The science bit

Now read carefully!

This article was recently forwarded to Adrian by his sister-in-law, it's about the horrors of artificial sweetners, in particular, aspartame (created by the devil himself, I'd say). I've long known about it being a poison and, since Adrian's diagnosis, it's links to MS, (and I've never given anything containing the stuff to the girls), but I'm posting this because I think it gives a good explanation, even though it does get a bit politcal at the end. And the moral of the story is, if you want a poison in your diet, stick to refined sugar (like me. Picture of health).  It's a bit long, but please read it.

SWEET POISON.....



In October of 2001, my sister started getting very sick. She had stomach spasms and she was having a hard time getting around. Walking was a major chore. It took everything she had just to get out of bed; she was in so much pain.  By March 2002, she had undergone several tissue and muscle biopsies and was on 24 various prescription medications. The doctors could not determine what was wrong with her. She was in so much pain, and so sick she just knew she was dying.  She put her house, bank accounts, life insurance, etc., in her oldest daughter's name, and made sure that her younger children were to be taken care of.  She also wanted her last hooray, so she planned a trip to Florida (basically in a wheelchair) for March 22nd.


On March 19, I called her to ask how her most recent tests went, and she said they didn't find anything on the test, but they believe she had MS.  I recalled an article a friend of mine e-mailed to me and I asked my sister if she drank diet soda? She told me that she did. As a matter of fact, she was getting ready to crack one open that moment.


I told her not to open it, and to stop drinking the diet soda! I e-mailed her an article my friend, a lawyer, had sent. My sister called me within 32 hours after our phone conversation and told me she had stopped drinking the diet soda AND she could walk! The muscle spasms went away. She said she didn't feel 100% but, she sure felt a lot better.


She told me she was going to her doctor with this article and would call me when she got home.  Well, she called me, and said her doctor was amazed! He is going to call all of his MS patients to find out if they consumed artificial sweeteners of any kind. In a nutshell, she was being poisoned by the Aspartame in the diet soda... and literally dying a slow and miserable death.


When she got to Florida March 22, all she had to take was one pill, and that was a pill for the Aspartame poisoning! She is well on her way to a complete recovery. And she is walking! No wheelchair! This article saved her life.


If it says 'SUGAR FREE' on the label; DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!


I have spent several days lecturing at the WORLD ENVIRONMENTAL CONFERENCE on 'ASPARTAME,' marketed as 'Nutra Sweet,' 'Equal,' and 'Spoonful.'  In the keynote address by the EPA, it was announced that in the United States in 2001 there is an epidemic of multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus. It was difficult to determine exactly what toxin was causing this to be rampant. I stood up and said that I was there to lecture on exactly that subject.


I will explain why Aspartame is so dangerous: When the temperature of this sweetener exceeds 86 degrees F, the wood alcohol in ASPARTAME converts to formaldehyde and then to formic acid, which in turn causes metabolic acidosis. Formic acid is the poison found in the sting of fire ants. The methanol toxicity mimics, among other conditions, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus.


Many people were being diagnosed in error. Although multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence, Methanol toxicity is!  Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers.  The victim usually does not know that the Aspartame is the culprit. He or she continues its use; irritating the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition. We have seen patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas.


In cases of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, most of the symptoms disappear. We've seen many cases where vision loss re turned and hearing loss improved markedly.  This also applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia. During a lecture, I said, 'If you are using ASPARTAME (Nutra Sweet, Equal, spoonful, etc) and you suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting, pains, numbness in your legs, Cramps,
Vertigo, Dizziness, Headaches, Tinnitus, Joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss you probably have ASPARTAME poisoning!' People were jumping up during the lecture saying, 'I have some of these symptoms. Is it reversible?'


Yes! Yes! Yes!


STOP drinking diet sodas and be alert for Aspartame on food labels! Many products are fortified with it! This is a serious problem. Dr. Espart (one of my speakers) remarked that so many people seem to be symptomatic for MS and during his recent visit to a hospice; a nurse stated that six of her friends, who were heavy Diet Coke addicts, had all been diagnosed with MS. This is beyond coincidence!


Diet soda is NOT a diet product! It is a chemically altered, multiple SODIUM (salt) and ASPARTAME containing product that actually makes you crave carbohydrates.  It is far more likely to make you GAIN weight! Dr. H. J. Roberts stated in his lectures that once free of the 'diet products' and with no significant increase in exercise; his patients lost an average of 19 pounds over a trial period.




These products also contain formaldehyde, which stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs. Formaldehyde is an absolute toxin and is used primarily to preserve 'tissue specimens.'  Many products we use every day contain this chemical but we SHOULD NOT store it IN our body!


Aspartame is especially dangerous for diabetics. We found that some physicians, who believed that they had a patient with retinopathy, in fact, had symptoms caused by Aspartame. The Aspartame drives the blood sugar out of control. Thus diabetics may suffer acute memory loss due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine are NEUROTOXIC when taken without the other amino acids necessary for a good balance.


Treating diabetes is all about BALANCE. Especially with diabetics, the Aspartame passes the blood/brain barrier and it then deteriorates the neurons of the brain; causing various levels of brain damage, Seizures, Depression, Manic depression, Panic attacks, Uncontrollable anger and rage.


Consumption of Aspartame causes these same symptoms in non-diabetics as well. Documentation and observation also reveal that thousands of children diagnosed with ADD and ADHD have had complete turnarounds in their behavior when these chemicals have been removed from their diet. So called 'behavior modification prescription drugs' (Ritalin and others) are no longer needed. Truth be told, they were never NEEDED in the first place!  Most of these children were being 'poisoned' on a daily basis with the very foods that were 'better for them than sugar.'


It is also suspected that the Aspartame in thousands of pallets of diet Coke and diet Pepsi consumed by men and women fighting in the Gulf War, may be partially to blame for the well-known Gulf War Syndrome.


Dr. Roberts warns that it can cause birth defects, i.e. mental retardation, if taken at the time of conception and during early pregnancy. Children are especially at risk for neurological disorders and should NEVER be given artificial sweeteners.


There are many different case histories to relate of children suffering grand mal seizures and other neurological disturbances talking about a plague of neurological diseases directly caused by the use of this deadly poison.'


Herein lies the problem: There were Congressional Hearings when Aspartame was included in 100 different products and strong objection was made concerning its use. Since this initial hearing, there have been two subsequent hearings, and still nothing has been done. The drug and chemical lobbies have very deep pockets.


Sadly, MONSANTO'S patent on Aspartame has EXPIRED! There are now over 5,000 products on the market that contain this deadly chemical and there will be thousands more introduced. Everybody wants a 'piece of the Aspartame pie.'  I assure you that MONSANTO, the creator of Aspartame, knows how deadly it is.  And isn't it ironic that MONSANTO funds, among others, the American Diabetes Association, the American Dietetic Association and the Conference of the American College of Physicians?  This has been recently exposed in the New York Times. These [organizations] cannot criticize any additives or convey their link to MONSANTO because they take money from the food industry and are required to endorse their products.


Senator Howard Metzenbaum wrote and presented a bill that would require label warnings on products containing Aspartame, especially regarding pregnant women, children and infants. The bill would also institute independent studies on the known dangers and the problems existing in the general population regarding seizures, changes in brain chemistry, neurological changes and behavioral symptoms.  The bill was killed.  It is known that the powerful drug and chemical lobbies are responsible for this, letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting and uninformed public. Well, you're informed now!


Please print this out and/or e-mail to your family and friends.

Car Boot. Kitchen. France Telecom.

Did a car boot yesterday and it went quite well, took just over €100,00, so am very pleased and of course, managed to clear out a bit of unwanted stuff. After taking off what we spent there, left with €94,00, gave two euros each to the girls (they were very good), so €90,00 in the pot. Made €64,00 so far selling stuff on the free ads site on the internet as well, so looks like we'll be able to buy birthday and christmas presents this year! Still got some other stuff to sell on the free ads as well, and possibly another car boot in September, so maybe a bit more cash to earn yet. The weather was hot yesterday and I have distinctive tan lines today - a 'healthy glow' I like to call it after a winter looking white and haggared. Now I'm just tanned and haggared. Anyway, after a full day at the car boot and three weeks of hard work in the garden, was exhausted last night and was in bed by 9.45pm.

There was only one slight downside to the day - I had a shopping bag full of all those little plastic bags to give to customers if necessary; anyway, someone asked for one and it wasn't until I reached in for it that I discovered that the cat had been sick in it overnight. Thank God for wet-wipes. There were three that were sick-free, the rest went in the bin. Talking of bins, my eldest daughter took it upon herself to go around collecting rubbish that people had dropped and find a bin to put it in! How responsible is that?! Wombling fun!

Finally though, some more good news - I'm sure you'll all be pleased to hear that we now have the cupboard for the kitchen. And the guy in the shop was very helpful and put it together for us before we got there to pick it up. Fortunately we have an estate car and we could get it home, because they weren't offering free delivery (he hadn't checked this with us beforehand!).

However, because I was no longer having issues with the DIY shop, I then had to find someone else to have a run-in with. Luckily, I did not have to wait too long (24hrs in fact) before another issue with French incomptency presented itself to me. We have always been with France Telecom for our phone/internet service ever since we have been here (Oct 2005) and we have always, always paid our bills automatically through the bank. Well, you may recall that I changed our package with them a while back. And even though they already had our bank details and our authority to take money from our bank, they insisted that I re-sign the paperwork authorising them to take the money and give them another copy of my RIB (piece of paper, that quite frankly, anyone with a PC could forge, giving details of bank account and which they already have). I duly did so and then to my surprise (well, not really, come to think of it), a few days later I had a letter in the post, asking me to sign more documents, including another document authorising them to take money from our account and a request for yet another RIB. Did as requested and sent it all off.

This week a bill arrived for France telecom. They had not set up the auto-payments, they were asking me to pay by cheque, or 'to make life easier for me as the customer' it suggested that I send them a copy of my RIB or go onto my client area in the internet and set up auto-payments from my bank account. No option to pay by bank card over the phone. And due to be paid by the following day, with charges applied for late payments, (no doubt even if it's not the clients fault). I was a little annoyed. Went into my client area on the internet to re-set up the auto-payments. There in front of me, on screen were details of my RIB. Clicked on the button to set up auto-payments. 'Please print off and complete this form and send it to us together with a copy of your RIB'. Ha fucking ha.

Then I had a bright idea. There is a France Telecom shop in town, the one where we recently changed our package with them. 'I'm sure they'll be able to help and I can pay the bill at the same time' I thought. Alas, no. They couldn't help. 'I am in the France Telecom shop aren't I?'
'Yes you are madame, but we only do sales' 'Well, you can take money, you have a till, can't you at least take my payment for the bill?' 'No'.

Came home and rang the 'helpline'. 'The problem is Madame, that we appear to have lost your RIB' 'Don't be ridiculous, I've given it to you three times, you haven't lost three copies of it. And I know you haven't lost it, because I can see it on my account details on the internet'. 'Ah, but it's not on my system and mine is connected to the bills system. Anyway, Madame, you can pay by bank card over the phone if you like'. So I duly paid by bank card, gave her my RIB details over the phone (perfickly ok apparantly) and she has supposedly set up auto-payments for me.....

Fruit loops

How is it that my eldest daughter seems to make friends with children whose parents are, quite frankly, a little odd? One child in particular has a right old fruit loop for a mother, I can never figure out what's going on with her at all, so mostly I just try to avoid her. (The very first time I met her she gave me a full in-depth acccount of her (very complicated) medical history). But that's not the one I'm going to whinge about tonight, there's a new on the scene.

Don't get me wrong, she's a nice enough person, very friendly, and she dropped her daughter off for a playdate today at 2pm, said she'd be back at 4.30pm (her suggestion, not mine. I'd have been quite happy with 2.30pm). It's been a beautiful sunny spring day, admittedly there's a bit of a cool eastly wind blowing, but it's not freezing, my girls and I were outside in just our long-sleeeved tops and perfickly ok (well, obviously not just long-sleeved tops, trousers and footwear as well, you know what I mean). Anyway, aforementioned mother turns up with daughter who is dressed in long-sleeved top, warm cardigan zipped up all the way, winter coat and woolly hat complete with ear flaps. Mother is concerned about the cold if she plays outside and she must stay wrapped up like this if they go out. (And this is not unusual, all the other french kids (well, my daughters' friends anyway) are also always wrapped up in this fashion until at least the last frosts have been and gone, sometime in June. Adrian saw her outside later on and asked her 'have they predicted snow?'. Thank God she can't understand English.

So, an over-protective mother you may think? Yet when she eventually turned up to take her daughter home at 5.30pm, leaving at 6.30pm (I was polite and offered her a coffee. She said 'No thank you, but I'll have some juice if you've got it', sat down and made herself at home), I watched her put her kids in the car. Youngest of 8 months in child seat, loosely strapped in. Middle one of 2 and a half years on booster seat (without back piece), strapped in with adult seat belt, eldest of 6 years, just on seat with adult seat belt. Shocking, in my opinion. And yet, this is also the norm in France, you never see children strapped into the cars when doing the school run, let alone into appropriate child seats. In fact, I think they only buy car seats so that their children can see out of the windows more easily. On top of that, unbeknown to me, she'd brought the dog with her (Adrian says it's a Rottweiler) and had left him in his cage in the car the whole time she was with me, and all the windows wound up).

What can I say?

Can't sleep. It's 1.30am and I'm wide awake as I have been for the past few nights, tonight it's worse, so I've given up and am messing about on the computer. My next post was going to be about all the things we are looking forward to having again once we get back to the UK, but right now I'm feeling crap about having to leave here, so I'm not going to do that. I must be going a bit loopy, today I cooked fish for lunch and for some reason served gravy with it. Chicken gravy as well, not even the veggie version. I was thinking about the veg and potatoes I was cooking up to go with the fish, forgot about the fish and thought that gravy would go well with the veg/potatoes. And in fact it did. Just not so well with the fish. But the kids ate it, so it can't have been all bad.

Spring in the Garden

Ah - the sound of spring in the garden - the birds singing, a gentle breeze through the trees, the frog chorus of an evening and the chainsaw. Yes, we have been lopping trees.

And today I have mostly been learning that:

-It is not a good idea to stand underneath a branch that you are in the process of lopping off a tree.
-Once you start pruning, it is difficult to stop. Hence the cherry tree is no more. Started off with a few twigs here and there. Then some bigger branches. Then my husband appeared with the chainsaw and now it is gone, branches to go to the tip and bigger pieces to be dried for burning in a couple of years. Before you recoil in horror, you should know that it wasn't exactly in the best of health, we never got to see it in bloom as it's not near the house and the birds used to eat what fruit there was on it anyway.
-My secateurs need sharpening.
-Young children do not consider an afternoon in the garden, pruning trees, to be suitable and fun entertainment during the half-term holidays.
-They do however, enjoy climbing about in someone else's flashy sports car with their wellies on and messing about with all the controls. I could only watch and pray that they would do no harm (it was't my idea to put them in there).

Nothing like customer service

Had a letter from the bank last Friday, informing us that there was a cheque book waiting for us to pick up at the bank. A bit odd, I thought, if they were spending money on postage telling us about the new cheque book, why not just post the cheque book? So off we trotted to the bank, the very same day that we received the letter. Needless to say, they couldn't find the cheque book anywhere. Finally, after the involvement of two other members of staff, they decided that someone else had just been sorting out the cupboards and quite possibly posted the cheque book to us anyway. Indeed, the cheque book turned up today in the post. I think that the words I'm looking for include 'banging', 'head' and 'brick wall'.

The great unfinished kitchen saga continues

You may recall that I mentioned sometime back that we ordered a few kitchen units at great expensive from the local DIY shop, and that it has not gone very smoothly. I can't remember exactly what I said so I shall give you the pleasure of a re-cap of events:

End of Feb: Ordered kitchen, one double under sink unit, one 'demi-collonne' (higher than the worktop, but not as high as a larder cupboard, one wine/bottle unit, one worktop, one sink. Was advised three weeks delivery. Naturally, three weeks came and went and we heard nothing. After four weeks, we went into the store to chase it and they had lost the paperwork for the order. Eventually they found it, then they didn't know where the items were. I then had to go 'out the back' to the warehouse bit and point out out items to them. Eventually, five weeks after ordering it all, it was delivered.

The following day we started to put the kitchen together, unfortunately, there was a side panel missing for the demi-collonne which meant that we couldn't put the cupboard together and therefore couldn't put the kitchen together either. Went straight back to the shop who advised us that they would order one urgently and it would be in the following week. Well, every week since then, we have been going into the shop and every week they have told us that it would be in the following week. Nothing that I say or do has any effect. I even told them that we had guests coming to stay in the gite (not true, just trying to help my own cause) and absolutely needed a kitchen right now, all to no avail, all they could manage was the usual gallic shoulder shrug.

However, last week, a mere nine weeks after we placed the order, they called to say it had arrived. Tuesday morning we went and collected it. I took all the paperwork and drawings to the shop to check that it was the right piece (I was convinced that they would send the wrong side panel), but it was fine. Got home and Adrian went off to finally put the cupboard back together. A short while later he is back in the house, steam billowing from his head and a 'get out of my way I'm not a happy man' look on his face. The replacement part had clearly been made 'especially' and was the wrong size - an inch too long. 'Can't you just saw a bit off?' I innocently enquire. Alas no, the holes on the panel were drilled in such a way that it would then not be possible to put the cupboard together. So back to the shop we went. And now there is a whole new cupboard on order (we'll rush it through for you Madame, only a couple of weeks for delivery). Our first guests are due in that gite at the end of May. I'm not entirely confident that we will have a kitchen in by then.

I did try asking for a bit of compensation as well (God knows they weren't offering any). Well, what with the bad service, having to compensate our own (fictional) guests that couldn't stay with us because there was no kitchen (well, I had to go along with the story once I'd started it) I thought they should do something. The words 'blood' and 'stone' come to mind. No they couldn't possibly give us a refund. No they couldn't possibly give me a voucher or credit note to spend in the store at a later date. The best they could offer me is some money off my next purchase in store. 'How much?' I asked. 'Couldn't possibly commit to that, Madame, that would depend what you bought.' 'Well, how about a percentage?' 'No, we'll decide when you purchase the items. And that's the best we can do!'

I think that if we hadn't already decided to return to the uk, this might well have been the final straw anyway.

Easter photos

See, I told you I haven't eaten any chocolate.

Like all rabbits, the Easter Bunny left a message on the lawn.

Happy Easter everybody!

Watched the film '2012' last night. Very good effects, really enjoyed it, but not a very relaxing film to watch, having spent most of the evening on the edge of the sofa. I noticed they had lots of gestures to other films which was nice of the makers.

For instance - The Italian Job - bus/plane hanging over edge of cliff. Waterworld -world under water, looking for promised land. The Day After Tomorrow - flooded world after major disaster. Titanic - all sorts of scenes on the theme of sinking/flodded ships. Deep impact - Tsunamis, people trying in vain to escape to higher ground, only certain folk with ticket to safety. Independence Day (I think) - Aeroplane taking off from runway just as city is destroyed behind it. There were more, but I can't remember them now. I should have written them down at the time. Or maybe I should just get out more. Also, just one tiny little plot flaw, which is actually quite a big one, during the movie, they made several references to the fact that the world had turned on it's axis and the south pole was last seen at Wisconsin. At the end of the movie, when the picture pans out from the world, the earth seems to have flipped it's axis once again as it's spinning in the way that we know it today -ie north pole in the arctic, south pole in the antartic. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, just thought I'd mention it that's all. Actually, just one other thing - why would they be transporting elephants, giraffes and lions and the like onto the arks. If their resources were limited as they said in the movie and they were trying to save mankind, wouldn't it be better to have cows, sheep, chooks, pigs and the like? Maybe they were there, but surely, leave the exotic animals behind. Unless of course they were planning a new diet in the future of elephant burgers. One elephant would probably feed quite a few folk.