I know it sounds like the very worst kind of Internet Thing, but I really actually literally do know someone who is an academic doctor of pain relief for babies and children.
The paracetamol-v-ibuprofen advice? He is very strongly in favour of paracetamol.
(It's actually standard advice for babies receiving vaccinations these days too, but that doesn't exactly qualify as Common Knowledge outside a very small cohort)
ETA It's not that ibuprofen makes symptoms worse, but that paracetamol is always the better choice for fevers where the inflammation is the body's own defence. NSAIDs are better for inflammation caused by injury, such as trying to juggle two laptops and wrenching a ligament when one starts to fall...
The paracetamol-v-ibuprofen advice? He is very strongly in favour of paracetamol.
(It's actually standard advice for babies receiving vaccinations these days too, but that doesn't exactly qualify as Common Knowledge outside a very small cohort)
ETA It's not that ibuprofen makes symptoms worse, but that paracetamol is always the better choice for fevers where the inflammation is the body's own defence. NSAIDs are better for inflammation caused by injury, such as trying to juggle two laptops and wrenching a ligament when one starts to fall...
These boots are made for walking
Mar. 10th, 2019 10:20 pm(had to be done, sorry)
My current favourite most comfortable boots are from Clarks, and their only drawback is that they are not waterproof (they're not exactly terrible if caught in the rain, being from the side of the shop associated with masculinity, but they aren't designed to be waterproof and I don't expect them to be).
Turns out they come in a Gore-tex version. More than that, they come in a Gore-tex version in my size in the sale.
I'm going to have to do this bloody walk now. Especially as Millets have OS Explorer maps at 40% off (I have an up-to-date copy of the Norfolk Broads one, which covers the first few stages, but I didn't have the two that take me round the corner into North Norfolk).
My current favourite most comfortable boots are from Clarks, and their only drawback is that they are not waterproof (they're not exactly terrible if caught in the rain, being from the side of the shop associated with masculinity, but they aren't designed to be waterproof and I don't expect them to be).
Turns out they come in a Gore-tex version. More than that, they come in a Gore-tex version in my size in the sale.
I'm going to have to do this bloody walk now. Especially as Millets have OS Explorer maps at 40% off (I have an up-to-date copy of the Norfolk Broads one, which covers the first few stages, but I didn't have the two that take me round the corner into North Norfolk).
I am planning to walk to Walsingham from my front door, because the vast majority of the way is along the newly completed Norfolk Coast Path, turn inland at Wells-next-the-Sea. Not all in one go, either - a day here and a day there, depending on public transport and time without children. 12 miles or so a day, very rarely two consecutive days.
The trouble is footwear. I've never had a pair of dedicated walking boots or shoes that have really fitted or been comfortable, and I have extraordinarily wide feet. For everyday purposes, I wear a G width, but that is only just a passable fit. Last time I had them measured the size chart gave up and refused to admit my feet were possible.
It's going to be flat - this is Norfolk, and a lot of it is along the beach.
Should I stick with the casual boots I favour from the children's section of Clarks? They don't have amazing amounts of grip on the soles, but I'm not planning to climb any mountains or parade through bogs, and they do leave me with comfortable feet after a full day of errands hither and thither on city-centre tarmac.
Are there any wider-fitting brands of proper walking boots or shoes that don't cost an eye-watering amount?
Should I just buy trainers?
The trouble is footwear. I've never had a pair of dedicated walking boots or shoes that have really fitted or been comfortable, and I have extraordinarily wide feet. For everyday purposes, I wear a G width, but that is only just a passable fit. Last time I had them measured the size chart gave up and refused to admit my feet were possible.
It's going to be flat - this is Norfolk, and a lot of it is along the beach.
Should I stick with the casual boots I favour from the children's section of Clarks? They don't have amazing amounts of grip on the soles, but I'm not planning to climb any mountains or parade through bogs, and they do leave me with comfortable feet after a full day of errands hither and thither on city-centre tarmac.
Are there any wider-fitting brands of proper walking boots or shoes that don't cost an eye-watering amount?
Should I just buy trainers?
Convalescing
Feb. 24th, 2019 05:35 pmI didn't go to church today, but I did watch the whole of the first series of Grantchester in a sitting (with a lunch break), which isn't quite the same thing. Thoughts (this is series one and series four has already been broadcast. The spoiler ship has well and truly sailed):
1) You do not get muscles like that from occasional scythe-swinging to express one's manpain.
2) No, masculine muscles still really aren't my thing. Put a vest on. And then a shirt. And then a nice tweed jacket, most of this is blatantly filmed in chilly spring pretending to be golden summer.
3) Speaking of golden summer, isn't it supposed to be 1953? Wot no Coronation? Wot no notoriously rainy summer?
4) SO MUCH MANPAIN.
5) Amanda is exceptionally dull and lacks any kind of inner life.
6) Hildegard deserves three cheers for deciding she had already wasted quite enough of her life on a man who would always have to stop and think before crying out a name in extremis. So thanks for solving my first husband's murder, I have a life to lead, and a ruined city is a better bet than the echoing emptiness of Sidney Chambers' head.
7) I am going to have to keep bloody watching, because Leonard (and Mrs Maguire). The inside of Leonard's head strikes me as a far more interesting place to spend time. Will the writers let us dally there? I do not think so for a moment.
1) You do not get muscles like that from occasional scythe-swinging to express one's manpain.
2) No, masculine muscles still really aren't my thing. Put a vest on. And then a shirt. And then a nice tweed jacket, most of this is blatantly filmed in chilly spring pretending to be golden summer.
3) Speaking of golden summer, isn't it supposed to be 1953? Wot no Coronation? Wot no notoriously rainy summer?
4) SO MUCH MANPAIN.
5) Amanda is exceptionally dull and lacks any kind of inner life.
6) Hildegard deserves three cheers for deciding she had already wasted quite enough of her life on a man who would always have to stop and think before crying out a name in extremis. So thanks for solving my first husband's murder, I have a life to lead, and a ruined city is a better bet than the echoing emptiness of Sidney Chambers' head.
7) I am going to have to keep bloody watching, because Leonard (and Mrs Maguire). The inside of Leonard's head strikes me as a far more interesting place to spend time. Will the writers let us dally there? I do not think so for a moment.
Olivia Colman Squee
Jan. 20th, 2019 05:11 pmBy which you shall gather that I finally did get my arse to a cinema to see The Favourite. Which is magnificent. Ducks! Wigs! Storytelling through astonishing costume design! Men very peripheral! Olivia Colman AND Rachel Weisz AND Emma Stone!
Incidentally, there is a Frozen joke in there, but I think I am the only person I know who has seen it to have a daughter of the right age to allow me to pick up on it. When Anne and Sarah are reminiscing about not being allowed to play outside in the snow, so they opened the ballroom windows to bring the snowstorm inside - that's the opening of Frozen right there.
Incidentally, there is a Frozen joke in there, but I think I am the only person I know who has seen it to have a daughter of the right age to allow me to pick up on it. When Anne and Sarah are reminiscing about not being allowed to play outside in the snow, so they opened the ballroom windows to bring the snowstorm inside - that's the opening of Frozen right there.
David Blaize
Dec. 4th, 2018 05:27 pmI have made an icon! All my own inky splotchy work, which is why it isn't very good. It is free to anyone who wants it (if I need to do anything to make it lendable, please let me know. Like I said, I'm not very good at icons).
Books Finished in 2017
Jan. 1st, 2018 04:02 pmSome were begun the year before.
R = re-read- A Little History of the World - E H Gombrich A
- We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea - Arthur Ransome R A
- Bloodlands - Timothy Snyder
- A World Gone Mad - Astrid Lindgren, translated Sarah Death
- Exile for Annis - Josephine Elder
- Cherry Tree Perch - Josephine Elder
- Strangers at the Farm School - Josephine Elder
- Winter - Various, edited Melissa Harrison
- Desert of the Heart - Jane Rule
- Secret Water - Arthur Ransome R A
- Being Christian - Rowan Williams
- The Idea of North - Peter Davidson
- Sharon and the Great Horse - Sheila McCullagh R
- The Popes - John Julius Norwich
- Evelyn Finds Herself - Josephine Elder
- The Scholarship Girl - Josephine Elder
- The Scholarship Girl at Cambridge - Josephine Elder
- The Word in Winter - John Lewis-Stempel
- Romeo Fails - Amy Briant
- The Essex Serpent - Sarah Perry
- The Canary-Coloured Cart - Christina Hardyment
- The Big Six - Arthur Ransome R A
- Fathomless Riches - Richard Coles
- The Horse in the Furrow - George Ewart Evans R
- Hidden Nature - Alys Fowler
- Missee Lee - Arthur Ransome R A
- The English and their History - Robert Tombs
- My History - Antonia Fraser
- The Road to Emmaus - Helen Julian CSF
- Shakespeare on Toast - Ben Crystal
- The Picts and the Martyrs - Arthur Ransome R A
- Rising Ground - Philip Marsden
- In Search of Japan's Hidden Christians - John Dougill
- Hobberdy Dick - K M Briggs
- Great Northern? - Arthur Ransome R A
- Conclave - Robert Harris
- Old Glory - Jonathan Raban
- Knit One, Girl Two - Shira Glassman
- Fearless - Shira Glassman
- Passing Strange - Ellen Klages
- The Hobbit - J R R Tolkein R A
- Spring - Various, edited Melissa Harrison
- Miss Happiness and Miss Flower - Rumer Godden R A
- The Fellowship of the Ring - J R R Tolkein R
- The Two Towers - J R R Tolkein R
- The Return of the King - J R R Tolkein R
- Lesbianism Made Easy - Helen Eisenbach
- Little Plum - Rumer Godden R A
- Consider the Fork - Bee Wilson
- My Naughty Little Sister - Dorothy Edwards A
- More Naughty Little Sister Stories - Dorothy Edwards A
- Cranky, Beautiful Faith - Nadia Bolz-Weber
- The Bible - NRSV translation
- The Bible Challenge - Various, edited Marek Zabriskie
- Spell It Out - David Crystal
- A Traveller in Time - Alison Uttley R A
- A Grave Talent - Laurie R King
- Bewildering Cares - Winifred Peck
- Excitements at the Chalet School - Elinor M Brent-Dyer R
- Middlemarch - George Eliot R
- The Cruise of Naromis - G A Jones, edited Julia Jones
- Finn Family Moomintroll - Tove Jansson, translated Elizabeth Portch R A
- Weeds - Richard Mabey
- The Moomins and the Great Flood - Tove Jansson, translated David McDuff R A
- Odd Girl Out - Ann Bannon
- Blood and Roses - Helen Castor
- Love in the Sun - Leo Walmsley
- I Am A Woman - Ann Bannon
- Unnatural Death - Dorothy L Sayers R
- The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club - Dorothy L Sayers R
- Strong Poison - Dorothy L Sayers r
- The Five Red Herrings - Dorothy L Sayers r
- Comet in Moominland - Tove Jansson, translated Elizabeth Portch R A
- Have His Carcase - Dorothy L Sayers R
- Women in the Shadows - Ann Bannon
- The Exploits of Moominpappa - Tove Jansson, translated Thomas Warburton A
- Murder Must Advertise - Dorothy L Sayers R
- The Nine Tailors - Dorothy L Sayers R
- Gaudy Night - Dorothy L Sayers R
- Busman's Honeymoon - Dorothy L Sayers R
- A Scandalous Life - Mary S Lovell R
- Journey to a Woman - Ann Bannon
- Moominsummer Madness - Tove Jansson, translated Thomas Warburton R A
- Landing - Emma Donoghue
- Beebo Brinker - Ann Bannon
- Moominland Midwinter - Tove Jansson, translated Thomas Warburton R A
- Patience and Sarah - Isabel Miller
- Bess of Hardwick - Mary S Lovell
- Uprooted - Naomi Novik
- The Invisible Child and The Fir Tree - Tove Jansson, translated Thomas Warburton
- A Notable Woman - Jean Lucey Pratt, edited Simon Garfield
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J K Rowling R
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - J K Rowling R
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J K Rowling R
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J K Rowling R
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J K Rowling R
- Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - J K Rowling R
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J K Rowling R
- Literary Allusion in Harry Potter - Beatrice Groves
- Women and Power - Mary Beard
- Joan - Simon Fenwick
- Accidental Saints - Nadia Bolz-Weber
- The Days of Abandonment - Elena Ferrante, translated Ann Goldstein
- Widlfire at Midnight - Mary Stewart
- The Traveller's Tree - Patrick Leigh Fermor
- The School at the Chalet - Elinor M Brent-Dyer R
- Dorothy Wordsworth's Christmas Birthday - Carol Ann Duffy
- Lolly Willowes - Sylvia Townsend Warner
- Sacred Tongues - David Scott
- Ice - Ulla-Lena Lundberg, translated Thomas Teal
- The Rule of Benedict - commentary by Joan Chittister
A = aloud, to one or both children
For comparison:
2008 - 144 books (full time job, no children)
2009 - 94 books (pregnant and very ill for much of the year, caring for a newborn from November)
2010 - 169 books (maternity leave, hours and hours of breastfeeding a baby with severe feeding difficulties)
2011 - 142 books (back to work part time, second half of the year pregnant again, consciously reading to escape)
2012 - 110 books (maternity leave, caring for a baby and a toddler, but lots of breastfeeding reading)
2013 - 130 books (still breastfeeding)
2014 - 118 books (still breastfeeding)
2015 - 99 books (the year my marriage ended)
2016 - 80 books (the year I got divorced and began getting to grips with this single parenting lark. One child at school, one still at home for most of the year)
2017 - 111 books (both children at school. Started the year volunteering in the local library, ended it working in a school with half hour bus rides to and from work for reading time)
Happy New Year!
Dec. 31st, 2017 11:11 pmNot quite here yet, but I am on the point of retiring to bed with something coldish-feverish-achy-and-foul.C is picking up the children straight after breakfast tomorrow, the house is full of food, I can stay in bed for two days, which might just make the difference between a bug I get over fast and one that drags on and on and on for another whole half term.
And Happy New Name!
Sillymouse was chosen in a hurry a long time ago, and to be honest I felt rather like an easily confused rodent at the time. But it increasingly failed to fit what was happening and who I was turning out to be, so the time was ripe for a change to something a bit more enduring (perennial, in fact, like the bloody bindweed). After all, the first half of my name is "Vivi", and that means life, enduring life. Anna because the second half of my name is "enne", and I've always taken a slightly slapdash approach to vowels. So that's how my brain works.
And Happy New Name!
Sillymouse was chosen in a hurry a long time ago, and to be honest I felt rather like an easily confused rodent at the time. But it increasingly failed to fit what was happening and who I was turning out to be, so the time was ripe for a change to something a bit more enduring (perennial, in fact, like the bloody bindweed). After all, the first half of my name is "Vivi", and that means life, enduring life. Anna because the second half of my name is "enne", and I've always taken a slightly slapdash approach to vowels. So that's how my brain works.
99% of entries are locked and are likely to remain so. I am fairly freshly divorced, there are children to consider, it takes a while for me to trust people enough to let them into one of my main venting spaces. It's not you, it's me.
Someone here is bound to know
Oct. 17th, 2016 05:25 pm Monica Dickens, Last Year When I Was Young.
I read it years ago, and don't have a copy handy. I remember that it follows a youngish male nurse from private patient to private patient, but in my memory his wanderings start when his wife dies suddenly, electrocuted in the kitchen.
Except that that seems to be pretty much the plot of her much earlier Flowers on the Grass, which I bought today and would swear I hadn't read before. And all of it is getting mixed up in my memory with A. S. Byatt's Still Life anyway.
I read it years ago, and don't have a copy handy. I remember that it follows a youngish male nurse from private patient to private patient, but in my memory his wanderings start when his wife dies suddenly, electrocuted in the kitchen.
Except that that seems to be pretty much the plot of her much earlier Flowers on the Grass, which I bought today and would swear I hadn't read before. And all of it is getting mixed up in my memory with A. S. Byatt's Still Life anyway.
(no subject)
Apr. 21st, 2016 10:49 am Happy birthday ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ankaret ! A lovely day for it (well, it is up this end of the country).
ankaret ! A lovely day for it (well, it is up this end of the country).
