Saturday was an interesting day all round. Highs and lows. Ups and downs. No, we didn't go to Altern Towers, but sometimes it felt like it! Friday finished a bit uncomfortably. David had received an updated itinerary for the Hungary trip in a fortnight, and there were a few things on there that threw us a bit. Firstly, it said that the hotel asks for a credit card to swipe at Reception, so they have somewhere to charge any extra room charges etc. When i was first made redundant we got rid of all credit cards. We only have a pre-paid card that you top up and can only spend what you put on it. They don't pre-authorise like a Visa will. So that'll need sorting somehow. Secondly, despite David having had confirmation previously that dress for dinner would be casual, the itinerary now states that this is smart - only a small thing, but a pain in the posterior for me. As mentioned, I've lost loads of weight and don't have any 'posh' clothes that fit any more. You can't look good in 32" trousers when you are down to a 28" waist! I've tried very hard to put on weight (so was probably at one stage no more than 26"!!!) and also to not buy clothes, which hopefully will be too small in a little while as I get better. So I've managed with trackie-bottoms and elasticated waist-bands! So yesterday's shopping trip increased in difficulty to now include TWO pairs of trousers, one being a nightmare, and two some sort of Hell on Earth. There were a few other things on the itinerary that bug me, such as the 'short walk' to the restaurant for the meal on the Saturday night. This is then also referred to as a 'stroll'. Semantics I know, but important ones for someone who's every step causes shooting pains and who was until recently in a wheelchair! So they will just all have to walk at my pace! So, what with all that, having separate seats on the plane, stumping up for additional travel/medical insurance to cover pre-existing medical conditions (you'd think I was guaranteed to have bits drop off, fail or explode from the moment we get on the flight) and the general hassle, it seems like less of a prize and more of an inconvenience. As David said, it feels like they have somehow managed at every step of the way to make things difficult for me. Which is such a shame as I really want us to be able to have a good time. David deserves it so much and a break away would do us so much good! The hotel though looks lovely - five-star and a bed that you need a map to navigate. I WILL be stealing the shampoo, even though I have a shaved head!

Saturday, I managed to get an app for Twitter to load and run on my mobile phone. Its really good. That said, if I don't close it down from the program manager it remains active, receiving Tweets, and bumping up the data costs! Need to watch for that. On the plus side, it has a really cool feature to integrate Twitter, Tweetpic and the phone's camera, so you can tweet, take a photo and send it all in one go. How fun is that?! This prompted discussions around phone plans and data costs. David has been itching to upgrade his phone for ages. The ones we have are pretty good in terms of features and there is a newer version available, but I feel that the extra cost does not justify what is really just a prettier case. So if we did upgrade it would need to be to something with a step up in features and a reduction in data costs. All that sort of points to an iPhone. We made some enquiries at the O2 shop and we can get iPhones for about the same monthly payment plan as we are on, but with unlimited data transfer. What's more, the Orange contract expires in a few weeks and they are fine for us to leave without penalty. We've applied for the PAC codes. O2 were fine but they want a £100 deposit per phone - that's OK, as we'll get it back, and is because the card they took for authorisation is pre-paid rather than a credit card (see previous comments on THAT!), so I guess they need some security. Anyway, we didn't have £200 loaded onto the card, so David will have to sort that on Monday and we'll go get the phones on Tuesday. David thinks we'll have the PAC codes by then (so we can keep the same numbers) but I very much doubt that Orange will work that quickly, let alone the post! I have reservations about the iPhone, mostly though because it's Apple! More ranting about that later!

Shopping: Cheshire Oaks - designer outlet centre. Rain. Lots of walking. Pain. But some degree of success. The M&S outlet had some formal trousers in the right waist and almost the right leg length. In fact they are close enough to get away without needing taking up - floppy bottoms being trendy. And my bottom is, by extrapolation, very trendy! Not bad for £16. Also bought an XSML polo shirt, as most of my current Fred Perry's are all a bit big. But sadly, no jeans. There's a usually-reliable Levi shop there, but they had nothing below a 30" waist unless boot- or baggy-cut, both of which look ridiculous on me. Might as well wear a skirt. Actually that's am idea. I suppose a skirt would count as formal enough... and I'm all for challenging stereotypes! No, maybe not, I'd have to shave my legs and the hairs have only just grown back after the chemo! (They don't mention that on Casualty! You don't just lose your head hair! It was weird not having eyebrows, but fantastic not having to shave head or face!).

Back home and we realised that if we're getting these iPhones they sync to our computers via iTunes. I hate iTunes with a passion! It is the worst software ever written. I have had nothing but trouble with it. We both have iPods (useful for club night as we can have a 6-hour playlist and not worry about it, or a backup in case the DJ is late). We've just had so much grief with mine, syncing it, losing music, it re-arranging perfectly sensible menu structures into its own totally illogical system and generally being a pain! For example, something like the album Now!21 might have on it tracks by Phil Collins, Westlife, The Corrs etc. Instead of one folder with the tracks it creates one folder for each artist, and sub-folders for the albums their tracks appear on! Then I guess assumes you'll put them all back into playlists. Anyway, for a year now, and having changed laptops twice, I've not asked David to install iTunes - figuring that we had all the files backed up and things were reasonably sorted in the iPod as I wanted. Knew it would be grief if we did anything at all with iTunes. But the phones dictate the software and so David valiantly started the process. Sure enough, everything is shot to pieces - iTunes won't point to the files, and somehow we have about 6 copies of some folders, sprayed randomly over a number of directories. Much screaming, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Eventually and to his very great credit, David managed to get iTunes to see most of the files and pull back my playlists. They're not perfect, not complete and there are still some orphan files that we'll need to handle, but at least things should be working to some degree. Did I mention how much I hate iTunes? I just hope that syncing to my contacts and calendar will not be as much of a PITFA!

Finished the day watching back-episodes of House. Enjoying it, even though some elements take me back to being in hospital. Not many episodes pass when I can't say, "I was on that drug", or, "I had that test"! There was a scene of someone having an MRI scan which really hit a nerve when the clicks and bangs started. Horrible scan - fixed in a head-brace, with industrial-strength ear defenders, told to not move a muscle, shoved into a metal tube with the weirdest noises from the machine. 30 minutes in that was about 29 minutes too much. Horrible. The funny story though is what happened to me prior to the MRI. I had two nipple rings. Tungsten. (NOT magnetic). The doctors wouldn't let me have the scan with them in though, as a precaution, in case there was any magnetism at all, which they said could end up with the MRI ripping them out of my body. These were quite heavy gauge rings - about 2.8mm thick, circular, sprung closed onto a little ball bearing which had dimples in to hold the hoop. As per the picture - but mine were titanium silver, not blue. Now these had been in for quite a few years, never removed. The tool to remove them is what I would call 'inverse pliers' - sprung loaded and as you close the handles the 'mouth' opens. They prise the circle of the ring open, and the ball just drops out. They are very common tools for piercers. Not so for hospitals. The doctors were amazed that I didn't have such a tool on my person! Credit to the doctor who took charge though. She sent down to A&E to see if they had anything, thinking that that department would have come across something like this before. They had nothing and neither did anywhere else in the hospital. Now this doctor, bless her, decided that the rings would have to be cut off. Again, A&E had nothing to do this - no heavy wire cutters or suchlike. I'm sure that if they had phoned one of the city piercers they could have acquired some pliers, and I'd even have paid for them! But super-doc had a brainwave and decided that there was only one course of action. So, half an hour later my hospital room was full of three nurses, two doctors, and four FIREMEN! Full uniform, helmets, boots, the works. One in the doorway passing various tools, one at the foot of the bed taking charge and one either side of me, each equipped with a pair of normal pliers, each trying to get a grip on one side of the ring, and pull it apart. The guy at the end was there shouting commands, "Pull now. A bit harder. More to the left. You're too high! Stop! You'll rip his nipple! Right, take the strain again...pull!" It was SO funny. Took them 20 minutes to do the left one. They thought that they'd sussed it and the right one would be simple, but no! Nearly half an hour on that one! Hilarious. I couldn't stop laughing. What a palaver! News of this debacle spread round the hospital faster than a bad case of MRSA, with nurses (of both genders) asking if the firemen were hunky and if they had shiny helmets. I was forever after know as 'the one with the nipple rings'. So, dear reader, let that be a lesson to you: never affix jewellery to your bodily parts without ALWAYS travelling with the means to remove it!

The other anecdote from hospital worth telling is of the time when I was having my chemo observed by a student nurse. The Staff Nurse was administering, and explaining everything that she was doing, the different drugs that made up the combination and why they were administered in a certain order. Now, the student was, to say the least, a little camp. Walked with enough mince to make a shepherd's pie and every sentence he said started with a dainty little clicking sound as he pursed his lips. So, Staff Nurse is imparting words of wisdom and asking him questions, to which he is giving text-book answers that he has clearly learned by heart. "Yes that is because the third molecule bonds to the nucleus of the protein forming a cohesive anti-pathogenic wotsit thingy. Oh, and I loooove you hair Sandra, is that Burnt Sienna or Mahogany Madness?" You get the picture. Staff Nurse turned to him after a while and said, "What was it you studied at College, Justin?" And without a moment's pause, as proud as punch, Justin replied, "Chemistry, Biology and Expressive Dance!" I nearly wet myself! At least I know that if he ever has to impart bad news to a patient he will have a choice of ways to present it. Not all of them requiring the donning of a leotard!

Sunday today and we've been into the city to try to complete the clothes shopping. Long story short, I got some OK jeans (only OK, but beggars can't wear Levis it seems). They fit round the waist but will need taking/turning up. I may see if I can get away with ironing in some turn-ups. Now something that the ladies won't appreciate - it seems that they cut men's' trousers proportionally based upon the waist size. So as the waist decreases, so does the amount of 'packing' space at the front. Maybe they think that anyone with a 28" waist must be pre-pubescent and the cut reflects that! So I won't be able to sit down and even if I had functioning 'man fruit' they'd be forced back inside but by heck I'll look well-endowed! One fewer pair of socks to pack anyway! David wanted to get a smaller kit bag for his kick-boxing stuff, as the one he has at the moment if it had wheels would qualify for DVLA consideration. So he bought a new one, got it home, only to find it is just a tad bigger than the old one! Pleased to be home though. Bloody knackered after trawling round the Arndale Centre and waiting for lifts that seemed to have minds of their own and only came down to the first floor when they were already packed full of prams, large ladies in burkhas, or fat men who smelled of moth balls. Very pleased to be home!

Chinese woman opposite is at it again. Knickers in the window. Why? It just isn't done in this country! We have washing lines and clothes horses and radiators and even, at a push, banisters for such things - a whole culture built up around NOT displaying your gussets to the street! Grrrr. Hope you can see what I mean from the photo. If not, I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunities to take more.