

In first place.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

This exceptional first novel is the story of Henry and Clare, who have known each other since Clare was 6 and Henry was 36, and were married when Clare was 20 and Henry 28. This is possible only because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he flashes to other points in time, usually moments of emotional gravity for him. His disappearances are spontaneous, his experiences unpredictable, alternately harrowing and amusing. 

A book that not only made me laugh, cry and not want to put it down, but made me think and imagine as well and scenarios form the book stayed in my mind for weeks afterwards making me think and imagine some more. A damn fine read and well worth picking up.


In second place.

Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith


Child 44 is a thriller set in the terror of 1950s Stalinist Russia, a brutal regime that executed anyone who disagreed with its dogma. It proclaimed to be a perfect society. So, when a series of brutal murders take place, no one is permitted to say that these are the work of a serial killer. In a perfect society there can be no crime.
One man, Leo Demidov, a State security agent, a man who has spent his entire career arresting innocent men and women, decides to redeem himself by catching this killer. To do so, he must buck the system, risking his life and the life of everyone he loves. 

A gripping page turner of a book that transports you to a place of secret police, fear and paranoia. A fabulous insight in to post second world-war Russia and a country run on bureaucracy gone mad. Comes with two thumbs up and a whole hearted recommendation from myself.

And last but not least, in third place.

The Milenium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.
A locked island mystery in which journalist Mikael Blomkvist delves deep into the Vangers' past to uncover the truth behind a family murder with the help of an enigmatic, delinquent and dangerous security specialist and hacker, Lisbeth Salander.

The Girl Who Played With Fire
When collogues of journalist Mikael Blomkvist  who were working on a sex industry expose are killed, the murder weapon is left at the scene with Lisbeth Salander fingers prints all over it.  Her history of unpredictable, vengeful behavious makes her an official danger to society -but no-one can find her.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest
Lisbeth Salander, outsider and apparent enemy of the state is charged with murder.  In addition, the state has determined she is mentally unstable and should be locked away in an institution once again.  Only with Blomkvist's help can she avoid the fate they have decided for her and expose the secrets they are protecting.

A fascinating and complex plot spread over three novels.  I spent the time between each one being released waiting for my next instalment with excitement.  The first book, The girl With The Dragon Tattoo took a few chapters to really get into but once there I was hooked.   All three come with a thorough recommendation from yours truly.

Now help out a girl without access to a bookshop to browse, what would you recommend for my 2010 reading list?

The Naked Christmas Party

I am sitting in a large log cabin, fire roaring, glass of rather nice wine clutched in hand, trying to make polite conversation with the five old ladies sitting around the fire with me.  Mostly they just smile a little nervously at me and look away. It's hard going and I'm just contemplating downing my drink and replacing it with a bottle of vodka when the door to the left of the fire place opens and in walks a middle aged, balding, fat guy. Cheeks flushed, sweat running off him like a river, stark bollock naked except for a far too tiny, white towel around his waist.

He comes into the room, has a quick chat with one of the old ladies and goes back through the door from whence he came, leaving the door open to reveal 20 or so more naked men, many not wearing towels, lolling around in a lounge drinking beer.

And not a single person in the bar bats an eyelid.

Welcome to Finland!

A Finnish Christmas party, or a Little Christmas as is the direct translation from Finnish, is not quite the same thing as it is in England.  It begins with everyone getting naked for a start.

Most visitors to Finland fail to believe they aren't being conned somehow when they are told to strip off and climb inside a hot, steamy wooden box with a bunch of other similarly naked people.  They find the whole naked stranger thing too much to bare and many, regardless of the fact that everyone else is naked, will wear bathing suits inside the sauna.  Why on earth anyone would want to wear clothes to sweat into is beyond me.

And this is how the Little Christmas starts, with getting naked and drinking beer with your colleagues, friends and family, and often friends and family of colleagues whom you have never met before, in a sauna.  Sometimes mixed sometimes segregated into sexes, the sauna and beer and the occasional beating of yourself and each other with birch twigs, is the warm up to the second stage, the dinner.

The dinner, usually a buffet, invariably consists of million courses of fish, fish roe and more fish with a few bits of meat thrown in and a huge salted ham.  Plus of course, plenty of alcohol.  Which is desperately need if you hope to live through the third and final stage of the evening, the stage that can only be tolerated smashed out of your face.  The karaoke stage.

Middle aged men and women that quite frankly should know better stagger to the stage, grab the microphone and try to perforate your eardrums whilst murdering popular Finnish songs.  And you are just grateful they have all put their clothes back on.

This last stage drives you once more to the bar, this time for a litre bottle of vodka and a straw.  Which you determinedly down whilst waving away any and all attempts to get you on the stage to sing.  If you are lucky and have enough of your wits about you, you will survive the evening without being coerced into making a steaming twat of yourself with a microphone in hand.  Instead you will get occupy the time by making a twat of yourself off the stage instead by dancing on tables, falling off tables and throwing up in the plant pot.

Merry Christmas one and all from the strange and disturbing bowels of Finland.

The Dark Place

The foul smell of incense fills the air and music, too loud to be heard properly, pounds through the room.  I lie there on the bed of my childhood, stoically ignoring pleas from my parents to turn the music down or open a window, and frown up at the ceiling.  Brooding.  Running through imagined arguments and injustices in my mind.  Fighting the good fight, facing up to the bullies, righteous, triumphant and proud, but only in my head.  A fairly typical, hormone filled, teenage pastime.

Fast-forward 15 years and I still know her so well, that malcontent adolescent.  I know her well because every now and again she comes and sits in a corner of my mind, legs crossed, cigarette in hand, badly made-up face formed into a petulant, self-pitying frown. 

Nobody likes me,
Everybody hates me,
They all say I eat worms.

She sits, she sulks and she takes over.  She fills my mind with a dense fog that distorts everything, making me a vicitm in the pathetic soap opera that she replaces for my life.  Every comment made to me is a barbed insult, every glance in my direction a violent attack.

She takes over my facial expressions and where once capable of delight or happiness I am now only able to roll my eyes cynically or shrug in an unhappy fug of indecision.  Everything is too much trouble and nothing is interesting.  Television programs I normally enjoy seem badly acted and stilted.  A book I was until now enjoying, dull and lifeless.  Websites and blogs seem nothing more than vapid, airless blah, leaving me feeling empty and grey.


She makes me want to listen to depressing music.
Read angst filled novels.
Cry.

I do wish she'd fuck off, I've got stuff to do.

The Finger Unveiled -not for the faint hearted.

I am sitting here at my desk poking at the bare bit of skin underneath my middle finger wondering if I will ever get the feeling back in that part of my hand again.  And if I want to. Three weeks ago I slammed my finger in a car door -you can read about it here- after which it looked like this.

One operation later and this was what I was faced with.

Two weeks after that I saw my finger unveiled for the first time. It looked pretty much like the finger of Frankenstein.

And then this morning I got up at the ass crack of dawn, drove to the hospital, sat around for three hours in flimsy, salmon pink trousers and a gown that was not made turning around and bending over in and was finally taken in to have the metal and stitches removed.

They put an intravenous needle into my hand and pumped me full of more drugs (I haven't had this many drugs since that hedonistic six months when I was 16), deadened the finger with a couple of shots of local anaesthetic and then the doctor pulled out a pair of pliers.

Gulp.

I looked the other way quickly. They pulled the metal pins out, snipped out the stitches and wrapped me up. And here I am, seven hours later, poking dubiously at my still numb finger, wondering just how much those gaping holes that run right through my skin and bone are going to hurt when the local anaesthetic wears off.

When I was 15 I...

Question three from the Five things About Me Quiz (answer one can be found here, and two here)

When I was 15 I:
a. joined a convent
b. ran away from home and got a job in a nightclub
c. wanted to be a stripper when I grew up

When I was 15 I ran away from home and got a job in a nightclub.
 
If I close my eyes I can put myself back in my bedroom that afternoon, stomach swimming with excitement, fear and the thrill of imminent freedom. The freedom to do what I wanted, when I wanted, without being watched and judged and usually found lacking by the parental unit. It was so close I almost couldn't bare those last few minutes in case my parents came home and the whole thing was torn away from me.

I stuffed all my belongings hurriedly into plastic bags and called a taxi, my hands shaking as I dialled. I was terrified lest my parents came back unexpected. I might have been brave enough to leave home but I wasn't strong enough to face their anger and judgement with anything other than compliance.

When the taxi arrived I leapt in and didn't breath again until I pulled up outside my new house, the house my best friend and I had secretly rented a couple of days ago. She opened the door and the look of relief on her face was immense, I don't think she really believed I was coming. And looking back now, I can't believe I really did it either, except I did, and it was the most fun, fraudulent and ridiculous six months of my life.

We partied hard, drink and drugs, the house always full of random people, some just passing others staying for a while and helping out with the rent. How we ever afforded it is beyond me. We both got a job at a local nightclub by forging our birth certificates (tip-ex and a photocopier can achieve so much) and somehow managed to pay our rent (most of the time), eat (a couple of times a week), take our clothes to the laundrette (very high up on our priority list), buy electricity (until we figured out how to con the machine) and go out EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, often with just a few coins in our pockets and yet we always came home legless, late and rarely alone.

It was fabulously free of rules, wonderfully hedonistic and taught us both so much about life, people and all that jazz, but of course it couldn't go on forever. We would both have died of malnutrition if nothing else.

It all came to an end after about six months when my mother somehow managed to convince me that I should move home. How or why I still don't remember although it probably had something to do with food. My friend moved into a smaller place and the partying continued on a lesser scale until I joined The Royal Air Force where it simply merged into that great Armed Forces drinking life.  The friend and I are still friends, both now mothers to children the same age and although we don't see each other often, those 6 months, and a couple of other shared skirmishes that will probably be blog fodder sooner or later, have bonded us together for life.

Would I do it all again?  Absolutely. There are times in life when, for your own mental health, you have to step away from those trying to control you and take charge of your own life.  Something I hope to remember when my own children turn a similar age and my first instinct is to grab on harder to stop them getting hurt.

*Having thought this over some more I realised that I must have been 16 not 15 when this happened.  blame the drugs, my memory of those times is a little hazy.*

*Reading this post back through I realise it makes my parents sound terrible.  They weren't at all, in fact looking at my childhood/teenage years now through a parents eyes makes me realise how great they were.  This story however is through the eyes of a petulant, rebellious teenager.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

When I was working as a ski rep in Ruka we spent the whole of December organising so many events with Santa (that's him on the left there, the real Santa and his wife) that by the time Christmas came around we were ready to kill the first fat person we saw wearing red.  We had visits to his house, visits to the Santa theme-park, visits to his reindeer and of course the obligatory Christmas party guest appearance. 

Throughout all this there was one family I remember very well.

The boy was about 10 and his mother really wanted him still to believe in Father Christmas, she was desperate to cling on to that magic for one last year. The boy was on the edge. Jaded by too many poor Santa copies in shopping centres and department stores, all of whom looked different from the next, he wasn't sure what he believed and spoke openly about it to his mother. They went to Santa's house, met the elves and reindeer, sat on the old guy's knee and the boy had a great time, on the way back he was half convinced.

'If it's the same Santa that comes to the party, then I'll believe.' He declared still with a little squinty eyed suspicion on his face.

The party rolls around and lo and behold, the very same Santa appears with sleigh and reindeer behind. The kid is made up, it's the same guy, and he remembered his name (kids have an amazing ability to forget they are wearing name badges within minutes of putting them on). Santa must be real. I'm not sure who was happier, him or his mother.

It was a wonderful touching moment, throughout which I couldn't help wonder just how hard that kid was going to fall when he found out the truth?

He had gone through the natural process of reasoning for himself what was and wasn't true, accepting that Santa could be make-believe without feeling any anger with his mother for lying to him all these years. However, on reaching this critical stage in his learning he was pushed right back over to the other side. At a point where he understood that some things are made up and others teal, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Santa was real -after all he'd been to his house and met his wife, you don't get much more real than that.

Lovely for the mother but how fair is this to the child?  Will he not just fall further and harder when he learns the truth? Rather than just being something that he accepts easily as being harmless make believe, has this now become a lie?

A couple of weeks ago MrsW from Clinicaly fed up wrote about telling her nine year old daughter the truth after she accidentally killed off the tooth fairy.

I looked her in the eye and asked her if she wanted me to lie. She cried for a whole day. A.Whole.Day. Can you even begin to imagine how awful that feels? All my platitudes about the “spirit” of giving and the “magic” of fantasy were well met…. eventually. And being on board for her new baby brother, who hadn’t arrived yet, made her feel special and grown up and in on the “secret”. But nothing, none of it, was worth watching her break. Nothing was worth the anguish and despair with which she asked me if I’d been lying to her. With hindsight it was probably a combination of betrayal and embarrassment. By carrying on with The Santa Lie for so long I think she’d probably been defending my story to more street-wise kids at school.

And yesterday Jo Beaufoix pondered over keeping up the pretence in the age when a child could quite easily just ask Google and wondered whether protecting them from the answers was the right thing to do

Is it right to keep things from them because of our idea of an idyllic childhood?  Would we be doing this for them or for us?

My eldest is three now and I haven't spoken to her about Santa at all yet.  I'm not sure if I'm going to.  What do you think?  Should we perpetuate the Santa lie at the risk of breaking our children's hearts and if so, what age is the right age to tell them the truth?

10 Weird UK Laws

Doing a little reading yesterday on the legalities of anal sex after a few comments on this post, I stumbled across these weird and wonderful laws supposedly still on the books in the UK.

* A bed may not be hung out of a window

* Any person found breaking a boiled egg at the sharp end will be sentenced to 24 hours in the village stocks (enacted by Edward VI).

* Since 1313, MPs are not allowed to don armour in Parliament.

* London Hackney Carriages (taxis/cabs) must carry a bale of hay and a sack of oats. The vehicle must also be tethered at a taxi rank, and the council have to supply a water trough at said ranks.

* It is illegal for two adult men to have sex in the same house as a third person.

* It is illegal for a lady to eat chocolates on a public conveyance.

* In Scotland it is illegal to be a drunk in possession of a cow.

* In Chester you can only shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow inside the city walls after midnight.

* In Hereford you may not shoot a Welsh person on Sunday with a longbow in the Cathedral Close.

* In York, excluding Sundays, it is perfectly legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow.

----------------------------

Oh, and in case you were wondering it is perfectly legal for consenting adults to have anal sex in all countries except parts of Africa, parts of Asia, Oceania and the Caribbean Islands, where sodomy remains a serious crime.

As recently as 2003 it was still illegal in Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Utah and Virginia.

Homosexual acts remain punishable by death in Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, parts of Nigeria and Somalia. And punishable by life in prison in Barbados, Bangladesh, Guyana, Maldives, Myanmar/Burma, Pakistan, Qatar. Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Uganda.

And in Indonesia the penalty for masturbation is decapitation!



Sources:
http://www.funfacts.com.au/uk-weird-laws/
http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/international/united-kingdom
http://www.bertc.com/subfour/truth/sexlaws.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_law

Anal Sex - the great taboo.

This was going to be a writing workshop post about how I used to think I was laid back but realised that actually I'm pretty anal. It was going to be called something along the lines of Anal Me, and I started writing an explanation for the title saying how you shouldn't worry, there was nothing about anal sex here, which got me thinking...

...why is anal sex such a big taboo? Why, at the very whisper of a possibility of it being mentioned, do people shy away from the topic, eyes wide with fear or shock?  Or furiously expound on how they would never do something like that?  Saying 'like that' with that funny screwed up face that makes you well aware of how dirty and wrong they consider it.

Why is that?

Is there something wrong with anal sex? Is it bad? Evil? Something to be ashamed of?

There are, I am sure, plenty of people out there partaking and yet you never hear  it being discussed.

I have sat in pubs surrounded by gobby northern birds (of which I am one) chucking back pints of larger and talking none too quietly about who we slept with, what they were like in bed, whether we give blow-jobs or not. All without a care for who over-heard us, but not once did anybody ever mention anal sex except possibly in the same tones described above, in a hushed voice declaring their bum a no-go zone.

I have had hilarious, brilliant and informative discussions with friends about vibrators, love balls and lubes.  Known women happily talk about bondage, role play, sex in the great outdoors and sex in public places or how they travelled across town on public transport in nothing but their sexy undies under their big winter coats to go a calling on their man. But never in my life have I had a conversation with another woman where anal sex comes up without them developing a sudden interest in the view out of the window or becoming bizarrely puritan about it.  Which, in turn, makes you feel shy and embarrassed about the topic as well.

It it because it's your bum and it's where poo comes from? Are we really that pathetic? Or is it because, well, I just don't know.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm not asking why people do or don't enjoy it or wish to partake of it. It's your body, your decision what you do with all its little holes and crevices, but why are not allowed to discuss it or *gasp* admit to doing it and even enjoying it?  Why it is one of those things that we feel we can only admit drunkenly to our best friend after making her to swear to secrecy? It's just sex after all, and we threw that taboo off years ago.

Is it time to throw back the covers off this one as well, to lift the shroud of embarrassment that surrounds anal sex? Is the world ready for that? Ready for people to stand up, loud and proud and say 'I do it, I enjoy it and I am not ashamed'?

Because, I'm not -ashamed that is- and I don't understand this taboo.

The Most Exciting Thing I Have Ever Stolen

Following on from Friday's post on  The Most Terrifying Thing I Have Ever Driven ,the answer to the first question from last week's Five Things About Me Quiz, today I bring you the answer to question two:

The most exciting thing I have ever stolen is:
a. a helicopter
b. an F1 race car
c. a box of paper-clips.

The most exciting thing I have ever stolen is...a box of paper-clips. Well, actually it was one giant paper clip, and when I say giant it wasn't bigger than me or anything (now that would be impressive) you could still fit it in your hand.

I was about 7 or 8 and my mother had taken me to London for a few days to stay with my aunt.  We were in a newsagents, my mother and I, and whilst she was looking for something I was browsing the comics.  Hanging down from the display were these huge, to me, paper clips.

I reached my hand up, I just wanted to touch one, to get a closer look.  I pulled one off the display and brought it closer to my face, just then my mother called.

'Heather?  Heather, where are you?'

I panicked.  I was sure I would be in trouble for pulling it off the display. I tried to put it back but couldn't figure how to make it fasten back on to the flimsy plastic.  She was getting closer.  Her voice starting to get that panicked edge to it because I hadn't answered.

'Heather?  Heather!'

I shoved my hand in my pocket just as she rounded the corner of my isle.

'There you are, lets go.'

The paper clip felt huge in my pocket, my hand still wrapped around it, protecting it, hiding it.  I was sure it obvious, sure that everybody in the shop knew it was there.  At the counter my mum paid for her purchase and I stared at the floor. My heart was pounding, the blood rushing in my ears.  I was going to get caught.

We left thje shop, nobody noticed a thing.  How could they not see the neon flashing light over head saying GUILTY?  All I could think about was this clip in my pocket.  The guilt made me feel sick, I couldn't eat, nothing was interesting, I just wanted to go home so I could hide it, get rid of it and pretend it had never happened.

Back at my aunt's house I somehow managed to keep it hidden but spent the rest of the holiday convinced I was going to be found out.  Eventually the holiday came to an end we went home.  Back home I hid it in my bedroom but was sure my mum would find it.  Each day I came home from school and hid it in a new, better, safer place.

It was eating me up, driving me mad.  I decided I had to get rid of it, it was the the only way.

For some reason that must have seemed like a good idea at the tine, I thought the perfect place would be my sister's coat pocket.  Our coats were hung up behind the front door, mine and my sister's on lower hooks than the adults.  I slipped down the stairs clutching my stolen bounty and popped it into my sister's coat pocket.  The relief was immediate.  I'd done it, I'd gotten rid of it, I could now get on with the rest of my life.  I congratulated myself on my cunning and put the whole thing behind me.  Until, the next day.

My sister was only four.  Her coat pockets were no doubt somewhere my mum was constantly emptying of rocks and worms and other unpleasant things she didn't want in the house.  I came home from school to the Spanish Inquisition.  Did I have anything I wanted to tell them?  Was there anything I thought they ought to know?  I did the only thing that seemed viable at the time.  I denied everything.  Even when they showed me the clip, I denied it all, after all they hadn't found it in my coat, therefore it couldn't be mine, right?

Right, sure. Shame it had a sticker on the back with the shop's address, in London.

Banged to rights, I hung my head in shame and got the hiding of my life.

The moral to this story?  Don't steal.  Or if you do, find a better hiding place than your sister's coat pocket.  Oh, and remember to remove the label.

Sorry sis.

5 tips to make blog reading, commenting, subscribing faster and easier

Love reading blogs but hate all the time wasted having to open up blogs to comment, fill in comment forms and add new blogs to Google Reader?  Here are five easy tips to make it easier to read, comment and subscribe to blogs leaving more time for reading and less time spent clicking.

(most of these tips assume you are using FireFox.  If not, you can get it here.  If you don't want to, fine, but you'll have to find your own tips.  Likewise for Google Reader)


1.  Read and comment on blogs without leaving Google Reader - comment shows up on blog.

With the FireFox extension Better G-Reader this is now possible.

1. Add Better G-Reader FireFox add-on.
2. Re-start FireFox
3. The add-on pop up box will appear when you re-start.  Click on the Better G-Reader add-on and click options.
4. Under the general tab click on the 'preview item (click button or headline)' box, click OK and exit (the 'preview item automatically' option doesn't work for me)
   
5. Open Google Reader and click either on the little blue arrow next to post title or on the 'preview' button at the bottom of the post.
6. The blog will now open inside google reader.  You can read and comment as if you were on the actual blog and your comments will show up on the blog as if you were too!

2.  Read unread posts easily without having to open Google Reader.

Using Google's 'next' browser toolbar button (works in all browsers). I love this button.  It has become my favourite way to read blog posts.  Without even having to enter Google Reader I just click this button on my FireFox toolbar and fly through all my unread posts, reading, commenting and clicking again to move on.

1. Open Google Reader
2. Click settings (top right)
3. Go to the 'Goodies' tab
4. The 2nd item on the page is Put Reader in Bookmark.  Drag 'next' button to your bookmark toolbar(you must have your bookmark toolbar open).
5. Click it.  
6. Read, comment, click it again.

 They also have a second button on the same page which will let you choose which folder you flick through for those that have their blogs organised within Google Reader.


3.  One click subscribing to Google Reader.

Hate having to click two or three times just to add a blog to Google Reader?  Me too.

1. Using the same Better G-Reader add-on as No.1   Open the add-on menu (tools, add-ons)
2. Click on Better G-Reader, click on options.
3. Under the subscribing tab click on auto add.
4. You can now subscribe with one click using the rss button in your FireFox address bar.  It will take you straight to Google Reader bypassing that irritating page that asks you if you want to add to igoogle or google reader.
   

Sadly I can't find a one that doesn't insist on opening Google Reader rather than just adding it and letting you continue to read.   If you know of one, let me know.


4.  Easily know which sites you have already subscribed too without having to open Google Reader to check.

I doubt I am the only one that does this a lot or the only one that ends up with multiple subscriptions of the same blog in their Google Reader.  The same Better G-Reader add on will help with this too.

1. Open the add-on menu (tools, add-ons)
2. Click on Better G-Reader, click on options
3. Under subscribing tab select smart subscriber (parparita)
4. Each blog that you open will now have an orange rss box in the top right hand corner.  If you are already subscribing it will have a tick through it.  Simple.

  
5.  Have info boxes on comment forms filled automatically.

Some comments forms aren't a problem, once you've entered your details the site remembers you and you don't have to do it again, others are shit and you have to re-enter them each and every visit.  Use the FireFox add-on easycomments to fill them in on your behalf.

1. Install the easycomments add-on.
2. Re-start FireFox
3. On the far right of your task-bar (at the bottom of the screen) you will see an 'easycomment' button.  Right click and choose 'manage profiles'.
4. A pop-up box will open, click on 'create profile' top right and fill in boxes.  Leave the comment box blank.  When done, click 'return to main window'.
5. When you come across a comments form that needs filling in just click on the 'easycomment' button on your task bar and it will automatically fill it in for you.  It will also allow you to use multiple identities and choose which you use with a simple right click on the 'easycomment' button.

I use all of these daily to get through the hundreds of blogs I just can't live without.  If you know of anymore, let me know.

The Most Terrifying Thing I Have Ever Driven

I just know you are all on the edge of your seat waiting for me to give you the answers to last weeks Five Things About Me Quiz  So, without further ado, I give you the answer to question number one.

The most terrifying thing I have ever driven is:
a.  a helicopter
b. an F1 race car
c. a Ford Fiesta the wrong way down the motorway.

The most terrifying thing I have ever driven is...a helicopter.

When I was 17 I joined The Royal Air Force and trained to be an avionics engineer.  It may seem difficult to believe now, but this woman who spends her day cleaning up poop, yelling at her kids and spouting inane drivel on Twitter used to fix helicopters for a living.  I worked in Northern Ireland on 72 squadron (now disbanded -nothing to do with me, honest) and used to spend my days and nights (we worked horrible shifts) fixing Puma (pictured left) and Wessex helicopters.

As you can imagine, women engineers were quite thin on the ground and to say that I got more than my fair share of male attention would be an understatement. Much to the consternation of the other engineers who'd been there for years, I was offered my first helicopter ride in the co-pilot's seat after only a week.  After plenty of showing off from a pilot who clearly thought he was younger, thinner and less folically challenged than he really was, I was offered the controls.

Exhilarating? Yes.

Terrifying? Yes.

Bloody brilliant?  You betcha.

I even managed to pull some G's.  And didn't kill anyone.  In fact, the one time I nearly died in a helicopter is a whole other story and not at all my fault.

And just to clarify, I have never driven down the wrong way of a motorway in a Fiesta or any other car and sadly I've never had the chance to drive an F1 race car either. 

Giving the finger...

...just one of many things you can't do with a broken middle finger.

Three days ago I was piling the kids into the car, running backwards and forwards fetching almost forgotten juice cups and stuffed toys, the usual last five minutes of madness before making a car journey.  Satisfied that everything was at last in the car I jumped in and closed the door.  My seat belt got caught in the door so I opened the door again, pulled the belt out of the way and slammed it shut..

Crunch

I tried to turn back around to face the steering wheel but I was stuck.  I looked around, confused.  My hand  was stuck in the door.  I pulled but nothing happened.  I fumbled for the handle and released my finger, the black suede glove was dented and oddly bent.

But that's just the glove, right?  My finger will be fine.  Of course it will.  Panic was rising in my chest.

I yanked the door open and shot out of the car.  I didn't want the children to see or hear when I pulled off the glove.  There was no blood, it was still attached, but it was starting to hurt.  Not a sharp pain but that deep pain you get when your hands have been too cold and they got warm too quickly.  I stuck it in my mouth and paced up and down.  It felt better.  My legs were shaking.  I took it out again.  It looked like this.

I couldn't straighten it, not because of the pain but because it didn't work.  My straightening facility was broken.  I decided to go to town anyway, if it felt bad I could always go to the emergency room whilst I was there. I was in denial.   Half way to town it felt bad.  I could feel it swelling, throbbing.  So to the emergency room I went with two kids in tow.  They were brilliant, the kids and the staff.  Twenty zippy minutes later I was x-rayed and sent on my way with the words 'we'll have a Doctor look at the x-ray, call us in the morning.'

I went shopping, drove home, fed the horses, fed the kids, went to sleep, got up, fed the horses, milked the goat, fed the kids, rang the hospital.  'You need to come in tomorrow for an operation, it's quite a bad break and you've severed the tendon.  Oh, and make sure you rest it.'  Maybe a little late for that warning.

The next day I sat in hospital feeling like a fraud.  It didn't even hurt, not really, not unless I moved it or banged it and even then it was a manageable pain.  They gave me some hospital PJ's, hooked me up to a drip and left me in a bed surrounded by genuine sick people.  I played on my laptop feeling foolish.  They gave me some drugs which made me feel relaxed and sleepy.  I had a nap.  I woke up being pushed down the corridor on the way to theater.  It was going to be an 'awake' operation with a local anesthetic.

They filled me full of more drugs which made me feel quite jolly and drunk.  They painted my hand orange and stabbed painful needles into it and then put up a big blue curtain so I couldn't see what was going on.  I could feel them moving around, tugging and pulling.  I could hear the sound of the drill as they drilled holes through my poor shattered bone.  The next time I saw my hand it looked like this.

Yes, that is a piece of metal wire sticking out of the end of my finger.  There's another one apparently under the bandages.  I know it's there, I can feel it.  And yes, it hurts.  A lot.  The painkillers they gave me take edge off but that's it.  In three weeks I have to go back and have the pins removed.

The moral to this story?  Slamming your hand in the car door is stupid, don't do it.

Flood : Help needed.

It is 4 o'clock in the morning. You are sleeping, warm in bed, when something wakes you. Lying there in the dark you suddenly realise that it is too dark, there are no street lights, and you quickly recognise that noise. The unmistakable noise of rushing water. A cold dread hits you knocking the breath from your lungs.

Not again.
 
At the top of the stairs, peering downwards through the gloom, your worst fears are confirmed. You can just make out the wreckage that was once your life swirling in cold, dark waters around your livingroom.

Oh, god no!
 
You still morn the lost photos and memories from the last time. The house had only just lost that 'flooded' smell so familiar to those that have lived through one despite all the furniture and the carpets being new.

How can this be happening again? 
 
You move down the stairs and look around your living room in dismay, hot tears pricking at the back of you eyes.  Water that must be thigh deep fills your home. Furniture floats, tilted, some upside down. Debris everywhere, unrecogniseable objects looming in the dark.

For the first six months after the last flood you kept everything precious upstairs, not trusting anything that meant something to you on the ground floor but you couldn't live like that. Not with that cloud hanging over you. You couldn't squeeze all your things, your life, into the three small upstairs rooms. You had to carry on, live like normal, not in fear. But right now you hate yourself for it. You stand on the stairs watching the waters swirling around your front room, a photo frame floating here, a childs painting plucked by the waters from the front of the fridge, there.

You sit down with a thud, a pitiful moan escaping you mouth. It feels like you heart has imploded pulling your chest inwards as it painfully tries to fill the hole left behind. You curl forwards wrapping your arms around your knees, body shaking with each painful sob, your throat sore, shivering and hugging yourself against the cold.

They're just things. They don't mean anything. We're all safe, we're all still alive.

You try to tell yourself to buck up, that it doesn't really matter but it does. It not about the things, not really, it's about living like this. Living with the threat constantly hanging over you, the hard work you know is to come, the expense, the bitter arguments with the insurance company, the work and the effort involved in clearing up, on putting on a brave face for the kids. And for what? So that it can happen again? When? A few weeks, months, years? Dispair fills your chest, hot tears splash down your face.

It's not fair. It's just not fair!

'Mummy?' comes the voice from the top of the stairs. 'Mummy, I'm scared.'

You wipe at your face, blinking the remaining tears away and straighten up. 'It's okay darling.' You somehow manage to make your voice sound normal. 'You stay there, mummy will back in a minute.' With a last hateful look at the rising water you turn and go to try to comfort your child, trying to ignore the pain and fear that makes you feel as though your body is being ripped down the middle.

Why is this happening to us?

Now close you eyes and offer thanks to whomever or whatever it is that you offer thanks to that this wasn't you, then click here for the Cumbria Flood Recovery Fund Auction and help those for whom this isn't just an exercise in imagination.

Heavy rain fall last week caused several rivers in Cumbria to burst their banks flooding over a thousand homes, washing away 4 bridges and costing the region tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage. It caused over 1000 people to be displaced from their homes, 50 people to be airlifted by the RAF, 150 to be evacutaed by the RNLI and the tragic death of 11 people including a police officer trying to help direct people off a damaged bridge as it collapsed.


Bidding is open from 12pm Monday 30th November until 6pm Sunday 6th December. There are also a stack of exciting prizes ready for a charity raffle which will go live later this week.  This fabulous charity auction has been put together by the amazing Kat at Housewife Confidential, the wonderful people at Bambino Goodies and the amazing folk at My Charity Wins.


Thanks to Diary of a Surprised Mum a place to send clothes, toys and care packages so they will reach those affected by the flooding has been found. Send to:
Flood Relief,
Unit 6 & 7 Enterprise Court,
Lakes Road,
Derwent Howe,
Workington,
Cumbria,
CA14 3PY.