Backwards In High Heels

A Big Bang

It has been like an episode of Changing Rooms here, only without the really bad taste and crying.

The room currently having a revamp is my bedroom. Gone is the furniture that has been with me since I was 18, a wardrobe with doors even more unhinged than myself.

So far it has been stripped, painted and a wood effect floor put down (a must with our menagerie). Last Sunday I put down the hardboard ready for the wood floor, and it was hard but satisfying work. There is something wonderfully therapeutic about banging nails in. It’s not a big room but it took me quite some time – rather than measuring it in hours and minutes it took one Allo Allo, a Bargain Hunt (regular size), a Keeping Up Appearances and Murder Ahoy!

I couldn’t have asked for a better line up of tv goodies to work along to. I think we British do farce so well and Allo Allo and Keeping Up Appearance are two great examples. Bargain Hunt was one of the half hour shows, when I appeared on it (have I not mentioned I am an international TV star?) we had a 45 minute show, oooh get me…An Audience With Beki must be following.

Murder Ahoy is one of my favourite films – starring Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. Margaret Rutherford I think has the most wonderful screen presence and is the type of actress the modern system would never give time too. How I envy people who saw her as Blithe Spirit's Madame Arcati on the London stage.

For me her Miss Marple is the best and it is thought that Agatha Christie had her in mind when creating the character and indeed dedicated The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side to her. Margaret Rutherford’s Marple has exactly the right balance of ‘interested in others' (never a gossip!) and robust nature that the stereotype village spinster should have. These women still exist the length and breadth of England.

A totally different approach to Miss Marple was Joan Hickson which fitted beautifully into the 1980s television schedule. She brought a human edge to  Miss Marple to the fore in her reaction to post war Britain. The latest incarnation – Geraldine McEwan I cannot take to in the slightest. At times the new series almost declines into parody and Geraldine McEwan reduces Miss Marple a simpering old busy body– Miss Marple should be old school, striding out, stuff and nonsense woman!

Anyway, tomorrow my new wardrobe arrives which will mean I am let loose with an electric screwdriver…if there’s wi-fi access from casualty I’ll let you know how many shows it takes me to get it up in the bedroom, oo-er missus.

Changing+Rooms, decorating, sitcom, Allo+Allo, Keeping+Up+Appearences, Murder+Ahoy, Margaret+Rutherford, Agatha+Christie, Miss+Marple

My Latest Prick

Yesterday was a day of the best laid plans going astray.

At 9:30am I was due a blood test, another bloody (sic) one but hopefully the last for a while. As you've read before my veins are challenging and the first round saw two nurses have to tag team against my veins.

Second round and it was a different nurse who was straight in and out of the vein - fearsome.

Yesterday morning was round three and after the ease of round two I went in all smiley and sure it would be fine. I'd have the test, pop to the swimming pool and laze my morning away, come home and work like demon...

Wrong. I required the original tag team again and this time neither could strike red gold and in the process it hurt like hell. They suggested rather than carry on using me as a pin cushion I attended the local hospital's phlebotomy clinic to see if they had better luck.

So nursing two very sore arms by this time, it was a magical mystery tour to the hospital which sidelined me to another rant - car parking charges at hospitals. I appreciate the car parks have to be paid for somehow but having had friends go through daily radiotherapy etc I know the huge financial strain it puts on some already stressed people. This rant took my mind off my arms for a few minutes.

In the hospital there was a large waiting area outside the phlebotomy clinic and the cheese counter system - take a number and watch the departures board. I got lottery ticket No93, the board was flashing 73.

Choosing a seat in waiting areas at doctors and hospitals is a fine art. You want to be close enough to other people to eavesdrop but not close enough to catch whatever they have...

*Bing-Bong* and with only a half hour wait my number was up but instead of a nice slice of Brie as at Sainsburys it was a nurse wielding a needle. At the grand old age of 32....I made my Mum come in with me. Quite a bit of prodding and the now customary nurse's chant of 'they're rubbish veins' followed but thankfully with the first prick she hit red and a vial was dually filled.

Back home the afternoon had been and gone and my to-do list sat untouched. Hey ho.

Tech Tags: blood+test, nurses, doctors, hospital, hospital+car+park, waiting+rooms

I Give Myself Up For Medical Research

(Before I start – my Il Divo review is up at BBC Derby if you want to pop over)

Seven days of wheat filled eating left before the final blood test and then the removal of all things gluten.

Gran (gawd bless her) went straight to the bookshop and has sent me 4 gluten free recipe books. So I am slowly reading up and planning ahead for a life without gluten.

I feel as if my life has been secretly infiltrated by the hell demon of the kitchen Gillian McKeith. Alternatives to wheat read like a pet food shop list. Millet? Millet! Get me a mirror and a bell why not.

But I am hardly going to starve, it is simply a matter of being inventive and imaginative though one very serious wheat free no-no has come to light.

Cake.

Madeira cake, fruit cake, Jonathan Cake.

Mmmm, Jonathan Cake. If I licked him would I bloat (after being arrested and having an injunction served on me)?

I think in the interest of gluten intolerance research I should be allowed to lick Jonathan Cake just so we can all be sure.

And in the interest of scientific integrity I will of course need to lick a control, Daniel Craig, but there again he could set of a slight reaction because he starred in Layer Cake (this must be what they mean about gluten hiding in things you wouldn't imagine).

So perhaps a further control should be introduced, Ewan McGregor.

I am willing to make this sacrifice and risk my own health in the name of medical research.

Tech Tags: coeliac, gluten+intolerance, wheat+intolerance, Jonathan+Cake, Daniel+Craig, Ewan+McGregor