2009 Meme

Thanks Posh Totty for this meme :)

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before? ... Managed for 6 months without artificial feeds. And I went away with school for 10 days without any artificial feeds and without my parents :D

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? .... I don't think I made any this year. I'm not sure I'll make any resolutions for next year, but I do have hopes that you can see on this blog post.

3. How will you be spending New Year's Eve? ... I will be spending the afternoon at the orthodontist :( I was invited to a sixth form meet-up that night, but am not well enough to go so will probably spend the night at home watching TV.

4. Did anyone close to you die? ... No

5. What countries did you visit? ... Japan :D

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? ... More energy

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? ... That's a hard question, I really don't know about a specific date, but my memories of Japan will stay with me.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? ... Completing my International Baccalaureate Certificates :)

9. What was your biggest failure? ... At the time dropping maths at school seemed like a failure, but looking back on it dropping a subject was the only way I could keep going at school while I was ill. And I'm really disappointed that I wasn't photographed for the Gifts of Life photography exhibition, but that was out of my control.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? ... Yup, ME. But that was ongoing from 2008.

11. What was the best thing you bought? ... A sofa and bigger TV (with an inbuilt DVD player) for my bedroom. And my new laptop :D

12. Where did most of your money go? ... DVDs

13. What song will always remind you of 2009? ... I'm not sure about specific songs, but I've enjoyed discovering some fantastic albums this year including 'Funhouse' by Pink, 'It's Not Me It's You' by Lily Allen 'Hands' by Little Boots, 'Taylor Swift' and 'Fearless' by Taylor Swift, 'The Boy Who Knew Too Much' by Mika, 'Turn It Up' by Pixie Lott and 'Overcome' by Alexandra Burke.

14. What do you wish you'd done more of? ... I know I should have rested more to stop my ME getting worse, but I can't just do nothing.

15. What do you wish you'd done less of? .... I know I shouldn't have overdone it so much, which lead to my ME getting worse. But what would I have missed out on then?

16. What was your favourite TV program? ... I rediscovered Absolutely Fabulous on DVD. And Ashes to Ashes series 2 was great.

17. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? ... Don't think so.

18. What was the best book you read? ... I've not been able to read novels this year because of my poor concentration and memory :(

19. What was your greatest musical discovery? ... Taylor Swift, Little Boots and Pixie Lott.

20. What was your favourite film of this year? ... At the cinema - The Proposal, My Sister's Keeper. The Hangover and Up 3D I think. And of course, how could I forget Coraline! :D I've watched loads of DVDs too, but can't remember specifics. Recently I've really enjoyed watching Memoirs of a Geisha and Girl Interrupted though.

21. What did you do on your birthday? ... Claire came round so I spent the day with her and my family watching DVDs, playing games and Dad cooked tea on a BBQ. I also took Claire to meet my nan for the first time.

22. What kept you sane? ... My family and friends

23. Who did you miss? ... I often miss my best friend Lizzy because she lives 80 miles away so I'm not able to see her as often as I'd like to.

24. Who was the best new person you met? ... I can't just name one, but I've met some amazing people though the online ME communities I've joined.

25. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009: ... ME is frustrating, but it's not the end of the world. It won't kill me and I will get better, I just don't know when, so need to try to be more patient til then.

Overdue update

Sorry it's been a while since my last update. I was surprised that my last update hasn't had any comments yet. I don't mind people not commenting, but if a post doesn't get any comments then it makes me wonder whether anyone has read it or not. So if you missed my last blog update, please have a look here. Thanks.

My sleep hasn't been very good this week as I'm still very nocturnal. I've been going to sleep between midnight and 1am, but have been struggling to get up before 10/10.30am most days. Usually I sleep well through the night and when I wake I get back to sleep very quickly, but on Mon night/Tue morn I was awake for about an hour in the early morning, which is very unusual for me. And I had a very rude awakening early Thur morn when I woke to discover one of the caps had come open on my NG tube so the feed that was supposed to be going into me was actually being pumped all over me and my bed!!

My tummy aches haven't been too bad at all this week, so I suspect rice may have been one of the triggers. But I am still getting them a bit.

On Tue my weight was up 0.9kg to 50.7kg, yay! :D We're not reducing my feeds again yet though as I might lose some weight over the next few days with my hospital admission, so we'll wait to see how my weight goes.

I'm going into Hosp B tomorrow til Tue for routine tests. Dad will be staying with me, which I'm a bit nervous about because I'm not sure that he understands my ME (I think he often thinks that I'm just being lazy). I'll be staying in the hotel at night and will be on the transplant ward on Sun, but on the medical day unit (MDU) on Mon and Tue. The hotel has free wireless broadband in the rooms, so I'm hoping to take my laptop with me and access the Internet on it in the evenings if I get chance. I have to be on the transplant ward for midday tomorrow for bloods. I can't remember if I mentioned this in a recent blog or not, but a little girl called M who had her transplant shortly after mine and was in for her assessment when I had my transplant is currently very ill with severe rejection in Hosp B. I think she's 4 and she'd been doing fantastically until about 3 weeks ago when she suddenly became very ill. So her and her mum are currently on the transplant ward in Hosp B. So I'm hoping to see them on Sun, but I do wish it was under better circumstances. Get well soon M.

Then Sun aft/eve we'll go to the hotel where I'll watch the X Factor final :D Tue I've got to be on the MDU for 8am (eeek!) for my scopes (endoscopy and colonoscopy) which I'll be having under GA. The scopes are to check the health of my transplanted bowel and to see if a cause can be found for my tummy pains. I've had loads (50+) anaesthetics before with no problems, but I'm a bit nervous about this one because my last one may have triggered my ME and I know sometimes GAs can cause the health of people with ME to decline. Then Tue I will be having a kidney test because my immunosuppressant (Tacrolimus) can damage the kidneys, so my kidneys just need to be monitored. And after that I'll be allowed home :D

I made a list of what I needed to pack for my hospital stay, so the actual packing was easy :) And I had some worries and concerns, but after talking them through with mum yesterday I now feel better about them.

On Tue I tried again to reschedule my ESA medical assessment, but again I couldn't get through on the phone. So that day I wrote and posted a letter to them asking them to phone me to reschedule it because I couldn't get through to them on the phone. I'm still waiting to hear, but if they don't phone mum while I'm away in hospital, then I'll try them again when I get home.

On Thur I heard that an old friend, I, from Hosp G had just gone on the transplant list. She isn't life threateningly ill, but has a very poor quality of life at the moment on TPN. So she's opted for a small bowel transplant to hopefully improve her quality of life. I think I mentioned a while ago that she was really struggling with the decision because animals are her life and they are a risk after transplant. She wont be having her transplant at Hosp B or Hosp A though, she'll be having it at a different hospital which has only just started doing small bowel transplants.

On Tue morn my new laptop was delivered, so I spent most of the day playing with it and I love it :D However I think my new laptop deserves a post of it's own, so I'll try to write that post soon :) Mum's friend Jilly came for lunch on Tue, so I had a break from my new laptop then to join them for lunch. And Tue eve I rang Lizzy for a chat and hopefully we'll be able to see her and her family between Christmas and New Year :D

On Wed aft me and mum went to visit nan in hospital. All her scans so far have come back clear, so she's waiting for yet more tests and scans. She's in good spirits though and has relatives visiting her every day :) Then there was an infection on the ward, so I've not visited my nan again since just in case I was to pick something up before I went into hospital. The infection has cleared up now though so if she's still in hospital next week I'll start visiting her again. No-one knows yet how long she'll be in for. And then Wed eve Claire came round which was lovely. And we had loads of fun and laughs playing on New Super Mario Bros Wii together :D

On Thur I arranged for an old friend to come round yesterday aft. But she's not very reliable so I wasn't really surprised when she cancelled at midday yesterday. So yesterday aft me and mum went into town instead :) I bought another Christmas present for nan (a calendar titled 'For My Nan' which contains sentimental verses - she'll love it), a birthday present for Lizzy's birthday in March and 2 DVDs for myself at bargain prices from a charity shop :D

Today I've not been doing much, but I had great fun playing on New Super Mario Bros Wii with my dad earlier :D He kept telling me he had no idea what was going on though :P

Tonight I've had a great TV night :D First I watched Cheryl Cole's Night In which was quite good :) I think Cheryl Cole's new single, 3 Words, is awful though! :P Then I watched The X Factor. I'm really pleased that Joe got through as he's my favourite, but I'm disappointed that Stacey went out as I really liked her. I think she should have got through instead of Olly. I hope Joe wins tomorrow, fingers crossed. And now I'm watching The Xtra Factor :)

On TV this week I 've also watched Mika at Mencap's Little Noise Sessions, Alesha Dixon: Who's You Daddy?, Film 2009, Kidnapped by the Kids and The Restaurant. I can't believe how this series of The Restaurant is going. There are now 2 couples left in the competition and the final will be on Thur. The chef in one of the couples can't cook! And in the other couple the chef serves cold food and the front of house is really rude! There weren't many decent couples in it to start with, but they've all gone out leaving 2 rubbish couples in the final.

I've watched a couple of DVDs this week. I watched S Club Carnival which brought back loads of memories as they were my favourite group when I was younger and I even saw them live in 1999! And I watched a disappointing film called Scrooged and an amazing film that I'd highly recommend called Girl Interrupted.

I watched a Vicar of Dibley episode from my boxset and have been waiting for the next series of Absolutely Fabulous from the library. I ordered it just over a week ago and it was on the shelf in a library in my county, so I don't know why I've not received it yet. I'm a bit disappointed because I was going to take it into hospital with me, but never mind. I'll take some Vicar of Dibley episodes with me instead as well as a film or two.

Pixie Lott's Turn It Up CD arrived on Fri, so I've put that on my iPod now so I can listen to it while I'm in hospital :) My favourite songs from it are currently Band Aid, Turn It Up and Here We Go Again. I currently really like Alexandra Burke's Overcome album on Spotify and her next single - Broken Heels.

I mentioned before that I'd been attempting to read a children's book called Coraline, but was struggling with it because of my poor concentration and memory. I gave up on it and sent it back to the library last night. I have flicked through and read little bits of a really interesting book about Tim Burton's films though :)

In the post on Tue I received my official International Baccalaureate certificate :D This week we've also received quite a few Christmas cards and this morning I received a parcel containing my Foggy Friends Secret Santa present :D

When I get home from hospital next week we'll be putting our Christmas decorations up. Yay! :D Then hopefully I'll start feeling more Christmassy :)

My friend Holly C (whose blogs you can read here and here) is a brilliant photographer and she has just set up an online shop to sell some of her work which you can have a look at here.

Getting organised for Christmas and nan

My sleep pattern is very messed up again :( Since my last update I've fallen asleep at 2am, 2am, 3am and 1am. And in the mornings I've got up between 10am and 11.30am. I'm really struggling to get up in the mornings and so am missing most of each morning as a result :( Usually the only reason I eventually get up is because I need to take my morning tablets! And so I just seem to be exhausted at the mo. But my tummy aches seem a bit better without eating rice :)

On Thur we had a new tumble dryer delivered. Mum is very happy that she can now dry clothes in the winter as our old tumble dryer broke ages ago! And Thur was also dad's 60th birthday! We had a nice evening when he got back in from work and mum cooked him fish soup for a birthday tea. Me and Alf had pasta though as we didn't fancy the fish soup :P Dad liked his presents - a Neil Young DVD from me, a Leonard Cohen CD and an IOU for swimming trunks from mum, some figs from Alf, a hamper from neighbours, some money from nan and a fishing gadget thing from himself!

Fri was a busy day. In the morning I took some blood at home with a fingerprick to test the level of Tacolimus (my immunosupressant) in my blood and then posted that off to Hosp B for them to process. While I was at the post office, mum went to the surgery to sort out some of my prescriptions. Then we went to Hosp H for my regular bloods, so Hosp B can have the results before I go in. There was quite a long wait, but I saw a nice phlebotomist who got the blood easily. And she remembered me from a while ago, but I didn't remember her!

Next we headed to Tesco and ate our sandwiches in the car in the car park. And then I helped mum with a huge (2 hour) Tesco shop! I bought a nice purple fleece and a Dr Who DVD boxset. Before heading home we had drinks in the cafe :)

On Sat I finished writing all my Christmas cards (63 in total I think) and also wrapped and parcelled up 6 gifts to post (including 2 Secret Santas for the online AYME forums I use).

I also had a look at some reviews for my new laptop on the Internet. I probably ought to have done that before I bought it! :P The reviews were mostly positive apart from the laptop having poor battery life (just over 2 hours), although it will still be better than current battery life (under 2 hours). Apparently it has good speakers, doesn't overheat (so wont burn me when sitting with it on my knee), a good keyboard, a good monitor, is fast... Sounds good :)

Yesterday Claire came round in the afternoon/evening. We had a nice time despite me not feeling too well and Claire having a bad hangover, lol! :P Alf had some homework from college that involved drawing a diagram of a fish and its insides and labelling it, so Claire (who is artistic) drew a very nice fish called Freda for him :)

Today I discovered that my new laptop will be delivered tomorrow morning! I'm so excited :D I think the most exciting thing might be being able to turn my new laptop on with an 'on' button as the 'on' button snapped and fell out of my old laptop a couple of years ago! Today I've backed up all my files onto my external hard drive ready to transfer to my new laptop tomorrow. I'm going to give my old laptop to Alf and he's looking forward to taking it apart to see if there is anything good inside it that he can add to his computer! My new laptop will be delivered between 8am and 1pm tomorrow :D Because mum is going out to work at 9.30am I'll have to get up by then, which might be a challenge! :P But it'll be worth it as I'm sure I'll enjoy playing with my new laptop tomorrow :D

At the end of last week I received a letter through the post with a new date for my ESA medical assessment - Dec 23rd!!! That's too close to Christmas for my liking, I don't want to be worrying about how it went over Christmas. I tried to phone up to reschedule it today but every time I tried I got an engaged tone, grrrr. So I'll try again tomorrow. I also received a new physio appt through the post (as I didn't manage to make my previous one) for Dec 18th.

This afternoon I went to the post office to post most of my Christmas cards (just over 40 I think) and the 6 parcels I'd prepared. Sending them all second class cost me over £21!! I also put some Christmas cards in the box for the scouts to deliver around the village, topped up my phone and bought the Christmas Radio Times :)

This afternoon me and mum also visited my nan in hospital. Since she had the fall where she broke her wrist and bumped her head a few weeks ago she's been having funny spells where she feels nauseus and dizzy and gets a pain in her head. She didn't mention them to her doctor. But she had a bad one yesterday morning, so dad took her to Hospital H to get checked out. She spent most of yesterday in the assessment unit having various tests and dad stayed with her for most of the day. Then last night she was given a bed on a different ward and told she'd need to be admitted for a few days for some scans. So me and mum visited her this afternoon. She was ok in herself, just a bit fed up with being in hospital. Me and mum cheered her up though. And then as she left she was going for a CT scan of her brain. Dad then visited her this evening when she was more cheerful :) She'll hopefully be having a heart scan at some point tomorrow, so hopefully we'll know a bit more soon. Dad's brother will visit her tomorrow afternoon and his sister will visit her tomorrow evening. There was a very funny conversation between mum and dad and dad's brother on the phone this evening when dad phoned to tell his brother about nan. Dad's brother works with wood so is going to make mum some giant knitting needles! My family are mad! :P

This evening I had my second swine flu jab. Apparently it shouldn't be as sore this time because it's my second one, fingers crossed. I'm going to take some Paracetamol before bed though just in case.

My village's Christmas lights were turned on last week. There was no occassion made of the switching on this year (we usually have a funfair in the high street before the switch on) and I just noticed that they'd been turned on when I walked to the post box one evening last week. They look nice though and definitely make me feel more Christmassy :) Some people in our street have horrible lights and flashing things up though! We will be putting our tree and decorations up when I get back from my annual tests at Hosp B (13th to 15th) :)

I got my first Christmas card at the end of last week (and still my only one so far) and surprisingly it was from my AYME buddy. She also included a letter which was lovely as I'd not expected her to respond to my letters :) And a bit embarrassingly her name is actually Kate, not Katie as I'd been told :P

I'm hoping to attend an AYME Christmas meet-up on the afternoon of Dec 20th. I thought I'd have to get the train into London and then the train out again, but dad has volunteered to drive me to a train station a little bit further away from us and then I can get a direct train to the meet-up. I've been chatting to the girl who is organising it and the rest of the people attending don't use the AYME forums, so I'm not going to know them. I think most of them will be a bit older than me too. But if I feel well enough I think I'm going to be brave and go along to meet some new people :)

I've been thinking recently that I'd like to have a tattoo. I've been looking at designs on the Internet and quite like the idea of a butterfly or a Japanese character. I'm not sure though and have been having second thoughts because Claire has had one and regrets it. I'm also not sure what Dr G (my Hosp B) consultant would say. I suspect he'd say no because it's a risk and he doesn't like his patients taking risks - for example, I'm not allowed a pet. A friend of mine who has also had a transplant and is under the same consultant has a tattoo though, but I'm not sure if she asked permission or not. Hmmmm. It's something I'll have a think about and I might ask my consultant's opinion on it when I see him next week.

I've watched quite a lot of TV again :P I watched:

• The Restaurant - I was surprised no-one was eliminated, seems like a bit of a cop out to me! I was flicking through next week's Radio Times and it says who makes the final of The Restaurant! I don't think that's fair to publish that when the semi-final still hasn't been shown on TV. So now I know who'll go out this week! :(
  
• Never Mind the Buzzcocks - I enjoyed this because it was X Factor themed - Dermot was the host and Aston (from JLS) was one of the guests :D I wasn't so happy with one of the teams saying Pink was rubbish though :(
  
• Have I Got News For You - I don't usually understand this programme, but tried to watch this episode because Jo Brand was on it. I didn't understand it though and so didn't watch it all.
• X Factor and X Factor Results - Yay at the results! Just what I wanted :D Glad Danyl has gone, as he annoyed me and I didn't like his performance of my favourite Michael Jackson song (Man In The Mirror) on Sat. I thought Stacey and Joe were the best on Sat. I hope Joe wins, Stacey comes second and Olly comes third :) If anyone reading this is a fan of Joe, like me, you can download the audio files of his X Factor performances here - I've put them on my iPod :) I thought Lady Gaga's performance was definitely a talking point of Sun's programme. She is very weird! And Janet Jackson's performance was poor - her miming was awful and it was just dull!
  
• Xtra Factor - I started watching this on Sat and Sun, but my concentration didn't last.
  
• Something for the Weekend - It had Pixie Lott on it and I like her :)
• Alan Titchmarch - The Radio Times said it would have Pixie Lott on but it didn't :( I did enjoy watching Ed Byrne (who I saw live at Save Jess-tival) and June Whitfield (who I've seen in Absolutely Fabulous) being interviewed on it though :)
  
• Gadget Show - I'm still trying to watch this each week, but it just doesn't keep my concentration any more.
• QI - Tonight's episode about animals beginning with the letter 'G' was very funny :)
  

Since my last update I've also watched the entire series 3 of Absolutely Fabulous on DVD and the Vicar of Dibley Easter and Christmas specials :D They were in the wrong order on the DVD though as I discovered when a character was dead in the one episode and died in the next! And I've watched 2 quite good films called The Polar Express and Ghost Town :)

I've listened to an assortment on Spotify - The Noisettes, Michael Buble, Alicia Keys... And after listening to Pixie Lott more I've bought her album at last so I can have it on my iPod when I go into hospital :D

Cancelled ESA medical and weight

I think the biggest news since my last update is that my ESA medical assessment was cancelled at the last minute this morning by them, not me! Grrrr. I wasn't looking forward to it and had been feeling quite nervous, but I felt I was as ready as I could be and just wanted to get it over and done with. And I'd got all organised with getting all my recent medical letters together, printing out a list of my tablets, asking for tips on the ME forums I used and printing out the most useful ones... They were very apologetic about cancelling it, but gave no reason for it. And they'll send me out another appointment via post.

Yesterday I weighed myself like I do every week. Because I'd not been feeling very well for the last week I suspected I might have lost a little bit of weight, but I'd lost 1.3kg in a week (my weight dropped from 51.1kg to 49.8kg)! I think that's more weight than I even lost in a week when I had a tummy bug! I'd had all the high calorie drinks I should have done and I don't think I'd skipped any meals, but I might have had smaller portions than normal, so was surprised by that. Although it was my first week with just 3 nights a week of feed. I wonder if it was a fluid thing because I know I'd not been drinking enough (although I've been really making more of an effort with that today). I was worried about emailing my dietician, but she was lovely as always :) She said she was sorry I'd been ill, said well done for continuing to manage the high calorie drinks and hoped that I was soon feeling better. She wasn't worried about my weight and said to stay on the same plan (3 nights of feed per week) and see how my weight is next Tue. And she'll see me when I'm in Hosp B in a week and a half. So if she's not worried, I'm not worried :)

I had a bad night's sleep on Sun night as I woke every couple of hours for various reasons (overheating, pump alarming because I lay on the tube, needing the toilet, not being able to breathe properly because of my cold...) and each time it took me a little while to get back to sleep. As a result of that I was very tired on Mon and because my cold, sore throat and cough were bad too I cancelled my physio appointment at Hosp A for that afternoon (they'll post me out a new appt). I've felt better in myself yesterday and today, but am not back to normal (how I was before the virus) just yet. And I'm still quite nocturnal :P

On Mon I went into town for a few hours with mum and completed my Christmas shopping, yay! :D I also bought a new bedside lamp too. It is a touch lamp and has 3 brightness settings like my last one, but it's white. I'm going to try to find a purple shade for it though :) Mum didn't have any luck finding Dad a birthday present, so is going to give him an IOU. She wanted to get him some swimming trunks as he has said he's going to take swimming lessons to improve his swimming skills and get fit. But the only big baggy swimming trunks in his size in town were either red and white or black with yellow monkeys on them! And dad would appreciate black or dark blue ones best.

We got back to the car in the supermarket car park and discovered a parking ticket on the windscreen. We had payed and displayed, but our ticket must have blown off the dashboard and onto the floor of the car when we got out! So mum went to find the ticket man who we'd just walked past, but he said he couldn't do anything there and then. So mum had to send off a photocopy of our ticket, the parking ticket and a covering letter and she shouldn't have to pay the £35 or £50 fine!

Mon eve and Tue I was quite productive and caught up with lots of emails and sent another letter to my AYME buddy Katie. A lovely AYME friend sent me some paper snowflakes she'd made, so I included some with my letter to Katie (as well as some of my photos) and kept 2 for myself. Another lovely AYME friend sent me some bracelets she'd made, so again I'm going to send a few to Katie in my next letter and might keep a couple for myself :) Unfortunately the friend who sent the bracelets hadn't put the right amount of stamps on the envelope so there was a bit of difficulty sorting that out and we had to pay a small amount of money, but we did get it sorted eventually in the end.

Tomorrow lots of things seem to be happening at once. It'll be my dad's 60th birthday so we'll be having a birthday tea for him, our new tumble dryer will be delivered in the morning, mum is giving a 2 hour talk about knitting at a local library in the afternoon, Alf might be going to a party at his college if he can sort lifts out... It may all go fine, but I can imagine tomorrow being a bit of a disjointed day especially with everyone coming and going.

Mum received a phone call from Alf's tutor this evening. Apparently Alf is very disruptive in lessons and messes around a lot. And he doesn't meet deadlines with his work. But Alf has always been like that and I'm sure he always will be. Fingers crossed he'll manage to complete college as he does enjoy it and wants to be there.

This evening my Aunt's partner brought round a present for dad's birthday tomorrow - 4 dead pheasants!! So they're in the garage and mum will give them to dad tomorrow. It sounds an odd gift, but my dad will love them. He'll prepare them in the garage (like he does with pheasants, pigeons, rabbits etc that neighbours and friends give him) and then mum will cook something nice with them :) My family are unusual, but I like it :P

I checked the status of my laptop order yet again today and its status has now changed from 'in production' to 'shipping', so that sounds promising. There is a link I should be able to click on to find out more about its delivery, but when I click the link I just get an error message. However I have found out through the website that I will receive a phone call or email within 4 business days of the status changing to 'shipping' to let me know when it'll be delivered! :D So hopefully it'll arrive before the 14th, fingers crossed. I'll keep you updated.

Yesterday evening I went to the cinema with my dad to see Paranormal Activity. I thought it'd terrify me, but it didn't. It wasn't too scary, but it was very well made and me and dad both really enjoyed it :D Today I had a relaxing day because I didn't have to go out after my ESA medical was cancelled, so this morning me and mum watched one of my rental DVDs called The Santa Clause, which was good :)

On TV since my last update I've skimmed through a recorded This Morning to see The Noisettes, but despite the Radio Times saying they'd be performing on it, they weren't. I've also watched T4's Stars of 2009, JLS at 1Xtra Live, some of The Killers Live at the Royal Albert Hall (and I'm looking forward to watching more of it), various things on the music channels and a programme where modern music acts performed The Carpenters songs (most of the performances were great and performed live to the studio audience, especially The Feeling and The Noisettes, but The Saturdays mimed!). And I've watched An Island Parish, Tonight: Who Wants to be a Teacher (interesting subject but boring presentation), The Gadget Show (well I watched some of it til I lost interest), Film 2009 and Mark Lawson talks to Jane Horrocks. And I'm looking forward to watching Never Mind the Buzzcocks tonight :)

I've been using Spotify loads and have recently listened to Pixie Lott's album a few more times, Robbie Williams' latest album, JLS' album, both of The Saturdays albums and The Feeling's second album, which I love :D

On Facebook today I've been given links to 2 great YouTube interviews about organ donation. This is by Holly and this is by Rachael. Please have a look and forward onto others to raise awareness of the need for organ donation. Thanks.

Virus and new laptop! :D

Sorry it's been a little while since my last update, I've not been feeling very well for a few days. I thought I was just taking a while to recover after my busy day on Mon, but on Wed night I think I developed a headache. I rarely get headaches and even if I do they usually go very quickly or after taking some painkillers. But this one lasted for 3 whole days and both Paracetamol and Codeine made no difference :( And for most of the time I had the headache, using screens, such as going on the Internet on my laptop or watching TV made it worse. It got better and worse during those 3 days, but at it's worst I was in tears with it. I was a bit worried as I'd not had a headache that severe since when I was in hospital after my transplant 3 years ago. Then they suspected menigitis, but a lumbar puncture showed it wasn't, so it was just blamed on a reaction to the anaesthetic. And I know headaches can be an ME symptom, so was also concerned that it might just be a sign of my ME getting worse. But after I'd had the headache for about a day my glands became swollen, my throat was sore and I just wanted to sleep. So it looked like I had a virus. For 3 days I did very little and slept for about 12 hours each night and then went back to bed for about 3 hours during the day. But this morning I woke up feeling much better and my headache had finally gone :) My glands have gone down, but my throat is a bit sore, I have a cough and might have a cold coming on. But I'm so happy that my headache has gone :D And I've not slept during the day today either.

And I'd like to thank R for finding out that I was not feeling very well either through Facebook or AYME and sending me some lovely texts :)

Cutting out rice hasn't made my tummy pains stop. I think they might have been a bit better, but I'm still getting them. I'm not sure if that could be because I've been drinking my high calorie drinks too quickly though.

I received a letter in the post on Thur saying that my current ESA medical certificate was about to run out, so I needed a new one from my GP. Luckily my GP is great, so I emailed him on Thur morn and then he replied later saying that it would be ready to pick up on Fri. I didn't feel well enough to go out on Fri, so mum picked it up for me and posted it off. Hopefully after my ESA medical assessment on Wed they wont need medical certificates any more. I'm a bit nervous about that though.

I received an email a few days ago inviting me to a big get-together that most of my friends from sixth form will be attending when they're back from uni at Christmas. I thought it would be in the city for a couple of hours, but it's a 24 hour sleepover type thing at someone's house. So there's no way I'm going to be able to manage that. I did think about maybe just going along for a couple of hours, but it's on Dec 22nd-23rd, so if I did that and it exhausted me, then it could mean I'd feel rubbish over Christmas. So I'm going to have to give it a miss which is disappointing. Catherine (my closest friend from sixth form) wants to meet up with me separately though, so hopefully we'll be able to make that happen. And I've been in touch with another friend from sixth form via text and Facebook over the last few days and we're hoping to meet up sometime soon too.

I've been invited to a couple of AYME meet-ups over the Christmas period though, so might try to attend one or both of them. But my parents wont give me lifts (more persuasion may be needed) and have said if I want to attend either of them I'll have to go on the train. In the car the journeys would take an hour and an hour and half (which are manageable), but both of them will take longer on the train because I'll need to go in to London and then out again.

I think I might have mentioned a while ago that I've applied to become my local regional co-ordinator for AYME because they currently don't have one for my area. I've got as far as being sent the CRB check forms (which I need to do because I'll be handling young people's details), but haven't got past them yet because they look daunting :P

And a couple of days ago I joined AYME's members advisory panel (MAP), so I'll be involved in giving feedback on their bi-monthly magazines and judging competitions :)

A couple of days ago I broke my second lamp in about a week! My bedside touch lamp broke a little while ago and then yesterday I was moving the angle of the light on the lamp on my desk and it snapped, whoops! I need to buy a new touch lamp for next to my bed, but the one I broke more recently was a spare lamp I'd borrowed (because my desk lamp is currently next to my bed), so I don't think that'll need replacing.

Yesterday I started writing my Christmas cards and have now written the majority of them :D I've got a few more to write though and am still waiting for a few addresses that I've requested via Facebook or text. And I have one more Christmas present to buy, but I'm hoping that I might be able to go shopping in the city tomorrow morning before my physio appointment at Hospital A in the afternoon :)

I'd just like to say a huge congratulations to Holly S who won the national vinspired SHOUT award 2009 for all of the work she did to raise awareness of organ donation, yay! :D

This morning I was going to go and visit my nan with my dad, but decided against it when we found out that my nan wasn't feeling very well. She said on the phone to my dad that she kept feeling dizzy and nauseus. She wasn't sure why so will contact the doctor tomorrow. But I don't want to risk catching anything, so dad went to see her on his own. This morning I helped my mum clean our village library instead as I needed a change of scene because I'd not been out of the house since Mon. And then we baked some ginger biscuits, yummy! :)

This afternoon/evening my friend Claire came round and we had a lovely time :) It was about a fortnight since I'd seen her so we had loads of catching up to do. And dad cooked a lovely meal of roast chicken for tea :) Claire reminded me that VAT is rising on the 1st Jan, so that might scupper my plans of getting a laptop in the January sales. So I was surfing the Internet looking at laptops to potentially buy before the Jan sales and I found the perfect one. So I bought it :D I have ordered this, but mine will come with Windows 7 and I paid a little extra (just £5 for a better battery). And I've got free delivery on it :) The real reason I decided on that laptop is because it's available in purple, so Claire offered to pay the extra money for me to have a purple one for my Christmas present. So my laptop will actually look like this :D :D :D Mine will be built to order and so I checked the website for my estimated delivery date. It said Dec 14th, but I'm willing it to come a little bit early, because I'm going into hospital from Dec 13th to 15th, but the hotel I'm staying in has wireless broadband, so I'd love to be able to take it with me :D My current laptop would probably fall apart if I took it with me as it still has cable ties holding the screen together :P

I've not watched any full length DVDs this week, but did finish off watching series 2 of Absolutely Fabulous :)

I didn't think I'd watched much TV because of my headache, but I've got quite a list :P Since my last update I've watched:

• Film 2009 - Me and dad might be going to see Paranormal Activity on Tue night. I'm not sure why I'm so keen to see it though, as I usually hate horror films! :P
  
• The Restaurant - How are the blonde boys still in when one can't even cook!?
• Jess: Britain's Youngest Sleepwalker?
• My Shocking Story: Burnt and Survived - I was bored!
• Megan: Let Me Grow Up
• The Killers Live From The Royal Albert Hall - I was channel flicking late one night and caught it on one of the music channels :) I've only watched the first 10mins so far though, I had to record the rest because my headache was very painful. Looking forward to watching the rest :D
• GMTV - For a Will Young interview and performances for Mum.
• 4music Introduces Erik Hassle - We'd seen him supporting Little Boots and now he's on TV! I still don't like his music though! :P
• 4music World's Greatest Popstars - my favourite Pink came 4th out of the 10 contenders, then I turned it off because I couldn't care less whether Eminem, Britney or Beyonce was number 1!
• 2 episodes of Live From Abbey Road - one episode featured Seal and one featured Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens)
• X Factor and X Factor results show - I think the right person went out :) Joe to win :D I thought Alicia Keys was very good last night too.
  

I thought I'd mentioned how much I loved Pixie Lott's music before, but an email from Emma today made me think that maybe I hadn't. Sorry if I'm repeating myself. I love Pixie Lott's 3 released singles and have been wanting to buy her album (Turn It Up) for ages. But I've been persuading myself to wait til it drops in price. So I was very happy when I downloaded Spotify last week and found that Turn It Up was available to listen to on there. I've been listening to it again and again since then and listened to it 5 times in just one day :P I think she's got a great voice and don't dislike a single song on her album :D I think my favourite song is currently Band Aid. I will still buy her album on CD, probably before I go into hospital next month, so I can listen to it on my iPod :) I'd love to see her live when she tours.

Yesterday I saw Cheryl Cole's new video for her next single '3 Words' for the first time. I thought that the video was awful and didn't like the song either, it just doesn't get going. You can see it here. What do you think?

I taught Dad how to use Spotify on Friday and am already regretting it! His taste in music is not like mine, he listens to artists like Leonard Coen whose music I find really depressing. My dad will be 60 on Thursday - that seems really old! :P Dad can't wait to get his free bus pass, discount at the cinema, free swimming sessions etc. though.

Music, tummy aches and media

This is an odd update made up of lots of bits and pieces, so I'm sorry if it doesn't flow very well.

On TV since my last update I stumbled across Pink's Funhouse concert again and watched it, despite already having seen it twice recently and having the DVD :) And I watched an interesting Wonderland documentary about a couple with Downs Syndrome on iPlayer. I've also watched a couple of episodes of Absolutely Fabulous on the DVD of series 2 that I've currently borrowed from the library. Yesterday I went to request series 3 on DVD to discover that the library don't have it, despite having series 1,2,4 and 5, lol :P So I've added it to my Tesco DVD rental list at high priority, so hopefully I'll get series 3 soon as I'll finish series 2 within the next few days. I watched one of the DVDs I'd rented the other day, a very funny Christmas film called Elf. I'd definitely recommend it :) And I caught the end of a Hollyoaks music programme on C4 where Pixie Lott was performing. At the bottom of the screen facts about Pixie Lott were scrolling across and one said that 2 years ago she was a dancer in Mika's Love Today video! So I had to have a watch of that video (which is on one of my Mika DVDs) to see if I could spot her, but I couldn't. I'd give you a Youtube link so you could have a look, but unfortunately all the Youtube Love Today videos are really poor quality, so you'd never be able to spot her.

I used iPlayer to listen to an interview with Diana Vickers (my favourite from last year's X Factor and who I saw in The Rise and Fall Little Voice last month). And I read a good article about Mika in Monday's Independent newspaper, but it's not available on their website. I also found this link to download the audio files of all of my current X Factor favourite's (Joe) performances from the live shows, so have put them onto my iPod :) And I used an offer in this week's Radio Times to download a free Doctor Who episode from iTunes this evening. If you're interested, click here and then when iTunes loads click on the free link in the top right hand corner :) It took me ages to download on my dying laptop though as it insisted that I downloaded and installed the most recent version of iTunes first (which took ages), before downloading the episode and transferring it to my iPod (which also took ages). The whole thing took about 2 hours!

I've been using Spotify lots, I love it :D I've listened to Pixie Lott's album countless times, I think it's great. Has anyone else got/listened to her album? I've also listened to Alexandra Burke's album and Shakira's latest album which were both a bit disappointing, so I'm glad I didn't buy them. I also set Spotify up on the downstairs computer so mum could listen to The Noisettes' latest album, Lily Allen's second album (which is hilarious when they bleep out all the swear words) and then her special request - Elvis Costello! My laptop speakers are rubbish, so I listen to music through my stereo when I can, but I can't do that with music on Spotify. My stereo is nowhere near my desk, so using my stereo speakers for my laptop music wasn't a very practical idea. Luckily though my dad lent me some small-ish, but decent speakers that he doesn't use, so I've fixed them up to my laptop and they're a huge improvement :) And Dad said if I like them then I can have them for Christmas :D

Me and mum have bought some more concert tickets :D The only concert we'd got lined up was Mika in February, but on Tuesday we bought tickets to see The Noisettes (who mum loves and I quite like) in concert in Feb too :D Yay, looking forward to both of those concerts, just hope that I cope ok as they're only 5 days apart!

I mentioned a little while ago that I was attempting to read a book called Coraline, my first book in a while. I've not got any further with it since then, but will definitely have another go with it soon.

My mum has a friend who is a nanny and she used to look after Michael Bond's (the author of the Paddington Bear books) grandchildren I think. And she's still in touch with the family. Mum asked if she could get us some books signed, so me, mum and Alf now each have a signed Paddington Bear book :D And mum also got one signed for Lizzy's daughter, M :)

Mum made me laugh on Tuesday when I asked her if she knew how long it was til Christmas. Mum said "3 weeks and 10 days", lol! :P She has dyscalculia (number dyslexia) so I know I shouldn't laugh, but when mum eventually realised what she'd said we both found it funny :D

My tummy aches have been quite bad on a few occassions recently and I'm getting fed up of them, so I'm going to have another go at trying to work out what food(s) is triggering them. I suspect it might be rice, so I'm going to try not eating that for a while and I'll see if that makes a difference. If avoiding rice doesn't help then I'll try not eating white bread next as mum thought that might be a trigger. I'm a bit nervous about excluding foods from my diet because I don't eat a huge variety of foods, but hopefully I wont lose any weight while doing this.

Earlier this week I received a letter about my first Pathways to Work interview which is on Jan 6th. This is the path I'll go down if the outcome of my ESA medical assessment (which is next Wed, eeek!) goes one way. Hopefully I'll find out the result of my ESA medical assessment sometime in Dec, so I'll know whether I need to go to the interview in Jan or not.

On Tuesday I felt better than I expected after Mon, just a bit tired. I've felt awful today though :( But I did expect that after such a busy and tiring day on Monday. Hopefully I'll soon start to feel a bit better. I don't have any plans til Sun, so can just relax :) As you'll probably notice from the time of this post, I'm very nocturnal tonight, lol :P I really ought to try to get that sorted again ASAP.

I mentioned in this blog update that K isn't doing so well at the moment. A few days ago I heard that another little girl I know in the transplant community is currently very ill. M is 4 and I met her in Hospital B after my transplant when she was in for her assessment (also for a small bowel and liver transplant). She received her transplant relatively quickly, recovered really well and had been doing fantastically. Then suddenly and very unexpectedly last week she developed moderate to severe rejection and is currently very ill in Hospital B. I've spoken to her mum and she knows that M's recovery will take a while, so I'll catch up with them when I'm in for my annual tests in a few weeks.

Sarah, who did the Gifts of Life photography project, is running LLTGL's Christmas Media campaign. She has asked if I'd like my story to be used and I said I'd have a think and get back to her. But I don't know what to do. I've always said no to publicity before because I'm quite a private person and I'd be worried that my story could be twisted or spread without my permission (although I do know that LLGTL have lots of experience). And I think I'd be ok with doing just one thing, but know that one thing often leads to many more. And mum thinks it might cause me stress and worry at the moment, and my health isn't great. BUT it might encourage more organ donors.

Long overdue update

I can't believe how long I've left it to update. Whoops :P I didn't feel too good last week, so didn't manage to update this before I went away at the weekend. Then Sun evening and yesterday I was recovering, so now here is a long overdue (and lengthy :P) update.

I've had a really up and down week. Last Tue I didn't feel too bad, just a bit tired. Then last Wed for some reason I felt fantastic, so made the most of it by attempting to do loads. That wasn't sensible though as I then felt really ill (as well as being exhausted I had a sore head and sore eyes which Paracetamol and Codeine didn't help) on Thur and Fri. I thought I might not be able to go away at the weekend, but luckily I woke up feeling ok on Sat, so did go :) I had a good day Sat and an ok day on Sun (I was just tired). I had a great time with Lizzy and her daughter, but will update about that in a separate update because I think this one will be long enough without that too :P Then after my busy weekend I didn't feel very well at all yesterday (exhausted, achy and I had a headache). And I've felt better, but tired, today.

Now the weather is getting colder I'm feeling colder so am wrapping up in loads of layers and putting the heating on more often than I think my parents would like, lol :P Last night though I woke up in the middle of the night freezing cold, despite being under my duvet. That reminds me, I need to remind mum that I really need a winter duvet now as mine is a summer one! And my tummy aches are still about the same :(

I emailed my dietician last Tue with my weight, but didn't hear from her til she phoned me on Fri evening. She said she was happy for me to drop from 5 to 4 nights of feed per week :D But I have to try to have one 200ml high calorie drink in the morning after a night off feed. I had my first high calorie drink in a while this morning. The flavour is ok, but they are really thick and coat the inside of my mouth, yuk! Today my weight was the same as last week (50.5kg), despite 3 nights off feed, only 1 high calorie drink (instead of 3) and weighing myself after a night off feed rather than a night on feed! Yay :D I think I've been eating better too this week :D I emailed my dietician with my weight this morning and she replied this evening and suggested dropping another night of feed. I don't want to rush it though so will stay on 4 nights of feed for a second week and if my weight is ok next Tue I'll then reduce to 3 nights of feed a week. Fingers crossed.

I was speaking to a a friend from Hospital B last week. She told me that my favourite liver nurse, L, (who left on maternity leave just after my last clinic in Oct) gave birth to a healthly baby boy last Mon evening :)

I rang Hospital B last week and left a message on their answer machine for them to ring me back. Out of all the liver nurses (there must be between 5 and 10), the only one I dislike rang me back :( Grrr. I really struggle to speak to him on the phone, so the phone call didn't go well. But the end result is that I don't think the ward I'm on for my annual tests next month is negotiable, so it looks like I'll be on the medical day unit, rather than the transplant ward :( At least I'll be in the hotel overnight though :) And although my mum and dad are both great, mum was going to accompany me, which I prefer as we have so much in common and I think she understands me better than my dad. But it now looks like dad will be staying with me instead. I'm sure it'll be ok though.

Today in the post I received a letter from Hospital A asking me to phone them to make an appointment to see their physio team. I spoke to a physio at my last clinic at Hospital B and she thought that seeing a local physio might be beneficial to my health and my ME, so she sorted the referral out for me. I'll phone Hospital A this week to try to arrange that appointment.

Tomorrow I'm going to Hospital B to meet with the psychologist, J, to see if she can help my ME. I'm not sure whether it'll help or not, but I'll give it a try. We're probably going to head there a bit early (my appointment is 2pm til 3pm), so me and mum can go shopping in the city :D I'm looking for a new bag because I could do with one that is a little bit bigger than my current one.

Last Wednesday when I felt great, one of the things I got done was my ESA form :D I completed it, asked my dad to check it through and posted it off :D Now I've just got to wait and I think I'll probably get an appointment for a medical assessment at somepoint in the next 3 months.

This morning in the post I received a letter from my local job centre asking me to attend a Pathways To Work interview next Tuesday. I'm not quite sure what it'll involve, but I've been asked to attend because I'm on benefits and I think they will see if they can help me get some kind of work. I'll let you know how it goes.

I think I've mentioned before my outrage at transplant recipients not being entitled to free prescriptions. I've been loathed to pay for a pre-payment certificate and have kept putting it off . I've been trying to work out for ages whether I can get free prescriptions because I'm receiving DLA and ESA. That task was made more difficult by my local GP surgery providing me with out-of-date literature! :P But I looked it up on the Internet and even though DLA doesn't entitle me to free prescriptions (ridiculous), my ESA does :D Yay! :D

Last Fri we heard that the swine flu jabs were in at our local surgery and that they'd just finished vaccinating the staff, so we went to enquire about getting our swine flu jabs. The receptionists were getting letters ready to send out, but when mum tried to check that we'd be in the first batch they couldn't tell us because the letters weren't in alphabetical order! So we were told to wait to receive letters and then we could ring up or call in to make appointments to have our jabs. On Mon morning mum and dad's letters arrived, but there was no sign of Alf's or mine. So mum went in to find out what was happening and it turned out they'd not sent out letters to Alf or me! How ridiculous - I'm the one who is immunosuppressed! It's a good job we're on the ball because they clearly aren't :P So mum tried to book us appointments to have our jabs, but they didn't have 4 appointments together. So me and mum are having ours next Mon eve, Alf is having his the following Mon eve and dad will be having his at somepoint after that (he was invited to have his with Alf but he'll be away with work that day).

I also had some trouble getting a new tape from my local surgery to try on my NG tube because none of the ones I've got at the moment work (they either rip the skin of my cheek or fall off in the night). So a friend in the transplant community recommended one that had worked with her son when he used to have an NG tube. I ordered it in, but it doesn't come as a tape, just as a dressing. I've got no problem with that because I'll just cut it up into the right sized pieces, but the pharmacists had to run it by my GP before they could prescribe it. So that took a while, but we picked it up yesterday. I wasn't on feed last night, didn't try it tonight because I was getting connected in a rush so I could watch TV, won't be on feed tomorrow night, but will try it on Thur night and let you know how I get on with it.

My local GP surgery really is great, but I know it doesn't sound that way from what I've written about them in this update :P

At the weekend Holly S organised an abseil which she did with a team of volunteers to raise money for Live Life Then Give Life. You can find out more about it by clicking on Holly's name to visit her blog or visiting the sponsorship page here. They did amazingly - I've seen some photos and it was very high! I would have loved to participate, but my health isn't good enough to abseil at the moment :P I'm very proud of Holly and her team as they raised money for such a fantastic cause. And of course I sponsored them :)

R is back in hospital at the moment, but should be able to go home on Thur, fingers crossed. I'm keeping in touch with her and supporting her via text :) And of course I'm keeping her updated with what she's missed on the X Factor ;)

We didn't go out to any firework displays this year because I was worried about being cold, but I watched my next door neighbours' fireworks out of my bedroom window on Thur while keeping warm inside :D

While I was away at the weekend Alf got his coat and wallet back that he lost at a party, but there no sign of his phone. So he's currently phone-less and can't afford a new one.

It was my Nan's birthday yesterday, I think she was 86. We didn't manage to see her as some other relatives took her out, but we phoned her to wish her happy birthday. We'll probably see her next weekend. I had a very funny phone conversation with her. We were just having a general chat and then she asked me what I'd thought of the X Factor at the weekend. I'm not sure why her favourite is Lloyd, I had to disagree with her there. Anyway, even though she'd watched the whole of Sunday's episode she thought that the twins had gone out as well as Lucie, hehe :P I wish! She's lovely :)

I used to love writing short stories just for me, but since I've had ME it seems to have completely zapped my creativity. However when I was lying in bed feeling nocturnal a few nights ago I came up with a story idea :D I'm quite excited because I've not had any creative ideas for ages. I've not tried to develop my idea at all yet, but when I'm feeling ok I might have a go and see if I can turn it into anything. I will let you know if it comes to anything.

I was very happy to hear last week that the postal strikes have been delayed til at least the New Year, yay! :D I eventually received my Wii Fit Plus in the post last Wed and because I was feeling quite well I had a 30min go on it. It was fun, but exhausting! I've not managed to go on it since, but it looks promising from what I've seen of it so far :)

My 4 and a half year old laptop is dying. So I backed up all my music, photos and other stuff onto my external hard drive this morning, just in case. It's slow and often freezes. And the screen is currently held together (hopefully it wont fall apart) with green cable ties, lol :P Clever dad :) I've been doing some laptop research and it looks like I'll be able to pick up a decent new laptop relatively cheaply (for about £350 at current prices), but I hope to wait til the Jan sales if my current laptop will hang on for that long. Fingers crossed.

Yesterday I decided that my current desktop wallpaper picture (a photo of a castle I visited in Japan) had been up for too long, so I changed it to this photo of Mika that I found on the Internet :D

I've used MSN and Facebook chat quite a lot this week. Chatting to fellow nocturnal ME sufferers is good when it's gone midnight and you can't sleep :P I also use MSN and Facebook chat to keep in touch with hospital friends, friends who are currently away at uni and other friends that I don't see very often, as well as friends I see regularly :D

I seem to have watched huge amounts of TV this week :P
I've watched:

• The Restaurant - I loved the first 2 series but I'm not sure about it this year. It seems to be more about who makes good TV, rather than who could actually run a restaurant. It's entertaining though.
• Piers Morgan interviewing Dannii Minogue - I can't stand Piers Morgan, but I thought Dannii Minogue was lovely and I like her a lot more now after seeing that interview.
• Film 2009 - there are a few films I want to see in the cinema at the moment including An Education and Disney's A Christmas Carol in 3D, but I'll wait til nearer Christmas to see that!
• 4music Live From Abbey Road - I've just discovered this programme this series (it's on C4 on Sat nights at about 11.30pm I think) and some of the artists they feature are really good. So far this series I've seen and enjoyed The Killers, The Noisettes and Mika :D
• Never Mind The Buzzcocks - last Wed it featured Little Boots. She was lovely, but didn't get much of a chance to speak. And Claudia Winkleman annoyed me.
  
• The Paul O'Grady Show - I watch this when the guests are interesting and one night last week it was hosted by Jo Brand with Shakira as a guest. Shakira was very nice and her performance of Gypsy was great and Jo Brand was hilarious, especially when trying to belly dance like Shakira :D
• The Gadget Show - I usually half watch this, but actually gave up on it on Mon night because it was boring
• The Graham Norton Show - I watch this if the guests are interesting so watched it last night because David Tennant was on it :)
• When A Mother's Love Is Not Enough - a moving and thought provoking BBC documentary.
  
• Collision - ITV's new drama which is on from 9 til 10pm every night this week til it concludes on Fri. I've seen 2 episodes now and it's good.
• Pink Funhouse Live - 4music televised this last week. It was a concert from the tour I saw in April, so watching it (twice!) brought back some great memories :D And it was good to be able to see things up close as we'd been as far away from the stage as was possible when we saw her :P For some unknown reason they blanked out all the swearing despite this being on TV from 11.30pm and I found that really distracting. And they also cut bits out rather than showing the full concert. But I've purchased the DVD so am now looking forward to watching the whole concert :D
• lots more programmes on the 2 freeview music channels I can get (4music and Viva) :)

And I watched X Factor and Xtra Factor on Sat and Sun. I had great fun watching Sat's episode with Lizzy as because no-one else in my family watches it I don't usually have anyone to chat with about it. But Lizzy made me laugh with her comments on the contestants :) I thought that the Black Eyed Peas were fantastic performing live on Sun :D I'm annoyed at Simon over his decision to take it to deadlock on Sun, because after going on and on about how much he disliked the twins, when he had a chance to get rid of them, he didn't. And he promised he'd make his decision based on their performances in the final 2, but he clearly didn't as Lucie was much better than the twins. I'm not sure why he took it to deadlock - maybe he was trying to protect his acts by getting rid of the stronger act (Lucie), although he did say afterwards that he was surprised that the public gave the twins more votes than they gave Lucie. Or maybe, like Sinitta said on the Xtra Factor, he genuinely couldn't decide whether to keep the twins (for entertainment as he is the producer of the TV programme) or Lucie (because she could sing so would be good for him as a record producer), so he took it to deadlock. I think it was a cop out though and Lucie going wasn't fair, so Simon has dropped right down in my estimation now. Lucie was good and shouldn't have gone (she was my second favourite contestant). The twins can't sing and I'm really hoping they go out next weekend. I do think though that OFCOM having to investigate all the complaints they've received is a bit over the top though, people might be angry and might disagree with Sun's results, but surely you can't genuinely complain about Simon making the decision to take it to deadlock! I thought it was funny though on Monday when the comments section of the X Factor website went down due to being overloaded with comments after Sun's programme :P I have a feeling that Simon might regret his decision if, like people have suggested, they boycott the programme and/or stop voting for Simon's acts. Or I guess audience figures might rise now after the controversy. We'll have to wait and see. I won't be boycotting it though because I want to know what happens to Joe (my favourite) and Stacey (who was my third favourite, but is now my second favourite as Lucie has gone).

Did anyone see the new organ donation advert in the advert breaks of the X Factor on Sat and Sun? I think that's great that it got such a prime time spot, hopefully it's made some people think about organ donation and sign the organ donor register. I've also seen the advert on Channel 4 as well as ITV :) I think it's a great advert - very hard hitting, but that's what we need. If you've not seen it yet you can see it here.

And I'm really looking forward to Doctor Who on Sunday as the Radio Times says it might be the scariest episode yet. I doubt that though as it's been written by Russel T Davis, not Steven Moffat who has written the scariest episodes so far (including The Empty Child and Blink). Should be good though. I'm also looking forward to watching Children in Need which will be on TV a week on Friday (20th Nov). I love watching it each year :D I was very excited to hear that Peter Kay is doing a single for it which apparently could be as big as Amarillo. You can read more here. And Taylor Swift will be performing on the night :D

This week I've watched a few DVDs. I watched all 6 episodes of the first series of Absolutely Fabulous as I borrowed it from the library last week. I like that - it cheers me up and makes me laugh. So too does The Vicar of Dibey, I've watched a few more episodes of that from my box set this week :) I've also watched 2 full length films - Driving Lessons (starring Rupert Grint and Julie Walters) which was ok and Hope Floats, which despite starring Sandra Bullock (one of my favourite actresses), was disappointing. And I've also added lots of Christmas DVDs to my Tesco DVD rental list :D

This week I finally downloaded some music after trying to resist and save my money. Out of the four tracks I wanted though, I only downloaded two - Bad Boys by Alexandra Burke and Gypsy by Shakira. Oh and I also downloaded Meet Me Halfway by the Black Eyed Peas as I love that track. I also listened to The E.N.D by the Black Eyed Peas, but I thought it was disappointing. It might sound better after another listen though. Another song I really like at the moment is Cry Me Out by Pixie Lott. I'm still trying to resist buying her album til the price drops a bit more though. And this week I've also listened to Mika (what a surprise :P) and The Feeling :D

And on Youtube I also found videos about the making of Mika's 2 latest music videos. If you're interested you can see the making of Blame It On The Girls here and the making of Rain here. Enjoy, fellow Mika fans :D

So sorry for making this post soooo long. I'll try to update more frequently from now on, but I know that I've said that before and it doesn't always happen. If you've read this far then thank you for persevering with this lengthy entry :)

Being home alone and not feeling great

I've not managed to update my blog for a whole week, so sorry in advance for the length of this as I know it wont be short! :P

On Tuesday mum and dad went away. Dad's sister and her partner rent a wooden cabin at a fishing resort through the winter as they both love fishing. My dad is also loves fishing so sometimes he goes to their lodge for a couple of days, but this time mum accompanied him. Dad enjoyed lots of fishing and mum explored the local towns, took photos of dad fishing and knitted! Mum works part time in our village library so they went Tuesday eve (because she worked Tuesday in the day) and she had to come back on Friday in time to work that evening. Dad got Wednesday to Friday off work last week, but had to come back Sunday eve (after a day of fishing) because he's got to go back to work. Because of all my medical problems in the past mum and dad have never been able to both go away before, so this was a new experience for me and Alf being home alone for 3 days. But we survived! :D We didn't argue (well only a little bit when Alf played his horrible music really loud!), we didn't starve (yay for pasta, pot noodles and microwavable rice!), I worked the dishwasher and even did a load of washing! Alf missed his college bus on Wednesday though after a stupidly late night, including having a shower at 12.45am! I missed mum a lot as I've not been apart from her much before, so we made lots of phone calls when mum had enough signal. And one of our lovely neighbours called round twice to check on us. We appreciated the thought but didn't have any problems so just told her we were fine. She realised that Alf should have been at college when she came round on Wednesday though, so told him off, lol!

My nocturnalism has been up and down. I wasn't at all nocturnal on Wednesday so was asleep by 11.30pm, which is very early for me! I was also not very nocturnal on Thursday so fell asleep just after midnight. I've been very nocturnal other nights though. This week I've also had difficulty getting up in the mornings and have a few lie-ins which I do usually try not to do. I was woken by doorbell twice though - once for a medical delivery and I don't know who it was the other time because I didn't get to the door in time. My Melatonin isn't helping at the moment because I can't make the ideal dose from the tablets I've got, so I definitely need to look into buying some smaller dose tablets so I can adjust the dose more finely to get it right for me.

I did have to get up earlier than I usually do (9am) on Thursday for an orthodontist appointment. Chris' girlfriend Sophie gave me a lift because mum and dad were away. My orthodontist was running 45mins late, but no-one warned me, so I thought I'd been forgotten! There was a very cute little 2 year old girl in waiting room though who kept everyone amused while waiting :) My actual appointment was very quick as I just had my wires changed and my orthodontist wasn't rude to me! Usually I just have the wires tightened, but this time I had my wires swapped for some thicker and less flexible wires, which shouldn't pop out of place when I eat :) My next appointment is on New Years' Eve, but I don't mind as I wasn't planning to do anything to celebrate. And my orthodontist said that next time he might be able to start the gap closures. I don't know what that involves - elastic bands maybe - but it sounds like progress :) I was warned that my mouth would be very sore afterwards and it has been, which has caused me difficulty eating (as my teeth would hurt when I touched them together, such as when chewing food). Paracetamol helped sometimes, but not always, but the pain is gradually easing now. My eating has also been affected this week by me feeling very nauseus one day (which is very unusual for me) and me having bad tummy aches which put me off eating.

I've spoken to my dietician via email as my weight was up again when I weighed myself on Tuesday :D So the plan now is to gradually reduce my feeds, so I'm having 5 nights of feed this week. I'm a bit worried about my weight though because my eating hasn't been very good, but I'll just have to wait and see how it is on Tuesday.

I felt very very tired at the start of the week after last weekend and although I expected that for a bit I didn't expect it would take me as long to recover as it did - I'd say I didn't recover til Thursday. But although I've recovered from that now I've still not felt right - I've been exhausted, had bad tummy aches, had a fuzzy head, poor concentration (worse than usual) and I've just felt rubbish :( Claire came round Wednesday night and we were planning to go out for a meal but we decided not to because I didn't feel up to it. I seem to have been more clumsy this week - I knocked over my cup of water in my bedroom on Monday night and it went all over my floor including over my electrical plug extension. Whoops. And then on Tuesday I'd just boiled a full kettle of water and was trying to pour it into a jug to put outside to cool for my drinking water, but missed the jug and poured the boiling water all over the kitchen surface and the floor - luckily it missed me. And my memory seems to have got worse too over the last couple of weeks, I often can't remember if I've told people things or not, which is not like me. I think most of this is ME related though, so I'm not worried, just frustrated :( There has been one positive though and that is that my temperature control seems to have been a little better this week :)

I heard some great news from R on Wednesday - she got home after 3 and a half weeks in hospital :D She's been so supportive to me, so I'm glad I could help her out when she was in hospital :) Fingers crossed she can remain at home now.

I heard from the psychologist at Hospital B via email this week. She was lovely when I saw her a couple of weeks ago and thought she could definitely help my ME. So we've been in touch via email to try to arrange a date for me to go to the hospital just to see her before my inpatient stay in December. The date hasn't been confirmed yet, but will probably be mid-November. I'm feeling quite optimistic and hopeful about that :)

I've also been in contact with Sarah this week about trying to reschedule my Gifts of Life Photoshoot. She's running behind schedule due to taking some time out from the project to organise the fantastic Save Jess-tival, but needs to find out the deadline and budget and then she'll get back to me once she knows whether she can fit my shoot in or not. I really hope so, so I've got my fingers crossed.

I think I mentioned on my last long blog update that I'd received an email from my donor's other sister, C. I took a while writing my reply because I felt I had to get it just right, but when I was happy with it I sent it. I got a lovely response within a couple of hours. So I sent a reply back to that too. C seems lovely and I'm really glad she emailed me :)

I've not been out much this week, but after my orthodontist appointment on Thursday we popped in to Sophie's mum's house to collect a degu run that she'd ordered off the Internet and asked to be delivered there. The degu run was too small, I think it was designed for hamsters, so the degus would be able to escape from it as it doesn't have a top. While we were there I met Sophie's mum for the first time (even though Sophie and Chris have been together for 18 months now) and she was very nice. She was thinking about getting Sophie's 7 year old sister a Wii for her birthday next month, so I gave her some advice about that :) I also met their 2 very cute little dogs. And then after that rather than taking me straight back home, Sophie asked if I wanted to call in at her and Chris' flat to meet the degus. I said yes of course! They were soooo cute :) I didn't manage to get any photos because they were so fast, but I'll have to raid Chris and Sophie's Facebook profiles to try to find a few photos to show you :)

On Sunday morning me and mum went out to browse round our local carboot sale. It was the first time I'd been in weeks. I set myself a spend limit at £5, but spent £5.20. However I got some real bargains. For just £5.20 I bought 3 DVDs and a necklace and earring set for me, 2 CDs for mum for Christmas and a friend's Christmas present :D Then on the way home mum called in at the Co-op for a bit of shopping, but I stayed in the car and listened to the radio :)

Mum picked up my ESA medical certificate from my GP on Monday morning and I got it posted off that same day. Despite the postal strikes I received a letter from them on Saturday morning saying that they received my certificate so are still paying me my ESA :) I still need to attempt the daunting medical questionnaire though.

Also in the post this week I received my Taylor Swift tickets for her concert next month and the 2 monthly magazines I subscribe to - Official Nintendo Magazine (ONM) and Focus. I loved reading ONM but haven't managed to read much of Focus yet because I've had trouble concentrating and it's content is quite sciencey. I also received a letter from Hospital B about my December admission. I was told on the phone when the date was changed that even though I'd be staying in the hotel I'd be on the ward during the days for my tests, but the letter said instead of being on the ward I'll be on the medical day unit :( I'm not very happy with that because I know everyone on the ward and because I've not been there for nearly 18 months I was looking forward to the familiarity and seeing all the nurses again. I've only been on the medical day unit for 1 day over 3 years ago, so don't know it and don't know the nurses. But I do remember it having no character. So I'll have to see if that's negotiable at all.

Now I'm trying to remember what I've been doing to amuse myself this week. I did a jigsaw on Monday for the first time in ages. I used to enjoy doing jigsaws so found my favourite one (made of wood with odd shaped pieces and picturing jungle animals) and had a go. I quite enjoyed it :)

I've also listened to lots of music. I've been listening to Little Boots' album (Hands) in preparation for her concert on Thursday, both of Taylor Swift's albums (Taylor Swift and Fearless) in preparation for her concert next month and of course some Mika too (Life In Cartoon Motion and The Boy Who Knew Too Much) :D

I was disappointed to discover that Mika's fantastic single Blame it on the Girls won't actually be released in the UK, but instead will only be released in the USA and Japan :( Instead Rain will be his second UK single from The Boy Who Knew Too Much. I like Rain, but not as much as Blame it on the Girls. And I was surprised to hear that Cheryl Cole knocked Alexandra Burke off the top of the singles chart this week. That was unexpected. But Alexandra Burke is number 1 in the albums chart this week. Last year for the first time all of the X Factor contestants released a single together to raise money for charity, which you can see here, and it was a big success. So this year they're doing a charity single again and you can see more details here. I'm not sure about the song choice, but am very glad they're doing it to raise money for a children's hospital :)

I've watched some good music videos on the TV music channels and on Youtube this week :) Laura White was one of my favourites on last year's X Factor and I was shocked when she went out so early in the competition. So I was really glad to hear that she's got a record deal and was looking forward to hearing her first single. She's got an amazing voice, but disappointingly I don't like the song. I've also seen Pink's latest video for I Don't Believe You (I quite like the song, but the video is a bit slow for me), Lily Allen's latest video for Who'd Have Known (love the song and love the originality of the video) and Taylor Swift's latest video for 15 (quite like the song and video). And I've also been watching some videos from Little Boots' Youtube channel which includes some great covers and acoustic versions of songs from her album. Several years ago my uncle used to manage a girl group called Sweet FA. You probably wont know the name because they split up after 1 single, but it was a hit so you might recognise their song Flowers. The official music video for Flowers isn't available on Youtube, so me and mum got a shock when we were flicking through the music channels on Saturday and the video was playing as we'd never seen it before!

I've watched a lot again on TV this week, so won't mention every programme I've seen. I watched the first episode of a new series of a programme called An Island Parish last Monday because it's set on the Isles of Scilly and some of my cousins live there. I've not seen them on any programmes so far though, but it is interesting to watch a documentary set where they live. I also watched another great episode of the David Attenborough series Life and a very interesting Horizon programme. I was bored one evening and was channel flicking when I found a very odd and actually rather disturbing programme about baby models! And I've discovered the time wasting day time TV such as Channel 4's Wife Swap and a Sky 3 documentary called Medical Emergency, lol :P My excuse is that's it's boring being ill and being at home most of the time!

I heard that the BNP were on the BBC's Question Time earlier this week. I didn't watch it but heard loads about it on Facebook and online forums afterwards, so am considering watching it on iPlayer. After hearing various comments about it I couldn't believe it when I read this article on the BBC news website about support for them soaring - 'A YouGov poll in the Daily Telegraph suggests 22% of people questioned would "seriously consider" voting BNP.' That's scary.

I've also watched an episode of the Vicar of Dibley from my DVD boxset and mum talked me into watching a Clocking Off episode (from her DVD) with her. The Clocking Off episode wasn't bad, but it was quite complex and I struggled to keep up with it so got a bit confused! I might watch some more episodes when I'm feeling a bit better, but won't watch any more at the moment.

And I've watched some good DVDs this week too :) I watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, which was original and quite funny and Meet the Parents, which was very funny, for the first time. And I rewatched Juno, which is one of my favourite films ever and Coraline, which is great. I also watched some of the special features of both Juno and Coraline and found them really interesting. And excitingly I found a Toy Story 3 trailer on the Internet which you can see here.

This has taken me ages to write up and as I expected it's scarily long :P As if in protest while I've been writing this my laptop screen started to fall apart, but luckily my dad has managed to stop it falling apart any further although he couldn't fix it. That's made me realise that I really do need a new laptop, but I've got my fingers crossed that this one will survive til the Januaury sales. My dad is good at fixing things though as he also demonstrated when I couldn't change the time on my watch. I've not had it for long, so haven't had to change the time before. But when I came to do it when the clocks went back, I couldn't. So dad had a look for me and had to take my whole watch apart and manually move the hands to correct the time! Next time I buy a new watch I'll remember to check that I can adjust the time on it :P

A very busy weekend

On Friday afternoon my friend Claire came round for tea and then we set off together to Save Jess-tival :D I wore my new black leggings (didn't realise quite how thin they were til I was walking through London on a chilly Oct night!), my new purple slightly fluffy long sleeved top and a nice necklace :) And I wore one of my hooded tops on top to keep me warm while outside. We managed to get the 6.11pm train we'd planned to get despite Claire missing the turning to the train station! It was meant to get into Kings Cross at 7.01pm but got in 5 mins late. We thought we'd be ok for time as Save Jess-tival was going to start at 7.30pm and a lovely friend, A, had said she'd try to save us seats as our tickets were for unreserved seating. Then we got on the slowest tube ever - it took 25mins to travel 4 stops (the same journey took 10mins on the way back when we weren't in a rush!). And we met some drunk men on the tube - it was only 7.30pm! So by the time we got off the tube it had gone 7.30pm, eek! We did a very fast walk from the station toward the venue and then couldn't find it despite having printed a map off the Internet! So we asked some very scary looking bouncers for directions, lol! Found it eventually, not sure of timings here but it was probably about 7.45pm, so we rushed in worried we would have missed the beginning. Luckily we hadn't. We showed our tickets, bought some raffle tickets (I bought 10 and Claire bought 5, but we still didn't manage to win any prizes!) and went to find our seats. The fantastic A had saved us 2 seats right in the middle of the front row, so we were really close to the stage! Wow! Said hello to A, sat down and then the festival began.

An upcoming singer/songwriter called Susanna Cork opened the night. She was fantastic! She played the piano and sang 2 of her own songs, Storm in a Teacup and Chasing. Her voice was fantastic! And then she sang Savage Garden's Truly Madly Deeply especially for Jess. That was beautiful.

Next was Ed Byrne. Claire was really looking forward to seeing him, but I hadn't heard any of his material before. We both thought he was great though and very very funny :D Kept the whole audience entertained.

The third performance was from the amazing Natalie Imbruglia. She performed Wrong Impression, Shiver (dedicated to Jess) and Torn (which everyone sang along to) as well as 2 songs from her new album. She was really really good.

Then a new musical comedian, Mr Robin K, performed. It was his first ever gig. His songs were very clever and his performance was great :) You can follow his blog here.

The fourth performance was by a comedian called Glen Wool. I personally didn't enjoy his act. It was rude in places and he seemed to have a thing about bankers. He'd also recently got divorced and seemed quite bitter about that, so his performance was a bit of an angry tirade.

And the final act was the Yeah Yous. I thought they were definitely a talented band, but I wasn't very keen on their style of music. I did however quite like their cover of Duran Duran's Ordinary World.

In between the acts and at the end there was a chance to wander around a bit. The venue (The Village Underground, Shoreditch) had a great atmosphere and was very intimate. There was a LLTGL stall where I picked up a Save Jess-tival programme, some organ donation ribbons and a LLTGL t-shirt (as my previous one I had ordered off the Internet and it turned out to be way too big for me!). I briefly spoke to Sarah, Holly S and Emily who had been key in organising it and making it a night to remember, but of course they were all very busy. I also briefly spoke to the very busy Holly C who was the official photographer. I didn't get any photos because my camera couldn't cope with the low light, but will try to get hold of some photos from elsewhere to share with you :) And it was lovely to catch up with Holly S' parents. I've also since spoken to Jess on Facebook because I didn't get chance to on the night.

Me and Claire both had a fantastic night :D We eventually left to head home and got into Kings Cross station at 11.20pm, knowing our train left at 11.22pm from the other platforms. We attempted to run to the correct platform, but Claire's shoes kept falling off, lol, and I quickly got out of breath. We made to the train doors just as they shut in front of us, grrr. Luckily we only had to wait 40mins for the next train, so Claire had a drink and I had a solid but yummy croissant and then we caught the 12.01am train home, finally getting in at 1am! On that train we met yet another drunk wandering up and down the carriages asking if anyone had a bottle opener for his bottle of beer! When we got home we told mum all about our fantastic evening before Claire left to go home and I got into bed around 2am.

On Saturday morning I got up at 10.30am and me and mum left the house at 11.30am to catch the 12.06pm train back into London. I decided to wear jeans instead of leggings and also took a coat with me because I'd learnt my lesson from being freezing cold when outside the previous night. The journey was uneventful and we had plenty of time to spare before the theatre, so we wandered through Covent Garden. I love Covent Garden :D We both loved looking at the arts and crafts stalls, but I resisted buying anything even though I saw some lovely jewellery. We then followed our map to the theatre, but ended up round the back at the stage door instead of a the main entrance. We soon found the proper entrance though so wandered inside and bought a programme and sat down for a drink because we had so much time to spare.

We had fantastic seats, in the middle of the second row back in the dress circle. The seating in the stalls seemed much closer to the stage than we were, but when the curtain rose and I saw the set I was very happy with our view :) The set was really clever as it was the inside of a terraced house with both an upstairs and a downstairs. So the people in the stalls would have got neck ache looking up at the upstairs part of the set. And the set turned round to reveal the front of the house and the street outside and then when the scene needed to be changed to a working men's club, another small set just slid down in front of the front of the house. Difficult to explain, but really clever. And our tickets were really reasonably priced (£26 instead of £46 each) because I follow Diana Vickers on Twitter. She was my favourite in last year's X Factor so I was looking forward to seeing her in The Rise and Fall of Little Voice. I've not seen the film that the play is based on, but mum has and loved it, so knew we'd both enjoy the play. Diana was fantastic and her voice sounded even better than it had last year on the X Factor. She was a great actress too and so were the rest of the cast. It was great and me and mum both really enjoyed it :D

When the play finished we were planning to walk back to the nearest tube station and get the tube back to Kings Cross, but we decided to walk back to Kings Cross instead as we both love London and wanted to see a bit more of it before returning home. That was lovely :D I spotted a Filofax shop on the way so got myself a 2010 diary for my Filofax for just £5 - bargain! And I saw a shop called Cinema Store which I'd never seen before. That was great and I loved looking at all the Pixar artwork books, but resisted the temptation and only bought a Wall-E badge for 50p :) We got back to Kings Cross and got a later train home than we'd been planning (6.36pm), so got into our local station at 7.45pm (it was a slow train). Luckily I got home just in time for the X Factor :D

I really enjoyed relaxing and watching Saturday night's X Factor after such a busy couple of days. I thought the twins were awful and Miss Frank and Lloyd weren't very good either. I really liked a few of them, especially Lucie, Stacey, Joe and Jamie. I quite liked Rikki for the first time, but still didn't see what other people see in Olly, I don't like him.

On Saturday night I went on the Internet for the first time in over 24 hours (which is ages for me) and got really frustrated with my laptop. I've had it for over 4 years, so it's getting quite old and usually freezes for a bit if I try to make it do more than one thing at once, which is annoying enough. But on Saturday night it was freezing when the only thing I was running was Mozilla Firefox, grr. I'm going to try to get it to keep going until January, so I can then get a new laptop in the sales. And hopefully by January Windows 7 will be out, so I can get a laptop with that on rather than Windows Vista.

When I checked my emails I found a lovely email from my donor's other sister, C. I've been in touch with J, my donor's oldest sister, via email since shortly after my transplant and she keeps her parents up to date with my progress, which she says really helps them. But I'd never heard from C before Saturday. She basically said that she loves reading my emails to J, so thought she'd send me an email herself :) I'm currently working on a reply, but I can't get it quite right, so wont send it til I'm completely happy with it.

And I also had a Little Boots email newsletter with a link to her new video. Her next single will be Earthquake (my favourite song from her album Hands) and you can see the video here. I think I like the video, but it's not quite exciting enough for me, lol. It's good though. I'm a bit disappointed with her outfit, as I really thought that she was going to be an artist who didn't feel that she had to wear low cut tops to impress people, but maybe not. Never mind. And now it's less than 2 weeks til I'm seeing her in concert, yay, can't wait :D

I didn't expect to be nocturnal on Sunday night after my busy weekend, but was awake til about 3am! I had a lovely long lie in Sunday morning til 11am though :D When I eventually got up I felt surprisingly good, but then the exhaustion hit! My Nan came round early in the afternoon and it was lovely to see her just like it always is :) I don't think I was very good company though because while we were all sitting chatting in the sitting room I lay down on the sofa and fell asleep! Didn't feel any better after my sleep, but I never usually do so that wasn't a surprise. Later I helped my Nan learn how to work her phone as she can do the basics, but couldn't access the photos that my cousin's partner had put on there of their little baby. So I helped my Nan find them and wow, is my little second cousin (who is just 8 weeks old) cute :D

After tea I managed to persuade my Nan and Mum to watch some of X Factor with me because they both wanted to see Cheryl Cole and Whitney Houston perform. My lovely Nan is 85, but really enjoyed commenting on the contestants and judges on the X Factor, hehe. She liked Lloyd and was commenting on how good looking he was. She also liked Rikki. And she decided that she strongly disliked Cheryl Cole after seeing her performance. Cheryl's performance was better than I expected, but I wasn't sure about it. Was she miming? I can't imagine she'd risk singing live, but if she mimed I think she did it well. I thought Whitney Houston's performance was good, but I was surprised at the amount of singing that her backing singers did. She was good to continue with her performance after her top came undone!

I was really disappointed that the twins weren't even in the bottom two, they're awful!! Hope the go out very very soon. I'm glad Rachel survived over Rikki, but think that the twins ought to have gone instead. Rachel must have taken such a knock being in the bottom 2 both weeks, poor her. She's got a great voice, but I don't think we've seen enough of her yet to make her likeable.

Last night I was quite nocturnal again so wrote the majority of this blog update. Thought I'd better check it through when I was more awake though, so didn't publish it last night, lol. Today I've been exhausted again so have mainly just been relaxing. I caught up on a few things I'd recorded off the TV yesterday including a channel 4 Alexandra Burke interview and a great Taylor Swift ITV 2 Hot Desk interview, she seemed lovely :) Can't wait to see her in concert next month :D

I received a Mika email newsletter this afternoon with a link to his new video for 'Rain'. Seems a little bit premature though seeing as 'Blame it on the Girls' hasn't yet been released! 'Rain' will be released towards the end of November and you can see the video if you click here and then click on the Rain video exclusive on the top left of your screen. The music and the video appeared very out of sync to me, but I'm not sure if that's just because of my dying laptop and/or Internet connection. If it is very out of sync then hopefully it'll be better when it's up on Youtube or shown on the TV. I like the video, it's definitely odd and very energetic :) What do you think?

Just heard from my friend R and hopefully she'll be discharged from hospital on Wednesday. I've not heard any more from K's mum recently, so I'm assuming that no news is good news and that's she's continuing to improve.

This morning I received the lastest edition of the Official Nintendo Magazine in the post, so am off to read that now. Need to pop round to the surgery later to collect my ESA medical certificate too. And I'm looking forward to watching The Gadget Show and Life on TV later.

Don't forget to Ask Me Anything, see the bottom of this blog post. Thanks Jess and Emma for your comments so far, but more from other readers would be appreciated. Thanks :D