It’s been a quiet day today! We dropped Jamie off at her stage school this morning. We got up late because of last nights adventure, so she was a little grumpy. Then back home, where Jan rushed through the jobs she had to do. Then she was off reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I picked Jamie up from stage school and dropped her back at home. She was even more grumpy than this morning!
I then left both of them with their Harry Potter books and went to do some jobs for my mum. I chained together her flower pots that she has at the front of the house, and then fastened the chain to the wall. She has been worried about them since some drunk tried to wander off with one of them one night. THis chain is more of a deterrent than anything else. I also fixed her new hose pipe for her and watered the plants for her. I should be easier for her now, a lot lighter than carrying and lifting a watering can.
When I got back home, the girls were still on the bed reading!
Oh yeah, it was the longest day today — the Summer Solstice, not that we got to see too much of it. It’s been dull and cloudy on and off today, we even had some light rain in the late afternoon. The great British Summer!
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix – out now
We have our copies now! We spent the night in Borders waiting for the release of the book. We bought two copies though i was tempted to get three! I will be able to contain myself and wait, I hope!
There were at least a couple of hundred people in Borders, a scene apparently repeated throughout the country. THe BBC has this story
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
We are all quite excited in our house. We are eagerly awaiting the release of the new Harry Potter book. Our local Borders are opening over midnight in order to sell copies of the book at one minute past midnight. They are suppposed to be putting on some entertainemnt.
We will be going down as a special treat for Jamie. I think we will only buy two copies, one each for Jamie and Jan. I have said I am willing to wait until one of them has finished before I read it. I guess with luck that means I will be able to start it on Monday!
Whilst I’m on the subject, we watched a very good interview of author JK Rowling by Jeremy Paxman tonight. It was the best interview I have seen her give. Very informative. The full transcript is available.
Which Would You Choose Your Hearing Or Sight?
My ear problems led on to a brief conversation with Jan this afternoon in which I mentioned that if I had to choose, I would rather lose my sight than my hearing. Jan felt very strongly the opposite, she got a little distressed at the thought of losing her sight. My opinion is that though I would miss my sight a lot, my two biggest ‘uses’ of it, reading and computing, could be replaced or at least achieved without sight. But if I lost my hearing there is no way to replace music. I would be really, really upset to know that I could never hear music again. I have probably listened on average to three or four albums a day every day for at least the last four or five years. I currently have around 400 – 500 CDs (counting doubles and triples as individual CDs) in a huge range of styles from classical to punk, jazz to country, easy listening to nu metal, rap to trance, and everything in between. In fact to give you an idea of my musical taste, I have dumped my local CDDB database to this page. There are 480 CDs in that list and it is not complete, but does include CDs I don’t own. As you can see I really would miss music if I had to lose my hearing.
What do you think? Given one of those hypothetical dilemmas; you must choose to keep either your hearing or your sight, which would you keep, and why?
More Of The Ear Saga
I forgot to mention, I went to see my doctor yesterday morning, and he prescribed some oral antibiotics and stronger painkillers. I decided not go into the office, but did some work from home.
For the rest of Wednesday, my ear wasn’t too painful, though I could tell when the painkillers started to run out. But it was very swollen most of the day and my hearing was affected all day. Quite disconcerting.
That led on to a conversation with Jan which I will discuss in my next post…
T-Shirt
Too much
The pain in my ear got to be too much today, and I’ve come home early. Strangely, the pain went away for the journey home! I guess the cooling effect of the wind (I cycled home), coupled with the re-distribution of blood around my body made the swelling go down. I could also hear better once I had set off. I realised that it had been almost closed up in the office. Now I’m back home it’s starting to swell again and the pain is coming back.
It’s very odd. I’m not normally a sickly person, I try not to let anything stop me doing what I want to do. But this constant pressure along with the sudden sharp pain, and the almost constant noise have been quite irritating, and have made it hard to concentrate.
Ho hum, back to the doctor in the morning.
‘Ere ‘ere What’s All This Then?
I took the morning off work and went to see my doctor. He examined my ear and decided that there was probably a boil and that it was extremely swollen causing the pain and the noise. He has prescribed some antibiotic ear drops. I picked those up on my way back home.
After a quick coffee, I went into work (cycling to the station). I did manage to work for the rest of the day but it is quite painful at times.
