Random


Echo Bunnyman – my pet rabbit 4

I’ve not posted on the blog about the bunny rabbit in ages, so brace yourself for bunny spam. I adore Echo Bunnyman, he’s got a big personality for a small animal. He’s feisty, and loving, caring and sneaky, funny and clever. Whilst rabbits cannot talk, woof or meow, they really are masters of non verbal communication. Echo Bunnyman makes it pretty clear what he wants, if he’s sat on our sofa and decides he wants something he’ll stamp about. He has a sort of sign language of head movements, and it’s cute AF. He can tell me when he wants food or cuddles, he tells me when his water bottle is nearly empty, he growls if he doesn’t want to be touched, he even has a potty dance for when he needs the garden. I recently read a vicious rant by an influencer on Instagram, by a rabbit owner. The […]


Modifying my bike 2

To help my body, as gyms have been shut so much in the last year, I am modifying my mountain bike. I have not been able to ride a bike without massive neck and back pain for quite some time. When I bought the bike about 5 years ago, I could. This shows my body is in decline due to fibromyalgia, and I don’t like it. What I need is to make the front much higher, like an old lady style bike (think basket with a tiny terrier dog in, and the frame all in dull pastel colours) with those huge curved bars. But being super tall, ladies bikes are too short, and I don’t want a new bike, I want MINE. Sticking big BMX or twee female handlebars on would have made it rather unique, quirky is good because it’s rather hard for a bike thief to flog on […]


Lockdown technical issues 17

I could write for days about the mental and physical stresses caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but right now, I’m focusing on the technical nerdy issues home working and home schooling at the same time bring. My Husband works in IT (thank gawd), one child is 12 and doing senior school remote learning, and the other lad is 18 years old and doing his Oxford university degree online at home. The eldest live streams lectures, and also does video chats with other students on his course. This means 3 people in this house need the internet, and I just really want it for Spotify, entertainment and such. Jen spends his school day in his room, in streamed lessons, or quietly working on his iPad. We had a basic WiFi extender upstairs, but it’s no longer working well enough for this kind of demand. It bounces enough signal for a browser […]


Do you know what I’m missing?

Except sanity, things that I’m missing include going to the gym, hugging friends, pubbing, and writing on this ‘ere blog. Last time I tried it took hours, it was frustrating. Hours and hours of the server crashing, and the host was less than helpful. They were either fluffy and gentle, super fake nice or totally mansplaining things. Well, I’ve had enough! I was paying for a service, ok I’m not some massive well known blogging celebrity, but I was still a paying customer. So yeah, I’ve thrown my virtual toys out of the pram and moved on. I gave the other host too much slack – it would be up to a week or more before they’d look at support tickets, and well over an hour on hold if you try to phone them. I justified it in my head a bit like “oh there’s a pandemic, maybe they are […]


What does Fibromyalgia look like? 4

Living with an invisible illness like Fibromyalgia is a pain in the butt, I’m not going to sugar coat that. I often seem well, but feel awful. My daily life revolves around bed, sleep, naps and exhaustion. I might spend most of the night, restless or in pain – why is pain always harder to ignore at night? Then the next day feels like a write off, waking up so late shops and places I need to go to are shut. It’s like a roundabout you can’t get off of. As usual, in bed at lunchtime. Feeling like I have a hangover, despite being a non drinker. The only good thing about being in bed so much is my dogs. Rainie (the ginger one) shadows me, and hardly leaves my bedroom when I feel low. She might put her paw on the window ledge occasionally and woof at other dogs […]


My car broke 2

Since I was a child I wanted a classic Mini, my Grandparents next door neighbour had one when I lived with them, and it reminds me of happy times. A few years ago my Husband bought me the car of my dreams, a classic Mini. Over the years we have spent a lot of money on not just maintenance, but on improvements to my car, lovingly named Mavis. I did not knowingly let her rot, this was as much a shock to my mechanics as myself. Sadly recently she broke, and dramatically. Going at slow speed, there was a clunk, then a bump and a squeal. The rear left of my car had dropped. I was praying it was just the radius arm, or a retaining bolt somewhere had moved, but it’s the subframe. This is like the cars skeleton, everything is built on and around this. Without this repair […]


That’s it, my child is an adult now 2

Ad,contains gifted items from Moonpig. I have not been paid for this post. My eldest son is turning 18. It is a tricky age to buy for presents for. Should you buy traditional 18th birthday items like numbered keys, and engraved hip flasks, or should you go a bit alternative? Moonpig to the rescue, as they have both quirky, and more traditional gifts as well as the cards they are known for. D isn’t much of a birthday fan, we’d normally pop out for the evening to a restaurant and have a family meal. He has things he can’t eat at home as I have allergies and whatnot, and it’s all about the experience rather than the gift. This year though, the dreaded COVID plague has struck, and with pubs and restaurants only just being allowed to open he doesn’t fancy it. So we will be at home, having Husband’s […]


Our eyes meet across a crowded room – Echo Bunnyman

No, it’s not a lovey dovey Valentine’s day post. It’s an adoption story. Recently I popped into Pets at Home just for dogs things I had on click and collect. I was not prepared for an accidental bunny adoption. But as I walked in there was a queue, so I had a quick nosey around the store. He put his paw to the glass, almost calling me over to him. He was looking straight at me, paw still pressed up to the window all hopeful. I walked closer and I put my hand up to his paw. He responded by chinning where my hand was. As bunny people know, chinning is like saying “mine”. I spoke to him, and he responded to my voice, his face said get me out of here. I asked the staff chap nearby if he could grab the cage keys so I could meet him […]


Where did I vanish? 1

Sorry dear readers for being missing from my blog for so long. I’ve been struggling with my health and it has been making writing here hard. I am in the process of being diagnosed for either Fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome, or indeed both. I am tired and in pain most of the time these days. My bed has become my closest friend, and an enemy. If I go out shopping in town for an hour or two it will cost me extra sleep. I say cost me as it is not a choice. I don’t want to be asleep so much, but its my body’s way of coping. I would like to say its how it heals itself, but, as the doctor said, it’s a life long condition. You don’t cure it, you just have to “manage” it. If I’m doing something fun on a weekend, like a classic […]


wooden toy

An unlikely “sport” – competitive vaping

Back in the days I used to smoke I wasn’t aware of smoking clubs, or smoking blogs. It sounds a bit crazy right? Well, I dunno how I feel about that in honesty, that modern smokers have vaping* clubs and vapers blogs. Honestly, there are even vaping competitions where people compete to make the biggest or prettiest clouds, and the competitors take it very seriously. I couldn’t believe that when my Husband told me earlier tonight, so being a blogger I’ve trawled the interweb looking for good examples of this dark art… most of which I can’t repost for copyright reasons.   Embed from Getty Images Like doughnuts just trapped in the air, pretty yet bizarre. Embed from Getty Images When I was a smoker it was seen as dirty and dangerous, but since vaping things seem a lot more socially acceptable. It’s also apparently safer than smoking. Obviously I’m […]


Microscooters are for grownups! 1

A little while ago Microscooters*  gave Blokey and I a scooter each. I take mine everywhere, including on holiday to France recently. I’ve been using it an awful lot on the school run, but also for things like popping to Co-Op for milk. My scooter has been very useful, and extra helpful when my bad knee is playing up. My right leg and knee are a lot weaker than the left, only about 30% of the strength according to gym equipment with weights or other gym machines that can measure your strength.   The idea was to have a scooter race on our wedding day, but after running a mile in heels my bad leg had given up on me. I cheated in that race, and stopped half way up the hill so I could limp back to the finish line. <more> So when we went to France recently I packed […]


Kind things #BlogItForward 1

A few days ago I tidied up the garage, this reminded me my old bike was just collecting dust. We pumped up the tyres, gave it a bit of chain oil to make it usable and I wrote a note saying “free bike – needs TLC but works” then I left it outside. It wasn’t dumped, I could still see it from the garden. Hopefully the new owner will get a lot of mileage out of it.