A bit of this and a bit of that

Well nothing much has happened lung-wise - they're still being rather unpredictable and intermittently unco-operative, but things haven't progressed into a downward spiral towards hospital (yet). I am having to be a bit more careful than usual about what I get up to, because I'm finding things generally more tiring at the moment as a result of lack of continuity in the breathing department, but I'm still getting on with life and making sure that I'm having fun amidst the study and the precarious lung situation.

The past week has been a bit of a mix of things really. I'm not going to bore you with details, but I've done quite a bit of study ... not enough if I'm ever to catch up (which is seeming more and more unlikely), but still a fair amount - about two and a half week's worth in seven days.

On Thursday afternoon I went up to the Woodhorn Centre near Ashington, Northumberland, with my father to see an exhibition of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007 Competition. It was fantastic and well worth seeing if you get a chance. It has made me want to have more time for photography again, but I think I'm going to have to be patient and wait until after this dreaded exam in October. However, wildlife and nature photography generally seems to be what really gets me fired-up so I'm going to make sure that I give myself time to get more practise in for that ... and more opportunity too.

Thursday was also the day when my best friend from sixth form gave birth to her first child - a little girl they've called Eleanor :o) This is a very joyful occasion indeed as Eleanor's mummy has been through some difficult times in the past, and being a mother is something that she's always wanted. Eleanor was in a bit of a rush to be born, and even though it was her mummy's first pregnancy, she arrived into the world only two hours after starting to get here! Born at quarter to four in the morning, Eleanor, mummy and daddy were home by 9am! I haven't met Eleanor yet, because the family don't live locally, so I'm going to have to be patient and wait until I can get down to the Midlands, and it'd probably be wise to leave it until a) mummy and daddy have worked out which end of the baby is which; b) all the grandparents have gone back home; and c) I'm not so inundated with study. How exciting and how lovely though :o)

Most of Friday was spent filling my head with stuff for my English Lit course, but in the evening I went with three friends to see Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle. The guy playing Joseph was the runner up from the 'Any Dream Will Do' TV competition - Craig Chalmers - and I thought he was rather good, but I have to say that I wasn't that impressed with the woman playing the narrator. She - Tara Bethan - was one of the people who'd been knocked out of the 'I'd Do Anything' TV show for the part of Nancy in 'Oliver', and although she was enthusiastic I thought that her voice was actually pretty weak in the upper registers. Having said that, the show was great fun and I enjoyed it very much, even though we were right up in the Gods of the theatre. 'Joseph' is probably one of my favourite musicals, and one that I learnt all the words of when I was very young. I think the first time I saw it was in London and I must have been about four years old. At the time, there was a children's TV programme called 'Watch', which I can't remember anything about now, but I know that I loved it (though it took at least second place in my list of favourites after Bagpuss), and I think one of the things that initially made me so very excited about 'Joseph' was that the man from 'Watch' was playing the part of Joseph. I also have a feeling that Floella Benjamin, who at the time was one of the presenters of 'Play School', was also in it. 'Play School' and 'Watch' together made it for me as a four year old! (Oh, if only life could stay so uncomplicated). Yeah, so where was I? 'Joseph'. It was brilliant fun, and with being up in the Gods there weren't all that many people to disturb so me and my friend K could occasionally hum along quietly to the tunes. Tee hee.

I was going to say that I didn't do anything but study yesterday, but actually I had a rather wonderful and very skilled friend put up some new shelf units in the bedroom. This is tremendously exciting, because the so-called floating shelves I had in there before had always been threatening to either crash on my head as I lay in bed, or smash the computer printer on my desk. They weren't so much 'floating' shelves as 'sagging treacherously and making a bid for the floor' shelves. M has done a fantastic job at putting these new shelves up and making sure that they're perfectly safe, perfectly straight and not likely to land on my head at any time in the foreseeable future - always a bonus! M's rather talented at that kind of thing, which is fortunate, because it's one of the things he does for a living :o) Yes, that was a terribly exciting Saturday event.

Nothing exciting at all has happened today (technically yesterday as it's now gone 2am), but that comes from a great deal of lung grumpiness in the morning that meant that I couldn't actually drag myself from bed until gone three in the afternoon. Most frustrating, but I gave into it and got through by very regular nebbing, listening to the radio (I love Radio 4) and playing lots of games of something I can't remember the name of on my NDS. It's a far cry from the study I felt that I should be getting on with, but it was either that or a probable further slump in breathing ability, which I didn't fancy, funnily enough. Sometimes it's necessary to just give in and do what needs to be done, rather than what ought to be done, even if it's frustrating.

It's probably about time that I took myself back to bed now. That's the trouble with getting up late - it knocks my whole body-clock off kilter. Ho hum, back to the books tomorrow.

Night all.