At home again

I'm at home, since last Saturday, the 16th.

Little did I know that as I began my descent into Cork, events were taking place in my left eardrum that would lay the foundation for a very unpleasant couple of days ahead.

At the start of this week, a pain had appeared in my left ear. Attempts to disinfect with olive-oil-soaked cotton wool balls failed miserably, and a couple of days later, I was unable to sleep, such was my agony. I also found it very difficult to have conversations with people who were anywhere in the vicinity of my left side, or watch films on TV at night, such was the deafness that had taken hold in my left ear. I hauled myself off to the doctor, and he prescribed a five-day course of amoxycillin. He also recommended an over-the-counter lotion with a dropper that you use to put the liquid into your ear. I used this once, and shortly afterwards, the entire left side of my head felt like it was going to explode, so I'm not continuing with that one.

So that's it. Antibiotics over Christmas. Which means very little alcohol (I don't think alcohol is advised against when taking amoxycillin but there's NO WAY I'm running the risk of that pain making a reappearance. I'm only just about back to normal now).

In other news, my parents are starting to embrace the 21st century. I came home to see a widescreen LCD tv in the sitting room. There was also a broadband router AND DVD/VCR combi waiting to be setup. My parents can be quite clever about these things. They buy them just before Christmas, when they know I'm coming home, and then don't touch them until I'm in the door, knowing they can count on me to do it all.

But thank GOD. Mallow may still suck compared to Brighton, but it's a bit more bearable now.

That bear I was supposed to meet on Friday before I left Brighton texted and cancelled at the last minute, so an opportunity for hot gratuitous sex was lost to me. Perhaps in the new year...

The preparations for the wedding grind on. Like a lot of women in such a position, the bride-to-be has turned into a bit of a psychopath, and has already fallen out with, and subsequently replaced, the two bridesmaids that she had lined up. They had been friends for almost 20 years. That's enough of a catastrophe. Hopefully there won't be any more.

In other news, I've been helping my mother type up a list of dutch recipes given to us by our relatives across the pond. The relatives had tried translating the recipes using an online translation tool, but had come up with some truly hilarious results. Pigs Head stuffed with cheese had come up as (fnar fnar) Head Cheese, and my favourite, Water-based Gruel had come up as 'Water Horror'. An interesting name for a horror film, that one would be. Anyway, it's done now, so my brother the chef will be getting a bound book of traditional dutch recipes as one of his wedding presents. He'd better apprecitate it.

Now I have to go and help my mother polish silver.

(P.S. I know I've been getting really bad at regular updates. I promise I'll try and keep you all scintillated over Christmas. Ta ra)