Mud & Mischief

Hogwarts with a difference.

That man obviously has far too much time on his hands!

Yesterday started out well enough, first day back at school for the kids, lovely sunny weather, went for a cuppa with Mom before she went home, pottered around. Then around lunchtime, I began feeling weird. A friend popped round to collect some bits I’d picked up for her and she noticed there was something not right about me.

It started as a fluttering in my chest, then a heavy sensation around the hollow of my throat, breathlessness, a little dizzyness, then the heavy sensation developed into what felt like someone had their hand around my throat. I felt like I had to cough to make it go away and the dizzyness would get worse. It would slowly ease and I’d feel very light headed and ‘odd’ afterwards.

This was happening every 5 to 10 minutes and gradually got worse. As it was nearly pre-school pick up time, I went a little earlier and collared one of the mum’s who I know is a specialist heart nurse. She asked me a few questions, took my pulse and told me I should ring the doc’s but she thought it was a panic attack! I was a tad gobsmacked at that, but did as I was told.

To cut a long story short, the doc’s told me to dial 999, but as I was in the car anyway, I drove myself into town (with Piglet and RJ), picked up James and went to A&E. An hour later, and we’re back out with a diagnosis of exhaustion and a bad case of panic/anxiety attacks! And me feeling like a complete muppet. Me no do stress and all that nonsense. Or so I thought.

At least it wasn’t a heart attack, I suppose. Although it panicked me a tad, I have to admit. Not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do, other that ‘take it easy’ which was the triage nurse’s opinion. And the very nice South African doc said pretty much the same, albeit with a wry smile that indicated he knew just how asinine that offering was!

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed those irritatingly cheerful ladies in the big pink Sheila-mobile doing their ‘Sheila’s wheels are superstars’ ditty are actually going down the road backwards?

That kind of thing really irritates the OCD.

I loathe foxes. They’e vermin. Bushy tailed, sharp faced miserable creatures. Urban foxes are even worse, scavenging flea-bitten wretches.

I came down this morning, looked down the garden and wondered why there were lots of leaves all over the bank at the bottom of the garden. Did a double take and realised the leaves were actually feathers. And scattered across the bank were three bedraggled, headless heaps of bloodied feathers, and three small separate heads. The fox hadn’t even bothered to eat them and had simply slaughtered my chooks. R.I.P. Dot, Mo and Elvira. I’m so upset.

Not least because we’re at fault for not shuttung them in properly - the fox had pushed the sliding door fully open and dragged them out. I took RJ up to bed early, and James followed shortly after and neither of us thought to ask the other if we’d shut the chickens in.

A hard lesson to learn. It didn’t help when Myf turned CBBC on and they were bottle feeding baby foxes. I think my rant quite startled the children. What gets me is those oh-so-cute baby foxes grow up, they’ll be ‘released’ into the wild and quite probably starve to death if they’re let go in the countryside or run over if turned loose near an urban area. Hand reared foxes haven’t got a clue about how to survive. They live out of trash cans.

Count yourselves lucky that I’m typing with one hand as RJ sleeps on me or this blog would be a damn sight longer and a great deal more vitriolic. But it’s hard to get too irate when your 3 month old baby is snuffling gently into your neck and dribbling lovingly down your cleavage.

Had a bit of a crisis the other day - found out they’d decided to take my allotment off me and give it to someone else. Without telling until after they’d done it. Spent a very unpleasant few days until it all came to a head on Sunday and I ended up banging on the door of the Chairman of the Town Council. I’m not normally the most pro-active of people, but I’d decided that it was time I stood up for myself and against the inherent petty corruption that prevails in small town councils. The full story is here.

Apart from that, RJ put on 12oz this week, and weighs in at a hefty 13lb 14oz. Last week I did a quick comparison of weights for age between him and the three girls. At 9 weeks, Myf was 12lb 6, Tea was 9lb 12, Piglet was 13lb 6 and RJ was 13lb 2oz. I have a funny feeling that next week, he’ll have overtaken Piglet.