All's quiet on the home front..

We're stuck at home. Friends have called by and we've only been home a couple of days but it's already beginning to grate. It's just how it is don't you find - when you can't do something you really want to do it all the more?

I had an appointment with my neurosurgeon earlier this week. All is *essentially* well with my MRI results. Why on earth do they say things like that? Why can't they just say things are well or not well? I think the message he was trying to convey was not to worry, nothing scary has shown up - BUT (I hate buts) he would like me to be seen by a further neurosurgeon within the next two weeks for a further opinion. Arrghhhh. I'm too busy for this kind of malarkey!

In addition to the symptoms which have resulted in my meeting with the neurosurgeon I have now developed a bit of a freaky eye condition. This just started yesterday but the white of my eye has become swollen in part and is very painful. Apparently it's related to my other symptoms. I'm taking meds and hope it will go away real soon. My vision isn't up to driving - hence the sudden urge to go out driving about everywhere. I'm really hopeful this is a very short term thing.

So, stuck at home we have finished the work we were doing on the Irish Potato Famine. We have finished reading The Hunger which you can view along with other Potato Famine books here. I think we may get the Michael Morpurgo one to look at some time - we like Michael. We looked briefly at Sinead O'Connor's song about the Famine too. I say 'briefly' as I want to check out some of the things she states in her song before discussing it in detail. It is interesting to think that it is possibly still impacting upon the Irish today in terms of mental illness, alcoholism, drug use etc.

Moving on, we're now looking at transportation to Australia. Miles as ever is all ears and picks up on bits and pieces. He was wondering earlier if we could be transported if we don't buy a parking ticket where there are pay metres.

We've been doing more work about how weather systems form in the atmosphere and clouds in particular. We're going to do more detailed stuff on rain soon - to include some acid rain experiments, (thanks to a gift of equipment from a fellow home edder).

I was doing some stuff with Miles about seasons and was wondering how to involve Hermione. We decided she would research seasonal migrations, on land, sea and air. She found some great Youtube clips but this one has to be my favourite. Stick with it - the good guy wins in the end.

Right, I'm going to quit moaning and go do something more constructive. Watch out for the return of my wonderful daughter and husband who are out meeting the crew of Space Shuttle Atlantis perhaps? I so wish I could have joined them but I've had fun here with Miles and chapter upon chapter of Enid Blyton's Wishing Chair - probably more on my level than talk of space exploration anyway *grin*.