Night terrors

All my life I've suffered from the worst kind of night terrors. Horrific dreams so vivid that they stay with you during those moments between sleeping and waking and often long afterwards.

Sometimes I know I'm awake but the dreams images & feelings still remain and are so, so very real.

My earliest memory of a night terror involved a dream about cannibals. I know this was caused by reading a Russell Foreman novel called The Long Pig. I started reading very early and read everything and anything I could reach on the bookshelf. This is probably one of those books which should have been placed higher up where little hands & tippy toed feet couldn't get to it.

In the dream I was surrounded by an African tribe, although the book was set in Fiji, wearing long, painted masks. They were forcing me to watch them eat the people I had travelled with. I woke screaming from this dream but I could still see the men in their masks for some time afterwards. I knew I was at home in my bed but there they were floating around my room, hovering above me.

Often my night terrors involve me waking to find someone, my tormentor, standing at the end of my bed, watching me. These are probably the most terrifying kind. That feeling of someone with evil intentions watching me when I'm at my most vulnerable can stay with me for hours.

Sometimes I act out my dreams. I wake, get out of bed, switch on lights, and search the room for the source of the horror.

For any of you starting to feel sorry for my husband during these moments can I just point out that one night he actually did stand at the bottom of the bed, arms spread wide, leaning over me and making just enough noise to gently wake me. He thought that the shock of my terror made real and then turned into a joke might 'snap' me out of them. It didn't. What we did learn is that even in the dark I have quite a good aim and he is very good at ducking.

In my last significant night terror I was trying to save all of the people I love from being dragged to hell by demons. Something of the film Ghost must have crept into my subconscious because these demons would turn to shadows and pull my loved ones down through the ground. In my dream I was shattered, the fighting was endless and for every one person I saved I had to fight ten more demons to save another. There was only one place in this world where I could go and rest and know I was completely safe from a demon attack. The room was protected and nothing could get in. In the dream world I had just entered this room, closed the door and climbed into bed. In the real world my husband had just opened the door and come into the bedroom. I sat bolt upright, pointed at him and yelled "You, what are you doing? YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED IN HERE" I think his response was something along the lines of "what are you talking about. Go back to sleep you loon"............and I did.

Random conversation....

A friend's conversation on Facebook last night had me in such fits of giggles that I just had to share........

Warren - Wow!!! TV has just plunged to new depths. I have just watched a programme on extreme sports "Man versus beast". One of the challenges was who wins the race pulling a jumbo jet over 20 metres? An African elephant or a team of 44 little people harnessed together? I can't quite imagine that brain storming session at that production meeting.

Warren’s Dad - OK, who won? I must know now. What do you mean by "little people", midgets or as in compared with an elephant?

Warren - No Dad, genuine small people. Midgets is a non politically correct description. Despite all that " little people power" the elephant stormed it.

Warren’s Dad - "Little people" can have many meanings, midgets has only one meaning. Politically correct is rubbish. One of my best friends when I was at school was a midget, and proud of it, or was he a dwarf? So what size were these people?

Warren - Dad I'm tellin ya!!!! They were all kinds of freakishly vertically challenged little guys and gals. Maybe not so much your primordial dwarf stature but very much your average fairground midget ,,,,,,, hey no offense to any little dudes out there. Anyone who can sit on their bum, lean forward and pain the skirting board is cool by me.

Warren’s Dad - So what’s the objection to what sounds like a very interesting programme. People expect too much these days. When I was a lad in the Yorkshire coal mines etc etc

Warren - I missed the orangutan versus marine on monkey bars. I expect that would have been worthy of a TV quick award on merit alone.

Warren’s Brother - Dad, could it be that your friend at school was simply a child and therefore by you calling him a midget, dwarf or little person was not only politically incorrect it was just mean?

What's in a name?

I’m often asked if Sassy is my real name and that got me thinking about how I came by it.

When my Mother was going in to labour for the first time the nurse asked her “Do you know what you’re going to call it?” and my mother answered “Paul Jared if it’s a boy and Tiffany Sarah if it’s a girl”. The nurse responded with “Really, well let’s hope for a boy then”.

Thankfully my brother did come first. However, when my Mother fell pregnant with me the name Tiffany Sarah was still on the table until one of my Father’s colleagues brought something startling to his attention. At this point I should mention that my Father was always called Willy by his workmates due to our surname. I suspect the conversation went something like this.

Workmate “So Willy, you still thinking of calling it Tiffany if it’s a girl this time?”

Dad “Yes”

Workmate “You do realise she’ll go through life being called Fanny Willy don’t you?”

Dad “Oh crap”

I don’t know who that workmate was but I think I love him a little bit. Tiffany was officially dropped. Bizarrely enough, my Step-Father has called me Fanny from the day we first met. I have no idea why. A number of my own workmates also called me Willy until I married. One still does. Seems I was always destined to be Fanny Willy.

Had I been a boy I was going to be called Ringo. With a Father called John, a Mother called George (yes it’s short for something) and a brother called Paul it seemed rather fitting. X chromosomes I bloody love you.

When I finally popped out they named me Sarah Louise Grant. Grant being the second middle name all of the male members of my family have. My birth certificate says something different, however, and my Mother always wished she hadn’t left it up to my Father to register my birth.

Names are funny things. How many of you like the name you were given or even think about it at all?

My best friend Lulu hated her name and for as long as I have known her has only ever used her middle name. I’m afraid that I can’t tell you her first name because she’d kill me. Even her own Mother calls her by her middle name which, as chance would have it, we both share. She was Louise when I met her but as soon as we became friends she became Lulu to me.

One of my oldest friends grew up being called Mumfy. I think it was because her younger sister Tori couldn’t say Samantha. I’ve always thought it a lovely, affectionate name but she absolutely hates it now. Call her Mumfy at your peril.

Likewise, I have another cousin who will always be Suzie to me but she now refers to herself as Susan and, it seems, so should I. Susan is not a name I attribute to her so I find it very hard not to call her Suzie.

You see, in my world, most people have different names to the ones they were given. If I take a look at my phonebook it’s full of nicknames. For example:

Ross – aka Big Man

Jo – aka Joey Big Pants

Vanessa – aka Lady Vee

Dave – aka Woolly

Sean – aka Bongo

I know two Julies both with surnames beginning with W. One is Joolz and the other is Jelly-Tot.

Chances are, if you’re in my phonebook you’re not in it with your real name.

So, back to me. To be honest I answer to a lot of different names. To my family I’m Sarah, except for my Step-Father. At work I answer to Sarah, Sassy, Willy, Smiffy, Limpy. At home I answer to some very sweet pet names and also E.R. It’s short for “come here and have a look at this”

As to how I became Sassy, well I credit my friend Laura for that. She first started calling me it many, many, many years ago and it’s kind of stuck. Pretty much all of my friends now call me Sassy. It’s a name I struggled with at first but it’s grown on me.

In formal settings and when meeting people for the first time, I will pretty much always call myself Sarah.

Here’s a tip. If we meet, should I introduce myself to you as Sassy then it’s a given that I’m considering you friend potential.

As for you, well you may refer to me in what ever way you choose. I’ll answer to pretty much anything.

Them bones, them bones, them knee bones.

Part one........

It's almost a year since I had my latest knee surgery and with a follow-up meeting due with the surgeon shortly I've been considering whether, or not, this has had positive impact I was promised. In short, the answer is a big, fat no.

I've had problems with my knees since childhood. Although my knee joints are of a normal size, my knee caps are small and they sit high and to the right of the joint. As a result they don't track properly and would dislocate, without warning, on a regular basis.

By way of example, I distinctly remember one instance when I was 13. I was standing quite still in front of my bedroom mirror brushing my hair when my right knee dislocated. As I started to fall my left knee dislocated. Thankfully the distance between my bed and dressing table was quite close and I managed to use these to stop my fall. In reality this meant that I had one hand on my bed, one on my dressing table and that I was supporting the whole of my body weight on both arms whilst keeping my legs & feet off the floor.

If you're sitting down reading this, try placing one hand either side of your bottom and lifting your bottom off the seat. Bring your knees up so that your feet are off the floor and hold that position for as long as you can. It's hard work isn't it.........................now try imagining you had to do that for 15 minutes with two dislocated knees.

Even now when I think about my knees dislocating my stomach turns over and I feel sick. It's definitely the most pain I've ever felt and it just kept on happening.

At the time I was a competitive swimmer and my knee specialist said that he suspected that they would have dislocated more often if it wasn't for the fact the my muscles were so strong. I dread to think.

I had my first knee op when I was 12. My surgeon at that time was Mr Broad - or The Butcher Broad as he later became known to me. He performed a lateral release - info here http://www.knee1.com/EducationCenter/procedure_Details.cfm/12 - and I woke up to a full plaster from my ankle to the top of my thigh. I was kept in hospital for a week and allowed to go home, on crutches, for a further 5 weeks after which they would remove the cast.

On the day I left hospital I told the nurses that my knee felt like it was bleeding but I was assured that this wasn't possible because the blood would seep through the cast.

A week after leaving I started to notice blood on my fingers as I stuck my hand the top of the cast to relieve an itch on my thigh. My parents took me straight to the hospital once again to be told that my knee couldn't be bleeding because it would seep through the cast.

This was a regular occurrence right up to the day I was due to have my cast taken off. I was adamant it was bleeding but the 'experts' always said that this couldn't be possible.

And so the day came for the cast to be removed. As the nurse was sawing down either side of the cast my mother joked about needing to hold our breaths because it was going to be putrid. The nurse laughed and carried on sawing and then he tried to lift the front of the cast off.......................but it wouldn't come. He tried again, with a little more force, but it still wouldn't come off. He called for assistance and, with a colleagues, tried even harder but it still wouldn't budge. In the end he had to cut it into section and pry these off my knee.

It seems that whoever had put the cast on had padded it far too heavily. This meant that nothing could have seeped through and my knee had been in a cycle of bleed & heal and bleed & heal, before my body eventually decided to accept the cast and the metal staples, which had been used to close my knee, as part of me.

New skin had formed over the staples and around the inside of the cast. In case you are eating I won't go into detail about how they removed the staples but let me just say that it was horrific.

As a result I was left with scar which was 12 inches long and 5 inches wide and I was forced to wear a back-slab for another 3 months. As for the operation itself, well my knee stopped dislocating for a few years but it was a very long recovery process.

Part two to follow....................Odstock hospital & reconstructive surgery.

My life according to................

I don't normally do these but I was sent a really clever 'My Life According to Neil Young' by my friend Tony.

Basically, you have to answer a set of questions using only the song names from one artist/band and you can't repeat a song title. It's a lot harder than you think! I went for...........

My life according to Yo La Tengo

1. Are you a male or female?
Griselda

2. Describe yourself:
Superstar Watcher

3. How do you feel?
Tired Hippo

4. Describe where you currently live
3 Blocks From Groove Street

5. If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Detouring America With Horns

6. Your best friend?
My Heart's Reflection

7. You and your best friends are:
We're an American Band

8. What's the weather like?
Winter A Go-Go

9. Favourite time of day?
When It's Dark

10. If your life was a TV show, what would it be called?
My Little Corner Of The World

11. What is life to you?
Beach Party Tonight

12. Your relationship?
Nothing But Me & You

13. Your fear?
Season Of The Shark

14. What is the best advice you have to give?
How To Make A Baby Elephant Float

15. Thought for the Day:
Sometimes I Don't Get You

16. How I would like to die:
Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind

17. My soul's present condition:
More Stars Than There Are in Heaven

18. My motto:
Today is the day

So, those were mine. Why don't you give it a go?

Mr Me's Life According to Paul Weller to follow.

OK so it's not exactly new but..................

I'm conscious that I haven't had either the time or the energy to write anything new and I'm starting to think that I should've just stuck to my original blog and left it at that but...................I've committed myself now haven't I. You wouldn't mind if I cheated a bit would you? No. Why thank you.

My other blog was all about the time I gave up food for 100 days so, whilst my brain is too pain killer addled for anything new, here's a bitesized slice from said blog.

Day One - Also to be known as the day I discovered lumps!!

After two G&Ts and two bottles of wine is it any wonder that I woke up this morning with a slight hangover. And my first thoughts on waking - God I need a hangover cure. A bacon butty or a fry up or something. Then my husband rolled over in bed and said "You're not allowed milk are you? Guess that means you can't have a cup of tea then" "thanks for reminding me. I'll have black coffee" I replied with what was, I think you'll agree, amazing restraint all things considered.

Now the LL programme says that you have to have four of their soup or shake food packs a day but you can't have one of the food bars until day 4 which is just great when you've got a hangover.

Having put the nut crunch bar back in my LL bag (yes you get a snazzy bag and everything. Small things, as they say) I opted for a vanilla shake for breakfast and promptly nearly threw my alcoholic guts up! No it wasn't the taste, that was actually quite nice. It was because I hadn't mixed it properly and kept getting a mouth full of lumpy, powdery awfulness. Vile, but I had to drink it. So I opted for the tried and tested method used the world over - I held my nose, tipped my head back, poured it down my throat, tried not to chew any lumps and finally held my hand over my mouth to stop from throwing it back up again.

I'm glad to say that the day did improve after that. Work was a welcome distraction to the lack of food and I was starting to like the taste of black tea. I looked scornfully at the cakes & biscuits in the staff room - you can't tempt me you sugary delicacies from hell. I'm hardcore. I'm a Lighter Lifer - and didn't feel at all phased by my colleagues cheerfully munching donuts around me.

Lunch, a Thai chili soup - more lumps. God I hope I get better at making these things - was ok though not sure I'd have gone for that option in a restaurant. In fact everything was going great guns until about 3pm when the hangover came back for a second visit and brought it's friend tiredness along for the ride. I needed a caffeine fix but was now yearning for a milky coffee and no matter how hard I tried to concentrate on work, all I could think about was food. Not just any food but onion rings. Those crispy little circles of savory goodness. Stop it, Stop it, Stop it. Again with the self torture?!?

Somehow I not only managed to get through the afternoon but I also came home and cooked my husband his dinner (You'll have to guess what it was - I'm not falling in to that trap again) whilst I prepared my chicken soup pack and poured my 6th pint of water. Did I mention that you have to drink a minimum of 8 pints of water a day on this diet? No. Sorry I meant to but my teeth were starting to float and I had to pay a trip to the little girls room instead!

I have one more food pack left to go today - might have a raspberry shake or maybe a hot chocolate before bed. The choices are endless! And then it starts all over again tomorrow. Well, that's all for tonight. I'm tired and I figure I can't actually punish myself by thinking about food if I'm asleep can I - unless of course I start to dream about it. Shouldn't have said that, have probably jinxed myself now.

Today's final thoughts: Positive - I am looking forward to spending some serious cash on some sexy as hell lingerie which really shouldn't be covered up with clothing.

Negative - God I hope my boobs don't shrink. I love them just as they are.

The hormonal eating monster!

Is it just me?!?

I'm about to take a ride on my menstrual cycle and was just thinking about how bloody (no pun intended) annoying having a period actually is.

For one thing there's the whole 'period bra'. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one but I go up almost a whole cup size and my breasts aren't exactly small in their normal state. It's ridiculous! Over the years, Mr Me has come to accept that this increase in size, whilst wholly tempting, is completely out of bounds. If he so much as dares to touch them I am likely to punch his lights out.

And that's another thing, what's with all this sodding pain? I'm seriously tempted to invent period shoes. Each one would have a large steel scaffolding pole with a cup attached to the top for me to rest my breasts on. Probably needs a bit more thought though - not sure how walking would work?!? Failing that I'd like a very small man (or woman. I'm not sexist) to stand on my shoes, like little girls do when they're dancing with their fathers, and just hold them for me. Hopefully it would take some of the weight off my aching back.

With the 'period bra' comes the 'period blouse'. Tops which are purchased specifically for this time of the month so that the buttons don't gape open when I least want them to.

Oh, and then there are the 'period pants'. OK, so I've already admitted to being a bit obsessed with pants so I'm happy to report that there aren't any Bridget's in my drawers but even I have a special range of comedy underwear for this particular time of the month. My current favourites have Woodstock & Snoopy on them though I am partial to my Betty Boops.

Thankfully I don't suffer monthly skin breakouts but, even if I did, I think it would be perfectly acceptable. After all, I'm not exactly at my most attractive in my comedy pants and reinforced bra. At least I don't feel very attractive anyway.

Though, somewhat ironically, I have got the raging horn! Mother Nature has such a great sense of humour.

Have I mentioned cravings yet?

I don't think I've stopped eating today. Starchy, heavy, carb loaded food and chocolate. Lots and lots and lots of chocolate. Um, and about 6 packets of Refreshers. When I get home tonight I'm having chips a pea fritter and I may just ask the nice chip shop man for a bag of batter bits. Any other time and the very thought would make me green - with sickness, not envy.

Oh, and seeing as how I'm on the subject....................................there was a moan coming there but I've managed to pull my horns back in and the trident has remained in my handbag!

I'm off to forage for pie & chocolate.

Headless mice, screaming frogs and SAS cats.

On Twitter recently I confessed to having attempted to give a mouse the kiss of life having rescued it from the jaws of a cat. I gave it a bit of peach & blew JD fumes up it's nose. It died!

I gave it a very drunken burial in the garden. Did I mention I was drunk?!?

The next morning I nearly stepped on it's muddy, cat spit sodden body as I made my way to the kitchen in search of a hangover cure. I'm assuming that JD fumes & peach aren't hoodoo enough to create a zombie mouse & that one of the cats had decided that an exhumation was in order.

These particular cats made my life very interesting.....................

A very long time ago I moved in to a house with my friend Sam and her two cats, Gizmo & Tabitha (aka G&T). Our other friend Sally also moved in with us and we lived in a wonderful, fluffy, pink girly world - most of the time.

G&T were 2 years old and had spent their whole lives - up to that point - as flat cats. No they didn't arrive wrapped in cardboard and requiring self assembly. Sheesh!

They'd never been outside before and our new orchard of a back garden was a weird and wonderful place with lots of strange and frightening creatures - for all of about 3 days! After which they morphed into bloodthirsty killing machines & I secretly renamed them

Ian & Myra.

There didn't seem to be anything these cats wouldn't maim or kill or terrorise - including the bulldog over the back fence and whose sole responsibility was to protect it's owners prize doves.
It failed, many many many times.

I could often be found climbing over said fence with a dove tucked under my arm. (Ooh, that reminds me of my wedding night when I was climbing over hotel balconies with a kettle under my arm - if you ask me, I'll tell you)

I think it was on the fifth time of returning one of these doves that my neighbour said "I don't know how your cats get in. How they gets past the dog and under the wire fencing. Are you breeding S A fucking S cats over there or something?" I think we officially became the neighbours from hell at that point.

Which leads me to a question - Have you ever heard the noise a frog makes when it's being tortured by SAS cats?

They scream. Like a baby or a really small child screams. It's the most horrific sound & all the more terrible if you've never heard it before and are woken up, in the middle of the night, by the sound of a 'child' screaming AND it's coming from the direction of your lounge.

Did I mention that G&T were identical twins? Well, it's fairly relevant to this story so I should have done.

That night, I crept to the lounge and threw the light on. In the middle of the floor were G&T half sitting, half laying, facing each and between them sat the biggest, ugliest frog I've ever seen and that frog was screaming.

G&T were playing a tortuous game of 'smack' with the poor thing. One would stick it's nose up against the frogs face and then smack it on the head. The frog would scream & hop/spin 180 only to be met with the face & smack of an identical cat whereupon it would scream again and do another hop/spin 180. Poor bloody thing. No matter which way it turned it must have felt like it couldn't get away from this horrible sniffy, smacky cat.

Once I was over the shock, I broke that party up and rescued said frog only to find it the next morning squashed beneath the tyre of Sally's car! I suspect it probably had post traumatic stress disorder threw itself under her wheels.

Want to hear a frog scream? www.youtube.com/watch?v=948rhsRvIkw Not the best example but you get the idea.

G&T would regularly bring us fresh squishy deliveries and there was once a morning when I opened my eyes, having had a glorious sleep, only to be confronted with the headless body of a mouse on my pillow, right next to my cheek. Trust me, you really don't want to see a mouse's innards, not before breakfast at least anyway.

Thankfully I now have two of the most apathetic cats when it comes to hunting. The only thing they ever bring me is leaves. I did find them playing with a may bug in the hallway once but I'm pretty sure it had made it's own way into the house by accident.

Sometimes it would be nice to have hunters again, if only to keep the daddy long legs & moth population under control. Ultimately, though, I like to imagine them throwing the cat equivalent of a peace sign & conscientiously objecting but I suspect that they are just too damn lazy.

Hello, my name is Sassy and I’m addicted to pants.

Now that’s out of the way, here’s a few other things you should know about me before you decide to invest any of your valuable time reading this blog……….

· I can’t ride a bicycle unless there’s a trombone strapped to the back of it.

· I am convinced that marzipan was created by Satan & no-one can persuade me otherwise.

· I love almonds. Which is weird considering the marzipan issue.

· I have a friend called Lulu who describes me as being like a wind up toy. Wind my key and watch me go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, stop.

· I was County & National champion at 100m Freestyle, for many years, and my father used to say that I was built like a race horse. Never did quite understand that one. Something to do with having legs up to my arm pits I think?!?

· I was a late bloomer and my breasts took my by surprise by deciding to make a sudden & unexpected appearance at the age of 17.

· Men stopped looking me in the eye when I turned 17!

· I gave up swimming when I was 17. Actually, I think these are in the wrong order and the previous 2 points wouldn’t have existed without this one.

· I’m essentially lazy and, as a result, won’t be updating this blog with any regularity.

· I’ll pretty much eat anything once but if you come near me with marzipan or toblerone then you’d better be prepared to bring it!

· Most of the time I’m either thinking about food or sex or both. Or sleep.

· It takes a hell of a lot to make me angry but when I blow you’d better be ducking & covering

· I’m not as clever or smart or funny or dazzling as I’d like to be.

· I’ve always fancied bass players but married a drummer.

· Yes I have a sense of humour – see point above.

· I play a mean game of Uno Extreme.

So, now that you know these things about me I’m going to start counting and if you’re still here by the time I get to 5 then you’re mine…….one………two…………three…………….ooh did someone say pie?!?