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Stretch yawn faint

Occasionally I'm overwhelmed with the urge to have a really good stretch, tensing my muscles until they tremble, tipping my head back and unleashing a full on yawn. Lately this is followed by a faint spell - the world goes distant, my vision fades, and everything gets a bit woozy. After a few breaths the world re-intrudes, and normality resumes. It hasn't concerned me, but after a particularly strong episode today my curiosity was peaked, and I typed 'stretch yawn faint' into Google (hallowed be thy results, for thine is the engine, the spider and the crawler) to see what cropped up. It turns out the combo of stretching and tipping the head back starves the brain of oxygen. The stretch lengthens the blood vessels causing a blood pressure drop, whilst it also creates demand for oxygen in the tensing muscles, and finally the head tip constricts an artery in the neck which cuts off the blood to the brain. I'm not sure how common it is in absolute terms, but the f...
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Blink of an eye

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Given it is a Bank Holiday weekend and the Leeds Festival is on I took the decision today to stay home and avoid the traffic carnage. Instead I took a look at my genealogy stuff, which as per usual soaked up my entire day in the blink of an eye. Today’s project was to strip all references to living individuals, and produce a version that could be published on the internet without putting the whole family at risk of identity theft. Along the way I tweaked the code that produces the website. Every time I take a little dig into the code I end up scratching my head and cussing. I’m not a born programmer, I’m more of cut and paste merchant, so when I have to do something new it takes a long long ole time to get it right. When I do eventually get there I can't help grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Anyhow, the end result is here . Purrr… At this time of year many folks land on this page looking for a Cheshire Cat pumpkin pattern. Checkout the Zombie Pumpkin website links below, a...
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Both breasty-dumplings

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A little over 18 months ago I had my ovaries and fallopian tubes whipped out. In two days I'll say goodbye to both breasty-dumplings, with a double mastectomy. 8 years ago I wondered on this blog: How would I feel if I went down the free-martin path and said goodbye to ovaries and breasts? Once done there is no turning back. Answers on a postcard to... I'm now on the verge of finding out. Will I wake up one morning suddenly feeling released from fear when the cancerous Sword of Damocles hangs over me no more? Will I mourn the loss of my breasty-dumplings? Will I revel in being free of the bouncy bits and take up jogging? Or will life continue much as before? Cancer in 2001 reduced left-breasty dumpling to a B, whereas cancer in 2008 resulted in right-breasty dumpling growing to a FF. So I'll certainly be glad to lose the lopsidedness. I'm going flat - no reconstruction for me. I will not subject an innocent part of my anatomy to the surgeon's knife in or...
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