British Summer Time Officially Begins Today

It means we move one hour forward. Hmm not nice as I get up at dawn while the birds are singing their aubade. Well, that's the only drawback about it but in the bigger picture it's actually so much better especially after one of those worst UK winters in history.

Last week I started spotting yellow daffodils trumpeting the coming of spring, hence the change of the header background. Unfortunately, they are not my own photos and I intend to acknowledge the websites where I took them from. They are, from left to write, freefoto.com, flowerduet.com, and bridgetbossartvanotterloo.com

You've been awarded

Thank you Ms Nice A for the sunshine award. It surely brought sunshine to my day.

And now I gloriously pass the award to .... drums roll, please?

Sarah of My Memories and Crystals
Regina of Daily Living
Chubskulit of Obstacles and Glories
Quiltworks of World Thru the Eyes of a Fiber Artist
Spidermama of Spidermama's Photoblog

Here are the rules for nominating this award:
* Put the logo on your blog or within your post
* Pass the award onto 12 bloggers
* Link the nominees within your post
* Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog
* Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

Oops! I talked too soon

You might be wondering what in the world I am talking about. Well, in my previous post I mentioned that I had temporarily put my big snow coat away and for a few days used the less thicker coat. But in the beginning of this week, the mercury was below zero in the morning and once more I was wearing layers of coat. So I took snow coat out of the wardrobe again to keep me warm in the morning.

Last Sunday, I made cassava cake to take to my friends who invited my family for dinner. I kept half for our consumption. But before I could fork out a small slice, my husband and his sister had finished everything. I was a bit disappointed but on the other hand I was pleased that they liked my baking so much.

NHS and the dodgy services by GPs part 1

Okay, imagine me typing on my laptop with Brainbug Nightmare playing in the background. It's making my hubby go ballistic after eating home-made pizza by Brie. For a time being it distracted me from what I'm going to blog about, the dodgy NHS GPs. For the sake of my readers who don't have idea what it is, it means National Health Service (NHS) and General Practice (GP).

Here in the UK, hospitalization is free for everyone who is registered with the NHS. From the outside it looks good but once you get to see a GP you will be surprised to be sent home worse than when you came. Well, I'm a bit exaggerating. The first time I went to see a GP on a Sunday, I had to wait for nearly two hours! I think that's ridiculous! Actually you can only see a GP on Sunday for emergency. Ironically, most patients have to wait 2-3 hours even the pregnant ones. It's so disappointing, really. To make matters worse, GPs are sometimes synonymous to quack doctors. Why? When the doctor finally came to see me and I showed him my swelling and itchy fingers he said that it "could" be an allergy that I picked up from the gym and prescribed anti-itch cream. Nothing happened. The next day, Monday, I went to see my GP up the road. Without so much explanation, she told me that it was a "chilblain and it's very common in this country". The last phrase made me question the ability of the first GP I saw the day before. If chilblain is common how could he not diagnose it? This is just one of the many health check-ups episode I will be talking about.

When I arrived here in the UK two years ago, my weight dramatically dropped  from 43 kg to 38. With my pint size, that's a huge amount to lose. I needed every single gram of it. For two months my monthly visitor didn't come. I was scared as it had never happened before. I was getting paranoid of the thought of contracting cancer. Unfortunately, I couldn't see a GP because I wasn't registered yet. So when my monthly visitor came back I was relieved. But last year it happened again, this time for 3 months. Now that's really scary because I did pregnancy test three times and the result was always negative. If you're a woman and you miss your visitor it is really scary. So I went to see a GP and told me there's nothing wrong with me and then suggested that I get a blood test. Two weeks later, the result came clear. It was relieving on one side but still I wasn't satisfied with the kind of medical treatment I received. I really think they needed to check my ovary or uterus to find out what's wrong inside.

This is UK. Hospitalization may be free but we are not really getting the best medical treatment. Hospitals and equipments could be modern and all that but the doctors are dodgy.

To be continued...

The days are getting longer again, Yehey!!

Wow, I can't believe it's March 5 already. Seems like only yesterday was 2009. It seems like only yesterday when the snowy days seem to drag the time at a dead-slow pace. Now the days are getting longer, the sun rises at 7 am and goes down later at around 5 pm. And so people's spirits are going up again and of course the buses come on time now--well almost--they're such a fair-weather friend, LOL!

Like what my colleague says, "Summer HAS to come." Matter of factly. Winter can't have its grip on us forever. No matter what, summer will prevail again to give us some moment of felicity. It's part of life cycle, I mean life. One good thing is I have temporarily done away with my big snow coat. There's no guarantee that snowy days are over. It's only March. When I arrived almost 2 years ago, it was March 21, the first day of Spring and it was snowing. In fact it snowed for the next couple of weeks. So maybe we'll get more chill but I'm crossing my fingers against it.

The month of February got me hooked with Melason in Love. At work I always looked forward to going home and watch Melason on pinoychannel.tv as soon as I switched on my laptop. It's so frivolous especially Melai she's so genuine even if the situation or set-up is so contrived. But today, I got a little disappointed with Jason and maybe I won't be as excited with it again. But in fairness, it kept me away from the shops, Ha! Ha!

Missing the Philippines also makes watch Pinoy bands on youtube and Aegis really got into me especially their song, "Sinta". On Valentines week I found myself belting out this song from morning till night. (grins)

Another thing that's transpired last month is I got my cartoon version but I don't have a name for it yet. I don't wanna call it with my real name but something that's similar but sounds cartoon-ish. So I need a help on this one.

For a while, some feeling of unknown fear gripped me when news broke out about Chile's 8.8 shake and the impending tsunami that was going to smash Philippine shore on the east. I thought to myself, "My poor countrymen, El Niño, corruption, tidal wave... So I sighed a huge sigh of relief when the succeeding news reported that the wave wasn't that big as it had to travel a long way and therefore grew remarkably small when it reached Philippine sea.

Now, it's really dark in my room, I mean outside the window and I hear the spluttering rain. It's time to make some dinner. See you again next episode.