If only chickens could have chicken soup

Carmella has been off colour for weeks, culminating with a temperature of 41 degrees on Thursday. Hot, even for a feathery animal. With human patients a dose of chicken soup usually does wonders, but this is one medicine we can't offer to her. Finally we seem to have fixed it with a course of antibiotic jabs and things are finally looking up. Here's a couple of pictures of the chickens, wet in yesterday's downpour. Chicken obsessive, coupled with a camera ... there will be no end of chickporn now.

Word up for Jessops

I was going to show you the poem I've written for my gran's funeral (I've been asked to say something at it) but it's really rather uncomplimentary and I won't be able to use it. Try as I might I can't find a positive thing to say - which is not because there weren't funny things about her (I can't really say there were nice things, so funny will have to do), but they all stem from something awful. For example, I used to have a name for her which related to the way she grubbed about in her kitchen and slammed doors at 6am every morning. It was an amusing name, but not one which would really fit as a tribute.

So instead, I'm going to big up Jessops, because today they excelled in their service to me in a way that restores faith in all things corporate. I got a beautiful digital SLR for Christmas, a fantastic gift as I'm mildly obsessed with photography. It was incredibly expensive, and perfect, until I dropped it on the road that very same day, causing a couple of scrapes and breaking the integral flash. OK, integral flash is crap but .. it was BRAND NEW. So today we took it back. Shop man noticed the grazes - "I'm a bit worried about these marks" - and asked if the flash had ever worked. We kind of flanneled ... "It might have done for a day or so" ... thereby not entirely lying but neither admitting culpability, with our fingers crossed. The man tried out the camera, silently removed the battery and memory card, went out back and got a brand new body, refitted it all and handed it over to us, with not another word. Nice, nice, lovely Mr Jessop. I am impressed.

I realise that a story about Jessops isn't that exciting but it was better than my bitter poem, honestly.

This pictures is one taken on New Year's Eve with said camera. This is my sister and three of her teenage friends writing '2007' with sparklers. It was an exceedingly long exposure obviously. The kind you can only do on an expensive camera.

Mothers and daughters

On Christmas day, my maternal grandmother had a large stroke; her 5th at least. She's been in a nursing home for a couple of years now and to be honest, we have all hoped that she will have a quick and painless exit from this situation. She's been a lifelong supporter of voluntary euthanasia and had written a living will, but as we all know, providing someone with the means to choose and enable their own death, is not yet permissable in our society. My grandmother was a strong, firm and mostly difficult and unpleasant woman, who exerted a great deal of influence on both my mother and myself. She was often cruel, and never gave my mother the love she deserved. When my mother was ten and her stepfather was killed in an accident, my grandmother repeatedly declared her intention to "kill herself and take them all with her". It is safe to say that we have never been a close family largely as a result of her behaviour throughout all our lives. But all of this simmering resentment, past horror and unforgiven behaviour pales against the sight of an old woman sitting in a nappy, flopping in her chair, eating mush off a plastic plate with a plastic spoon, who is surrounded only by the demented and lonely inmates of the nursing home. My grandmother has ended up where she least wanted to be. She made her wishes known, her whole life. But all we are allowed to do is to watch her slowly deteriorate - made perhaps worse because it is only physical and not mental - and hope that something, anything, will put her out of her (and us; let's be honest about this) out of our misery. Is this the way we want to see our parents, our grandparents - ourselves?? We choose not to see the forgotten population in nursing homes, but it's there, and it's coming for us.

The end of my academic year

Work is over. Pimms Winter Warmer is in the hand. Frank's singing. All is well with the world, as long as you don't look out of the door or turn on the TV. It's easy to ignore it all when you live in the country.

What is less easy to ignore is the slightly scary christmas related visitors who come to your door. Last night there was an almighty cacophony in the street, which turned out to be Santa On A Lorry - I know the picture's crap but if you imagine this really hard, you'll see it. It was actually Santa, On A Sled, On A Lorry. With 100 decibels of SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN. If that's not enough to frighten you into making a donation to the scary man on your doorstep (who doesn't look too happy that you're taking pictures) I don't know what is.

What are the Rotary Club all about anyway - and why do I feel like I've just funded something illicit / fascist / terrorist? I know they claim to be about community and promotion of peace and understanding of the world, but honestly, their collectors don't look that peaceful or understanding. They all seem to read the Daily Mail, for a start.

I bloody love this site. Anyone resident in East London will especially appreciate this bit.

You get what you pay for?

One of my little chickens, Carmella, shown here in rather fetching apparel, has been ill for a week. She started off limping and then went 'off legs' yesterday, and couldn't stand. We rushed her to the vet - blue lights all the way - difficult to do a 45 minute journey fast with a chicken in a basket on your knees. (I realise now how wrong it was to put her in a basket - sounds like something you might get for lunch in Mile End).

The vet's surgery is everything you'd want in any health service provider. Clean and cheerful, professional staff, stacks of information, code of conduct, prices displayed, readily available medicines, clear prices and outline of services. The vet was polite, thorough and was neither dismissive or reduced to laughter by our unusual pet and ailment. She did a proper examination, asked questions and listened to the answers, and then gave advice and treatment. It cost £15.

OH said to me "This is better than anything you experience in the NHS". Well - you pay for it - so perhaps that's understandable. But such a shame to return to our beloved NHS, the beleaguered NHS and realise how far from any of this it will ever be.

Hospitals of the future?

I love this. The government’s inspection of NHS financial management has concluded that there has been a ‘failure of financial management’ with ‘evidence of inadequate monitoring and an absence of financial control’. Try telling this to the people of Chelmsford and environs, where the hospital which deals with paeds, maternity and GU medicine was sold (£5million) to help pay for the PFI at the main hospital (PFI already under construction). The Chief Exec then accounted for this income twice (therefore £10 million) and when he was found out, went on long term sick leave. He's not as sick as the rest of us, and of course will still be on full pay. Needless to say, the PFI has been stopped – as part of the wider review of PFIs it would have been anyway – and it’s going to cost something like £28 million in breach of contract fees to cease construction entirely. Putting that in context, the total cost of the PFI was projected at £180 million.

This week there were not enough beds at the hospital and patients were stacked up outside in waiting ambulances. At least then they are not breaking the 4 hour A&E rule, since they aren’t technically in A&E at that point.