AndyBlog

Hail, Mighty Kondark!

Kondark and the sheep over-lord brethren are our leaders. They do not need out worship, merely our obedience. Their knowledge is supreme, their wisdom unsurpassable. Mighty Kondark must be served.

Blessed, also, be our Over-lord sheep brethren. Their lives are a testament to our care and commitment to their well-being. May we forever revere their superiority and follow their guidance.

Behold, the over-lord bretheren!

They honour us with their wool - they bestow their bounty upon us. We serve them willingly. Our freedom is to serve the woollen ones, the bretheren - our over-lords!

May we ever-more proclaim the greatness of of the sheep.

HAIL, MIGHTY KONDARK!

The Power Of Shower

It would not take a person of any great intellect to perceive that I have not been in absolutely the best spirits of late.

This has been due to my health problems turning out to be more than a simple bout of cellulitis. Having had an infection which then went into remission, I am now experiencing a secondary infection which is affecting my left leg as well as the right. In short, my legs are in a mess, but I now have some decent antibiotics to treat it with. So there is hope that I might soon start moving in the right direction again.

So much for the round-up.

Of late, it's all been getting to me. I realised I was running the risk of allowing it all to consume me in a mass of hopelessness and depression. Of course, it's one thing realising something, and quite another doing something about it.

It was round about then, shortly after I had almost totally depressed my wife when she came in from her work, that I decided to have a shower. I absolutely love showers, but they have been stripped of their joy of late because I thought I needed to remove my bandages before showering. The result has been rather painful showers, with hot water falling directly onto the worst affected delicate areas.

Not this time

I really didn't post today's Blog entry.

It's better that way.

I was going to write today

Hello to you.

I am aware that I have been either posting trivialities here or nothing at all of late. You've already guessed why. Yes, unfortunately, the problems with my leg have not gently eased back into a healing pattern, and have, instead, careered off into a downward spiral of more worserness.

Some things from the original bout are continuing to heal, but the core infection of cellulitis is back, and seems to be spreading further up my leg, threatening to start on my thigh. As I feel that dread burning sensation I wonder how much more pain, discomfort and mental anguish I must go through.

Poor poor me. Poor me - look at me, I'm so-o-o-o-o ill. Poor me.

(please use this as a refrain, inserting my name if you are not me)

I even wonder whether I should post this entry, as it will cause alarm in some quarters - annoyance in others and generally be depressing. All I can say is that I made myself a solemn promise when I started this blog to be completely honest and not to edit. I am a perfectionist, and so it would never be right, therefore - etc. (Thanks for this tip, Stuart Smalley)

The worst thing for me is the sickly sweet smell of the pus from the wounds. It follows me everywhere and, even at a dressing change, barely goes away now. If there is anyone in the medical profession out there who knows of a good way to fight it, I would be glad to hear it.

(Refrain)

My doctor returns from holiday on Friday, so I should see her as soon as possible. I do wonder what state I will be in by then, or whether I should give in and see the other doctor. I don't know. All I really know is that the pain is so bad I can barely type, or think straight.

(Refrain)

So, because of all this, I have decided not to write a blog entry today.

Union Espresso

This is, of course, the second coffee in the massive array of coffee that Jason kindly gave me for my birthday. It is, in every sense, the gift that keeps on giving.

I find this coffee to be something of an enigma. It seems to be made for people who do not have an Espresso machine, and yet like the full and rewarding flavour of fine espresso coffee. The trouble is, one can only achieve that flavour by extracting the flavour from the grounds at 12-bar pressure or above - and those grounds need to be more finely ground to enable this process to complete successfully.

So, to my way of thinking, this coffee is holed beneath the waterline before it begins. If I pack it tightly into the pressure chamber - and I mean VERY tightly - it is possible to get a passable créma and a half decent flavour. I am left with a yearning to know how this coffee REALLY tastes, because as a fine ground product it may well be truly excellent, we'll never know.

As it is, I'd have to say that this coffee is OK. Little more. I believe the packaging is misleading, by including the word "Espresso". Those who buy without reading the small print will probably be disappointed. The packaging is also such that it is impossible to use it as a working container. It neither stands up, like the Lavazza coffee or is a tin, like the Illy coffee. The only alternative is to pour it out into something else - in our case, the Illy tin.

I don't think you need to stress your shelves with this product.

Ease of use: 8/20
Flavour: 23/80

Overall: 31%

Fiona, Jac, Lily, Me

This is the sort of thing that happens when people who like playing with cameras are allowed near beautiful flowers.

Illy Caffé Macinato

Illy Caffé Macinato is the first of the coffees Jason kindly gave me for my birthday. It comes in a silver and red tin and has a definite feeling of quality about it.

The grounds themselves are a very dark brown, almost black, and finely ground to a powder. As a result, not much packing is needed when filling the measure for the espresso machine. Indeed, the pump really struggles, even though the grounds are barely packed at all.

What emerges is an inky black liquid with a fine créma. Unusually, the aroma is not intense and this is an observation carried through to the tasting. Whilst the traditional bitterness of intense espresso or ristretto is there, there is no richness, and one is left feeling strangely unsatisfied by the experience.

Our benchmark has to be the excellent Lavazza Espresso coffee (in the black bag), and the Illy offering, despite all its finery, fails to live up to the standard.

It is described like this on the Amazon gourmet site:

"Ground espresso from Illy, the king of coffee roasters. Re-live your trip to Italy every morning with a homemade espresso from Italy's most famous roastery."

My goodness - do you think they're trying to sell something?

Ease of use: 16/20
Flavour: 42/80

Overall: 58%

Birthday Meal

This was very much a last minute decision, but I decided that if there was one form of food I really loved, it was Chinese food. So Fiona kindly drove us into Newcastle, where we found a parking place directly outside the Mandarin Restaurant. It wasn't long before we were inside and munching on high-fat prawn crackers. Our menu decisions were tough - well, mine was, because I was trying to do the impossible and order low-fat food in a restaurant geared entirely towards high-fat fayre. I thought the fillet steak sizzler was a pretty safe bet. Pure fillet steak in a Cantonese sauce was sure to provide me with a pleasant and nutritious meal, low in fat, yet high in taste. High in sensation, low in consequences.

I could not have been more wrong.

My meal, pictured on the right, above, was positively swimming in all things fatty. I could feel it coating my mouth as I ate. I began to panic, knowing that too much fat held unbelievably evil consequences for me. Naturally, I barely touched the dish itself, preferring the rice. Well, that's not strictly true, I ate nearly all of it but felt terribly guilty. In all seriousness, I am not used to that much fat and I recognise that I have adjusted to eating much much less. It's nice, in a way, because I know from this that I have really made a change in my eating life.

Nevertheless, it's already been a great day - from Jason's present unexpectedly being delivered by the Royal Mail this morning, to the surprise trip out. Now, as the Sambuca kicks in, I feel myself floating away....

To finish off this little piece, here is a quicktime movie of the moment our repast arrived.

More Birthday Stuff

Cards are funny things. They usually say more about the sender than the recipient. In the case of my mother, things are fine as long as she sticks with nature and does not go down the route of fluffy bunnies or maybe bears. This one this year is great - just a wonderful green garden. No complaints there.

Here are a couple more:

Most worrying is the one from Tim & Brenda. The picture is actually of Jason, a mutual friend. Very confusing - I’m not really sure what the underlying message is here. Is it simply “here is a funny picture and you know the man” - or is it “We don’t think we look silly enough to be on the card, so we’ll use Jason, because he really does look silly enough.” ? I maybe should never know the real reason.

The other one is, most definitely a dog. This one is from my dear wife. It’s green. I can only assume that she is hankering after a green dog - which is fair enough, because which of can honestly say that at one time or another we haven’t felt this way? I know I have.

This is the card from Jason:

It seems to follow the canine theme, and be the closest thing to Holly they could find in a pure-bred dog. Holly is, of course, a mudblood, having some Whippet in her. Nevertheless, a truly great photo, and one, which, I feel, was, definitely, bought with me in mind and not just because he liked it.

Once again, this is a Quicktime panorama. I love’em!

Look at this massive array of coffee sent to me for use in the new coffee maker! It’s a veritable feast of coffee. Thank you Jason. Thank you to Fiona for the machine - and to Liz for the Turkey Baster, Towels and Aftershave. Thanks to all who have remembered me this year and made the day unexpectedly special. I don’t mind admitting that my life has been a bit of a struggle of late, one way or another, I very much like this little ray of sunshine. Thank you all.

Happy Birthday to ME!

It’s my birthday today - so I thought I would put up a selection of the stuff I have been sent.

I am so touched that anyone remembered me. It’s very splendid.

Thanks Robin - with the giant Australian lump of rock in my favour, I can hardly fail to have a good time.

Thanks Jason, it’s a truly touching bit of footage. I’m so glad you got it to me in time. :)

From the left:

From Karrie - thanks for this card - a nice little joke to start me off with a smile on my face. Quite how you could write such filth inside, I really don’t know!

From Liz - You sent me an image of a small boy urinating. Thank you.

From Lou - You sent me a purple card. I can’t thank you enough.

So, you see - I got so many lovely cards and thoughts already, and I will assuredly get at least one more later today, when the rest of the world wakes up.

You can click the cards for more legible versions.

Think of it like this - Jason sent me a movie and I wanted to show off by putting it in a blog entry and the rest of the stuff was padding.