Catching up

I've lost count of how many mornings it's been on the trot that I've gone to bed between 3 and 4am. The night's yet young at only 12.30 am so here I am with still half a dozen or so pix to caption, relaxing by writing.
I suddenly felt guilty saying the 'R' word and remembered there'd been a call earlier which I hadn't yet listened to. OK, done that now. Brenda and Rob Joynson whose wedding I photographed a couple of weeks ago are now ready to let me know which enlargements they would like.
It was a fun day. I was filled with trepidation since the only other weddings I had covered were friends and informal. Brenda persuaded me to do hers by saying 'We LIKE your photographs'.
I think I provided a certain amount of entertainment at the wedding, perched on the top rungs of a step ladder, unsupported. I'm sure the huge beams on people's faces were in anticipation of my falling off. I quite forgot I was up there and it did wobble a little!
I can never quite understand that people (some!) do like my pictures. At a local council election a couple of years ago, one councillor was very displeased with the picture I took of him as the announcement was made and he hadn't won. However, I did photograph him last week and he was very smiley and has now forgiven me though at the time he did stop me in the street to, ahem, 'express his dismay'. I figured I'd probably taken the all-time worse piccie of him so it could only get better!
Such a little Pollyanna.
Remember that film, with Hayley Mills? Every cloud had a silver lining for Pollyanna and I think I tend to be a little that way disposed.
Hospital visit went well, next one in another 3 months' time and then on to six monthlies. I was told that after 3 years they wouldn't be seeing me again. I asked if that's cos I was going to be dead!
Maybe from staying up too late at night and forgetting to eat but apparently not from cancer, I was told.
Oh, on health things. Last week, moaning about my arthritic knee, which sends spikes of pains up and down my leg, it was recommended I get a copper bangle. 'They work'.
People have told me before, who wear them, that they work. Why I should believe it this time and not have taken a lot of notice previously was that I was getting fed up of missing out. I'd started swimming again and that isn't too bad but walking, or rather dashing about with my heavy camera bag seemed to be taking their toll.
Also riding on top!! ;) Chortle!
When I've thunk about something new for a little while I'm usually up to try it out. I have seen a consultant about 'the knee' but have been written off for ten years 'til I'm old enough to not have to have the knee re-done, washed out or replaced, apparently and was told to go back when the painkillers no longer work.
Well they bloody well don't! I'd take them to sleep and four hours later be awake and in pain.
Of course, being me, I went about buying a bangle with a vengeance. I was in Alford for a photograph and popped into a shop in the market place where a very nice lady chatted to me about thinking pain away. I used to do this, combined with the breathing you're supposed to do when having a baby, for migraines and it worked. Once I imagined I was breathing the pain out through my leg. OK, strange, but it worked.
However breathing out of strange parts of my body and thinking it away just wasn't doing it for me any more.
So I bought an el cheapo copper magnetic bangle.
Then I delivered a disk of pictures to Fabian, the former mayor, of all his events which I'd covered during the year and noticing he had some magnetic bracelets and I grabbed one for a barter.
With the magnetic bangle on my left arm, next to my watch and the copper one on my right arm I was willing to believe.
Maybe I just had psychosomatic pain? I had psychosomatic measles once.
I was training as a secretary in one of the main buildings of the MoD in London. It was before 1 January was a bank holiday and my then boyfriend (turned husband, turned ex) was back at the flat and that's where I wanted to be.
The Secretarial School Principal came up to me: "Julie, dear, are you quite well?"
Bolshy reply: "Yes, thank you"
Thirty minutes later: "Julie, dear, are you
sure you're well? Do go look at yourself!"
Sure enough I was covered in a rash.
I was sent off to see Nurse Slaughter. Yes, Slaughter, brilliant name for a nurse, don't you think?
I was dismissed with measles and told to go see my GP. Of course by the time I got there I was spotless .. but enjoyed the rest of the day off work!
Trusting my new bangles I decided to forego the painkillers and since I'd been working late (again, what's new) I fell asleep quite quickly. I awoke around the normal time, 6ish but realised it was because of the early rush of traffic, and NOT through pain! Yippeeeeeee.
Yes, there was a dull ache still but not pain. And since then my knee/leg have been virtually pain free. If it's all in my head I don't care, it works!
One thing not so bright ... the magnetic bracelet made my watch run slow and I was extraordinarily late for a job!
Oh, my hospital visit was in Lincoln. I tried to find Tritton Road to buy some new CDs to write to but got lost so gave up and came home. I didn't want to drive around the city twice, as I did on Monday because I'm still recovering from the experience!
I was following signs for Workshop/Gainsborough and in a four lane road was in the outside lane. I wanted to go forward but there was a bend in the road and instead of following the bend I DID drive straight forward, suddenly realising as a rush of traffic that hadn't been there before headed straight at me that I was driving on the wrong side of the road.
Hastily reversed .. I'm sure you can imagine that was a sound thing to do and someone parped their horn at me.
HONESTLY, do you really think that was warranted??? Would I, would ANYONE, really drive into oncoming traffic on the wrong side of the road if they knew where they were going. Patently I was lost. Parping at me would make not a jot of difference to my knowing where the hell I was. If it was a driver trying to cross behind me, did he really think I should have stayed there and got crashed into??
Sometimes drivers are sooooo impatient. I know that, cos I am! But I wouldn't have parped!
My children thought I invented road rage. They claim they have dents in their chests from my throwing out a protective arm as I'd skid to a hastily braked halt at the main roundabout into Oxford.
I hate that roundabout. I smacked into vehicles twice at the same place. The first time it was a huge lorry. My headlight was broken; not a scratch on the lorry but I thought if one had an accident then names and addresses were supposed to be exchanged. I did see the driver of the lorry look in his mirror when I hit him and believed he'd pull over. He drove straight on, so I chased him with my lights flashing so he could have my address!!! He must have thought a mad woman was after him. He lost me in the end. Not may fault, I tried!
The second time my husband was driving in the lane outside me, a little behind me and couldn't believe his eyes when he saw me trotting to the car in front with my little pad and pencil to do the exchange, so he pulled over, too! It was quite a convoy in the end! After that I kept some index cards with my details already printed on them in the glove compartment!
Speaking of convoys. I joined one to drive up to Las Vegas when they closed the Hoover Dam bridge to anything but cars for a few days following 9/11. I was returning a hire car for a friend's boss to Las Vegas. He'd been told not to take it beyond Arizona but had zipped down to Texas as far as you could drive before crossing into Me-hi-co and I offered to drive the 1200+ miles back, in three days ... I even put it through the car wash so no one could possibly imagine it had nearly been into Mexico! I've driven over the Hoover Dam three times and I really really dislike it. That huge expanse of water, the lake behind. I imagine the dam bursting and washing the car away. So I joined the convoy of trucks driving up through the desert and alongside the quiescent river. So I was just sitting there on cruise control, listening to yet another country and western radio station thinking 'Rubber duck, rubber duck' when I was brought up short by a sign which read 'Can be subject to flooding' Oh hell, now I imagined the dam breaking and all the water coming rushing through the desert and I was STILL going to be washed away. The next sign was 'headlights on for the next 90 miles' Must be a big tunnel coming up I thought. No, just miles and miles and miles of desert. I relieved the monotony by overtaking a truck every so often until eventually I was at the front and leading the convoy ... RUBBER DUCK OVER AND OUT!