Over the last couple of days I've started to experience 'amputee itch' - which is what it says, an itch in the part of you that is no more.  I think it is a sign, along with some new discomfort, that nerves are recovering and renewing themselves.

And two oddities the medics don't tell you and the literature I can find overlooks...

The first is the tendency for LD reconstructions to 'jump' or 'twitch' as the brain tells the muscle to move, not realising that it is no longer in your back but your front.  Evidently this can take a couple of years to settle down as the muscle thins (through lack of use) and the brain eventually works out it isn't doing its job any more so stops sending it messages.  Apparently can be a bit weird if you have a left side version and drive, as changing gear can trigger the effect...

The second is a greater awareness of hot or cold drinks flowing through the oesophagus.  A bit like the effect you get on a very hot day when you drink really cold water.  I thought it was just me until I disovered other people mentioning it too.  It's not unpleasant and I guess in time it will pass into my subconscious.  Just can be a bit odd when it happens unexpectedly.

It has been a simply glorious, gorgeous, beautiful, lovely, whatever adjective you prefer, weekend.  Warm sunshine, almost clear blue skies by day and deep velvet by night.  Crocusses (croci) have passed, daffodils begin to brave the elements, rhodedendrons burst into cooour and golden catkins hang from the tree opposite my living room window.  Buildings glow in the morning sun, early mist lifts to reveal the contours of the hills.  Spring is abroad.

Yesterday's visiting preacher was using 'signs' as his theme... the rainbow sign of God's covenant the Galatians fruit of the Spirt as sign(s) of God, and our lives as signs of Christ for the world to see.

Yesterday evening we pondered the power of words to build or to destroy, noting that context and tone can be as significant as the words themselves.

It's no accident that Lent and Easter coincide with northern hemisphere spring, brimming with signs of new life, new hope, new energy.  I guess the challenge is that our lives, our words and our actions become signs of that hope.

I almost feel a twee Victorian hymn coming on... but I'll spare you that!

... about doses due to the radiation leak in Japan: see here.  This is the first person who has drawn a comparison with radiotherapy doses, something I'd fought shy of doing on this blog as it can be misleading.  (I'll be getting around 50,000 mSv over 5 weeks, albeit to a small part of me)

This does not belittle the fact that the Japan situation is a mess (and friends in the UK civil industry are astonished at how some of it has been handled) but it does give an alternative perspective to some of the other horror stories the media are happily peddling.

I should note that I totally disagree with the writer's idea of moving from ALARA which is a really good practice whatever industry and whatever unchosen risk is being assessed.  I guess the important thing is to know the difference between ALARA and safe/dangerous.

Teeshirt - US network of Baptist Women in Ministry; thanks G & W.

And, as it happens, this is what the only woman Baptist minister in pastoral charge of a BUS church currently looks like.

This morning I was once again at my exercise class.  As we were having our all important cuppa afterwards, one of the women commented that something was a 'Campsie cut' - an expression which evidently means something like a "pig's ear" or a "dog's breakfast" or a "bodge job."  After this she seemed to feel the need to say to me "do you know what 'xyz' means" to almost every sentence.

The Census Scotland form asks if you understand, read or write English, Scots and Gaelic.  The middle of these is proving controversial, some people saying it's a language, others saying it's a dialect and still others saying it's just slang.

It did get me wondering just where dialect/idiom stops and language begins.  There are some very localised English dialects such as those in parts of Yorkshire or Cumbria, and idiom varies dramatically... it is quite telling that my own mother says that on the phone she distinguishes between my sister and myself on the basis of idiom rather than accent.

Just to note that only one person in the class, apart from the user, knew the expression Campsie cut, and all of them were Glaswegians.  As to why she asusumed I wouldn't know what 'gallivant' meant, I am at a loss, but I promise not to get mardy (Midlands) or nowty (NW England) about it!!

You can check here if you need to translate my idiom