I'd never visited Australia's capital city, Canberra, so when an opportunity arrived for a girl's weekend there, I was very excited. I arrived there with two of my daughters and my daughter-in-law for the hottest weekend on record. The temperature was 39 degrees, so we were very pleased to enter the air-conditioned National Gallery. It was a great way to spend a morning (as … [Read more...]

My mother has always told me that my brother is a Cockney as he was born at Westminster Maternity Hospital which was then within the "sound of Bow Bells" - in earshot of the bells of St Mary-le-Bow in London's East End. As an aside, these same bells are claimed by some to be the bells that caused  Dick Whittington to "Turn again Whittington, Lord Mayor of London" Cockneys … [Read more...]

Maybe Friday is a good day to cover the meaning of "bloody-minded" Who hasn't known work colleagues who are "deliberately uncooperative" by the week's end? Or may be felt that way themselves? We're looking at some common figures of speech that include the word 'blood'. Last week's was"My blood froze" Apparently "bloody minded" is a British colloquialism which doesn't always … [Read more...]

I thought it might be interesting to look at some common figures of speech that include the word 'blood'. "My blood froze" is a good start as we've just returned from a holiday to Disneyland where our children Noah and Lily met the characters from the movie 'Frozen'. Lily enthusiastically went forward to meet them but Noah became totally overawed and lagged behind until Ana … [Read more...]

At the moment we are on holiday in Los Angeles. We visited Universal studios and Warner Brother studios during our stay. We learnt some interesting things abut how blood is portrayed in the movies.  Most action movies and thrillers these days have scenes where copious amounts of blood flows freely. I am a fan of Game of Thrones and they certainly don't hold back with the blood … [Read more...]

New Zealand enters into a special time of year from now till February, when it is basically SHUT! In the Northern hemisphere, journalists have what they call the 'silly season' where there is little news through the summer: But in New Zealand we have summer and Christmas rolled into one, so for January almost everything is very quiet and people go on holiday. We will be … [Read more...]

Paul and I have had fun all year thinking up contributions to this post. But be warned - once you've read them you can't unsee them! So, if you're brave enough here are Coagulation Conversation versions of some famous carols To the tune of O little town of Bethlehem O little vial of heparin How much you make me cry When jabbed into my tender flesh I wish that I could … [Read more...]

Almost 2 weeks ago New Zealand experienced a large Earthquake rated at 7.8 on the richter scale. This led to some significant changes in the topography of the South island with the seabed rising by as much as 4 metres in some places. This meant the sea life normally on the seabed well below the tide mark was suddenly exposed. One well known New Zealand delicacy, the Paua, … [Read more...]