Book 34 of 2013: A Dance With Dragons, Part 1: Dreams and Dust by George R.R. Martin

Dreams and Dust is the first volume of George R.R. Martin’s fifth book in the A Song of Ice & Fire series. This one has a bit of an overlap with the previous book as it continues from about the middle of that one and so picks up on events that have already been seen but this time from the other side of the sea.

I think I enjoyed this one a lot more than the last one purely because it had more of my favourite characters in it. I was pleased to see Jon, Tyrion and Daenarys again and there were also fewer new characters being introduced. I felt like the last one got bogged down under the weight of all these new characters who I barely knew and so I didn’t really care too much about what happened to them. I think the sheer quantity of my favourite characters cropping up in this book helped to make this one far more enjoyable.

I felt like the last book dragged a bit, probably because I didn’t feel particularly invested in many of the new characters. It seemed that the chapters in this book were a bit shorter so although the book was shorter (a whopping 704 pages) it felt like a much quicker read.

The way that the events of the book jumped back in time and then gradually caught up with those of the last book was a little bit jarring at times but I got into it eventually. I have to say that I’m not a fan of this style and I would’ve much rather things just continued in a fairly linear fashion. I’m hoping that the future books are a little more straightforward in terms of chronology if nothing else because due to the length of time between them being released might make things confusing if I don’t have time for a reread in between.

I’m glad that things picked up for me a bit with this book, after the last one I’d kind of been losing my enthusiasm for the series but this sucked me back in and I really enjoyed it. More importantly, it got me looking forward to the second volume of the story!

20,000 Pageviews!

About a week ago I noticed that I was rapidly approaching the 20,000 pageviews mark. I thought to myself, 'ooh, I'll have to keep an eye on that' and then promptly forgot about it until yesterday when I realised that I'd hit the 20,300 (and climbing) mark.

Pageviews as of 08/09/13

As you can imagine, I'm pretty chuffed about that. I'm also fast approaching my 500th blog post as well. I'm pretty impressed that I've managed to keep this up for as long as I have (and I don't have any plans to slow down right now).

Unfortunately I've not got any really crazy new search terms to find my blog. People are finding me through googling things like 'clicks-clan.blogspot.com' which is pretty much guaranteed to bring them here but provides less entertainment for me when I check the search terms thing.

Overview as of 08/09/13

I like how my monthly pageviews keeps growing as well. It's nice to know that people are actually stopping by my blog and that I'm not just shouting into the ether.

Project 52: Weeks 35 & 36 - Holidays & Frames

This is a catch-up post for the last two weeks' worth of photos as we had a family member visiting last week so I didn't get a chance to get my photos organised. I have to admit that they're maybe not quite as interesting as I would've liked; things have been rather busy the last couple of weeks what with hospital appointments so I've had less time to spend with my camera than I would've liked.

After the break for the summer, the BBC News site returned with their photo themes, beginning with Holidays. I really wanted to take a photo of Tara with my sunglasses on. I imagined putting it into black and white or perhaps sepia tones for a sort of vintage look.

That didn't happen. Whenever I went near Tara with my sunglasses she thought that the aim of the game was to eat them. As I only have one pair of sunglasses and I kind of need them for my next eye appointment in November (when sunglasses can be tricky to come by) I gave up and just took a photo of the sunglasses themselves.

Week 35: Holidays

So, yeah, not the most interesting of snaps. If I'd put a little more thought into it I might have tried to get something reflected in the lens or something, but this was more of an 'oh-crap-I've-not-got-a-photo-for-this-week-yet' sort of photo. Besides, there's something decidedly holiday-ish about wearing sunglasses. Until recently it was the only time I'd ever wear them (because living in Scotland we don't get a huge amount of sun, and even when it does come it, it's not always worth cracking out the sunglasses)!

I vowed to try a little harder with the next theme, Frames. I toyed around with the idea of digging out a bunch of framed pictures and lining them all up but I realised that this would involve messing around with some clutter and again I was in a bit of a rush so I quickly abandoned that idea and looked to the window instead.

Our house has lovely old-fashioned windows downstairs, with the little panes of glass. The actual panes themselves are sometimes quite different in whether they have any sort of colour tint or texture, so I decided to use that as my subject for this photo.

Week 36: Frames

I like that the second pane of glass on the top row in this photo is sort of fuzzy looking. That's because it has a bit of a ripple to it. Sometimes if I glance up quickly and just look through that pane I think it's raining outside when it's not really.

I've taken photos of this window before. At the moment everything is all bushy and green-looking but another few weeks and things will be going yellow and orange. I noticed yesterday when we were watching TV that there were a fair few leaves falling down from the trees so it won't be long before autumn hits us with full force.

Next week's photo theme is Numbers which hopefully should've prove too difficult. Considering I happily wandered down town last Friday to take a photo of a number 16 on a lamppost. Maybe I'll be able to tie it in to my next IVF post!

IVF Update: My New Favourite Number

After my first scan to check for follicle growth I was pretty nervous about the second. Sure the nurse on the Monday had told us it was a bit early to see any changes, but come Friday I didn't feel any different and I was convinced that we'd go in and there would be nothing to see again.

I needn't have worried.



After stressing about it for a good chunk of the week, Friday morning I had a word with my ovaries and told them I was expecting them to have no fewer than four follicles each. Clearly my pep talk (and possibly the week's worth of Gonal-F) helped because on Friday morning there was definitely something to see!

I've got seven follicles in my right ovary, while the left is currently in the lead with nine (including a whopping 16mm one)! Hence my decision that sixteen is my new favourite number. The smallest were 7mm and there were several at 9mm and 12mm.

So I can heave a huge sigh of relief.

I'm scheduled for another scan on Monday with potential egg collection on Wednesday or next Friday.

IVF Latest: First Scan

On Monday we went to the Nuffield for our first scan to check my progress while I'm having the Gonal-F injections.



Having read other people's experiences online I suspected that I wasn't quite ready yet. Aside from the crazy hormonalness, the slight twinges and the ever-present nausea, I've not had the bloatedness or been able to feel anything under my skin.

The scan confirmed that it's still a wee bit too early to be scheduling a trip to theatre any time soon.

We took the car this time which I was pleased about. I've been incredibly emotional about the smallest things so considering the things that made me cry on Monday, I'm glad I was in the car for this trip. It also enabled us to go to Singapore Express (the all you can eat Chinese buffet) and for me to pick up some new jeans (one of mine has an inexplicable stain which looks creepily like blood although it definitely isn't).

By taking the car but catching the boat we would've caught had we used public transport we arrived at the hospital an hour and a half early. I always feel a bit guilty about getting there early because the poor staff seem to feel bad about us sitting in the waiting room for ages and I'm sure we much up the appointment schedule. It's nice to have time to sit and relax after the journey.

They were obviously quite busy on Monday, it seems like it's a good time of year for fertility treatment. First of all I had my blood taken by S.

We chatted as she did it and I sat with my little bit of gauze for a few minutes waiting for my arm to stop bleeding. S asked if it had, I checked, said yes, tossed the gauze and rolled down my sleeve. Except my poor pin-pricked vein had other ideas and started up again, getting blood all over my sleeve. It was just a tiny bit and barely noticeable but I was kind of annoyed with myself; next time ask for a bit of tape!

We were handed over to L for the scan. It's funny how worked up I was for the first one. Now I've got the routine down perfectly; into the little toilet, strip from the waist down and don sexy hospital gown with patented butt-revealing back, hop onto the bed, put your legs up on the rests, take a deep breath and let the nurse do her thing.

This time I had an extra job to do. I was asked to make some notes of measurements on my chart, Mr Click was asked first but being hard of hearing he suggested he wasn't the best choice if they wanted actual accurate details. So I did it, though as I said above, it was a wee bit too early for anything to have happened so I just had to record the thickness of my womb lining, for anyone keeping score I think it was 6.8 (I'm guessing millimetres).

I did get a quick glimpse at one of my ovaries and it's tiny developing follicles. I think the measurement there was 6mm on the one L measured.

She reassured us that although there wasn't much change yet it was still early days as I'd only been doing the injections since Friday, making Monday morning my fourth day of jabs. Later that evening we got a phone call to confirm our next appointment would be Friday giving us a week of jabs and hopefully something to show for it on the scan.

I was kind of hoping for an increase of medication or something but reading online since then it looks like I'm a bit slow to respond but otherwise on track. Hopefully I'll pick up some momentum and my follicles will really wow them at the next scan.

Day Zero Project: Make something for the house by hand

I've wanted to make something nice for the house for ages, the problem is, I'm not really sure what sort of something I want to make. Part of me would quite like to crack out the sewing machine and learn to use it to make something relatively simple like some cushion covers.

As I mentioned before, I've not quite got to grips with my sewing machine yet. So cushion covers are on the back burner for the time being.




I'm guessing that I'll probably en up knitting something for the house, though I've not decided what that's likely to be either. Top of my list at the moment is a knitted peg bag for hanging the laundry out on the line, but for now most of what I'm knitting are toys.



I guess Santa should could as something for the house. He's a Christmas decoration so he'll only come out for one month a year. I stuff his sack full of treats so I'm looking forward to seeing it again this year.

Unless I post about making cushion covers in the near future, we'll just count Santa as my something for the house!

Things That Make Me Smile

One of my major side effects to the medication that I'm on for the IVF at the moment is the crazy hormonalness that I'm experiencing. I've actually started a list of weird things that have made me tear up at the moment. I'll maybe share that in a future post!

Today I thought I'd share some of the things online that make me smile (aside from my friends' blogs, which you can find the links to in my sidebar). You've probably seen some of these before but they're always worth a look again, especially if you're having a bad day.

Damnyouautocorrect
This is a website which collects those awful corrections that your phone likes to throw into your texts at the most inappropriate moments. My own autocorrects tend to be fairly innocuous (blu-ray becomes blurry, love is lobe or live, my old phone used to give you nun and circuit before mum and biscuit in the predictive text mode) but Damnyouautocorrect has some real gems, often the responses are even funnier than the original autocorrect!

Hyperbole and a Half
I've mentioned this as one of my favourite blogs to read on here before but Allie's blog is really funny. I love the way she sees the world and writes about her experiences, and her cartoons fit her posts perfectly. Even her post on depression has a unique way of describing things which makes it really easy to relate to. I have my favourite posts there which I'll check back in on every once in a while but occasionally I'll go right back to the beginning and read them all again because they never get old.

Cake Wrecks
Another funny blog which I don't visit nearly as often as I used to, but which can be guaranteed to bring a smile to your face. This is a blog where people submit photos of really bad cake designs and Jen offers commentary on what you can see. Most of the cakes speak for themselves but like Damnyouautocorrect the commentary helps to really highlight the hilarity of what is otherwise a complete disaster.

Television Without Pity
This is a site I used to visit regularly in my teens as it provides summaries of TV shows as they air in America. Modern teens can just download the latest episodes of their favourite shows using torrents these days but in my days you had to make do with little clips uploaded to file sharing sites and summaries posted on places like TWoP. Rewatching ER has made me feel nostalgic for those old times so it's cool to relive the anticipation of waiting for your favourite shows to be written up on there, knowing you might have three months or more before you'd get to see them for real.

Angry Alien
This is a really old site but it's so funny that I can't help checking back on it from time to time. Basically it's little animated films showing the important points in films, performed by rabbits. Yup, totally bizarre, but very funny. I especially love Titanic, King Kong and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

TV Tropes
Warning, if you click on the above link prepare to lose several hours of your life. I've taken to looking up whichever films we happen to put on during our Saturday film sessions. From there you find yourself clicking through to find other examples of those tropes and before you know it, it's time for bed! I've put this one last because once you've visited it you won't have time to look at the other sites.

What are some of your favourite time wasting sites?