A little later than usual … A few things which happened, accosted me, or are noteworthy and which I didn’t otherwise write about this month. And it has been quite a month!

Wednesday 1
Blimey, what a day! At the doctors for blood test and to see our (new) young GP. She decides she doesn’t like the look of my swollen leg, which hasn’t responded to the antibiotics and insists I go to the Infectious Diseases unit at the hospital. That afternoon! Thus totally screwing up the whole day. Hospital nurses and young female consultant very helpful. Doctor prescribes short course of stronger antibiotics, and I’m given them on the spot. We’ll see.

Thursday 2
Why is it that hospital departments cannot talk to each other? So today I get a text telling me to come and pick up my prescription from the hospital pharmacy. I ring them, and they are totally unaware that I was given the antibiotics yesterday, and don’t understand (neither do I) why they’ve been asked to dispense them. In fact the consultant yesterday prescribed a 5 day course of antibiotics, and they then gave me a pack sufficient for 14 days! Meanwhile I spent the whole day catching up on what I needed to do yesterday.

Friday 3
What day is it? As usual my brain thinks it’s Saturday, or Sunday. Help!!!

Sunday 5
What a weekend! I spent all Saturday afternoon and half of Sunday afternoon beating up my brain over sorting all our bank accounts and last year’s interest ready to complete our tax returns. It was partly my fault as my records for the last tax year were nowhere near as good as I thought they were (or as my records usually are). But do I have tax statements from all the banks? Of course not, so you have to dig back through the statements. It’s made even worse because with accounts which mature and which you “renew” some banks keep the existing account number, but others give you a new number. Very confusing. We’ll see how well I have it sorted when I get to complete the tax returns.

Tuesday 7
Phew! Another hot day and a trip to the osteopath. I was, for once, so grateful that the car had good aircon.

Wednesday 8
The gardener cometh, and he spent most of the afternoon working out how to get the drawers out of my filing cabinet/desk drawers (no, it wasn’t a simple pull out and lift!) to remove all the crap that had gone down the back.

Thursday 9
After a semi-successful audiology appointment at lunchtime I spend a “happy” afternoon sorting out the contents of my desk drawers and putting things back. I probably got about two-thirds of the way through; the rest will have to wait until tomorrow. And that’s without even thinking about weeding the paper files. Why is such an apparently easy, sitting down, job is so exhausting?

Sunday 12
Totally lost today. Got up very late and the day ran away from there. Had to make myself do some literary society work this afternoon, but found it very hard to concentrate. No brain power; no body power; everything taking extra effort.

Monday 13
Useful, if unofficial, chat with one of the nurses at the doctors’ when I was there for an ECG. A quiet suggestion that I take the rest of the antibiotics I was given by the hospital for my ankle.

Tuesday 14
I had to smile at lunchtime, on the way to the hospital with N for her appointment … there were quite a few teenage nubiles coming out of Cardinal Wiseman School, wearing crop tops and the skimpiest and tightest shorts possible. And why not; it was a hot sunny day. It gladdened the heart! 😉

Wednesday 15
The day started well, with an outing with friends for brunch. From there it went rapidly downhill with GP panicking because she doesn’t like the ECG I had on Monday and demanding that I go to A&E at once to get assessed. We set off about 18:30 and got back home at 02:00. Of course 90% of that time was spent sitting about waiting between more ECGs, blood tests, x-rays and a very thorough examination. Finally sent home with a referral for follow-up, which will decide if I need more investigations. Fortunately N had heroically volunteered to accompany me, which did make things rather more bearable for both of us; it also saved me from the dreaded football.

Thursday 16
Luckily halfway through last evening I managed to text my osteopath and cancel my appointment for this morning. Well at that point I could quite see them keeping me in hospital. Despite getting that time back I’ve spent the whole day chasing my tail trying to catch up – and I still haven’t; I’ve just about got back to where I should have been last evening. And now I’m fairly tired having had only 4-5 hours sleep last night.

Saturday 18
This evening N caught a Jersey Tiger moth in the kitchen. We released it, unharmed, without stopping to take a photo as it wasn’t going to sit still and food was ready. Tom had reported seeing one in the garden yesterday. They are brilliant moths, see my blog entry from 2020; also this from 2016. They’re such striking, gorgeous moths!

Monday 20
Trip to the osteopath this morning, and I had one of the cab drivers I’ve not seen for some weeks. He turned up in a Tesla, which turned out to be a hire car as some female had driven up the back of his usual car (an electric Kia), and the garage has had it for a month. He’s well fed up about it; but hopefully someone else’s insurance is paying for it. The Tesla was a nice smooth ride, but I’m not sure I like the design.

Tuesday 21
Another hospital trip following on from last Wednesday. Another ECG, more blood tests, and more sitting about for very little. End result a referral for an echo cardiogram and consultant referral – fortunately not urgent as wait is likely to be 8 weeks plus. Another complete day lost. Left home at 10:00; back at home about 15:30. I just had to console myself with an ice cream. 😄

Thursday 23
Well I don’t recall seeing that before, although I shouldn’t be surprised. Coming back today from yet another hospital visit (this time for my back), the van in front of us displayed signage “ABNORMAL LOAD ESCORT”. It diverted off towards our local HS2 construction site, where they’re starting and stopping some of the massive tunnelling machines. One wonders what they’re about to move.

Saturday 25
At last, after a hiatus, I completed the next board of Postcrossing cards: that’s numbers 601-650. Somehow I must find some time to get round to sending some more cards.

Sunday 26
Sunday is a day of rest, is it? Not here. I spent the morning preparing for tomorrow’s literary society meeting in central London, and most of the afternoon completing our tax returns. HMRC are real buggers: they reckon we earn too much and are taking our Winter Fuel payments away, on top of which they not only want the outstanding tax for last year paid, but they want a huge chunk of next year’s tax paid in advance – a significant four-figure sum. As N always says “You can be taxed, fleeced, or robbed – and probably all three”. But both our tax returns completed in a couple of hours as I already had all the data ready and it was not a lot more than updating last year’s returns and carefully checking it. Result!

Monday 27
It was nice to get out today, even if it was into central London. A good, very useful meeting at the V&A (in the café) with literary society people. It over a year since I’ve been in central London (and several years before that); apart from an ever increasing number of huge tower blocks on the periphery, not a lot changes. But disappointingly, despite schools and universities being out for summer, and a hot sunny day, there was a remarkable lack of scantily clad nubile in evidence.

Tuesday 28
Yesterday, going into central London by car, I took my proper camera; I need to get back to taking photographs and get my eye back in. I find seeing and taking grab shots from the passenger seat is quite a good way of doing this. Overall yesterday’s car rides weren’t very exciting for this, but I still managed to take about 60 shots, which today I edited down to 14 possibly worth keeping. Enjoy these two, both taken through the car windscreen (hence some of the misty reflections).

Friday 31
The first ripe yellow chilli of the year!