Nazanin Zaghari Radcliffe

Yesterday thanks to Boris Johnson, a young mum visiting her family in Iran, was given a 21 year sentence for training journalists.  She collapsed in shock.

With a Foreign Minister like Boris there is no hope for the future. He constantly puts his foot in his mouth and shoves it right down.

He is constantly guarded and protected from dismissal, when he is the worst Minister in office today.  Others guide him and try and project a moral compass for him but it doesn't work.

As for me I have never felt worse in my health, but this has made me come alive to try and help in whatever way I can.

So it you are reading this, tweet Boris to do something to free her, tweet No.10, tweet your own PMs. Facebook, Blog etc.

This young woman won't live another year under this strain.  Please lovely worldwide readers please push to get this poor lady freed.

Thank you.

Been a while

Sure has, found it hard to write some days.

Today I am waiting to hear if my little rescue cat of a year old has cancer.

Heard from my Doctor that my heart is not working as it should - so that's scary - he's put me on different tablets to sort it out.

Fingers crossed.

I'm so exhausted I can hardly move and finding it hard to look to the future.

Many of my friends are struggling with their own lives, so I can't talk to them.

My husband's career is really starting to take off, while I feel I'm wearing out.

Life Jim, but not as we know it.
Quote from Star Trek's Spock.

 

Hair

This is my real hair colour on the right, my son is on the left - used in a card design for my business in Cornwall.  Called Coppernob Design.

Someone else has taken the name now.  Just as well, with all the illnesses I've had recently the top of my hair is white and the bottom half is red.

Being a redhead is part of me,  I loved it.  My distinctive hair colour pleased me. Both my sisters and mother and father had black hair. Black Irish from the Spanish who were wrecked on the shores of Ireland after the failed Armada attack.

But I like my Irish grandad am a throwback to the Vikings, another invading force. I have freckles and very white skin, not like the olive skin of my two sisters.

I want it back, not just the colour of my hair but my health. I want to have long red hair and be back in Cornwall where I was happiest, looking out of the bedroom window at the cobalt blue sea.

Oxfordshire is pretty, but it doesn't suit me. I feel I've lost my identity here, and certainly my health.  

I want to shop in Truro for a treat on Saturday, go to the Penlee Gallery on Sunday and look at the exhibits and have a coffee. Perhaps it's just a holiday I need, it's been a very hard year.

We're going to St Ives for New Years Eve.  Looking forward to it. It's always fun. Last time it was with friends and family. Since we moved back to be with everybody for some reason we are now "billy no mates" and spend our time mostly alone.  

Feeling ill and nostalgic today as the year winds to it's close. God 2016 was bad enough but 2017 topped that with cherries on.

For the past six months I have been in hospital, visiting A&Es, at the Doctor, at the specialists, carted off with a minor stroke, just this week already 2 visits for Llabrinthitus a nice new illness foisted on me because I didn't have enough!

Last week only the Hospital, the Doctors, the opticians. Seems never ending.  I feel I have achieved nothing this year apart from keeping alive and I have to thank my Guardian Angels for that - they are amazing.

Even my Sealed Knot adventures have been curtailed. 

I didn't realise how lucky I was until it was all gone, at my best I had a house in Cornwall of my own bought after my divorce, a little motorhome, shared a house in Buckinghamshire with my new husband, had a great job, my Sealed Knot, my family around me, a reasonable amount of health.

Today I sit alone feeling morose, (which is one of the after effects of a stroke), they tell me.
Trying to make sense of it all.

I haven't written much.  No energy.

This is the most I've written for weeks.

Will write again when I feel a bit more cheerful and less sorry for myself.
 

Mistaken Identity

This is a picture of our new cat Molly, 9 months old.

 

This is a picture of Amber, 9 years old and now deceased about 8 weeks ago...

Very similar, we did this on purpose, as we hoped it would help Amber's brother Ted

see below - confuse him a bit - stop him grieving so much and waiting by the hedge for him to come back.

 

 We thought he was playing in the overgrown garden next door, but he wasn't. We found out at the weekend what he was actually doing when one of the neighbours came and accused Molly (sitting in our front window) of eating their cat's food.  Poor Amber was trying to stop the pain in his stomach by "eating out" thinking the pain was caused by hunger.  So all our careful measuring of his special food was in vain.

We explained that Molly was a different cat, younger and female, and did not go out yet. 
I don't think the neighbour was entirely convinced.  

Poor little Molly, she's at last become friends with Ted, see below, and he has a level of toleration of her which was better than we expected.

 
 Cat politics eh? 


 

Another one of those days!

I am supposedly resting.  Woke up feeling better than yesterday when I couldn't actually move. Not like me. I never usually stay in bed till twelve get up eat yoghurt for lunch and go to sleep on the sofa.

So today is apparently better. I have filled in an American Tax form which is a bit of a mission, tidied and cleaned the house, still feel weird, but I put it down to my new tablets.
After dear hubby went back to work today, the man up the road started playing his new drum kit.  He's been doing that all day, and I really can't tell if he's getting better or worse.

The TV aerial packed up, so I went digital, the Now TV box has also packed up. Channel 5 online on the computer only has yesterday's programmes.

I have a headache and toothache that feels like I'm chewing silver paper - a reaction to my new tablets. I bought ingredients to try a new Mary Berry recipe - then lost it somewhere.

I spent yesterday asleep and in the evening we washed our 17th Century pottery that we had not touched from the Sealed Knot Event two weeks ago at Edgehill. It was well sticky, and washing up is not much of a hobby!   I found the jar of blood I'd made and guess 
what ?  It had clotted like the real thing.

Red fruit tea, plum jam and a teaspoon of cocoa powder if you'd care to know - my own invention - and it looked great.  So that, clots and all was poured down the kitchen sink.

Strange thing tho' unpacking the herb lady stuff stressed me out, as if it was a physical reminder of that TIA and the hours spent in Warwick assessment unit wearing 17th Century costume.

I still find myself saying hippopotamus in times of stress - the Doctor told me if I could say it everything was okay.

I hope to be able to drive again in two weeks time after a visit to the hospital for a review.
hippopotamus hippopotamus hippopotamus.  OK I suppose.

So back to tonight - cooking jacket potatoes bacon and mushrooms - simple and filling. I hopefully will find the Mary Berry comfort food recipe tomorrow.

Friday the 13th - it MUST be my lucky day as all the other days of this year haven't been.

Oh well, onwards and upwards.

Have a good weekend everyone.


 

Edgehill

All set up to feed and heal the troops after battle. My Goodwyfe stall was going well, lots of visitors asking questions, smelling the herbs and potions and even my home made blood for the bandages came out perfect.

Then I had a mini stroke, started burbling unable to speak, my face fell on the left side and I was rushed to Warwick A&E.  It was scary and I was unable to take in what was actually happening to me. My husband noticed it immediately and the Sealed Knot medics sent us off with their Sat Nav - an australian guy who said "You have reached your destination, grab your sunnies and don't let the seagulls eat your chips!"

A week of hospital tests visits and scans and I am home again alone. I couldn't write for a week, I felt nothing, was nothing. Just existed in a middle world of eating, sleeping, tests and tablets.

What next?  More hospital visits, Drs Visits in a week or so. What now?  Me trying to be human again.  The only good thing to come out of this was my son came over from Sweden to see me. Pleasurable and frightening in equal measure.  Was he told something I didn't know?

 Although I look okay in the photo - paranoia and panic rages in every little pain or ache imagined or real. I am on two drugs one to slow my heart and one to thin my blood. I have after years of keep fit and dieting no blocked or furred arteries.

But I can't seem to find my way back to me.


 

Halloween is on the horizon

The leaves are falling the wind is blowing, the TV is losing it's digital signal - get a hot cup of cocoa, a nice warm rug over your knees and read my Halloween horror stories. There are three that tell a tale of loves lost, loves found, and the evils of messing with magic on Samhain. A time when the most darkest of evils can be released sometimes by accident.  Also includes some funny moments or it wouldn't be me writing,



















They link together, tying up mystical knots, a lot of research was done for these books and some of the people in them exist, how strong their powers are I do not want to find out.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Overdown-Manor-Halloween-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01DH2NSQK/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 

Finally, the last in the series  



I am extremely proud of Evil, I have tried to show how the most innocent looking people can be the devil's advocates.  

Read enjoy, pass to your friends - on Amazon Kindle - now.