Sat 22 - Sun 23 August - Manuals, Bad Tummy, Sunday Morning Allotment, Nat's Coming Home, Deb's Leg!

Back to work last night and I was on Manuals; glad of this as I've got the most frightful tummy ache and it's reassuring to know I can run for the loo whenever I need. Morning was a long time coming but come it eventually did. Once home I watched Big Brother 10, Marcus gets funnier by the day and it's fascinating to watch housemates like Lisa start to open up as they make their run towards the finishing post. Lisa, in particular, seems to be have had a personality transplant. All of a sudden she's outgoing and supportive of all. Sophie opened up in the diary room and came over as far more than a silicone enhanced bimbo but my money's still on the Dark Horse himself... go Marcus!

Nat's at Scout Cowboy camp this weekend so wasn't home, here are some photos from when we dropped him off on Friday
It looks like it's gonna be lots of fun, but getting any details, of what he did, from him will be like getting blood from a stone. I'm still waiting for details Re: Beaumanor Hall and the Sailing Week in Redditch. Here's a link to Willesly Campsite where Cowboy Camp is being held. I WANT A TIME MACHINE SO I CAN TRAVEL BACK AND BRING MINI ME TO THE FUTURE OR I WANT MY CHILDHOOD AGAIN!!!! .
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NATS REPORT

Friday 21st Wannado Wild west Camp 2009

Went to Willesley scout camp for 6.30 - first there - as usual

PUT UP TENTS - 1 big tent for cooking and 3 small tents - 7 scouts - in my tent Me, josh, sam and lewis and josh teddy named Yoshi and in other tent adam, regan and robin. 3rd tent for leaders - thankfully ben didn't show up - he was ill

went to opening speach then had free time - at 7pm watched film 3 amigos and had bag of chips from burger van, open air big screen

went to bed 10 ish

Saturday

breakfast bacon, sausage, eggy bread, tea

activities - Navaho zone - spider mountain followed by bouncy slide, gladiators greasy pole and other inflatables, followed by spider mountain again

lunch - sandwiches and crisps - ate at tents

Gold Rush zone - gokarts, night line, cooking (cowboy stew), go karting

tea - chicken stir fry, juice

free time - 7pm movie about mexican rustler and bag of chips

bed 10pm

Sunday

breakfast - sausage bacon beans eggy bread coffee

me regan josh and sam names frawn out of hat to go sailing - only 12 places
went to conkers - shared boat with Josh - because we were best ssailors we got the camp teddy and had our photos taken on our boat - I was holding the teddy

I fell in on purpose

Lunch at tents

Free time could do anything in Gold Rush or Navahoe zone - I did mountain biking, zip wire, climbing,

tea - chilli and rice

cowboy festival - chilli cooking contest - free time - barn dance with live band. someone put 2 tins of beans in camp fire which exploded just missing a leader.
collected at 8.50
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Anyway, after BB had finished, we three made for the allotment, to pick some veg, kill some caterpillars and do a bit of digging. Deb tackled the caterpillars, I turned over the potatoes and Han helped out. We chatted with Trevor, has 2 allotments just down from ours, and Han went and helped him pick the plums from his trees. In return for this she received a carrier bag full of juicy ripe plums. In addition we picked our own so we had plums coming out of our arses. I'll be taking a load of these to work tonight. I uncovered quite a few missed potatoes when I dug over the plot Deb had already harvested and Deb collected hundreds, I kid you not, of caterpillars. We harvested, the plums, some blackberries and raspberries, a crated of runner beans, 2 sacks of onions, a load of purple runner beans, some tomatoes and a butternut squash as well as the potatoes I'd unearthed. Not bad for 90 minutes although Han managed, in addition, to collect a substantial number of nettle stings on hers legs; luckily we have masses of doc leaves so treatment was immediate and fairly effective. So, home for a beer, two episodes of Booze Britain and then too bed. I tried to listen to a few podcasts but invariably nodded off awakening only to have a piss! I did manage to catch up on most of my backlog of PRI's The World: Technology Podcast
Guess what we had for dinner? Here are some more photos
of what we came back with and Han's legs, unfortunately I didn't get any of her on the ladder harvesting the plums because I was facing away at the time and didn't know what she was doing.

Deb dropped me off at work at about 7:45; she and Han then headed off to pick up Nat; later I received a text from Deb letting me know that they had arrived home safe, I wasn't expecting her to remember to send it. So far we've been quite busy tonight, must be cold in Scotland because people are putting on their central heating, for the first time in months, on and discovering that it's not working! I must have taken a half dozen calls from Glasgow already tonight.

*** Deb's Leg

Deb's been suffering with Sciatica for over a year with almost total loss of feeling in her right leg, other than for pain of course, and it's getting no better. in addition she now seems to be getting extreme reactions to an insect bites on that leg. I've told her that she really needs to go back to the surgery and press for some treatment regime. If you don't ask you don't get and the situations gone beyond a joke.
Sciatica (or sciatic neuritis)[1] is a set of symptoms including pain that may be caused by general compression and/or irritation of one of five nerve roots that give rise to the sciatic nerve, or by compression or irritation of the sciatic nerve itself. The pain is felt in the lower back, buttock, and/or various parts of the leg and foot. In addition to pain, which is sometimes severe, there may be numbness, muscular weakness, pins and needles or tingling and difficulty in moving or controlling the leg. Typically, the symptoms are only felt on one side of the body.

Although sciatica is a relatively common form of low back pain and leg pain, the true meaning of the term is often misunderstood. Sciatica is a set of symptoms rather than a diagnosis for what is irritating the root of the nerve, causing the pain. This point is important, because treatment for sciatica or sciatic symptoms will often be different, depending upon the underlying cause of the symptoms.