Taking care of business

I have decided to sort out some stuff that I should have done years ago.

1) Give blood - it's taken me 17 years of adult life to get around to it, and I'll carry that shame to my grave but last Tuesday I finally gave blood for the first time.  No problems - I passed the questionnaire, the interview and the blood iron test and was able to give my donation.

One cool thing is that I'll get to find out my blood group - I have never known this.  I'm a bit disappointed that I have to wait 12 weeks to go again - with reference to the guilt/shame above I want to go again!  Jayne got a badge for her 10th donation (it was actually her 12th but they forgot to give her the badge at the time - it was a long time ago) and a badge for coming back.  The badge score is 2-0 to her and the competitive side of me is craving badges!

Seriously though, everyone who is physically able and medically allowed to give blood should.  Help a premature baby live and get a free cup of tea and a biscuit - no brainer!

2) Embark on a course of bass lessons - some of you who have seen/heard me play might be thinking "at last!" but it's been something I've been thinking of doing for a couple of years now.  My primary motivation is to improve my sloppy, self-taught technique and learn the whys and hows behind playing.  I'm not content to simply play notes because they sound good and to learn songs in a painfully slowly note by note way.  Already I'm reaping some benefits from knowing major, natural/harmonic minor scales and pentatonic scales.  Some of the theory is taking its sweet time to stick in my head (should have done this 20 years ago!), but I'm confident with continued study and application that I'll get there.

There are other things which are in the process of being sorted, but I can't talk about them right now because they are in the very early fragile stages and the cat isn't ready to be let out of the bag.  Cat owners will know that the cat will leave the bag when it is damn well good and ready unless said bag is violently shaken ;)