Snippets

• I've stopped the carbamazepine, and remain pain free, and now my nausea and dizziness/confusion have gone, so life is way better!  I am so glad to be able to eat/drink citrus again; I really felt like I needed the boost in Vitamin C.  I know it only said to avoid grapefruit, but eating oranges & clementines gave me rampant nausea, so I was having to cut out all citrus fruit.
• I put the central heating on today.  It's only the second time this autumn [and today I've had it on since lunch], but it's making me really keen to get our woodburning stove organised and move into our English house!  I know loads of people have been using their heating since as early as August, but I haven't needed to use it as long as the weather was sunny.  I'm sitting in the little snug we set up last winter, because we could never get the sitting room even approaching warm, and an enclosed, smaller space that doesn't let all the heat escape upstairs is a brilliant idea.  May well have a "winter sitting room" upstairs when we do move?
• The lovely people at the Huge American Bank bought David a fire pit as a leaving present; it's a really thoughtful idea, and it would be marvellous if we could set it up to roast the chestnuts I've collected.  But we're keeping it in the box until we can move; looking forward to next year - just need to find some chestnuts locally!
• Manston Airport in Kent closed, and the residents are protesting to have it re-opened.  It just seems really odd, given all the complaints about Heathrow, that people want an airport?!  Logically, I totally understand: a huge housing development doesn't provide any employment opportunities and probably places a bigger burden on local roads than a small airport, and I have got used to aircraft noise quite quickly when I have lived near airports.  But it stills seems a rarity to campaign for runways.
• Metal vacuum flasks my be unbreakable, but they don't work!  We bought one when I dropped the old flash as we were moving house, but even heading from Maidstone to the Channel Tunnel we don't have very hot tea.  And coming from the house in France we're lucky to have tepid tea.  So I bought another glass-lined Thermos flask.  One day we forgot to bring the new one home from the house, so took our tea in the metal one; the tea in the (not full) glass flask from the day before was slightly warmer than the full metal flask that had been made about four hours earlier!  So when David dropped this one, the first thing we thought was "buy new Thermos" rather than "we have that metal flask".  Luckily, I found one in a charity shop!
• And finally... Quote [not once, but twice] from David: "what's our phone number?"  I almost understand being unable to recall our new postcode [it's a 3, not a 4] or his new work telephone number, but we've lived here since July 2011!