I never seem to update these days.

Truth be told I don't want to bang on about negative stuff in my life like work keeping me very busy during the day and dragging me out at unsociable hours, Mum's chemotherapy and my general tiredness and dark moods. It doesn't help that Facebook is a lot easier to drop in and out of quickly and feel a bit more sociable on as well.

I have a lovely wife, a good job and there's little I can do to help my Mother other than talk to her on the phone more often (which I do) and visit when I can. Things aren't so bad on the whole, so I shouldn't and won't be drawn to whinge. It's not a bad life, just a little bumpy now and again.

Dear Livejournal,

Apologies, I've been kind of busy and not keeping up. Work is keeping me very occupied to the extent that I now regularly miss coffee breaks and lunch is grabbed whenever possible. There's no sign of this letting up anytime soon either but I seem to be impressing one of the Big Boss's with my ideas and new views on long running problems. Shame he's retiring in a few months.

In other news it's been a very busy weekend with much walking and acting like a tourist, as Jo was up visiting her mum and I. We did the castle on Friday, the Zoo on Saturday and they did the Impressionism Exhibition at the RSA on Sunday while I shopped and then read a newspaper in the sunshine on a bench in Princes Street Gardens (well I'd already been to that exhibition, had to pick up a shirt I'd ordered in a shop and it was a very pleasant, mild afternoon).

In further good news my Mum was discharged from hospital last Monday and got to go home. She's still sounding quite wheezy but feels much better and is glad to be home. She's also joined the 21st century and bought herself a mobile phone :o)

Later y'all.

My Mum's been in a normal ward for a few days now. She's off the oxygen and getting around a little though the chest drain is still in. There's not much liquid draining off now and it's almost clear. Most importantly she asked my Dad to bring her in biscuits the other day. She's certainly on the mend :o)

Thanks to everyone for their comments of support.

The hospital think my Mum has some kind of pneumonia, which is less serious than the pulmonary embolism that they also thought it could be. Test results on the fluid they've drained for her lungs will help pin it down but for now they're not being more specific. When I visited on Saturday Mum was in the High Dependency Unit hooked to a monitor and receiving oxygen. She looked pretty bad but the nurse assured me this was a big improvement to how she was on Friday when she was admitted. The drain in her lung had been left in as they were still removing some fluid, though nothing like the amount that first came out. My Father was better than I expected him to be but still far from helpful. I think he had a genuine shock when he first saw Mum but was back to his cantankerous self by the time we left. I took him shopping so he'd have plenty food at home and he seemed to have taken in that this might be weeks rather than days before Mum gets home.

Yesterday she was moved out of the HDU and into a normal ward and today the nurse is hopeful that she'll be off the oxygen in a day or so. She also asked my Great Aunt for biscuits yesterday too, which is another positive sign :o)

Last night I went down Cabaret Voltaire for the Spear of Destiny gig. ladyserpentine isn't a fan so it was just me and I wasn't really in the mood but once the band hit the stage it was a welcome distraction. A couple of sound problems were quickly worked out and they played all the hits so it was a better night than I expected. Another bonus was not being the old git at the back, the place was full of old gits, some making me look positively youthful :o)

Today has been a very long and difficult day at work. My Sister-in-law called me this morning to tell me my Mum had been rushed into hospital. She's not been well for a couple of weeks and has been finding herself short of breath. She sounded terrible on the phone last night when I talked to her and I told her to be sure to see her GP today and if needs be kick up a stink to be seen. She did and on seeing and hearing her condition he called for an ambulance to take her to Ninewells.

It took forever to get through to the ward she was on, it was always engaged. When I finally spoke to a nurse on the ward I was told Mum was settled now and feeling much better. She had some oxygen in the ambulance which helped immensely and has had a chest x-ray which is still pretty inconclusive. More tests are on the cards.

I'll be back up in Dundee tomorrow but no time for socialising. I'll also have to try and talk to my Father. When I phoned him today he sounded pretty unconcerned about all this, indeed he hadn't bothered to phone the hospital to see how Mum was doing. "I'll find out which ward she's in and how she is tomorrow when I go up to visit", was his comment to me. Some of you know I don't have a lot of time for my Father, mostly because he has no time or consideration for anyone else, Mum included. He's still not endearing himself to me. It could be a very long day tomorrow too.

As some of you may already know, we have two new family members at "Chez Anderson".

( See photos below )

Fireworks photos, taken from a couple of miles away from the castle on the 7th floor of my work. ( Pics below )

Primarily for deathboy but I'm sure any other Rickrollers will love it too.

(Thanks to brigid to bringing it to my attention)

I've been living down South for too long, I'd forgotten all about Scottish Bank Holidays differing so much from the English ones. Edinburgh University don't acknowledge the August bank holiday, instead I get Monday 15th September off. I can only assume that this is a local bank holiday, still the way the weather's been lately it'll make bugger all difference. They're a little odd about Easter too, they give Easter Friday off but not the Monday, instead they give a local holiday that falls on the third Monday in April, however if you ask you can swap that for Easter Monday.

My thanks to all who headed over to Hoscote House last weekend to celebrate ladyserpentine's significant number birthday. Apologies if I wasn't a party animal but I'm not good at house parties.

My journal has been suffering as my new job is keeping me very occupied at present. On the up side despite now being on call permanently and having been called out twice the first week I had the call mobile, I've not been called out since :o) *fingers crossed*

I'm looking forward to having some time to rediscover Edinburgh and all the great shops but I still have a wardrobe to build and more boxes to unpack... maybe in July I can go a wandering and drag Chris out shopping.

It's my birthday soon and for once no bbq, the old barbies were binned when we moved. Of course I was eyeing up a new half barrel bbq in Homebase yesterday evening and I can't see me lasting an entire summer without burning some carcass over hot coals.

I've been a bit busy at work, what with power cuts causing problems and new windows being installed in two of my labs, so I've not been updating.

Some of you may have read on ladyserpentine's journal that I applied for a job in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago. Edinburgh University have just emailed me asking if I can make it to an interview next Thursday and have also asked my referees to write to them :o)

Dear Friends,

I have just read and signed the online petition:

"Cat Le-Huy: Bring Him Home From UAE"

hosted on the web by PetitionOnline.com, the free online petition service, at:

http://www.PetitionOnline.com/cle2008/

I personally agree with what this petition says, and I think you might agree, too. If you can spare a moment, please take a look, and consider signing yourself.

Best wishes,

Greg

Apologies for the lack of updates of late, work is keeping me busy. The new Professor wants his lab sorted out and I've been busy trying to sort it. It will get worse over the next couple of weeks but then hopefully I have a week of reprieve, then another stupidly busy week just before ladyserpentine and I finally go on our honeymoon to Italy.

In preparation of the potentially long boring coach rides in amongst the excitement of our Italian tour we have both bought Creative Zen V mp3 players. Neat little things and so far my only complaint is the time it takes the creative software to download mp3s into the player. I suspect ignoring the software and performing a simple drag and drop might be quicker but I've not had much of a chance to experiment (they only arrived yesterday).

I just read on the new Crazyhead MySpack page:

"Gigs are planned for 2008 - and a new website is on its way - 'watch this space'."

Edit: According to Anderson the gigs will be summer 2008 when he's back over here visiting from Thailand.

:o)

I just removed a few people who hadn't friended me back. Fair's fair after all.

Why did none of my metal-loving chums not point me in the direction of Saliva before now? No, you had to wait till I wondered what the hell it was that Batista's theme music was for me to find out and do a little digging of my own to find out about them. Thank you WWE, not for your theatrical steroid driven sports entertainment but for allowing me to hear decent US metal bands that would have otherwise passed me by.

np: Saliva - Every Six Seconds

Meh! I don't really want to be at work, I want to be in Bullworth reclaiming my title as King of the School, riding my board, egging the prefects, beating up greasers, wedgieing jocks, ridiculing nerds, degrading preppies and sorting out those damn townies. And as for Gary...

_{This entry has been brought to you courtesy of bank holiday weekend over-exposure to "Canis Canem Edit", or "Bully"}

Being a workshy fop, I'll direct everyone to ladyserpentine's account of our wedding day, rather than bore you with my drab account. She's written it up beautifully over several journal entries, starting with http://ladyserpentine.livejournal.com/155305.html