I don’t know what it is with me and bags, but I can never seem to find the right bag for my needs.

Part of the problem is I’ve never quite worked out how to travel light, so even if I didn’t mind stuffing all my junk in my pockets (which I hate) there’s just more junk than the pockets have a hope of holding, so I require a bag.

The problem is the small ones are too small, if I wanted something that size I’d just buy a purse, then I’d have more of a selection!  But the larger ones are too large, I just need to carry my junk, not go on a weeks holiday!

I emailed a couple of companies whose bags are very close to what I’m looking for, and one of them has replied suggesting that I submit a design and they may be able to use it for their new seasons range next year

Wooohooo!

Oh I got a batch of turtle bags yesterday too, we’re trying to cut down on our plastic carrier bag usage, and these seem ideal, string bags in an assortment of colours, they hold far more than the plastic carrier bags you get at the stores, washable, reusable, and once the shops start charging for their carrier bags, which some are doing already, a whole lot cheaper in the long run.

I also found some pocket bags, they’re the same string bags, but they come in their own little pouch, perfect for sticking in a pocket, bag or glove box for those little unexpected shopping outings.

They open up and you’ve got a full sized string bag all ready to service your every carrying need… Or something…

Aren’t they funky?

A fact I should really probably have posted weeks ago, you know, straight after it happened… Still better late than never

It took a little getting used to, after 7 years driving felt odd to begin with, but driving a new car, an automatic instead of a manual, and not having a clue what half the buttons and levers were supposed to do…

Well it actually made it more fun

Is that strange?

Not a lot else to report, I’ve been busy getting herbs for my Red Panda look, it’s finally healing up, it looks more like mild sunburn… It’s dry, flaky and itchy, but at least I don’t look like I’m contagious any more, I can live with that for now

Oh I’ve also been to the hospital as test guinea pig again, strapped to a table again, but no flinging around the room this time, this time I have to lie there for 10 minutes and then stand up.

Don’t ask me, I’m just the test subject. *shrugs*

Then I have to do a very simple leg exercise every day.

Quite how that’s going to have any impact on Chronic Fatigue patients I haven’t quite figured out, all I can hope is that I’m on the placebo therapy and the real therapy is of more benefit.

Still, I work on the principle what doesn’t work has to be of as much use in narrowing things down as what does…

At least that’s what I’m going to be telling myself for the next six months I’m signed up to do this…

Oh and don’t ask me why “Little Sparrow” for the entry title, I’ve been humming it all day, so I thought it only fair I share

We were expecting him to call to say he was on his way around lunch time, mid morning at the earliest…

But no, 7am the phone rings to say he’s on his way.

What kind of a time is that to be kicking sick people out of a hospital?

Mind you, if it’s anything like the time I was in hospital years ago, they wake you between five and six to then make you sit there until 9am to get fed

Turns out his nose has been broken at some point and nobody realised, and it’s healed up slightly crooked, which has caused his bunged nose feelings.

I wish you could have seen the bandage they sent him home in, he looked like he was wearing a muzzle!

I got down the stairs and thought it was Hannibal Lecter!

Oh, and as he can’t move his head much for the next few weeks, he can’t drive…

Which means I get to try driving the new car.

It’s an automatic, which is far better for my joints than our old manual car, but I’m still used to a manual gear stick…

Not to mention I haven’t actually been well enough to drive for seven years…

We need to go grocery shopping this afternoon…

To say I’m feeling nervous would be an understatement!

I didn’t feel this naseous when I had to sit my driving test!

The bad news, it’s not doing anything to make me less irritable.

And the ugly news… Daddy’s in getting a nose job!

OK, so it’s not a nose job as such, apparently the bone and cartilage in the nose doesn’t always grow straight, for a few years now (and by few we’re talking more than ten) he’s always complaining that he’s got a cold, and spends every waking moment sniffing.

Now personally I put most of that down to habit, and I still maintain he just needs to be bashed in the face a couple of times with a frying pan and he’ll soon manage to stop sniffing, not to mention spending ten years complaining how “I’m just getting a cold” deserves a damn good slap anyway…

Have I mentioned I’m a tad irritable this week?

Anyway, he finally found it irritated him enough (or us nagging him irritated him enough) that he went to see the doctor.

Long story short, he went into hospital this morning to have some of the bone/cartilage removed from his nose to straighten it back up and stop it restricting the nasal passage.

He’s due back home tomorrow morning, and then we have to put up with him for two to three weeks before he’s allowed to go back to work.

Since he’s almost never even ill (and just as well) and has never had to have anything done to him, he’s an appalling patient…

He’s survived the operation, but if there’s too much whining and whimpering he may not survive the convalescence time!

You’ll have to forgive me, the herbs I’ve got are certainly working, but I’m still in the “it’ll get much worse before it gets better” phase of the treatment, so between the additional pain, burning, itching, flaking and running to put cream all over my face and neck at far too regular intervals… Well it’s safe to say I have no patience, I’m cranky, irritable and in the mood to rip the heads of small children and set fire to new-born babies.

Oh and to top it off, I got the weirdest comment left on an earlier journal entry a couple of days ago…

Your not even from the North East you prick. Are you that sad you stalk people?

Needless to say I’m a little confused and have no clue who it came from.

Oh I nearly forgot, it seems I have two slight problems with this rash on my face, firstly it seems that it’s no longer just the virus/infection, but the reason it’s so bad is due to the allergic reaction to the antibiotics, so the Doctor said, which seems to be why it stopped responding to all the treatments I was trying.

The other problem being that I’m allergic to tap water.  I have been for years, every time I get water on my face, neck or chest I come out in a mild rash for a few hours.  But it seems the antibitocs have thrown my immune system further out and increased my reaction to said water, which is also probably why the rash gets worse by the day, since I mostly shower daily.

*sigh* Nothing is ever easy is it?

I’ve ordered myself a whole house water filter, which arrived this morning, now I just have to wait for the plumber to call to give us a quote and book a time to install the thing… Then with a bit of luck I’ll have reaction free encounters with all forms of water throughout the house…

That’ll be a nice change

Final thought, I’ve got a little dohicky over there on the right for a free download of unsigned MySpace artist Ryan Huston’s album, which you might like to take a look at and have a listen to.

Lets see… What’s been going on…

Well, I still have the neck of a lizard, only now I seem to be part lobster, part lizard and part panda, as you can see from the photos below…

Oh and I also have the bowel of a pregnant woman…

So a quick recap would make sense I guess…

A strange rash appeared on my neck some months ago, then it started to appear in more places around my neck.

The doctor thought it was an infection and gave me antibiotics, which I was reluctant to take, since I have had reactions to every tablet I’ve had since developing the Chronic Fatigue.

A few days later I started them, but only because the rash started to appear around my eyes.  They didn’t work, so he put me on a different one, which I foolishly agreed to take.

Two tablets later I’ve got a rash all over my upper body, a swollen tongue and so much diarrhoea that I’m running to the bathroom every 20 minutes for the next three days, and every two hours for the next three nights.

After that, I settled down to a pattern of diarrhoea every two hours during the day and every 4 during the night for the next two and a half weeks.  After that it was like having the bowel of a pregnant woman.

A charming subject I know, but the volume of matter coming out of me seemed to far exceed the volume of matter I was consuming, so how I’m not down to that fabled size zero, I’ll never know!

So, we’re now about 6 weeks after the antibiotic incident, my stomach is pretty much back to normal, if you can ignore the churning and gurgling it’s doing most of the time.

My skin on the other hand, well that’s another matter entirely.

Before the antibiotics it was just small clusters of wound red patches in three places on my neck, a small patch on each cheek bone and a couple of tiny patches around each eye…

After the antibiotics it just went on the rampage, and now look at it…

Oh, ignore the terrible hair, I’d just come out of the shower when I took these…

As you can see, all in all, it looks quite a mess.  Nothing is shifting it, nobody really seems to know what it even is.

The doctors think it’s a Staph’s infection, various people think it’s psoriasis or eczema, and given the way it flared up after the antibiotics wiped out my immune system, I tend to think the same as I did in the first place, that it’s a particularly nasty virus.

All I know for sure is, it’s still spreading, at this rate I’m going to have no face left, and certain parts of it are itching like crazy, while other parts are fine.  It flakes wildly overnight when I can’t put cream on it, so I wake up with a pile of scales in the bed with me, and I’m going through a tub of moisturiser a week trying to stop it drying out and splitting.

So… Who wants to pay to have me put down and put out of my misery?

All donations happily accepted

Somebody…

Anybody…

Please, just… TALK ME OUT OF IT!!!!

Am I too young to be thinking about incontinence pads?

I got the antibiotics about a week and a half ago.

Those were fine…

They didn’t do squat, but I didn’t have any adverse reactions to them either.

Yay me!

But them by the beginning of last week the red patches were starting to appear around my eyes, which is never a good thing, and by day 3 of the antibiotics they were still appearing.

With the true efficiency that can only be found in the NHS cut-backs system, it was going to be close to two weeks before I could get another doctors appointment.

Given that I’m kind of partial to my eyes, I decided I wasn’t willing to wait, so I managed to get an appointment at the main clinic a couple of towns over.

All seems simple enough…

That alone should have warned me!

I got another set of antibiotics as the first lot clearly weren’t working, and a cream to put on.

So after fainting and then calling the bank manager to re-mortgage the neighbours house to pay for the prescriptions… Off I went.

Got home, took the first two tablets and thought nothing more about it.

Two hours later I was definitely thinking about it!

It started with a gurgle in the lower organs. Again not much to worry about, I was still a bit peckish, so I didn’t give it much thought.

Half an hour later I did though.

I felt like one of those newfangled dolls.

You know the kind, you give it the little battery powered bottle, then five minutes later it starts shooting out both ends…

Which begs the question why anybody would want something like that… But I digress…

So there I was 9 O’clock at night giving birth to my intestines every 20 minutes for a little over 5 hours.

By 2:30 in the morning it finally eased up enough to get to sleep, of course by then I had a rash over my chest and arms and my tongue was swelling up.

Then every two hours I was up running to the bathroom.

The next day the rash had gone and tongue was back to normal proportions, but little digestive system had gone on strike…

The entire morning was spent in the bathroom, I’d barely get out the door and I’d have to turn back round and fling myself back at the potty and hope I’d make it in time…

Needless to say by lunch time I could barely sit down and was so tender I was walking like John Wayne.

It’s now just over a week later and I’m still running back for a potty break every couple of hours, but at least the stomach acids are staying where they should be so I’m not actually having my rear end digested while I sit.

Needless to say I’m not planning on any more trips back to the doctors any time soon.

And next time I’m given a prescription, I think I’ll go with my gut (no pun intended) and not get it filled out.

Oh and I just found out yesterday I’m back at the hospital in a couple of weeks to be strapped back on the tilt and turn table and flung around the room in the name of science.

I wonder how my stomach will take that one…

Things could get messy…

And as anyone who knows me will testify, that is not like me at all… The last time I had the urge to swear (which I gave in to in the end) was around 1987…

So it’s safe to say, I’m not a happy fraggle!

I went to the doctors earlier in the week to find out about this rash on my neck.

It appears it’s a Staphs infection. It would appear the skin is infected with the Staphylococcus bacteria. Whether it’s the same version of the bacteria as the hospital superbug, MRSA remains to be seen.

Naturally I’m not very happy, I thought you had to go to hospital to get a Staphs infection, and I hadn’t been anywhere near a hospital for well over a year when the rash started.

I did a bit of research online and found that it’s immune to most antibiotics, and if it’s the MRSA version of the bacteria, then it’s immune to all antibiotics. I also found that the most effective thing for killing it off is good, old-fashioned Tea-Tree oil.

Something to do with enzymes and protein strands, but whatever the science, the bacteria can’t build up an immunity to the oil, making it deadly to them.

All well and good.

I’ve spent the last 4 days slathering my face with tea-tree ointment and tea-tree mixed face creams, and it all seemed to be going well.

Except when I woke up this morning I have another three patches on my neck, 4 on the sides of my face, one on my eyelid and one on the bridge of my nose.

Which suggests that it’s not a Staphs infection at all.

Which also means I now have to take the antibiotics the doctor prescribed before I can go back and get him to have another look.

Only I don’t like taking antibiotics at the best of times, and I’ve managed to avoid them for the past 15 or so years.

I also have reacted badly to every tablet prescribed by the doctor since developing the Chronic Fatigue Syndrome…

Hence my intense urge to swear profusely.

And don’t even get me started on the cost of prescriptions these days… Because I’m on Sickness Benefit and not Jobseeker’s Benefit I have to pay for prescriptions (another thing I’ve managed to avoid for the better part of 10 years).

It turns out the cost of prescriptions have gone up again… It’s now £7.10 (about $14) per item.

What the hell? Do they think I’m made of money?

Do they really think that people can afford that on benefit?

And more importantly do they think we’re too dumb to notice that it’s the people who can’t work due to health problems (which you would expect would require more medications than a healthy person) they’re the ones who don’t get free prescriptions…

*insert volley of offensive swear words, expletives and colourful phrases I didn’t even know I knew here*

I got a strange email yesterday from swydm.com (yes I still refuse to call it reezle!) it seems I have a premier membership for 10 days and I have no idea how.

All very odd…

Well let’s see… What’s been happening here…

I sent my new camcorder back as the distorted image seems to be a fault (that and the software just crashed repeatedly), so I’m back to my trusty digicam instead for the time being. Although no doubt I’ll be buying a replacement in a month or two.

I’ve got some annoying rash on my neck that keeps breeding every night. Every morning I wake up with another little red disc or two on my neck. And they’re sore, itchy and flaking. I wake up each morning with lizard neck! I look like I’m trying to shed my skin… It’s not nice. And I’ve had to wait a week to get an appointment, but I finally get to go and have it looked at tomorrow.

I’m pretty sure it’s a virus I found with a little research, but it always pays to be certain.

Oh and Friday I get to go to some jobcentre event at the local sports centre. They’re using the premiss of finding out if I’m entitled to more money or other benefits, but it’s pretty obvious it’s a sneaky way of trying to suggest that people aren’t really ill and could be working to get them off benefits and on jobseekers.

I swear they must think we’re all thick and just too dim to work out what they’re really up to.

Still as the option appears to be go there on Friday or get sent to the Job Centre the following week, I don’t get the impression that it’s optional in the slightest.

Meh! I knew things were going to smoothly with my benefit the past few months…

I finally got my mitts on the new camcorder, and it looks pretty good. They do three versions, all identical except for the colour. They do Silver, Wine and Blue. QVC didn’t have the Blue so I went for the Wine as a change from the bog-standard Silver that everything seems to be at the moment.

Overall design and equipment Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The camera looks good, feels nice and substantial in the hand (yet very light with it), came with a padded carry case and a 2GB HDSD card, good enough for about 27 minutes of filming on the high quality setting, 40 minutes on the standard setting and 1 hour 17 minutes on the long play setting. IT also came with power cables, USB cable, a cable to connect to your television and a remote control, plus batteries. All in all, everything you need to get started straight away without any additional purchases.

Camera Case:

Camcorder and HDSD:

Battery Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

In use the battery life seems pretty good, I managed to fill the memory card and the battery indicator hadn’t moved. According to the instructions the battery should last around 3 hours of use. On the down side the battery did seem to discharge quite quickly when left turned off for a day or two, and seemed to take quite a while to charge back up. Another disadvantage is the fact the camcorder requires the power cable be connected when using the USB connection to a PC, and the battery does not charge while doing this. A small niggle, but a niggle none the less.

Comfort Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The camcorder is very small and very light, making it incredibly comfortable to use. You can see in the picture, right, just how small and compact it is, and how snugly it sits in the hand. The record/stop button is on the rear of the camera and easily controlled by the thumb, while the zoom controls are located on the top of the unit directly under the forefinger for easy control.

Zoom Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The zoom is incredible, it has a 37 times optical zoom, a 2000 times digital zoom and a 45 times advanced zoom. Obviously the digital zoom is a total waste of time, as it is on all cameras. The Optical zoom is very impressive, it has a variable speed setting on the zoom switch, so the further you move it, the faster it adjusts. The Advanced zoom does some minor digital jiggery pokery to squeeze just a few extra magnifications out of the optics with on-the-fly digital compression. I can’t say I have the faintest idea how it does it, but it does seem to manage nicely, the image is that little bit bigger, and no signs of the distortion you would expect with the use of digital magnification.

Anti-Shake Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I’ve never used a camcorder before, digital or analogue, but I have heard that the handshake can be a nightmare, especially when using the zoom. I’ve also been reliably informed that a lot of the “anti-shake” functions on these things can range from useless to actually managing to make the problem even worse. I can safely say Canon appear to have got it down to a fine art. With my Chronic Fatigue my hands do tend to shake when trying to hold anything for any length of time, but even on full zoom the camcorder seemed to manage to compensate for all but the worst spasms of shaking.

Still Photography Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

It has to be said this is the camcorders weakest skill, and more down to a slight design flaw than anything technical. You still have the incredible zoom to play with, but I found the only way to get reliable shots was to have the unit attached to a tripod and use the 2-second self-timer to reduce the shaking. The problem is the location of the photo button. For some reason despite having two modes, one for video and one for still shots, you don’t use the same capture button. The button for video is ideally located by the thumb, but the one for still shots is up top behind the zoom lever, and slightly countersunk. The end result being that the hand automatically twitches to the side as you try to press the shutter button causing pretty much every shot to be blurred beyond all repair. Technically this isn’t such a problem as the unit is a camcorder and it’s ability to take photos is secondary, but it does mean that anywhere I went I’d still be having to take my still camera with me, just in case.

Movie Quality Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

The image quality is exceptionally good for the most part, especially at night. I did take some footage at night, but the files are just too big to upload to show you, although if anybody is particularly interested let me know and I’ll see what I can do to upload them somewhere. If you look closely at the photo right, you’ll see a small bulb just below and to the right of the lens. It’s a night light. A little LED light that you can turn on for low light conditions. It’s not terribly powerful (but then it is tiny) but is more than sufficient for those poorly lit restaurants and the likes when you just need that little bit more light to see peoples faces. The camera has pretty good night vision anyway, I took a small clip late one night and I could see far more detail in the camera screen than I could actually looking outside myself, so it should be more than fine for most conditions.

You can also see from the picture (left) just how easy it is to use and what a good, clear screen it has to work with.

Again, it’s my first ever camcorder, so I’m not sure if I’m being overly picky, or if it’s an issue that would affect any camcorder, but I did find I was having an issue with movement. I’ve uploaded two clips (below) both taken the same day at the same location. I was stood at the back door and filming the bird tray at the bottom of the garden. I was using optical zoom only (no digital zooming) and the built in microphone.

The first movie also has me zooming back out from the tray so you can see just how good the zoom is in practice. The second clip shows a Green Finch having a snack in quite close detail. You can see the background is clear, as is most of the bird, but when it’s head is darting in and out of the tray it goes quite stripy. Again I’m not sure if this would affect any camcorder, or whether I’m just being overly picky.

Movie Clip 1 (approx 24Mb)

Movie Clip 2 (approx 42Mb)

If it weren’t for the slight distortion on the movement I’d have scored a full 5 stars for the movie, as everything else is incredibly crisp and clear.

Supplied Software Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Another slight weak spot is the software. I didn’t use the photo software since I couldn’t get any suitable photos worth twiddling with, but the movie software was terrible. There’s a known issue with both the Wine and Blue camcorders, the software will not accept the camcorder serial number. An email to Canon soon sorted that out and all I had to do was replace the first 3 digits of the serial number with 808 (the issue does not affect the Silver model for some reason). After that it installed with out any further problem. It does seem to have a tendency to crash regularly, and has almost no editing functions, so other than converting the RAW files from the camera into MPEG2 files onto the computer it’s really not even worth installing (files can be moved by drag and drop if required).

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

All in all it’s an excellent piece of equipment, very good quality, well built, easy to use, very easy to set up and use (other than the software) and very well worth the price (it cost me £240 on QVC). I can live with all the minor niggles, except the slight distorting on moving objects in movies. I’m still experimenting and trying to decide if I can live with that one, or if I’ll have to send it back and wait to get something more expensive that might not have that issue. (Although knowing my luck I’ll then find out that every camcorder has that problem!)

So if anyone has any experience with camcorders and that particular issue, I’d be interested in hearing from you!

Edit

As requested, here’s a clip taken late in the evening (around 8:50pm) when it was getting reasonably dark outside, and the camera picked up a lot more than I could see with the naked eye.

060508movie-3 (approx 10Mb)

I can always tell because I can’t stop singing B-52’s songs… *shrugs* don’t ask me why, I just live here…

All I know is a good resounding burst of “Love Shack” at the top of my lungs is a sure sign that the good weather has finally arrived.

It’s been quite busy here of late… Dental appointments, Opticians appointments…

I was at the dentist this afternoon, and I think I’ve seen it all now.

I sat in the chair and I was asked to put on a pair of safety goggles…

Now maybe it’s me, but I’m a bit confused why I need to be wearing safety goggles while someone peers down my throat.

Apparently it’s for health and safety, in case they poke a tooth and some of it shatters, flies through the air and lands in my eye, in which case I could sue…

Personally if that happened I’d probably be more concerned about suing for what on earth they were doing to my teeth to cause that to happen than the fact that it went near my eye… At the rate we’re going people will have to be placed in hazmat suits just for a trip to the doctors at this rate!

I’ve got a busy day ahead of me tomorrow, a trip to the opticians, and a haircut since I’ll just be up the road, followed by a trip to the wool shop to get a new jumper ordered (It’s only taken about 5 years, but I’ve finally found somewhere that does knitting to order, so my poor 16-year-old jumpers days are well and truely numbered!)

Then next week I’m off to the hospital as a volunteer guinea pig.

They’re doing a new study for Chronic Fatigue so I volunteered.

They called today to arrange the appointment. I have to go in next Monday, where they’ll strap me to a table (should I be worried if I find the consultant is called Miss Whiplash?) they’ll have various sensors strapped to my fingers and toes and will then fling the table all around the room to see what effect it has on my heart and blood pressure.

A strange way to spend an afternoon… But hey, it’s a trip out at least

Oh and those two doves are at it again.

I swear they’re nymphomaniacs with voyeuristic tendencies. It’s the fourth time in the last week we’ve caught them having sex in a public place. At this rate I’m going to have to apply for a restraining order! There’s small people around the place who could see these shenanigans… Me for one!

Oh, in other news… I’ve finally ordered my very first ever Camcorder, a snazzy looking little thing that is smaller than my hand, uses a SD card, and has a 40x optical zoom *drools*

I’ve never had a camcorder before, but it was too good an offer to pass up (as long as it’s as good as it looked in the demonstration on QVC) At least now I can make some money from the free birdy porn going on outside

Is that wrong… I never can tell