Trout pout

Hmm, my blooming lip did it again yesterday. Yes, puffed out like a bad collagen-job. This is the third time it's happened in the last 2 months, and I have no idea what's caused it, the only connection being that on each occasion I have been suffering from a viral infection/cough/cold thingy. On friday evening I had a slight tingling in my upper lip (it's always the upper one, not the lower) and by saturday morning I looked like a duck as it was all swollen. Almost cancelled my plans to go away for the weekend as it looked so ridiculous, but after judicious use of antihistamines it went back to normal so I'm ok now. My mum is more bothered than I am, she said I ought to see a doctor to find out what's causing it - however I'm not going to as if anyone came to see me with that story I'd tell them to take antihistamine when it happens and not to worry. Note to self though never to have the collagen thing done, I've seen what it would look like and I'm telling you it's not good. I've got some pictures on my phone of it but am too embarrased to publish them here, so poor old Leslie Ash is going to have to illustrate my point.

Went up to Essex for the weekend to catch up with a friend, was good fun although ate far too much and probably undid all the goodness of the brown rice I've been forcing myself to eat all week. Have this next week off work which is great, got a few things to do tomorrow then heading up to London for a couple of days to see various people over lunch and dinner, seem to be going into one of my periods when I'll be up there a fair bit as will be there again in 2 weeks for a friend's birthday weekend - better put some more credit on the Oyster card!

Battered and bruised.

Ah - doesn't that look lovely? It was. It was great. Not wanting to boast of course, but I had a fab time on holiday and it was so much better than I was expecting. The group were great fun - a real mix of people but we all seemed to get on well and we got lots of ski-ing and drinking and stuff in. It snowed on the second day and although the resort was small, the runs were about as crowded as you see here, so plenty to keep us busy. Got a bit cold on the chairlift going up to the top, and the long run aka "Valley of Death" was pretty icy in places, but we all survived remarkably intact, apart from the fact that I have bruises all up my legs and a huge one inside my right knee which I assume is from the snowboarding lesson I got on the last day. I was rubbish at boarding, by the way, but did kind of manage to turn and go down the hill without falling over, well, once at least. So, if you want any more details or gossip you will have to ask!

Had my new double glazing fitted yesterday - so much for a lie-in! Had 4 builders in all day and they have done a pretty good job, apart from knocking off chunks of plaster from the bedroom walls, but they'll be back to mend it sometime soon. House still in chaos, washing everywhere and I'm still finding all the small polystyrene balls that have come out of the window packaging, despite having vacuumed several times. So it was back to work today, nothing much to say about that really! Going to bed now as still catching up from last week, as we were the youngest people there, we felt obliged to stay up the latest.

Go Jonny!

Just a quick one today, I've had a really busy week with work so haven't had much of a chance to update the blog, and I'm midway through packing for the ski holiday so thought I'd just about have time to squeeze a quick one in. Could have done the obvious and talked about snow (we had around 10cm down here on thursday) but it's all gone now, I just hope that the Dolomites had some too!

So anyway, good luck to the boys today, Jonny only needs one point apparently to become the highest-scoring player in the history of the six nations! I might be wearing my shirt in support (got one of the women's ones off of the net for half price which was a bit of a bargain). Not as cute though as Russ's 3-month-old niece Harriet who has an England babygro, I got sent a photo of her wearing it last week!

Am going to leave for the airport in a couple of hours (after the match) as the flight leaves early tomorrow, spending the night in a hotel there along with one of the other people who is going. Failed to manage a lie-in this morning, well, slept in half an hour that I have been doing the rest of the week, but have managed to get lots of things done at home like washing and cleaning and stuff - am having my new double glazing fitted the day after I get back so it is going to be chaos, basically. Catch you all later, have a good week!

So, how old DO I look?

Am confused. Practically for ever I've been aware that I look younger than my years, it's something that I've got used to and I'm sure I'll be glad of it when I'm older. Has been a problem for me at work though, in hospital when I was the SHO on nights, patients used to look in horror when I turned up to sort them out as they assumed I was the work-experience student rather than the well-trained, knowledgeable person in charge of the admissions. It's been the same since I started being a GP, I often get told I look too young to be in the job so I have a kind of sweepstake going and whenever anyone comments on it, I ask them to guess the age. To give you a rough idea, the average answer is around 23 with range 19-27 (I'm 30). Is also good as I see a lot of the teenage and student patients who feel they can relate to me more than they can to someone who reminds them of their dad.

But in town today I was approached by some ladies wielding clipboards, trying to find people to give them a couple of minutes to answer a survey. As I was in no hurry, I thought I'd be nice and help out, so I stopped to answer their questions. First one was "did I ever buy yoghurt?", which I do, so far so good as that had qualified me to continue. But then they asked my age, and when I told them I was thirty, their faces fell as apparently you have to be 35 to take part. So now I'm confused. They must have either have thought I was 35 in order to bother asking me in the first place, or they were just so desperate to get people to take part that they were asking anyone who appeared approachable. I wish I'd asked which of the two applied, as I'm worried in case the late nights have taken their toll and I've suddenly started to look haggard.

This week I have been mostly wasting time in two ways - having video chats with distant friends on Skype seeing as it's free, and you can play poker and stuff against each other, and also been doing the jigsaw of the day online which is great as you don't lose any pieces or have to clear up afterwards.