wendy house

tonight I’m hanging out in Great Dunmow.

I’ve not seen much of it, I rolled in after 3 hours driving through places like Maidenhead, Slough, Ruislip and some cuter bits nearer Cambridgeshire.  The sun set, the roads wound.

I pulled into the Harwood Guest house Bed and Breakfast, 15mins from Stanstead airport and not on the flight path at 10.15pm  An hour and 15 minutes later than planned. Doh!  Driving the cute route was longer than the SatNav predicted.

wendy: is there a pub near here that I can get to before last orders?

Ian: where are you from gel? you’ve got loads of time

wendy: South of here, don’t they stop serving at 10.30?

Ian: there’s a pub across the road they’ll serve you till 11pm no worries.

Ian is a gem.  I’ve only talked to him for 10 minutes,  but it was enough for him to work a few embedded knots out of my shoulder muscles.  That’s a high quality Bed and Breakfast.

Across the road they serve me a pint of Doombar for £2. 

A bargain.

I fire-up my laptop to tell you guys about it.  I’m on holiday. 

How lucky is that?  Matrix is alive, how lucky is that?  The ash cloud isnt going to prevent my flight tomorrow. how lucky is that?  I’ve got a job, an income, how lucky is that?  It’s after last orders, after closing time and I’m still being served, how lucky is that?

Things may go quiet while I’m on Holiday, but they may not, Darling is travelling with me….

For a millisecond, when the vet said myocardial infarction,  I was pleased that I already knew what that meant.  I  didn’t have to add more ignorance to the unnecessarily overwhelming emotional blustering this conversation was producing. 

I had already been put in my place as an ignorant person.  When I told the vet I wanted to try and assessment Matrix’s quality of life I was told in no uncertain terms that the task was impossible and that he, the Vet, couldn’t help.  The suprise at the vet not even trying to help at that point nearly prompted tears.  I managed to hold the tears back until after the phone call. When I assumed the role of ignorant listener to the Vets prefered agenda I managed to sneak in a few questions tothat helped me get to the information I needed, for peace of mind and confidence in being able to make the right decisions for the rest of Matrix’s life.

When making significant life influencing decisions it shouldn’t be quite this hard, professionals should listen first then respect the percieved needs of their paying clients. Me.

Thankfully I now know that my perception of Matrix having a fairly high quality of life is likely to be accurate and that without the outrageously expensive (financially and emotionally) heart treatment Matrix is most likely to pop-her-clogs with a suddent heart attack or a stroke that disables some limbs at which point the vet would recommend euthenasia.

It’s how my grandma died, not the euthenasia, the stroke.

I wish euthenasia had been an option for Gran, she wanted to go, she didn’t want me to see her but I sneaked under the curtains around her bed while my aunts and uncles were squabbling over who had been the most attentive.  Grandma cried when I hugged her.  I got to say I love you, goodbye.

Insanity even. Lots of strangeness going on in and around the Wendy House this week, last week and next week.  Like the volcanic ash it sweeps in and out with the prevailing winds.

Based on today’s experience I suspect I’ll be unable to refrain from blogging until June.  Though I can’t quite find the words to describe the prevailing winds on planet wendy.  So I find myself thinking of escaping into a new hat, of the native American Iroquai, of moving furniture

Jamiroquai singing Virtual Insanity

Update nightmares (ongoing) will be reported in this thread. 

I should have known I would feel impelled to publish my experience of the (cough) service…

First I tried simplifying things by cutting  my web-hosting company out of the communication loop because they literally can’t help as they sell services and that are all separately password protected – know nothing of each other.  This means I have to work out exactly who provides what and what they can support me with. 

I tried directly using the UI of the company that hosts the databases (Starfieldtech) because the problem appears to be moving the contents from my ‘old’ (V4 sql database) to my new (V5 sql database) – essentially the ‘back-up’ and ‘restore’ UI settings in my webhost’s (GoDaddy) environment did not work – system feedback said they did work – in reality they failed. 

I’ve tried ‘export’ and ‘import’ in the database services (Starfieldtech UI) – but that hasn’t worked either.  It did give me feedback that the new database-user did not have permission to access the the V4 database (pressumably username and password).

Next I tried creating a 3rd database with the same username and password as the V4 database that contains my blog history.  BUT, the ‘username’ already exists so I cant create another database with the same username.

Next I looked for a way to add the user(name) for my archive database to my new database – no obivous way to do this.

Next I wrote to GoDaddy and to Starfieldtech explaining my goal and understanding of the problem then pleading for thier help. 

This could be the time that I change providers to a local UK hosting service – if they can set-up my blog database then I’ll switch my hosting. For now after 3 hours I’m taking a well deserved curry and rest break…..

I’ve just upgraded my database and it hasn’t worked. 

Lots of fiddling and support service usage on the way. 

No new posts are planned for May. 

Normal service will be resumed in June

Have a good spring

wendy: what’s the name of the bit of mainland britian that includes England, Wales, Scotland and Cornwall but excludes Northern Ireland (NI)

NI Lady: Great Britain, look at your passport it says ‘United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Northern Ireland“

German: Wendy are you British?

wendy: what do you mean am I British?

German: I thought you were American

simultaneously, everyone in the room

ducks and GULPS

wendy: I’m British, I did live in the US for about 8 years, what made you think I was American?

German: someone told me

NI Lady: It’s defintiely not your accent

German: I can’t recognise all the British accents!

wendy: should I just wander about following pathways?

docent: haven’t you been before?    you look like you know what you’re doing

wendy: I was gardening every evening this week

julie: me too, I’ve planted potatoes and herbs, last night I spent 2 hours gardening, it feels so good afterwards.

wendy: Oh (signifying impressedness) um, I just really pull out weeds and think about doing other  stuff

julie: I pull out weeds too

wendy: mainly I stand with my mug of tea looking at my borders thinking things like ‘that Phlox looks good even though it’s pink, maybe I should plant some more’

julie: Yeah, I do that in the morning before I come to work too

wendy: me too

julie: you are not alone

Phlox, Bluebells and white armeria