Noisettes, shopping and Ellie Goulding

Hopefully this blog update wont be too long, fingers crossed :P

On Tue I received an email from my dietician at Hosp B in response to my weight. She was very happy and has suggested that I now check my weight fortnightly rather than weekly. That seems a bit premature to me as when she suggested that I'd only been off feeds for 3 weeks, so I said that I'll weigh myself as normal next Tue and if my weight is fine then I'll start weighing myself fortnightly. I will end up weighing myself the week after next anyway though before my joint clinic at Hosp A, so they'll have a weight from my scales then.

In the post this week I received a letter about the 21st birthday celebrations of the liver unit at Hosp B (which the small bowel transplant unit is part of) in the summer. It sounds like that might be instead of the small bowel family fun day this year :( We're not sure if we're going to go or not as it sounds like the talks will all be about liver transplants, rather than small bowel transplants, but I sent the form back to reserve us places so we can decide nearer the time. I think the social side of it would probably be good :)

This morning I received a letter from Hosp B asking me to have my bloods done at Hosp H next week. Not sure where we'll fit that in because I have quite a busy week planned, but I'm sure we will. And I'm going to request the more experienced phlebotomist this time :)

I had a headache from Tue morn til Thur morn but it wasn't too bad and Paracetamol helped. It was unusual for me though. ME doesn't seem to affect my walking (which it does for most people), but my legs are usually a bit sore when I climb stairs. Yesterday they hurt each time I climbed the stairs and were also a bit sore when I went out for a walk. Hopefully it's just a one-off thing, as they seem better today. And I'm still nocturnal :P I was up til about 4am last night, eek!

Imogen is now home after her transplant. I think she spent about 8 weeks in hospital. She couldn't wait to get back to her horse riding and is very happy now she's been able to do that :) Hospitals definitely do things differently, my consultant at Hosp B would be horrified if he knew anyone horse riding just 2 months after a small bowel transplant (because of the high immunosuppression involved at that stage)! Obviously her hospital are ok with it though.

On Wed my regional contact list arrived from AYME which contained the contact details of 10 people from AYME who live in my county and are interested in being part of the regional contact group. My job is to put them in touch with each other if they would like and to maybe organise some meet-ups. That day I wrote and sent out an email to each of them introducing myself. I've had a few responses already and was surprised to find that I've already spoken to some of them online, but didn't realise who they were. And I've recruited someone new to the group already :)

On Tue evening me and mum went out to see The Noisettes in concert. Mum drove us there in a horrible sleet/snow blizzard! Mum was a bit worried about finding the carpark because we usually use Park & Ride when we go into the city, so I don't think mum had ever actually driven in the city centre before. We found it ok though. Just outside the carpark we used some public toilets so we wouldn't have to queue for the ones at the venue. When we got into the venue we had a look at the merchandise for sale. I had thought about buying a t-shirt, but I didn't like the design on them as it wasn't clear that they said 'Noisettes' (the 'Noi' was on one line, the 'set' was underneath and the 'tes' was underneath that). Mum and me bought a small picture between us though.

Then we went to find our seats. We were quite far away from the stage (row O) upstairs, but we weren't too far away to see what was happening. The seats weren't very slopey though so we had to lean to see between heads. While we were waiting for the support acts and while they reset up the stage between each one, me and mum did a crossword together :) There were 2 support acts on before the Noisettes. Tinashe was the first support act and he wasn't bad at all. The second support act was a girl called Tiffany Page. Me and mum agreed that she had a good voice, but we didn't like her songs. Mum knitted through both the support acts in the dark! Lots of people kept coming in right up until the Noisettes started performing. I was surprised at how few children there were there, I saw some, but the audience was definitely mostly adults.

The Noisettes were great, much better than I expected. Their performance wasn't very fancy, but it definitely looked like they had fun. Shingai (the lead singer) had an amazing powerful voice and loads of energy. She also had a banana in her hair for part of the performance! And I was quite impressed that she only did one costume change. There were also the other 2 Noisettes (a guitarist and a drummer), an extra guitarist and 2 backing singers. The guitarist from the Noisettes was very impressive with a few guitar solos and even played the guitar with his teeth at one point! They performed 10 songs were from their current album Wild Young Hearts (all of the songs off that album but Beat of My Heart), 3 songs I didn't recognise but I think they might have been from their previous album which I don't have, 1 new song called I'm a Prisoner of Love and 3 covers - When We Were Young by The Killers, Chain Reaction by Diana Ross and a song I didn't know that might have been from a musical. I was surprised that there were so many songs in there that I didn't recognise, but they did do a long set with 17 songs in total. I didn't think it was a good idea for them to finish with one that was probably from the previous album and so nobody knew! For one of the last songs (Atticus) Shingai went into one of the boxes at the side of the stage and sang sitting on the edge of that and leaning out at some points. It was funny because before she leaned out each time a man also in the box grabbed her legs to stop her falling out. The best songs were definitely Don't Upset the Rhythm and Never Forget You because the audience knew them best.

After the concert we went in a nearby cafe so I could use the toilet because I didn't want to join the huge queues at the venue. I spotted someone I'd known from sixth form in there, but I didn't want to speak to her. Luckily she didn't see me. We also had drinks there before heading home. When we drove home there was no sign of the sleet and snow that had fallen earlier, but there was really thick fog! I'm so fed up of sleet and snow now, the novelty has completely worn off. Apparently though March is going to be cold, wet and there will probably be more snow!

I didn't go out on Wed but Chris and Sophie popped round that evening to use our Internet because they still haven't got theirs set up in their new cottage yet.

On Thur me and mum wanted to get out of the house, so decided to go into the city to wander round the shops. Mum drove to Park & Ride and then we got the bus into the city. In the Park & Ride carpark I saw windscreen wipers on the headlights of a posh car, which I thought was a very silly idea :P For some reason when we got on the bus we were told that the city centre was closed so we had to get off at a stop just out of the centre and walk in. Everything was fine by the time we got there though, so I'm not sure what that was all about. It was mostly nice weather while we were out, but it did rain at the end. I wore the supports in my shoes like I do every time I go out, but they're not helping at all. I think on Thur my feet were the most painful they've been with plantar fasciitis. And the balls of my feet were hurting as well as my heels :(

We stopped at 2 cafes while we were there. The first one was very nice and spacious and was in a converted church. I took my own sandwiches with me (because nowhere sells Marmite sandwiches) so sneakily ate them in there. The second cafe was one we'd not been in before. I asked for a drink of cold milk, like I usually do, and received a glass of milk with about 8 ice cubes in it! I can't have ice cubes because they're made from tap water, so mum explained this and the lady serving us removed the ice cubes. But I couldn't drink that milk because the ice cubes would have started to melt in it, so I had a new glass instead. Then mum discovered that her coffee was too strong, so the lady weakened it down for her. And when we paid mum paid with cash, but they only had a machine for cards in the front of the cafe, the till was in the back! So I imagine that the lady serving us must have thought we were very awkward customers! :P

In the city I bought Memoirs of a Geisha on DVD for Claire's birthday in April. I lent her the book to read recently and she really enjoyed that so I thought that she might like the film. I've seen it and thought that it was nearly as good as the book and definitely worth a watch. In a charity shop I found some DVDs that had originally been free with newspapers selling for just 25p each (I think that they shop keepers thought they were CDs). There weren't many but I bought 2 that I've not seen before - The Shawshank Redemption (which is supposed to be very good) and The Odd Couple (which mum thought I'd like). I also bought a great postcard from Oxfam that says "It would be nice if hospitals & schools had all the money they needed & the army had to hold jumble sales to buy guns". I nearly bought a lovely fair trade shirt but I tried it on and it wasn't comfy.

Mum bought some yarn to make a cushion for my uncle and aunt who's anniversary it was last weekend and a phases of the moon postcard. Together we picked a t-shirt for Alf's birthday which says "You're just jealous 'cos the little voices are talking to me".

I'd been thinking of getting Alf an iPod charger for his birthday because I'm fed up of him borrowing mine, but when I looked at the unofficial ones on Amazon I couldn't work out which ones would work with Alf's current iPod (my ancient black and white iPod mini). So I decided to look in the Apple store in the city to get him an official one. I quickly changed my mind when I discovered it would cost me £37 (£15 for a lead plus £22 for a plug)!!! So I'm going to give him an IOU and say that if he finds one on the Internet (for under £10) that will work with his iPod, then I'll buy it for him.

When we got back from the city my desk lamp broke. If only it had broken that morning, then I could have bought myself a new one while we were out. Now I don't currently have a working desk lamp.

Yesterday I helped mum out with a supermarket shop where I bought myself a DVD called No Reservations. And in the evening Claire came round for tea and to play on the Wii with me :) We played on New Super Mario Bros Wii again, but I got quite frustrated with it. You can only save your progress at certain save points (every 4 or 5 levels), so if you get a game over before a save point you then have to repeat everything since the last save point. We were almost at the next save point but then got a game over. Grrrr. So next time we'll have to start from the previous save point and repeat 4 hard levels!

Since my last update I've also played on Super Mario Galaxy on my Wii. I was really pleased to make more progress with that because I thought I was completely stuck. And I've played on Picross DS a bit more too. I also heard release dates for 2 games I'm looking forward to later this year - Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Wii and WarioWare: DIY for the DS.

Today me and mum were invited to Claire's to meet her parents, but I don't feel up to going as I'm very tired. So I'm just going to stay in today and try to conserve my energy for the Mika concert tomorrow.

Alf was trying to put as little effort into vacuuming as possible one evening this week, so was dragging the vacuum cleaner around by the pipe bit and it broke. Dad was very cross at him.

I'm a bit fed up of Alf at the moment because he keeps downloading huge files off the Internet and when he's downloading the Internet goes frustratingly slow for the other computers in the house. And if I ask him if he can pause the download so I can use the Internet he gets grumpy with me.

On Thur eve I asked my mum a bit about her mum because she died when I was young so I don't remember her at all. It was interesting to find out more about her.

I heard in the news a few days ago that a killer whale in Sea World Florida had killed a trainer. You can see the latest article about it here and there are links to previous articles on the right hand side of the page. It's something that has really got me thinking and I've been talking to my mum a bit about it. When we went to Florida 2 years ago we were given tickets for Sea World but I didn't want to go because I don't think that keeping wild animals in captivity and making them perform for our entertainment is right. I don't think the killer whale is to blame at all for what happened, I think it was just a tragic accident. But I do believe that humans are to blame for keeping the whale in captivity. It must get so bored in such an artificial environment. Apparently killer wales don't kill humans in the wild, but often do in captivity. That doesn't surprise me. What does surprise me is that that specific killer whale had already been responsible for the deaths of 2 people, yet trainers were still interacting with it. I was very glad to hear that the whale isn't going to be killed, but it worries me that it will still be involved in shows. I suspect the same thing will just happen again.

I found this funny article on the BBC news website yesterday. The comments are very interesting too.

I've watched a few DVDs since my last update. I rewatched the Tim Burton version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for the first time I watched The 40 Year Old Virgin and Music and Lyrics. The 40 Year Old Virgin was a weird film, but very funny in place. Music and Lyrics was a predictable romantic comedy but it was better than I expected and quite original.

Me and Claire have decided that we are going to try to go to the cinema to see The Lovely Bones, despite the mixed reviews, as we want to make our own minds up about it. And with mum we're looking forward to seeing Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland once it's released into cinemas. You can see an interview by Fearne Cotton with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp here and they were both also interviewed on last night's Friday Night With Jonathan Ross which I've not seen yet, but you can watch here.

On TV since my last update I watched an episode of One Born Every Minute and Film 2010. And I watched an episode of Tracy Beaker Returns that I'd recorded. I've recorded quite a bit that I need to catch up on. I've also watched bits on the music channels, including new videos from Robbie Williams - Morning Sun (I like the song more than his last 2, but don't really like the video) and Scouting for Girls - This Aint A Love Song (which I quite like).

Before the Noisettes concert me and mum listened to their latest album a few times in preparation. And since then I've been listening to Mika to get ready for Sun :D On Tue I posted off the 2 Mika tickets that I sold on eBay (postage on PayPal) and have heard that they've been received. I'm currently chasing up someone who said they wanted to buy the final spare ticket from me. I've also listened to Marina and the Diamonds' album more too :)

On Tue I preordered Ellie Goulding's debut album, Lights, from Zavvi. They said they'd dispatch it in time to reach me for the official release date on Mon, but I received it yesterday (3 days early!). I listened to it 4 times yesterday and think it's very good. I think I knew 5 out of the 10 songs already from listening to them on Youtube and seeing her live. I can't decide on my favourite song from her album, it keeps changing. I think my favourite right at this moment is Wish I Stayed, but I also really like Under The Sheets, Starry Eyed (which will hopefully chart well on Sun, fingers crossed) and This Love (Will Be Your Downfall). I heard Ellie Goulding interviewed and performing a couple of songs on Radio 2 on Thur which you can listen to here (sorry I'm not sure how far through it is). And I found some videos with her on Orange - this is an interview and this is behind the scenes of her latest music video, but I've not had chance to watch them yet.