personal political

odds

There was a large grasshopper on the wall of our bedroom.

save the whales

A pal of mine has made some whale t-shirts for women and kids.

bagless

Here's a little ray of hope (on the large scale - I guess it's a bad moment for the people who work there) - China's main plastic bag manufacturing factory has closed down.

sensitive

My son is what is known in parenting lingo as a sensitive boy. [Do girls get labelled 'sensitive'?]

the P2 challenge

I'd thought I was over the hump as far as P2 was concerned.

offered

There's a house for sale in our neighbourhood. The sign says it's the "first time offered since 1885".

roots

I have a cracked tooth and the solution is to have the roots removed - the dreaded root canal.

hearing

A music critic lost the hearing in one ear - and writes about the disorientation and flatness he now experiences when he hears music.

But what really struck a nerve for me was his description of losing his 'ear' - it was uncannily similar to my experience of developing BPV, which I've had twice now. Both times I've felt mildly unwell and then suddennly developed vertigo when I attempted to sit up in bed. I also had a seperate incident which was incredibly scary where I developed very loud tinnitus on evening, seemingly out of the blue. I went to bed in an effort to suppress my rising panic about the roaring sound in my ear. Acupuncture the next day brought it back to a tolerable level and within a week it had gone. But these days I take gingko, which is reputed to have a good effect on the microvascular system.

acupuncture and ivf

The English acupuncturist who is at the centre of this article about IVF and acupuncture will probably be inundated with desperate women.

I did acupuncture (and took herbs) for years before getting pregnant through IVF, so I can't say that acupuncture produced an immediate miracle for me. It did produce lots of little miracles along the way though, like making my cycles completely regular (they'd always been erratic). And it kept me sane - I unashamedly idolise my acupuncturist, just as this writer idolises hers. And, most importantly, I think it kept me pregnant - I had a major bleed in the first trimester and began to take herbs. I kept on taking herbs and having acupuncture when I was struggling early in the third trimester - it turned out that my placenta was breaking down. If doctors had got their hands on me, I probably would have been induced at 31 weeks, but I made it to 36, with the help of my acupuncturist.

the law

Pragna Patel from Women Against Fundamentalism has written a lucid piece in the Guardian in response to the Archbishop of Canterbury's suggestion that some parts of sharia law be incorporated into the British legal system. (Maybe that's not what he suggested - it seems both complicated and simple.)