Anyone Else Up Yet ......... Vol. 2

Welcome back Jeni, the weather is improving just as you berth.
Hi Allie please focus on looking after Allie for a few days! It is hard on you having a daughter who does not have a husband to take care of her. And most of us are driven by that maternal drive to take care of our grown up children. Once a mum...
But you have been quite poorly yourself and you know what they say (or what I say anyway) "You can't look after other people unless you look after yourself." Hope you have a nice day.

Morning all, thank goodness it isn't raining! It just came down in buckets yesterday.

Welcome back Jeni, hope it was a good holiday?

Gally we Grans are used to disappointment aren't we? Remember all those cancellations when the children were young! Hugs and
Hugs to Specki too, and all troubled Grans for that matter.
Jeni all that angst about packing, I thought you were on one of those 3 month cruises!
Did you have to negotiate the Bay of Biscay during your voyage ?( borrowed the envy emoticom)

Jess - I AM! Two good nights sleep does wonders.

The steroids make me just go and do everything and flake out after. I feel much more on an even keel now.

Have started eating some manuka honey - I reckon it can't hurt and has done some good things before now, like healing a friend's leg ulcers in 3 months which she had had for 2 years.
So - have to go and shop for more, as I just finished it. Back later.

That manuka is good stuff - my son's oncology team recommended it for chemo - induced mouth ulcers. Not sure of research backing for this one though. Manuka is a member of the tea tree family.

My sister had manuka honey dressings after cancer surgery - they're processed and the honey is put on in strips (a bit like wax strips). Very effective for healing. Manuka is good for ulcers and stomach rawness that can lead to ulcers - best with a chunk of bread so it lingers in the stomach longer.

Would manuka honey help ease the tenderness on my gums from the after effects of that blasted abcess I had after my tooth extraction as it is still quite tender.?

Yes I eat it on bread.

Honey used for antisepsis seems to have been forgotten for years - but it works - what I didn't say is that my friend's ulcers were MRSA infected and afterwards the swab was negative. We worked out our own dressings.
We had one visit to the Churchill Hospital at the time and the consultant was very taken aback as he didnt know about it - but couldn't say much as he had a visiting African VIP doctor there at the time - very funny.
What gave us the idea of using it on the ulcers was an article in New Scientist in 2001.

Saw a programme ages ago about the Black Prince, who got an arrow in next to his eye....they invented an instrument to get it out and then dressed it with honey...(presumably ordinary honey).....he recovered.

glamma that's quite likely if you can keep it on there!
Hope it improves soon anyway.

Honey has been used an antibacterial for aeons!

Had a lovely holiday thanks folks. Not as impressed with QM2 as the other two, too big and impersonal. The break was still good though, even if the weather was mixed!

Missed you lot though!
Hope you've all behaved while my back's been turned!

Fat chance jeni! Glad you had a good time. Welcome home.

jeni people don't know about it though. When we started this the district nurse asked if we kept the honey in the fridge.....

I guess bees have had thousands of years to make their honey resist bacteria and fungi!

Saw a red kite today on the way home! First time I've seen one!

FANTASTIC

Was it huge? I've never seen one. Not sure how far north they go.

Yes. Very large! It was on the M4 going west, just after Membury services!

What a treat jeni. They're such impressive birds. Nice to have you back

Great - I remember my first one on the M40, I nearly swerved. Saw one last week hovering over the MK boundary at last. Wheeee. I want to see one hovering over my garden.

They were introduced in the Chilterns and I think Rutland way? I have seen them N of MK as well. They are from SPain and breed twice as fast as the Welsh native kind (i.e. every year)
Can't mistake them - a little bigger than a buzzard, great big forked tail and, unlike buzzards tend to hang about nearer to the ground. Often seen playing "chicken" as the M40 crosses the Chilterns (just by that chalk cutting that stars in the Vicar of Dibley credits) - hovering over the motorway, enjoying the draught.

At the other end of the scale, we were in Frosts woburn, just about to leave the car park today - and there was a Goldcrest foraging about, right in front of the windscreen in the cypress hedging. Cute!

We've got a field up the lane where there are several hares. usually out and about at this time of night but none to be seen this evening. Think the noise from Download Festival might be scaring them off; Black Sabbath are playing tonight!

We have lots of kites here, I have seen 15 at one time...amazing birds, I remember my first sight! They are even in Oxford too.They are telling people here not to feed them now....

crimson we have Red Kites over the house everyday, they are amasing to watch. There was a release programme from 2004 and they have increased year on year since and are now a common site in the area.

www.northernkites.org.uk/return.htm

Off to watch the Red Kites at Gigrin Farm in a couple of weeks, a little jolly that includes tea in Skirrid, overnight in Crickhowel and on to stay with friends in Pembrokeshire. Hoping for (sunshine)

I mean!

Hello jeni back safe and sound, did you have a good time?