The filth and the fury

At the beginning of September I went off to Northumberland for a week long holiday.  Northumberland was gorgeous.  The scenery is fantastic and the weather was glorious.  I'm not sure if I came back with a tan though or if it was actually a layer of dirt, as the holiday cottage we stayed in was beyond filthy.  

Admittedly when I booked the place I could tell from the pictures that it had a certain 1980s look to it (curtains with swags and tails anyone?) but I had expected it to have been cleaned since then.  The yuckiness of the place was apparent as soon as we arrived and much argy bargy, discussions, foot stamping and even tears (tears from the owner not me) ensued.

Ah well.  I've been back for a month or so now and I don't seem to have come down with bubonic plague.  I won't bombard you with pictures of the grottiness of the place but this gives you an idea of the cobwebby horror of it all:

mmm lovely!

 Thankfully the rest of Northumberland was its splendid atmospheric self:

Although if I'm going to be 100% honest I wouldn't mind if I never went back to Alnwick gardens again - talk about bling!

All fur coat and no knickers, in my snooty-for-no-good-reason opinion

On the health front the results of a bone density scan revealed I've got osteoporosis.  This wasn't a huge surprise, but my intolerance to the bone strengthening drug I've been prescribed was.  It made me feel far yuckier than my current chemo.  So after three weeks persevering I've been prescribed something different.  I'm not brave enough to try it yet as it's a chemo week for me and I don't fancy a possible double whammy of vileness. 

After a lovely, lovely summer Autumn has arrived.  This isn't all bad news as I much prefer winter clothes and love being snug.  The love of snugness is probably the result of my mum repeatedly telling me to tuck my vest into my knickers so as not to get a cold on my kidneys. Anyway due to the passing of the years and the eating of many biscuits, this year I had to go up a size when buying woolly tights.  I may now be a medium horizontally but I remain a small vertically - which means when I pull the tights up they come up to my armpits.  Here's to a cosy winter!