Feeling sigh-y

I was just telling a friend in a Facebook message how my mum is doing, and it kind of depressed me. And at that point I realized that that is why I haven't written here for a few weeks. And it's why I haven't replied to my cousin's email of last week asking how she's doing.

Because I'm a bit in denial.

If I don't go visit my mum, I can be oblivious to her hair loss and her mobility issues.

If I don't phone my mum, my brother, my sister, my dad, then I can't be told stuff I don't wanna hear. Right?

If I don't think about it or talk about it or write about it, it's not there. Right?

I'm like the three wise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. But the "evil" is cancer.



That sounded a bit more clichéd and melodramatic than I had intended, but you get my meaning, I'm sure.

This is what I wrote to my friend:

"[My mum is] seeming quite tired, and her memory is letting her down a bit, and she's getting crotchety at times. It's quite disheartening and depressing talking to her on the phone most times now, and it makes me sad."

I can go on at greater length here, so I will.

Often when I speak to her, I have to repeat things about three times. I know this is sometimes because she has the TV on or because there are a couple of house guests, so she is distracted. But sometimes I'm fairly sure that the reason is because the cancer growths are fucking with her brain and affecting her hearing. Maybe that's not the case. But I've kind of decided it is.

And -- selfish fuck that I am, obviously -- it can be frustrating for me to have to keep saying the same thing several times. But also for her, I'm sure, it must be annoying not to hear what is being said and so to have to keep asking for someone to repeat himself.

There's also been some talk, between the younger family members (those of my generation), of prognosis and whether or not it is good for her to know if her remaining time is particularly short. We are anticipating a timescale of less than six months. While this seems very negative, it is the best guess we can make with the information we have gleaned so far, from brochures and online sources. Thus far, the doctor has not given any prognosis.

A family friend in Italy lived through a similar dilemma with her father, so my other half will ask her about that process and whether they feel they made the right choice, keeping him uninformed.

What do my blogpals here think? If the doctor thinks six months, is it better to tell her or not to tell her?

We think the prognosis will come at the end of next week, at her next meeting with her oncologist. So if we decide as a family that she is best not knowing, we need to inform the doctor before the meeting. But of course we as a family probably ought to know.

This is bullshit.

I hate thinking about this stuff. I hate writing about it. I hate talking about it.

And yet somehow, at its best, blogging about it helps me to distance myself from it. But I don't know if that's good or bad.

She's gone away for a few days now, with her husband and my eldest cousin local to her. Just a few days in a friend's caravan at a seaside caravan park. She's been looking forward to it, so even though I don't think it was the most sensible decision, I'm sure she'll enjoy it as much as is possible. And it will probably do her good not to have to deal with phone calls and house visits several times a day.

Fuck’s sake.

Maybe I'm in a minority -- and certainly I can't speak from a smoker's point of view, because I have never been a smoker -- but what the fuck possible reason can there be for someone diagnosed with brain cancer continuing to smoke?

When my mum was in hospital, she was there for just over three weeks, and for the majority of that time she didn't smoke. Towards the end of her stay, however, she had a craving for a ciggie, and a nurse told her, "Well, one won't do you any harm." (This from a medical professional; don't even get me started...)

That one turned into a few a day for the last few days of her hospital stay.

And she has continued to smoke several cigarettes a day since being discharged on 29 July.

We -- those family members who don't smoke -- suggested she should stop. Stop now before she becomes addicted again, undoing all the good work of not smoking for almost three weeks. Some other family members -- the smokers -- suggested, well, it's not going to make much difference.

And, of course, the smoking will help with the stress.

It's hard to argue that latter point, sure. And nobody wants to argue with someone who has just been diagnosed with cancer, getting them all upset and shit.

But we did manage to get her to agree to stop smoking once the radiotherapy started. She said she would stop then. Her husband said he would stop, too, to make it easier for her to quit.

You know where this is going, don't you?

I've just spoken to her. She is four fifths of the way through her radiotherapy. Just one appointment left.

"How's the non-smoking going?" I asked.

Silence; then: "The what?"

I said, "I suspect by that answer you're still smoking."

"Well, yes. Nobody has told me I should stop or has even asked if I'm smoking. I'll ask about it when I next speak to a doctor."

Aside: I know this will be in three weeks' time. Ergo, she is gonna keep fucking smoking for another three fucking weeks. Despite the promises. Despite the fact (perhaps unknown to her, but nevertheless) that radiotherapy is less effective in those patients who continue to smoke throughout the course.

What fucking part of a cancer victim's brain shuts down when it comes to smoking? Can you tell me?

Like I said in the title: fuck's sake...

Between work and a hard place

With work being mad at the moment and us being in the process of selling one house and buying another, as well as processing/dealing with my mum's illness, it's a fucking crazy time right now.

No more so, necessarily, than millions of people go through every day, so I'm not getting all "woe is me" on anyone, y'know. If anyone should be woeful right now, it should probably be my mum more than me.

But she's pretty upbeat. Inappropriately upbeat? Maybe. In denial? Maybe. Who can say? And who am I to deny her that?

She's heading off for her first dose of radiotherapy today (not yesterday as we had thought previously). She's probably getting it pretty much as I type this, actually.

She texts family and friends every morning, letting us know how she slept and how she's feeling. This is the text she sent out this morning:

"Well this is it then, the next 5 [days] will decide my future but i know it will be alright and I will come bouncing back feeling better and fitter than I have for months xx"

Word from Birmingham

Yesterday afternoon we finally received word back from Birmingham. The doctors there agreed with the original diagnosis of metastatic brain cancer.

Before the day was out, a phone call was then placed to my mum, inviting her to a "planning appointment" on Monday, which will be followed by her first session of radiotherapy.

Subsequent sessions will take place over the following days of the week -- that is, she will receive treatment Monday to Friday next week.

This is not really the news I/we were hoping for. But it is at least some sort of forward movement. Something is finally happening beyond simply waiting.

There’s always hope. But beware false security.

Thanks for all your comments to my previous posts, folks. I know it's hard to know what to say. Equally, there's not much I can say in response other than thank you. Your thoughts and well wishes are appreciated.

I was up visiting my mum Thursday to Saturday, and the latest info is this.

Oddly, she seems much, much better than she was two weeks or so ago. I know this might be down to the huge number of drugs she is on. But equally, she is walking better and the numbness she had in a full half of her face is retreating somewhat.

She is also much more able to retain information. By that I mean: a couple of weeks ago, if she didn't get a thought out of her head immediately, she would have forgotten it within seconds. Now she is able to have a thought and remember it while other people are talking and then say her piece a couple of minutes later, just like any of us would in a normal conversation.

Her face is getting a bit rounder because she is now eating a lot more. She's not eating that well by normal food standards, but the Macmillan nurse told her that it's important she take in high-calorie foods as and when she feels she wants to eat, rather than necessarily sticking to set mealtimes. So she's eating soups and jelly (that's like Jell-O for you American types, rather than jelly as in PB&J) and canned fruit and cream etc etc.

Most of her pain has now gone, although she does suffer with stomach cramps once a day, usually about an hour after falling asleep at night. She is taking Oramorph for this -- a low-dose morphine suspension by mouth -- and that seems to do the job.

She's also very positive, but I think that's because some of the drugs she is on are uppers... Probably no bad thing.

It was good to see her looking and feeling so much better than she was a couple of weeks back.

We are still waiting for the experts in Birmingham to get their opinions back to Mum's hospital. But right now, I don't think I'm alone in feeling cautiously optimistic. And my mum's local hospital has a terrible reputation for fuck-ups and misdiagnoses. That said, I don't want to get lulled into a false sense of security, y'know?

Great way to start retirement

So, it's a crazy time right now. Not only are Red and I on the verge of moving house. And that, most people acknowledge, is one of the most stressful events in people's lives. But also, my mum has been quite ill. She's 61, she remarried three years ago, and she retired last year.

The story is this.

She was hospitalized suddenly one evening about five weeks ago with a suspected mini-stroke. At admittance she was given a CT scan as a matter of course. And this revealed some shadows on her brain.

Later tests, such as MRIs, showed shadows on her lungs and stomach. And the word came back that she probably has cancer.

In all, she stayed in hospital for 22 days, which is a pretty long stretch, I'd venture to say. And in all that time she had further tests and biopsies and whatever else could be thrown at her. Meanwhile she wasn't really eating particularly well, because hospital food is, frankly, quite shit.

Some bits of good news came through at various stages. They came back to say that the stomach was clear of cancer and, later, that the lung, too, was cancer-free.

The brain, however, is a continuing issue.

What they believe is that it is secondary cancer -- that is, cancer that has spread from elsewhere in the body. But they can't find the source, the primary cancer. That said, they have revised their thoughts on the lung somewhat, saying now that there is something at the back of it.

Now, here's the kicker. Or one of them.

Here in the UK -- or maybe simply at the hospital she's in, I don't know -- they don't or can't do biopsies of secondary (metastasized) cancer in the brain. Indeed, if it was primary cancer, it would be easier to deal with. So, because they can't do a biopsy, they can only reach a decision by consensus as to whether this is actually cancer.

We are awaiting that decision as I type. It's been two weeks now since her tests went to the experts in Birmingham to analyze and discuss, so we should hear back any day now.

And if it is cancer?

Well, here's the second kicker.

They will treat it with radiotherapy to the whole brain. This will be a series of about ten 3-minute sessions over the course of two weeks (on weekdays). This is hoped to shrink the cancer and help improve my mum's "quality of life". That's a term that never sounds good, right?

But it's not a cure.

And if the cancer comes back? Well, then there's nothing more to do but wait.

Word is that we could be looking at her having only six months.

Or perhaps it's all a big mistake, and the experts will tell us that. We can always hope, right? Denial is a wonderful thing.

Here's a picture of denial. Ooops, no, it's da Nile. See. I can still do great comedy.

I was away, and then I was back... and ill

So, the wife and I went to Italy for a wee summer holiday, 31 August to 12 September. Spent most of the time on the beach but also took a trip within a trip for a return visit to wonderful Venice. The whole experience, as you might expect, was lovely: cycling to and from the beach each day, splashing around in the sea, eating wonderful seafood and pizza and pasta dishes...

Before going, I'd been having a little gyp with a tooth that had recently been filled by my dentist, so in the last couple of days of my hol, I phoned and made an appointment.

We got back on the 12th, and my appointment was for the 16th.

On the 14th, while stretching to see the clock from my position in bed, I put my neck out so booked an appointment with the osteopath for the 15th: I wanted to get it sorted before being asked to open wide the following day.

The train ride to London for the dentist gave me the fear, cos I was right opposite this old dude who just kept coughing, almost for the whole hour of the journey. I just knew I would catch whatever the fuck it was that he was sharing.

And sure enough, two days later I started to get a sore throat. And that developed into a full head cold. I was lucky enough to feel fine within myself but was snotty and sniffy and sneezy nonetheless.

The cold did what colds do and kept me reaching for the Anadin Extra and the Kleenex. And then, on what would be my last day of sneezes, an almighty one wrenched my lower back. I literally could not stand upright without nasty pain. Another booking with the osteopath...

This brings us up to 22 September, and a couple of appointments with him seemed to be doing the job for my lower back.

And that's when I started to get some cystitis-like sensations: initially stinging/burning, accompanied by a feeling that I needed to pee more often than I normally would. I thought little of it and just hoped it would pass...

Until the point that I woke with severe discomfort in my mid-back on Friday 2 October. It felt different from my lower-back pain, but I assumed it must somehow be connected, so I lay down with a hot-water bottle for a few hours and it seemed to clear up.

The next day, I awoke to the same pain, only worse. I was literally in tears, though I'm not sure if it was really the pain or just the being absolutely fed up with being incapacitated in some way for about three weeks solid. I called my osteo, and he said he was surprised that it had shifted if I hadn't been doing anything strenuous. He asked if there was any chance I was having any other problems. I mentioned the cystitis stuff.

"I think that might be a kidney infection," he said, "without sounding like I want to pass the buck." So I spent the next hour or so trying to speak to a medical professional and eventually got an appointment for the same day. The doctor/nurse (who knows) who dealt with me said there was definitely an infection, based on my sample. By now -- as is always the case -- I was not only feeling better but was also not displaying any of my previous symptoms!

Anyway, today I got the actual test results back. "All clear," I was told. "Huh?" I replied. "How come I was told I had an infection, and yet the exact same sample says all clear?"

"Probably the drugs are clearing it up."
"But I started taking them after I gave the sample."

I don't even know what else to say. But it seems I am finally back to health. Now I need a holiday. And so, of course, does the missus, who has been doing almost everything around the house for this whole time.

I have the head of a wolf

Of course, there is no better accompaniment to new glasses than a new haircut [√] and a new tattoo [√]. The new tattoo is shown here (though I need to get a better pic now that it's almost healed):



As per most of my tattoos over the past 30 months, this was again made by Xam at Frith Street Tattoo in London. It sits on my lower right leg, between the shin bone and calf muscle.

I had hoped to sit upright and grab some photos of Xam working on the area, but it proved too difficult for me to hold myself in position while he was working. I just couldn't relax enough, and my body -- and more importantly, the area being tattooed -- started doing all sorts of weird flinchy stuff. I was concerned it would make it tough for Xam to make good lines, so I lay down instead. That was much better.

I am totally stoked with the finished result. When I first sat up at the end of the session, I was blown away by how awesome it was. That's not to say I felt it was better than any other recent tattoo; I think it was more because I was able to see the whole thing easily, without contorting my body or using a mirror, all of which makes it harder to get that instant gratification, I think.

My new glasses

Feck.

Doctor says I have a hernia. That'll be the third of my life. What the fuck is up with that?

And as much as I hate that my body clearly loves doing this shit to me, I hate even more that the end result is surgery. I don't wanna be chopped up and go through all the recuperation stuff again. It's just not fun. I like fun stuff.

So I'm feeling a bit down, but I know I have to just get on with my shit. Still, the news isn't even 24 hours old yet (even if I was fairly convinced of it a few days ago), so I guess I can allow myself a little moping time, right?

Blurg

It's been a week since my last post. I don't know what to write really. I'm feeling a bit blurg. Not ill; just blurg.

Went to the tattooist last Tuesday for my penultimate sitting on my backpiece. Loving how it's looking and can't wait for it to be done. Not cos I'm bored of it, but because I just want it to be complete and awesome. And then I can start thinking of my next pieces. Well, of course I already am thinking of my next pieces, and I have at least three ideas loosely sketched out in my head, maybe four.

Yesterday, the missus and I went for our regular constitutional at Whitstable beach. As ever, it was lovely, and a nice day for it. Rather too nice in fact, since I burned the fuck out of my neck. Then we went to see the movie Mamma Mia! I really don't know what we were thinking. Truly, truly awful. But I knew it would be, despite the rather glowing review it received in Sight & Sound. I almost feel like writing that revered journal of cinema a letter of complaint for misrepresentation.

What else? Meh, nothing really. Still v busy with work, hence my continued absence from both here and from your blogs. Sorry guys. I will get back on track soon, I promise. And I'm not even crossing my fingers.

Happy anniversary to me and Red!

Self-congratulatory, perhaps, but what the heck, eh?

It's 11 years today since we tied the proverbial knot, and we're dining in style, eating at not one but two posh restaurants, greedy pigs that we are.

Why?

Well, because we'd initially tried to book in at our favourite local restaurant for dinner: Read's at Faversham. They were fully booked for both lunch and dinner, so we opted for dinner elsewhere. Then we had a short-notice call to say a cancellation for lunch meant a table was now available if we wanted it. By then we'd already booked dinner and didn't really want to cancel.

Lunch was gorgeous, by the way. I had the terrine of confit chicken followed by beef on a potato rosti and spinach in a red-wine sauce. De-fucking-licious. Red had a salad to start and a main course of chicken wrapped in Parma ham, served on a bed of spinach and with a creamy mushroom sauce and a Mr Whippy-style swirl of mashed potato.

Oh, so heavenly. But given that we are dining out tonight, too, neither of us opted for dessert.

Seconds out, round two... [to be continued]

Oops, it’s Wednesday again already...

So that's a whole week passing by without a whole lot to say. I dunno. Blog lethargy has set in for a whole bunch of people, I guess, including me.

It's not that I've totally done nothing, but it's fair to say I've done nothing much (though we did meet up with some new peeps on the weekend; see here for deets). I didn't even get started on that short video project I mentioned last time. I intend to, though. Maybe today. But first I have to go shopping for a new car. Yeah... bummer.

Yesterday, Red and I looked out the window and saw it was a glorious day, so we decided not to work. That's the raddest thing about working from home. If it's a quiet week and the weather is nice, you can just skip work. We headed out to the seaside -- Broadstairs, to be precise.

We wandered the lovely streets, set foot on the sand briefly, wandered some more, went and ate a pizza at a nice little Italian restaurant, wandered some more, went and had tea and cake at a delightful little café, wandered some more, and then headed back home, stopping off for a sit down on the beach at Whitstable en route.


Once there, we plonked ourselves down, kicked off our shoes, and just sat in a shady spot watching the sea retreating from the shore. Just chillaxing, y'know?

By the time we got back home it was just after 6pm, and we found a card saying that the postman had been unable to deliver a package cos it was too big for our slot. Red said she had an idea that it might be from Captain Karen...

The rest of the early evening passed uneventfully, until the music and singing next door alerted us to a birthday in the house. Fuck. And on it went until after 1am. Tossers.

Anyways... At 8:15 this morning I headed down to the sorting office to collect the parcel, and it was from Karen!

I rushed back home, the missus grabbed the scissors, and we cut our way into our box o' goodies. And what goodies they were! Maple Leaf cream-filled cookies, saskatoon jam (look out breakfast time!), and a book called How to Be a Canadian, which may be pretty timely since we heard Canada is looking for emigrants and we might just look into that...


Thank you, lovely Captain for your lovely gifts. As ever, they are much appreciated and will be put to good use, of that you can be sure!

Well, that's all the news that's fit to print for another day, so catch you on the flipside, guys 'n' gals.

I think Mexico should become the 51st state of the USA

I can't take full credit for that headline; it was inspired by something Red said. Why? It was just a response to George "W for Wanker" Bush and his assertion that Turkey must join the EU. What the fuck does it have to do with that cock?

Turkey is fast heading towards being an Islamic nation. The current separation of church (or should that be mosque) and state is looking wobbly. And Meathead Bush thinks this is a prime candidate for EU consideration.

Why don't you go back to what you know best, Georgie Boy? Which is... oh yeah: fuck all. Do we come into your house telling who the fuck should be the next US state? No. Why? Because it's none of our business, just like Turkey being in the EU is none of yours. Dickhead.

In other news, the wife and I are celebrating 12 years since our lips first met across a crowded sofa after a day of sitting in the park chit-chatting and eating in cafes in north London. Twelve years! Awww.

And what better way to celebrate than to mourn the appalling performance of the Italian squad in the Euro Cup football tournament last night? 3-0 they lost to the Netherlands (or Holland, or the Dutch). Buffon is a buffoon. Maybe George Bush could have a word with coach Donadoni about who should be in the Italian goal...

Confession

Readers, forgive me. It's been ten whole days since my last post.

Truth is, in that time I've done almost nothing but work. I don't even think I've watched any films.

I've not really got much to say.

We're holding on to a little hope that we may get some tickets for the Maxïmo Park gig next Wednesday. I'm still in two minds about us going to another Gallows show on Monday. I have shitloads of work to do, so I'll get back to it.

Sorry I haven't been getting round to any of your blogs either. When I'm busy, I'm busy. Even the weekend I worked till 7pm both nights, so it's not huge fun.

Anyways, it's 7am and I'm gonna go and start my 12-hour day. Wish me luck...

Should the missus and I start a YouTube cookery channel?

Feeling peckish?

Here's our first attempt at shooting a recipe on the fly. Enjoy!

Post #795, wherein I make promises that I probably can’t keep regarding how soon I’ll hit my 800th post

Dudes -- I've been a slacker. Sorry and all that, but this week has turned into total fucking mayhem on the work front.

I really wanted to do some posts about Seville. And I will. But I had intended to chop together some video footage first, and that shit takes time. Time I don't have right now.

You wanna know how short of time I am? My tattooist called to say that I could have three hours on Friday cos someone had cancelled an appointment, but I had to turn it down cos I'm too damn busy. Believe, when I'm too busy to go and get tattooed, it means I'm FUCKING busy.

And it's some bad work that's keeping me busy. Proofreading is my least favourite of the strings to my bow. It's the being rooted to the spot for so long, so deep in concentration, keeping track of all the editorial style choices. And it pays the least well of the jobs we do, too. That said, this one is a good rate because it's a short-notice, 11th-hour kinda gig.

So, as alluded in the title, I promise to be back soon with some Seville stories before they all seem too late to write about. And some video clips. In the meantime, the missus is writing about it. But if you're really jonesing for a piece of my own words, don't forget you can always go check out my movie reviews (such as they are).

And anyway, my 800th post seems so damn insignificant now in light of Candy Minx's 1,000th. Not to mention furiousBall's 2,000th of a couple of weeks back. Pah! I'll try to get it done by Monday, though...

I’m wasting awaaaaayyyyy

Despite all the food consumed last Saturday at the MIRL Red and I had with Milla and Zorro (see Milla's post for details and pics), I'm still losing weight.

I don't think I'm worried just yet, but I'm just surprised how it keeps falling off me when I'm not really making a huge effort to eat less, though I am drinking considerably less alcohol.

Today I check in at just a whisker under what I believe Americans call "a buck fifty" (150lb; 67.9kg; 10st 10lb). I'm looking and feeling better for it, but the upshot is that I've lost about a stone (14lb; 6kg) in about four or five months or so.

New tattoo (details)

I've decided I won't post my tattoo on this blog. Well, certainly not yet, and maybe not ever. The final image that we came up with is a one-off, and unfortunately people are prone to taking images from websites and copying them.

Most tattooed people, of course, borrow and adapt other images (including tattoos), and once something is on the Web, it is incredibly difficult to prevent said borrowing -- or, worse, theft.

It's perhaps hypocritical of me to say this, given how many images I take from websites for use on this blog: politicians, musicians, actors, etc. But I know I'm a hypocrite and make no bones about it!

So, I'm really happy with the way it has come out so far. There's a long road ahead of me, and many womanhours for the wife of soaping me up and rinsing me down, before she pats me dry with paper towels. Some gals get all the luck, right?

Anyways, here are a couple of details of the backpiece. Those of you who have expressed an interest will receive an unsolicited mail from me with a small image file of the whole thing attached (provided I can find your e-mail address). If you don't get a mail and would like to see the pic, feel free to leave me a comment or drop me a line and I'll mail it to you.

New beginnings and other musings

Today my sister goes into hospital to have her fourth child. It was not due until early January originally, but she has developed the apparently not uncommon condition of obstetric cholestasis and has been advised to get the baby out now rather than waiting. So an unexpected bundle of "joy" (read piss, shit and puke) for Christmas day!

We sent some gifts for the newborn, as you would expect. This is what we chose, from the gloriously named Nippaz With Attitude. Gotta start the kid off on the right foot, right? Click the CD pic for the ability to listen to nursery-rhyme version of some of your favourite punk records!
























They reckon that the baby is going to be just shy of 7lb and that if she had gone full term, the baby would have shaken out at about 9lb. Jeeeeesus Christ on a bike!

On the subject of weight, Red and I are doing reasonably well on our non-diet diet. We're not really pushing it, but we are eating home-cooked meals at least 12 times a week (out of 14), I'd say, and we've cut down on portion size a bit too.

Her goal was to hit XXkg (I'm a gentleman; it's not for me to say) and then treat me too a tassel dance with the as-yet-unused pasties I bought her last Christmas (at her request, I hasten to add). Mine was just to shed a bit of gut.

I'm essentially a slight-framed kinda guy, but beer and pasta take their toll on a rockstar physique. Anyway, today I'm weighing in at 69.4kg (153lb, or just under 11 stone). That's a loss of about 5kg in as many months, so I'm pretty happy. It probably helps that I haven't touched a drop of alcohol for almost two weeks, in part due to having been on antibiotics for that gum infection.

So, what else? Oh yeah, Christmas cards. This year, we have decided not to send as many cards as in the past. This goes for both friends and family, as well as for work contacts. We have planted some trees via the Woodland Trust instead of buying cards for work contacts, and most friends and family will get an email greeting instead. I just don't feel right contributing to the global waste of paper for something that invariably just goes in the bin within days of its receipt.

It's been hard convincing some of my family that this is acceptable. What is it with English people and greetings cards?! The funny thing is, after watching An Inconvenient Truth a few months ago, I had said that my gift to everyone I was buying for would be just a copy of that DVD. Like a dork, I failed on that promise to myself. I still think it was a pretty fucking rad idea, but I flunked out.

And speaking of dorks, we move on to nerds. I took the test. It was kinda dumb, but whaddya expect. I'm a lightweight nerd. Hey, has someone been peeking at my weighing scales?!





Finally, just to give myself the slightest of pats on the back (not too hard; I might fall over with my new, trim body!), my video of the Palacio del Marques de Dos Aguas, which I uploaded yesterday, is currently YouTube's 58th Most Viewed Travel & Events video uploaded in the UK. Hey, go watch it again and help me climb even higher, please. Oops, looks like I'm gonna go all Guy Kawasaki on yo asses!