Sarah Downton Beads and Jewellery

Thursday morning

It’s not snowing here, all though it is oop north, we just have cold and wet, good job I’m not torchering today, even if I wanted to I couldn’t just yet as both tanks of propane are empty, and I really don’t have time to get refills. I have a pair of rather interesting raised design beads from when I was ‘running on empty’ before the flame finally disappeared, I may just turn them into a pair if earrings for me I like them so much. I have all sorts of jobs to do today to get ready for my fairs and exhibition, including cleaning my 96 beads (boo), making up jewellery (yay), making tens of headpins (boo), looking at my pretties and deciding how much to charge for them (yay)……..I also have my new simple beads ready for my ‘credit crunch range’ and they’re rummy, I may even design a tiddley pendant to go with them if I have any spare matching beadies. Have a fun day, I know I will, even if it does get a bit manic.

Tuesday evening

96 beads today! woo hoo, but boy it was freezing in my studio today, it’s such a good job that I’ve finished my teaching for this year, as it’s reet proper cold now. I was dressed snuggly in thermals from neck to toe and my feet were still cold, even with the heater on. I’m going to have to resort to thicker hiking socks and hiking boots next time I think, at least I can get the laces done up now I hope…..which reminds me, I put my socks on every day without thinking about it. What’s that about? Well, before and after my op I couldn’t reach my right foot to put socks on, and I definately couldn’t do up my shoelaces. Picture this if you will, I have to sit on the bottom steps of the stairs (even now) so I can reach my feet to put socks and boots on, and for the last couple of days I’ve been sitting down and popping my right sock on without even noticing I’m doing it, you know, one minute I sit down to do it, the next I’m wandering around the house and realise the job’s done, well, woo hoo. I must try shoelaces next. lol.

All this cold weather is making me want to stay indoors and not make beads, which is sort of good because I should be making and polishing headpins, making up jewellery and generally getting ready for this weekend, although I do need to make some icicles to send to the Surrey Guild Gallery, and some simple beads for my ‘credit crunch lampwork range’. This year I have given up making any silver plated jewellery, and I’m working excusively with sterling silver, my beads, bought lampwork beads and gem stones and pearls. I will be reducing some of my silver plated jewellery and doing a few special offers for the remaining pieces to clear the decks for my silver work.

If you’re wondering about my title, follow this link to Wipipedia for a fun explanation.

Friday morning

230 beads…………that’s how many I had to clean after my mamoth session on Tuesday added to the results of all my play work last week. Yikes, I really should try not to let them pile up like that. Today I’m having my final bead making session for the magazine comp, at least I hope it will be, I may have to sneak out tomorrow and finish off if the beads don’t sit properly together. My work on this on Wednesday was, I feel, successful, but it’s adding to what I’ve already done that could potentially be a problem as I’m reet proper fussy when it comes to making up my really posh sets.

I had another fab teaching day with 2 lovely ladies yesterday, and that was my last bit of teaching until the new year, and of the course the last this month, which has been chocka full of teaching dates. Now all I need to do is get ready for the 2 fairs I have next weekend, and the 2 exhibitions I think I’m doing, that also start next Saturday, so have to have the pieces to deliver on Friday at the latest. I’ve been trying not to get stressed about my work during the run up to Christmas and this has been working well, but to be honest, it’s working too well, so well, that I’m so laid back I’m horizontal and have done almost nothing to prepare. I have a stash of beads I made last month waiting to be turned into jewellery, but all my time has been spent doing masses of teaching, making my weekly order and getting to grips with Double Helix glass as well as my efforts to enter the magazine comp. I would normally have been making up jewelley in every spare moment, and all evening, but I’ve been so tired or busy cleaning beads and preparing my studio and tidying up from teaching that by the time all that’s done I need to rest……..I think I’ll put it down to still being a bit under par from the huge doses of anaesthetic earlier this year and my continual healing, after all it does get a bit zingy around my scar from time to time, so stuff is obviously still happening on some level.  Right, I’m off to run the kiln and start making beadies again. TTFN.

Tuesday evening

I can’t remember what I was going to write about and I’m sat here wondering why I feel drained. The answer to the second question is probably because I have made 94 beads today, my bigest number yet in a single day so far, and it was heaven to have my huge pink Maxine kiln to get them all in so effortlessly, although I’m still working out the best way to arrange the mandrels inside. The bad news is I’ll have to clean them all later, grrrr.

Meanwhile, back in the bedroom, Mount Washpile has reared it’s ugly head once more, and this time has several foothills around it. The problem is that I’d rather be making beads and stuff than doing housework, ask anyone I know. (Rick has just indignantly pointed out that he’s been helping to gradually reduce the foothills :)) As for the shopping….well the last time I placed an order was the start of October, and we were so disgusted at how our food had been packed (for the second time in a row) that I haven’t placed another order and haven’t decided where to try next. Oh dear, I’d better get a handle on this as we all know what festival is looming next month.

Tomorrow I’m planning to have a proper bash at some beads for the Beads and Beyond magazine. I’ve been mulling over several ideas, and dinking around with new glass and ideas, but I think I’m going to expand on my usual style, as this is after all what I do best, so tonight I’ll be planning how I can acheive this.

Saturday night

It’s my birthday and I’ve had such a great day. We didn’t do much but I’ve been pampered from start to finish, apart from having to tidy the fridge to put in the remains of our Indian takeaway tonight. The day started with a fab pressy that Rick got me when he was in Minneapolis last month – I made him visit the Pandora shop to look at some big hole beads and a chain bracelet, so I can wear my own glass big hole beads together with his choice of beads to fill the spaces. What a perfect combination, now he can actually buy me jewellery! It’s been lovely to just have a rest today to be honest, as I’ve been working really hard but struggling not to get tired.

My experiments with Double Helix glass continued yesterday, where I made some gorgeous transparent red beads with streaks of my newly conquered Phyche glass, which I reduced to a lovely variety of shades of greeny-blue part shiny colour..ish…thing. I also experimented combining it with some of my CIM (Creation is Messy) colours to see what would happen, and got some interesting reactions where the CIM has concentrated the silver to the edge of the Phyche streaks, yum. The dinking around with my designs for the perfect set to enter Beads & Beyond continues and I only have just over 1 more week to achieve this. eeek.

Monday morning

Well helloooooo there. I probably shouldn’t be so chirpy as I am missing my jewellery class yet again – the place to go for me to have a fun afternoon chatting with like minded jewellery making obsessed ladies. And especially today they are having our Christmas class jewellery sale. Yes I’m a bit sad about this, but maybe it’s a good thing as I am still just sooooo wacked out. We really must get our car situation sorted out….anyone got an estate car for sale? anyone? anyone?

I just popped out to my studio, and man, it’s chilly out there, only 5 deg. C this morning, but I’m off out to make some handmade glass beads in a mini mo for my regular weekly order. Then tomorrow and Thursday I’m teaching yet again, I seem to be doing about 2 days a week at the moment, which is so much fun and a bit tiring but hey ho, it’s worth it.

The big question on everyone’s mind today is…who on earth is voting for John Sergeant in Strictly Come Dancing? It sure ain’t me, but he really should go now, I know he’s fun to watch how badly he does everything, but it now seems so unfair that the really fabulous contestants are being booted off the show a week earlier than they should and missing their potential to learn new dances and improve more. I suppose maybe we should be asking ourselves if the BBC are cheating and keeping him in to give the show controversy and generally rigging the polls to suit what they feel the show should be like? Or does he have a huge cake baking, blue rinse, daytime TV watching, lady fan base? Who knows.

Friday lunchtime

Already! The good news is that I haven’t cut myself again since Monday, well, I managed to spike my fingertip with an upright stringer, but it didn’t leave a hole this time, yay. I’ve had a few near misses, but nothing like last week, I think I must be going back to my usual state of ‘No burns or cuts’. In the 6 years I’ve been doing this I only have 3 burn scars and have only cut myself about 10 times, 6 of those last week, so you see why I was getting all annoyed, lol.

I’m actually procrastinating at the moment, this is happening a lot at the moment mainly because I’m so tired, I guess I’m still getting over the whole op thing, and probably overdoing it when I do feel like working. I should be getting ready for a small jewellery sale on Monday, but I think I probably won’t be able to go because the brakes are going on our car, and we don’t have a spare car anymore….the headgasket on our other car blew again back in April the evening before my very early morning appointment with my hip surgeon, leading us to be relayed home at midnight, then drive back to arrive at the hotel around 2:30 am for a 7:30 appointment the next morning, yeech. So much for the relaxing sleep the night before. But I digress.

So I thought I should start putting some eye candy up on my blog, and conveniently Rick has done some photos of the stock I took to the Big Bead Show and tweaked some of them. So here they are! or not…there will be a blip while I sort this out.

Thursday morning

How sad am I? I think I must be the geek here, actually I already know I’m a bit of a geek. The reason I know is because when I was sat watching Jamie’s Ministry of Food and he went down the mine for a look see, all I could do was try and see what gas detectors they were using! That would be because I used to be a design engineer working on mainly portable gas detectors in the dim and distant past, oh well, I suppose we all have one of those. Unfortunately I couldn’t see what they were using because everything was coated in a layer of black coal dust, even Jamie! and there was me thinking that he’d smeared it on his face for effect, so as he’d look the part. Actually come to think of it he did look rather different with his eyes peering out. But boy, what an awful place to work, I have so much admiration for those that do, and such sadness when I think about how things used to be hundreds of years ago when children were forced to work down there and other equally awful places.

We all whinge about Health and Safety, and how we’re getting wrapped in cotton wool, and I’d have to agree that it’s all gone way too far, but thank goodness that people started thinking about these things. Jobs and pastimes have got so much safer, the really nasty chemicals we could easily use are restricted, this in itself has to be a good thing, and many people work really hard on safety systems that come into play in an emergency, this is something else I was involved with, Emergency Shut Down systems (or ESD) for oil rigs and gas refineries. Actually I have to confess that most of my time in industry was spent working in Health and Safety, so I am a supporter, but not of the extreme silly stuff.

Kids should be kids, and grow up playing on the street, riding bikes around, and getting into silly scrapes, isn’t that what growing up is about? There’s going to be some pretty boring tales or lack of childhood tales to tell grandchildren if we carry on protecting everyone from what should be everyday experiances.

Ah well, I better get back to the grindstone, it was 6.9 deg C in my studio when I popped out to switch on the kiln, lets hope it warms up a bit today or I’ll have to get the union in….

Monday teatime

The start of another week and I really must have a day off! Unfortunately I’m actually having to cook dinner every night this week as Rick has swanned off to the other side of the world and left us to fend for ourselves. He’s been cooking almost every night for the last 4 months, initially because I was recouperating, and for the last month because I’ve been working so hard making beads, teaching and selling at shows, that I’ve been too tired in the evening to cook. I have to interject here that I haven’t been a complete lush recently as I’ve made my more than my fair share of lunches, and we’re not just talking sarnies here, but salads and stuff, and I cooked a little on holiday too.

So where has he gone and why? Well, he’s popped over to Minneapolis with a work colleague to meet with a bunch of other programmers and be geeky in a room together at this do called a geekfest…actually I lie, it’s called a Backnet Plugfest. They all sit in a room and make their controllers ‘talk’ to each other, then after a set time they get up, move around the room and start over with another geek…..woops, programmer. A bit like nerdy speedating. Don’t you just love it 😉

My day has been peachy, instead of going to class, I stayed home to see himself off then spent the morning cleaning my beads, I managed the handsome sum of 200 today, woo hoo, and you know how much I hate cleaning beads. Tomorrow I may just attack the wash pile, it may just be one of those weeks.

Wednesday lunchtime

It is truely a momentous day for me today, especially as I start typing it’s 12:25, about the time I was brought out of theatre exactly 3 months ago. I have to take stock and look at my journey through the last 13 weeks, I remember the fear and apprehension as I padded down to surgery in my oh so sexy foam slippers and backless gown. I remember lazily waking up all numb and spaced out only moments after I initially closed my eyes. I’m grateful that I didn’t live during the butchery years when they were exploring surgery, and anaesthetics hadn’t been invented. I look back over my few days in hospital, my tentative first steps and the numerous days of exercising, my progression from totally helpless patient to feeling really great, as I do today. Obviously my right leg is still weak, and will probably need another 9 months to get completely over it, as I have 15 years worth of weakness to overcome, but for the moment I think it’s about as good as it was before the op in terms of weakness, and pain free so that has to be good. And of course it’s so much better than before as I now have more movement in my hip than I’ve had for years, I can almost touch my right foot now, and can actually wiggle when I walk as a gal is supposed to. I don’t think I’ll ever have as much bootie as Shakira but maybe I could try?

Yesterday the man from Direct Mobility came and took away my recouperation appliances, so the house is also now looking less like an OAPs house and is back to normal, so hurrah for that. I really feel that from now on life should go back to normal and I’m going to try my hardest to get my leg strong so that I can ditch the walking stick completely. Rick has been an absolute rock, he’s cooked all the evening meals for the last 3 months, and last night gave me such a funny card to mark the 3 month milestone. Thank you Rick, you rock!

So tonight we’ll be cracking open the Champagne, well, sparkling Pinot Noir as I prefer this, and toast good health and medical science.

Tuesday morning

9 weeks today, and what can I say, things have been going extremely well, and I’m feeling more like I’m getting back to where I was before the op in terms of my range of movement (well, it’s better actually), apart from getting incredibly tired very easily. I had a few busy days last week and at the weekend and today it’s all caught up with me, I’m so tired, which is a real nuisance as I was planning to make beads today and tomorrow before the school holidays start on Thursday and for the bead fair at Ardingly this Sunday.

Instead I will be trawling through my many bead boxes putting sets together from my oversize stash to bring you as yet unseen beads, some which I made with the purpose of using in my jewellery designs but haven’t and also more of my older beads that I never put into sets. I’m also sorting out some more bargain beads for my bargain pots and reducing some focals and bead sets. I suppose you could say I’m having a summer clearance but it’s not really that fancy or grand. I’m determined that I’ll be ready in good time the day before and I’m doing my best to get megga organised, famous last words. It’s always those little bits that take the time, they’re unseen but make a difference to presentation.

So what else will be new? My daughter told me to make my favourite animal, so I’ve designed a panda bead and have made a few for Sunday, also I will have a few more fish beads in new designs, maybe more if I have enough energy to make some tomorrow, but I’m not going to moan about it.

Monday morning

A new day, a new week and I decided to have a little bit of a tidy up (don’t get too excited, I did say little). I’ve come across my old Filofax with a very interesting calorie counter insert that I used many moons ago and on the back pages are a list of all sorts of exercise and how many calories they burn a minute. Hmm, this could be worth a look, a quick scan down the page reveals…archery, 3 cals, hmm, not really very keen on that, what about athletics? During training count 7 cals, not bad, badminton, now here’s one I like, it says ‘with average effort you would run about a lot’, 5 cals. Basketball, did that once and ended up in casualty with 2  sprained fingers, don’t think I’ll be trying that again in a hurry, ‘Lots of very fast running, jumping and stretching….7 cals’. What’s this below? Beadmaking!????? no it can’t be! beadmaking, on a list from 1987, oh, oh, how exciting, what does it say? quick! Real bends and stretches ….huh? with sheets and blankets ….what? ooh look, it’s bedmaking. humph. Oh and it’s 3 cals by the way. I guess the nearest thing would be knitting, which uses 2 per minute, no matter how fast you ‘click’ those needles.

I don’t like housework, but I always thought its redeeming feature was that it used up calories, unfortunately the numbers used really don’t seem to corulate with the amount of energy and boredom expended alas. Try this, ‘cooking, does not involve much strenuous effort & consists mostly of arm movement…….2 cals’  well it does when you are not very able bodied and every step around the kitchen is a huge effort. Cleaning cupboards and drawers together with dusting, ironing, polishing small things, washing up, veg preparation, hoovering without moving furniture gets a low 2 cals, and you may just burn 3 per minute if you mop the floor, clean windows, decorate the house, polish furniture vigourously, scrub floors (with a will – does this mean I need to make one or find someone called Will?), hoovering when you move the furniture, washing clothes by hand (like that’s going to happen) and shopping with a light load (5kg or under). I think with this low level of housework calorie expenditure I may just make sure I sit around relaxing for twice as long as I do already as I can burn 1 cal per minute watching telly or surfing the net. I know what I’m doing today. Tee hee.

Wednesday morning

I have a zillion and one things to do today, OK not really, but I do have lots to do and I shouldn’t really be here talking to you but I am so there. Yesterday was my 6 week from hip hop day, and it was a good one. No more blood thinning jabs in my belly and I got rid of my sexy white compression pop socks just in time for the hotest day so far this year and spent the day sporting a cool pair of shorts. I even managed to get a steaming hot mug of tea down the steps into our garden so I could sit and slurp on my favourite bench. I also haven’t had any painkillers since Sunday night, how cool is that? I have to admit having a moment at 12 noon yesterday, as that was when they woke me up in recovery and I felt so chilled. This whole experience so far has been completely different from my last surgery, where I was still on crutches and using a wheelchair after 6 months, but here we are, 6 weeks on and I practice walking in the house without sticks when I feel up to it, although I do still need my crutches. Chalk and cheese.

Half way through my recommended recovery period and I think it’s going really well, now all I have to do is pluck up the courage to try making beads again. My brain has been and is still so ditzy and slow that I haven’t dared approach the flame for fear of doing something stupid and burning myself, also my mobility and flexibility constraints have made me wary of trying to sit for any length of time in my studio or reaching to get things and forgetting my hip precautions. Add to this my tiredness after short times of activity and you don’t really have the best of situations. So I’ve decided to leave well alone until I feel I can enjoy making glass beads in safety.

I do have lots to do to get ready for Open Houses this weekend. I’m setting up my first display at the 2×4 Studios in Horsham today and have several jobs that I must do for that, including fitting out my flat display cabinets, deciding exactly what I want in them and how I’m going to arrange and display them. I also have to get all the ‘stuff’ together to make my sales, for example packaging, a sign to explain what I do, a mirror etc…..phew. See you later.

Wednesday afternoon

5 weeks on from my hip hop yesterday. Progress is good, I’ve moved to using one stick or crutch around the house (the crutch is turned around so my arm is not inside the arm hole) and I try to walk without it several times a day, to get me used to being fully weight bearing on my new joint. Next week will be a milestone week as I can finally ditch the gorgeous white compression pop socks, the latest in fashion statements, not, and I can stop having blood thinning injections. Also I will have my 6 week checkup where I will find out when I can start driving again, if I can abandon my hip precautions and generally start getting back to a more normal lifestyle.

Further news on our very own Squirrel Loftkin saw that little blighter in our loft the day after he arrived, but Rick kept banging the soffits and scaring him off. He also installed a noise scarer thingy that will annoy him and hopefully any other small furries that contemplate taking up residence at the top of the house. We also have Everest coming first thing tomorrow to block up the hole he made so hopefully that will keep him well and truely out. I have to admit though, that he looked so cute peering out of the hole and blinking away, but looks far cuter doing it in a tree.

Friday tea time

The end of another working (well, not for me) week. I’m feeling so tired after I’ve done my numerous exercise sessions, walks outside, trips up and down the stairs, getting my lunch and all those mugs of tea, that I’ve decided I’m not going to do any work for another week or so. Hah. So there. My goal now is to actually finish reading the last Terry Prachett book that I started over 2 years ago, and somehow didn’t manage to finish quickly like I normally do. I think it may have had something to do with the final Harry Potter book which came out last summer in time for our family holiday as I normally only seem to get time to read on holiday.

Of course this not working malarky might be a bit of a risk as I have Open Houses coming up, both in the 2×4 Artists communal room in Horsham and at my friend Edith’s in Plummers Plain. Also I’m considering not doing the fair at Winchester Cathedral, I just don’t think I can take the pressure at the moment, and I’m finding that if I want to be awake enough to work then I don’t do as much exercising as I should be doing if I want to get better quickly and maximise my hip’s potential, which after all is what this voluntary stick leave (Rick coined that one) is all about. So there we are, nearly at the end of another weeks recuperation at home.

On another note, Congratulations to Peter Westwood (Rick’s work mate and one of the lead developers of WordPress – I use this for my blog and various pages of my site) and his Bride-to-be Sam who are due to tie the knot tomorrow. I hope you both have a lovely day and wish you all the best for your new life together. I probably won’t be at your evening party, but I do hope you have a great time.

Tuesday afternoon

4 weeks on today. The sun is shinning and I’m kinda housebound. Rick went back to work yesterday so I’m home alone for the daytime now, oh well, I’m a growed up girlie so I should be able to cope. I still can’t get over how fast the days go at the moment, especially as I don’t seem to be having as much fun as I thought I would, mainly due to my brain still being on a go slow, and I want to do stuff but can’t be bothered. How bad does that sound? Still, if I was not self employed I wouldn’t be expected to return to work for at least another 2 weeks, if not 8 weeks from now. I think I should take my own advice and not be so hard on myself.

Today’s excitement was lots of very loud scratching and noise that emanated from the roof and could be heard all over the house and outside in the back and front garden. I hobbled outside to the back, looked up and saw a squirrel peeking out from under one of our roof tiles, very cute but immensely annoying as the racket continued for about 2 hours then stopped. I hate to think what the damage is like in our loft. We suspect the poor thing went in then got stuck and was trying to get free, at least we hope it hasn’t set up a nest. I guess we won’t know for a few days.

Friday evening

Hi there again. I’ve been putting off posting today as I can’t seem to be light hearted, I’d remembered but also forgotten how hard it can be getting over hip surgery, one day you’re really up there, make lots of progress and feel really happy, and the next you can be in the doldrums, and soooooo tired. Today is one of the later, I’m tired of seeing the same view and really annoyed that I can’t find the 2 projects that I was planning to do while recuperating. I started a Kaffe Fassett tapestry 14 years ago, the last time I had surgery, and haven’t had time to finish it, and now that I have, can I find it anywhere? can I heck. It’s the perfect piece of art to pick up and put down as I feel, but it just ain’t in any of the places I thought it was, and I’m too immobile  to wriggle around in cupboards to look for it. Nnnnrrrrrggggggg.

OK rant over. Guess what I did yesterday? I walked all the way around the block, which is apparently 1 km, yay! also I’ve been practising using one crutch and putting more weight through my hip so I can be more independent, and now use only one for most of the day excepting for my daily walks. I have no idea if I’m on track with my improvements but hey we’re all different, and I am getting there, one day at a time. I’ve also done a little work……some of you will have had some email replies, but I haven’t managed all of them yet, please bear with me, I’m still on sick leave (with a bit of tinkering)!

Tuesday tea time

Oh dear, what has happened? I think somebody swapped my husband for a super efficient house proud android. It’s 3 weeks today since I was on the slab, and Rick is being so efficient that it’s getting a bit scary for him and me. My parents came to visit today and apparently he was fretting about the mess my mum was making in ‘His’ kitchen while she made their lunch, he then proceeded to wash up and tidy up after her when she wasn’t looking. He’s got all my pain killer times programmed into the kitchen timer after each dose and is constantly surprising me every evening at 6pm when he has to administer my blood thinning medicine (this is an injection into my poor belly which has been turned into a pin cushion come dart board). What I want to know is why he can’t always be like this, tidying the kitchen after each use and keeping Mount Washpile to the size of a mere foothill? This morning he came down to an exploded pumpkin that I never got around to using, apparently it had given up the ghost overnight (no pun intended) and had collapsed into a heap while spewing it’s wet contents all over the worktop and down the washing machine. hee hee, rather him than me to clear that one up. Now all I need to do is persuade him to tidy the rest of the house. I suppose a girl can dream.

Wednesday tea time

I missed a great blog title last time, so I thought I’d use it today, especially since just over 2 weeks ago I was clamped to the surgeons table. The last couple of weeks have flown by, Monday I had a really good day of new achievements and felt so much stronger, but yesterday was so pooped after all the excitement that I started this post and gave up, all of which is completely normal for this type of thing. At least the heatwave I predicted will be with us by the time I’m able to cope with the steps out to the back garden (I hope).

So what have I been doing? Not a lot really, just sitting resting, watching telly, doing the occasional sudoku and being waited on hand and foot. Of course I have my exercises that I have to do several times a day, and my daily walk outside that I try to increase the distance of each time, and I do make the occasional pot of tea. I even managed to do lunch on Monday with my daughter, but shhhh, don’t tell Rick (he does know really). And I have to scale the giddy heights of our stairs every time I want the loo, which in itself takes more time and energy than when you’re fit and well. So time is passing really fast, I’d forgotten just how much longer everything takes to do when you’re on crutches and limited in how you can move. Even the simplest of tasks like carrying a mug of tea (remember I have both hands on crutches) and putting it down takes a lot of planning and thought. It really does help give one an appreciation for what it’s like to be badly disabled.

Roll on 4 weeks from now………….

Friday tea time

I’m back! Actually I came home Sunday teatime but this is the first time I’ve felt like having a chat here. I’m sitting on an arm chair like lady muck while Rick cooks dinner yet again, with an Ikea shelf laying across the arms to rest my laptop on. Cool huh? So do you wanna know how it went? eh, eh?

I won’t bore you rigid with details, but it has gone really well so far. I have to admit to being nervous as I walked down for my surgery, in my backless gown, white support pop socks and racy foam slippers, and meeting my surgeon in the hallway covered head to foot in scrubs, with what looked like a wrap-around J-cloth around his head (only his face visible) and knee high wellies, looking like he was about to slaughter a cow! Holby City or Casualty it most definitely was not and I started to wonder just how much blood there would be. The anaesthetist and her assistant quickly and efficiently put me to sleep, and the next thing I knew I was in recovery, feeling numb and extremely chilled. Brilliant. Armed with my class A drugs clicker and huge dose of anaesthetic in my legs I was thankfully very chilled all day and the next, and actually as the feeling came back things haven’t been too bad at all. All in all it has so far not been too bad an experience, much better than I’d been preparing for, and way better than my last surgery 14 years ago.

So here I am, the 10th day post op, I’ve been walking up and down the stairs, doing lots of exercises and walking outside a little bit further every day, all with my crutches. It truly is as amazing as everyone I’ve spoken to has said, and I feel like I have been oiled in my hip. I’ve also decided that I’m not a fraud, as my femoral head had grown itself a lovely lump of bone on it that was stopping movement, and had worn itself into an oval shape, which in turn had shortened my leg by up to an inch. I’m now the proud owner of legs the same length, bliss. Thank you so much Mr Benson.