Glass bubbles, birds and ah that jaw ...

I've uploaded my review of Vanessa Gebbie's Words from a Glass Bubble to Vulpes Libris today. Certainly a mixed bag but a very interesting writer for sure.

The rest of my day has been spent in totally glorious sunshine with Lord H, searching for birds. We visited Burton Mill Pond and the ever reliable Pulborough Brooks. The only new bird for this year was a female marsh harrier hunting over the fields, which is really luckier than we expect to get during the summer months. We also enjoyed seeing a couple of green sandpipers, a ruff, a young great crested grebe with that wonderfully striped face that young cresteds have, and Lord H saw a kingfisher, but I was just too late, dammit!

Also the amount and variety of butterflies out today were utterly glorious. We managed painted ladies, peacocks, a common blue, gatekeepers and speckled woods, and Lord H saw a tortoiseshell too - though once again, I was just that few seconds too late. Story of my life, eh. Ah well. My one big butterfly ambition (surely everyone has a butterfly ambition?) is to see a swallowtail. They're amazing. Here's one:



Isn't that just fantastic? Happy sigh ...

Meanwhile, I think the jaw situation might have taken a turn for the better, hurrah and put out the bunting. A small turn but a significant one nonetheless. I woke up in excruciating pain at 3.30am this morning, staggered out of the bedroom groaning quietly so as not to wake Lord H and then in the living room remembered (aha!) that I still have the really really strong kick-ass pain killers plus the anti-inflammatories the doctor gave me last year for the pesky frozen shoulder and trapped nerve fortnight. Luckily, they're still in date (till 2011, no less), so I took the pain killers last night, and the anti-inflammatories this morning and at lunchtime. Entirely due to that, I managed to eat breakfast (with a teaspoon, I admit, but hey I did eat something) and when I brushed my teeth I wasn't actually moaning with pain. So double phew and let's keep it up until the jaw is itself again. I even managed the bread which came with my soup at lunchtime by means of squashing it flat and pushing it in - which might not have looked particularly pleasant but I've never gained compliments for my dining etiquette, so why start now?

Also, many thanks to kind online friends who've offered support and sympathy - it's very much appreciated. And a special thank you to LitLove who has suggested a jaw exercise which I am already doing. Well, not whilst typing, but in pauses - thank you!

Tonight, there's a scrummage (is that actually a word?) of comic TV on, but I can't make head or tail of it till I get there. No brain power, you see. I suspect we'll end up watching whatever is on the first channel we turn to.

Today's nice things:

1. Vulpes Libris review
2. Sunshine!
3. Birds
4. Butterflies
5. Pulborough Brooks
6. Less pain in the jaw
7. Jaw exercises & support!
8. TV.

Anne Brooke - Ms Lockjaw has a day in the country ...
Vulpes Libris: putting glass bubbles under the microscope

The old person's diet and a bit of a stretch

Ah, I have a confession to make today - I haven't been blogging about it as it's really rather dull, but I've been suffering from a rather painful right jaw for the last few days - the result of an unconscious teeth-grinding session on Monday night/Tuesday morning, I fear (yes, well , best not to think of it, really ...). Unfortunately today it was so bad that I could barely eat (it's tricky when you can't chew, my dears ...) so I managed to grab a dentist's appointment this morning just to check it wasn't something else.

Well, the good news is it's not an abscess - hurrah! But the bad news is there's really nothing particular that can be done at this stage, so the dentist advised eating food that doesn't need chewing over the next few days until it settles down (hopefully soon, as I'm not good with pain!) and taking Nurofen to keep the worst of it at bay. She also suggested that at my next appointment in December, I should get fitted for a night guard, which you wear while sleeping to stop the grinding. As it were. Looks like I'm going to have to bite the bullet (sorry!) and resign myself to having absolutely no glamour at all during the hours of darkness. Hmm, no change there then. There's not really a great deal of glamour during the hours of daylight either, but there you go. The dentist did say she can do it sooner if the pain continues or I waste away to nothing due to lack of solid food - but let's hope it doesn't come to that and I still have four months of naked-mouth sleep time left. Ah well.

On the way back home - no golf due to the rain, alas - I popped into Godalming, and the pharmacist in Boots also suggested putting a hot water bottle on the jaw to ease the pain, so I've tried that once today and it's quite helpful. I might try it later too - as I don't really want to be reduced to simply licking the topping off my statutory pizza tonight, though I might reluctantly give the garlic bread a miss. Sob! Apart from that, I suspect a few days of soup and ice cream and yoghurt beckon ...

Anyway, here's today's meditation:

Meditation 193

War stretches on,
filling the future

with blood, death,
pain. Warm yourself

by the fire,
wait for the questions

you cannot answer,
the grief you cannot name.


Meanwhile, I'm stumbling on with that ever-increasing short story. I've got one more mini-scene to do now, plus the ending plus the sex scene. Really, the more I write it, the longer it gets (again, as it were). Perhaps it really wants to be a novel after all? If so, it will have to wait its turn, the pesky beast - I've got other things I'd like to concentrate on first, believe me. This afternoon, I've also had my Alexander Technique lesson and am now learning how to be wider. Honestly, I swear Linda had my shoulder blades where they've never been before, at least not without a passport and a suitcase. Soon I'll have to go through doors sideways.

And tonight, there's the cleaning. Serious cleaning as I fear the Domestic Police would certainly judge us wanting this week. Plus there's an episode of QI on later, I think, so that'll be our reward for being good, hurrah.

Today's nice things:

1. Managing an instant dentist appointment
2. Nice pharmacists
3. Poetry
4. Short stories, with minds of their own
5. Alexander Technique
6. TV.

Anne Brooke - definitely not biting off more than she can chew
Vulpes Libris - finding out what really happens at the Romantic Novelists' Conference ...

New meetings, a bad shoulder and a missed opportunity

Woke up with a very painful shoulder today – I can barely raise my arm to chin level, so poor Lord H had to help me get dressed. It’s not the shoulder that was numb either – it’s the other one, so obviously I am having deep trouble up top at the moment. As it were. It feels like I’ve somehow pulled a muscle so I have taken a double dose of Nurofen Plus and put some Deep Heat cream on it and am hoping for easier days … I’m wondering – though I admit it sounds strange – if it’s because over the last couple of weeks or so I’ve been piling up the pillows when I sleep to try to ease the breathing problems. Lordy, but I sound as if I’m barely clinging to life here on the dark side. I’m lucky to be still around at all, you know! Anyway, I removed one of the pillows last night and am waiting for the healing to begin, ho ho.

This morning, I am also filled with Monday morning gloom as I have a new meeting to minute at lunchtime. And I do so hate new things. Especially new meetings. Still, at least I can comfort-eat the University sandwiches and look tearful if anyone asks me a question. Which is, in effect, my usual approach to meetings and indeed new work of any sort, so I doubt anyone will notice the difference. Hey ho.

And I’ve trogged across campus delivering brochures for our information burst talks to places I never even knew existed. Well, I do now. This afternoon, I shall endeavour to make sense of the minutes – I think they want action points only, but the last time they wanted that, when I did it they said it was too short. My response was that was because there hadn’t been any noticeable actions, which didn’t go down too well, I can tell you. I’ll try my best anyway.

I’ve now read Rupert Everett’s biography, Red Carpets and Other Banana Skins. I must admit I was expecting great things as he writes so well – but it was rather too shallow and slick for my liking. There were one or two points where he really started writing at depth and with great subtlety, but unfortunately he mustn’t have been encouraged by the editors to keep that up. I really wanted to know about the man, not about the glitter – but what you get is the glitter. And half the people mentioned I didn’t really know or care about. It was the man himself I was interested in. A missed opportunity, I feel. But if he rewrites it and lets us under the surface for more than half a page, I’d definitely give it a go again.

Tonight, I’ll visit Gladys on the way home. She wanted me to bring her some mini chocolate eggs, but I couldn’t see any in the shops so have bought a box of Mingles instead. Hopefully she won’t be too cross at my obvious failings. Of which there are many, sigh. And of course I’ll be glued to It Takes Two and Autumnwatch. Any activity where I don’t have to raise my arm is greatly appreciated. Particularly as I can now barely move it at all without having to grit my teeth, dammit!

Today’s nice things:

1. Clinging bravely to life, somehow …
2. University sandwiches (well, they’re better than meetings, anyway)
3. TV.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website - under the weather but essentially cute