Random housekeeping blog

Bear with me today. I’m feeling totally rubbish (chest infection making me very dizzy and weird) combined with a beyond intense breathing/meditation session for several hours last night followed by another crap night without much sleep. Ah ye gods. I’m falling to bits.


Anyhow. I will NOT, I repeat NOT have more antibiotics. The last lot (thanks a bunch, Asbo Jack) knocked the socks off me. So I’m blitzing this thing. I am mainlining vitamin C and bioflavonoids (bowel tolerance? Haven’t reached it yet!), annointing my chest with Fushi Winter Rub and snorting goldenseal. Tweeted my woes yesterday and, behold, the incredible people at Victoria Health sent me 10 Day Results Get Well, Stay Well which promises to get me fixed in a few days (pray they’re right). If you don’t know these guys, check them out as they are awesome. The parcel was with me in under 12 hours.

And, oh heck. I’d entirely forgotten we were due to go to Wales tomorrow. Today is the last day of half-term (how the hell did that happen without me knowing?) So I have to pull myself together somehow and get sorted. And do some quick blog housekeeping.

First up, congratulations to Michele (banana-the-poet) who wins the Douwe Egberts coffee and Tesco vouchers. The SP was responsible for licking (I mean picking) her entry (maybe he likes poetry).

And congrats too to PlotTracer who wins the Kinect and YourShape – I think Asbo liked the tough guy avatar.

Huge thanks to all of you who entered. I’ll try to get some more decent competitions up and running soon. By the way, I do have a spare copy of Your Shape, so if you’ve already got a Kinect, drop me a comment below and I’ll get the dogs to pick out someone to send it to.

Random things I love right now:

• Ila Beyond Organic Fragrant Candle for Inner Peace. Honestly, this is not just a candle. I swear it’s a soul workout. Tuberose and rose scented in a pure pink glass. Funny thing, I don’t usually like rose as it can be sickly but this seems to hit the spot – wham bam right in the heart chakra. I’m undone every time I burn it.

• Russell Hoban’s Linger Awhile (Bloomsbury). I read Hoban’s first book The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz when I was really young and adored it. Loved Turtle Diary and was blown away by Riddley Walker (his novel written entirely in his own post-apocalyptic language. Anyhow, Linger Awhile is about an 83-year old man who falls in love with an actress who’s been dead for 47 years. Undeterred (don’t you just love the optimism of age?) he persuades Istvan Fallok (that name alone would make me buy the book) to take magnetised particles of videotape and reconstitute her into a living being. Particles and waves, peeps...particles and waves. This knocks the socks off Romeo and Juliet for doomed love and of course it all ends horribly...but I won’t spoil the fun.

• Diva Gourmet Popcorn – if you’ve got to give your children snacks, make ‘em classy. This stuff is gluten free, less than 4% fat (cos they air pop it rather than use fat) and comes in at 100calories per pack. Funky flavours include Sweet Chipotle Chilli; Camembert, Gouda and Brie and Sea Salt and Balsamic Vinegar. Genius, pure genius.

• My iPod. Sigh. Love. Stroke. Sigh. Love. Stroke. Still can’t quite figure out how to work it properly so do sometimes end up veering from U2 to Hildegaard of Bingen (which is a tad disconcerting) but it is just beyond heaven.