Tidy the Garden - Part II

What a good job!! We've now finished tidying the right hand side of the garden, and look how good it looks now! I'm just hoping we haven't cut it back too far, and things are going to start dieing!

Tidy the Garden - Part I

Today's job is to tidy our back garden. As you can see from the picture above - things have grown a little since last summer - and seeing as Spring is on its way, we thought it was time to tidy it up a bit. Watch this space to see how we get on...

Last Ever Friday

Today my MSN Messenger name is Last Ever Friday. "Why?" I hear you asking...

Well, this is the last Friday that I will be working in my current job for Highbury Direct fulfillment. Back at the beginning of January we found out that because of a strategic review of the company, and mounting debts (£60 million plus!), Highbury House had decided that they were going to close the Ely office unless a buyer could be found. Well, too be honest - they didn't really try to find a buyer so it was pretty inevitable that we would be shut, and at the end of February it was announced formally that we would all be made redundant.

Thank God, I have another job all organised for me to start as soon as I finish here (more on this later), but I will really miss everyone at HDF. I have been here now for nearly 3 and a half years and have built up some good friendships. Despite a shaky start, the business has really done well in the past year and a half, and it felt like we were on a winning track, and were about to go places - so its a shame to see us being closed down so quickly.

There are so many changes going on within Highbury House, with bits being sold, closed down and merged - it will be interesting to see what happens in the Future (tee hee).

So today, is my last ever Friday working for HDF. And because it is so sunny and warm, we are going to the pub to celebrate at lunch :-)

Volcanoes and Things...

This week I watched the BBC factual drama Supervolcano and was thoroughly entertained. It was about Yellowstone National Park in the US, which is built on top of a supervolcano. The programme showed what would happen if the volcano one day exploded (its due for one in the next 100,000 years so watch out!!). Very interesting.

Anyway, it got me thinking about my volcano experiences from the Philippines. It was back in 1991 when Mt. Pinatubo exploded not far away from where I was living at the time.

The main thing I remember about the volcano eruption was that a typhoon was moving across Manila at the time, and all the volcanic ash got mixed in together and made a dense cloud... turning day to night! I remember it was about 3pm in the afternoon, and watery sand was falling from the dark sky - it felt like night time, but it was the middle of the day! It was almost like snow...

The above pic shows the ash getting mixed up with the passing typhoon.

The eruption was huge, and created its own weather system, complete with flashes of lightning. It dropped about half a cm of ash on the house that I was living in at the time. The ask was very destructive and created lahars. It stopped planes flying for a number of weeks from the capital, Manial, and devastated many people's homes and livelihoods. The worse part was the ash which fell up to 200m thick on the mountain, but further away, just a few cm of ash collapsed buildings and caused lung problems.

The picture above was taken in colour!! Everything is covered in ash. It looks B&W because everything is covered in ash.

Even though it was a relatively small eruption compared to a supervolcano - it still managed to reduce the global temperature by 0.5C for a couple of years through increased ozone depletion!

Nee Nor Nee Nor

Yesterday was a bit of a scary day for me.... please don't ready unless you are ok with

After a night of coughing, scary sneezes and little sleep, I decided that I would stay at home and try to rest it off. It was all going to plan until I sat down on the sofa with soup and toast in hand... suddenly I started coughing, and I couldn't breathe. It felt like there was something stuck in my throat and I just couldn't shift it. I kept trying to cough, then breathe... cough then breathe... but I just couldn't get any air in my lungs.

After about 30 seconds I started to panic and jumped up and down - I really didn't know what to do at all. Another 30 seconds and I'd started to get a bit dizzy and my vision was going a bit funny, i was SO worried and didn't have a clue how to help myself... should I go next door and try to ask for help? Should I ring 999, should I ring Ang? What should I do?

Thankfully, after another 15 seconds I was able to inhale a short breath. It wasn't much, but enough to know I was heading in the right direction. I kept trying to inhale, it was hard at first, but slowly the breaths were getting longer and I was getting enough oxygen into my lungs. After a few seconds of breathing I rang Ang to let her know what had happened and to let her know that I was going to go the the hospital ASAP....

... anyway, a mate from work took me to Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge, and all the way along the journey I was petrified that it was going to happen again. I had started shaking (probably mild shock) and was sweating like a sweaty thing!

My lovely wife, Ang, met me at the A&E department and within a few minutes they were taking my pulse and making sure that I wasn't getting worse. I was then met the doctor who sent me to have a couple of chest x-rays to make sure that I didn't have a collapsed lung... luckily, the results came back ok and there was nothing too drastically wrong with me, so the Doctor told me to book an appointment with my GP as there was nothing they could do at A&E for me.

Huh? Nothing they could do? I'd almost died, and a few hours later they were sending me away from hospital!? Well, I accepted what the doctor said, and prayed that I would be ok until I saw the doctor today.

Thankfully I'd booked the doctors appointment on Monday for today, so popped in before 9 this morning. Having talked to the doctor, it turns out that I have a swollen windpipe and an over active mucus (sp?) gland. Anyway, the choking I experienced yesterday was because the mucus got stuck in the wind pipe... nice hey? Also, my scary sneezes are actually a diaphragm spasm - where the muscle just refuses to work for a few seconds because it is exhausted of me sneezing!! So, I've now got to take an inhaler for the next 2 months which will hopefully clear things up and reduce the swelling.

I'm so glad that I now know what is wrong with me. My scary sneezes really were scary, and as for my choking episode yesterday... where do I start?! Let just hope that the inhaler does the job!

Cough Cough

Poor ickle me... i've had a chesty cough now for over a month and its not getting much better. I have a doctors appointment on Thursday so hopefully I will know what i've got. I've been on the NHS direct self diagnosis website and it reckons i've either got Asthma (hmmm... not had that before) or a chest infection. Either way - it doesn't sound good!!

I've also have what i've called "Scary Sneeazes" which are basically sneezes but scarily I can't breath for 5-20 seconds afterwards! Not good hey?! Luckily i only have a few scary sneeazes a day, so I am coping at the moment!!