[Click the image for a larger view]
May Self-Portrait
[Click the image for a larger view]
Category Archives: personal
[Click the image for a larger view]
Unblogged April
A few notes on things this month I didn’t otherwise write about.
Wednesday 1
Spotted at least four April Fool news items today.
Thursday 2
So we’re due a wine delivery. You tell them not to deliver before 14:00. So what do they do, deliver around 12:30 when we’re both out and leave it with an elderly neighbour. It’s called customer service! Gah!
Saturday 4
Banks! Well actually Building Societies in this case. Yes, you can open an online joint account, but you have to get the second person to complete a printed form and post it to us. Two different variants of this today. So no guys, either it is online or it isn’t. The third Building Society: yes, it is all online and we will send you the final setup details, if possible by email. Guess who gets the business!
Sunday 5
Oh happy Easter day, spent beating our brains out over draft wills and the like documents which should be going back to the solicitor ASAP.
Tuesday 7
What a gorgeous afternoon to be sitting outside the hospital (waiting for my taxi).
Thursday 9
And suddenly the garden is ablaze with bright pink blossom on our columnar crab apple. I must photograph it! (It’s too dark now.)
Later …
And this afternoon I looked out at 16 green parakeets sitting neatly arranged in a row on two branches of the oak tree, one above the other. Of course by the time I’d counted them and could get a camera they’d all shuffled untidily about.
Saturday 11
So Artemis II is back on Earth. Now can we go back to something that passes for normality and forget about wasting obscene amounts of money on shooting people and things into space for nothing much more than willy-waving. Think of the waste of money and resources; the environmental damage; how much good that money could do. And no, I don’t just mean America, but the whole world.
Monday 13
Another glorious Spring day, except for a quick light shower at lunchtime. The garden is full of blossom and birds.
Tuesday 14
Why are hospitals so exhausting? This is why … Today I had a 14:15 appointment about my back. I left home about 13:20 and found where I needed to be by 13:50. I was seen at 14:30 (so late) and to be fair then had 45 minutes with the clinician. Having phoned for a cab before 15:30, I got home at 16:20, with not a lot to show for it. Oh and the hospital was boiling hot; but people were still going around in heavy woollen coats and puffer jackets. At one point a fit-looking coloured woman sat down beside me; after 5 minutes she says “It’s really hot in here” and removed her puffer jacket revealing a thick sweater over … well who knows! No wonder she was hot – I was wearing just t-shirt and jeans and was too hot!
Thursday 16
Why, for no obvious reason, does one sometimes have a truly bad night and feel wrecked the next day?
Friday 17
Got my Spring Covid jab today. The pharmacy I go to is a couple of miles away, but I go there because they are just so efficient. Left home at 13:45, back home by 14:25 – and at the pharmacy for 10 minutes! OK they weren’t busy – two in front of me and only one lady doing injections – but they’re set up for this and have I think five stations for injections. It is a well oiled, very efficient system. If only everywhere was as efficient!
Saturday 18
Awake just before six this morning. Looking out of the window at the trees, the air was absolutely still; not a leaf moving. Very very unusual. There was a little breeze by mid-morning, but then it was almost dead calm again by teatime.
Wednesday 22
So relaxed today that my blood pressure was getting low.
Thursday 23
So what happened to St George’s Day? Scarcely a mention of it online and in the media. Yet St Patrick’s Day (especially) is always wall-to-wall coverage. And that’s just in London!
Friday 24
Sitting in the sun outside the hospital this afternoon, there’s a jumbo jet flying over out of Heathrow. And up there too a bird against the clear blue sky; looking as if about to collide with the plane. It looked tiny and was drifting in the breeze, but clearly well below the plane. No it isn’t a red kite, that’s one of the local peregrines drifting slowly around looking for some hapless pigeon for tea.
Other than that, very much a reprise of Tuesday, ten days ago.
Saturday 25
Now the daffodils have finished, we’ve recently been getting some really gorgeous tulips from the supermarket. OK, they aren’t dirt cheap (unlike the daffs; how can they do a bunch for £1?) but they’ve been lasting well, and been really pretty and joyful.
Sunday 26
Today, the first rose of summer. As we would expect on the Lady Hillingdon.
Sorry not a brilliant photo as it was taken looking into the light.
Monday 27
Spent the morning cat-wangling, in order to take them to the vet for their annual check-up and jabs. We’ve changed vet to a practice in the same group but which is closer to us, because the senior vet at our old practice has retired. Saw a very nice young lady vet (appears to be at least half Chinese, likely Hong Kong) who had been recommended by the lady from whom we got the Rosie cat. We had some lovely conversation about the cats. All three felines were incredibly well behaved – they didn’t even swear at any of the dogs! – and got a clean bill of health. Tilly was said to be in wonderful condition for a 13-year-old cat, with no sign of dental problems at all and has put on a little weight since last year; Boy has a grazed ear, likely from scrapping with the cat next door; and as we knew Rosie could do with losing a bit of weight. Otherwise they did really well. Although my credit card hurt afterwards!
Wednesday 29
Now that’s what I call service. I spent the morning at the dentist, when I had expected most of the day! He needed to replace one of my crowns. I arrive for a 09:45 appointment about 09:15 and I’m seen within 10 minutes. Old crown removed and tidied up. He then waves a little scanner wand around my mouth, and uses the scans to design the crown on his system (basically a CAD system) while I watch on the screen. As I’ve said before they now have a very clever (but noisy) machine which sculpts the crown from a ceramic blank to the design it is sent. That’ll take about an hour and a half, says dentist; we’ll ring you when we want you back here; so we may be done before lunch (I was expecting the sometime in the afternoon and having hours to kill). Noreen had come with me and gone off to the local charity shops. So about 10:00 I’m ringing her, and we meet at the café for a really excellent, and large, full English breakfast. We wander back to the dentist about 11:30. Again he sees me within about 10 minutes. Crown adjusted and glued on; I’ve paid (very ouch, again!) and we’re on our way home by 12:15. So I get a free afternoon! Definite result!
April Self-Portrait
[Click the image for a larger view]
Unblogged March
Some things from this month that I didn’t write about before.
Sunday 1
Very pleasant Sunday lunch with friends, including plenty of wine. Must repeat more often.
Tuesday 3
It was one of those days.
Thursday 5
Today my father would have been 106. It was warm and sunny, and I felt relaxed for once. It was nice to be able to go out in sandals and t-shirt and not get frozen.
Friday 6
After a lovely day yesterday, it was dull and rainy today. But then it is only early March. Although things are beginning to move. In the last few days I’ve seen the squirrel(s) going determinedly in and out of the drey in the top of our oldest silver birch – it was started last year by the magpies and the squirrels have taken it over and made a des res.
Also this morning there were two crows in the top of the far silver birch, tearing twigs off it – so they’re obviously nesting somewhere nearby.
Monday 9
So they’re going to completely close the A40 Westway between White City and Marylebone for 6 weeks: late March to end April. That’s our only sensible car route into central London. It will be chaos and the traffic will be a nightmare across the whole of west London. Fortunately I’m not committed to any hospital appointments or the like in central London in that period; just a Saturday pub meet.
Wednesday 11
I hosted another good literary society Zoom talk this evening. We do always seem to get a good number attending and some interesting talks. Now I just need to wind down and recover my stamina for next week, which is full (and I mean full) of meetings and medical appointments.
Thursday 12
You go to the osteopath and you come home with your arm taped together with zombies.
The tape is intended to take some of the strain off the tendons in my damaged wrist.
Friday 13
Blimey, that was a marathon! Packing orders for the literary society took both of us all afternoon, and the job still isn’t finished – I still have some of the postage and all the finance logs to complete. It doesn’t help that Royal Mail’s website is a complete nightmare to use; totally unfriendly and unresponsive so you end up doing things by the backdoor just to get the job done. And by tomorrow there will no doubt be more to do.
Sunday 15
Why are hearing aid batteries such a pain – apart from being such small fiddly things? This morning I had to put new batteries in my hearing aids as they’d died late yesterday. It took 8 batteries before I got two that worked for more than 10 minutes. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I buy better quality branded batteries, or use the cheap ones provided by the NHS. Yes, the batteries are always in date; I always clean new batteries to degrease them, don’t handle then with sticky fingers, and try to ensure the contacts are clean. Even so it is almost a certainty that at least one of a new pair will be effectively dead on arrival – but eight is I think a record. OK they cost only 20p-25p each, but it is such a waste, and a pain.
Monday 16
What a super view of the Kew Gardens Pagoda across Old Deer Park.
Wednesday 18
A glorious day. Wall-to-wall sunshine; blue sky; and warm. A trip up to central London for a routine hospital check-up, with all the cherries and magnolias in full bloom, and all the trees starting to break into leaf. Absolutely delightful.
Thursday 19
Hot water? We have none. Error code on the boiler. Boiler man supposed to come this afternoon; now coming tomorrow afternoon, allegedly. Well it was a good excuse to cancel my hospital appointment that I didn’t want to go to anyway and get a load of odd jobs (like filing) done.
Friday 20
Yes, the boiler man did come. He fixed the boiler (it sounded like a dead sensor) and did a service. It took about an hour. Then he emptied my wallet.
Saturday 21
Another glorious Spring day. And a really good doctor’s patient group meeting to go with it. Marred only by news that one of our members had died, although he was well over 80 and hadn’t been well for a couple of years.
Sunday 22
This orchid has been amazing. I bought it on 28 November from our local flower shop; it was in full flower with two or three unopened buds. It is still in full flower having opened those buds and dropped maybe four flowers. I know these phalaenopsis orchids normally flower for about six weeks but this is over 16 weeks with even more to come! Just incredible!
Monday 23
This morning there was one very secure and relaxed Boy Cat!
Wednesday 25
Sitting over lunch I realised just how well off we are for breeding wildlife. Just over lunch we had a pair of coal tits, a pair of great tits, and a solitary blue tit – three species of tit which are likely nesting within 100m or so. Add to that we have a pair of robins, a pair of woodpigeons and a pair of collared doves which must also be nesting close by; likewise the magpies. Some, at least will e nesting in the rampant ivy cover growing up our hawthorn and one of our silver birches. In addition we have at least a pair of squirrels with a drey in the top of the silver birch (see earlier). Plus our local foxes; and who knows where they have their den. And that’s what we know about; there’s likely more.
I’ve also seen a report today that the peregrines nesting on Ealing Hospital (so maybe 5.5km away) now have four eggs; which likely means they’ll fledge one, two if they’re lucky.
Friday 27
Yes! Much to my surprise and delight we got some early English asparagus in today’s supermarket delivery. OK, so it will doubtless have been grown in polytunnels as it’s almost a month before the real season kicks off. But I’ll accept that for English asparagus, as it is the only type we’ll buy (it’s fresher and hasn’t been shipped across the world). So hopefully lots of good asparagus for the next three months or so.
Tuesday 31
After a hiatus earlier in the year (see earlier posts) in the last few days I’ve finally completed the next board of 50 Postcrossing cards (numbers 501 to 550). It’s as eccentric as usual!
March Self-Portrait
[Click the image for a larger view]
February Unblogged
So here we are, another month bites the dust, which means it’s time for a look at some of the things which impinged on me but which I didn’t otherwise write about.
Sunday 1
It’s tedious but sadly it’s necessary.
Tuesday 3
Did it stop raining at any point today? If it did, I certainly didn’t notice.
Wednesday 4
In contrast to yesterday, today was a lovely sunny day. Looking out of the bedroom window this morning, there were two goldfinches in the street tree outside – very nice; although they are usually around. But what is that? Flying steadily some way off, across a clear blue sky, and going south was a single swan: large, white with a long neck; quite unmistakeable. Not something one sees very often.
Sunday 8
There seems to be nothing happening at present. Everything is dull, dreary and wet. Motivation has disappeared today if only because I woke up feeling very depressed. That caused me to cancel my hospital appointment on Tuesday as I just can’t face the hassle – the appointment isn’t urgent anyway, it’s just a quick 15 minute check-up which will waste most of the day.
Monday 9
Wednesday 11
Sitting over lunch we looked out of the window to see not one, but two red kites gliding over, very low. They really are big birds. No wonder the pigeons scattered!
Friday 13
There are days when you have lots of sugar, and days when you don’t have any. Given my diabetes the latter should be the norm. But today was one of the former; I seem to have spent the day guzzling cake and fizzy pop. Well it would be rude not to! At least once in a while.
Saturday 14
Sunshine! Lots of sunshine! A glorious sunny morning, although cold. And the afternoon was good too, although it did gradually cloud up. Doesn’t it make everything feel so much better.
Sunday 15
Only a day late for our Valentine’s Day dinner. Something simple: sirloin steak with garlic roast potatoes and a tray of roast veg (tomato, fennel, pepper, mushroom, onion). Washed down with the obligatory bottle of Champagne. No starter; no pudding; the main course was enough. Despite all, food remains one of the pleasures of life.
We were remembering our first Valentine’s Day together in 1979. It was bitterly cold and snowy; we were at my parents. We went the 2-3 miles to a restaurant, despite 2 inches of ice on the roads (somehow the buses were still running!). The restaurant were glad to see us as almost everyone else had cancelled due to the freezing weather. Starters, main course and wine plus a Calvados each cost £50 – which was a fortune; probably the equivalent of paying near £500 now. Looking at the menu, which N has kept, a gastro pub starter now costs the same as a main course then. It felt like something we really couldn’t afford at the time, but looking back it was, in many ways, a great investment.”
Monday 16
Tuesday 17
Hang on! This isn’t right. We had another essentially dry day and some sunshine. It’s definitely helping lift my depression.
Thursday 19
What an interesting day. The osteopath mauling my hand and back was the least of it! A trip to the doctors this afternoon produced two “amusements”, Firstly one of the receptionists asks me if the patient group could fund-raise as the nurses want an ECG machine – errrrr, maybe, but do the powers know about this? Then to see the nurse for my RSV jab, when she discovers the supply is out of date – rescued by one of the other nurses finding some OK stock well hidden in the back of the fridge. After witch tidying up the books in the book exchange was a piece of cake!
Friday 20
Felt distinctly mucky all day – and through into Saturday morning – which I put down to yesterday’s RSV jab.
Saturday 21
Well that’s a nice first for many years … this morning two (and sadly only two) greenfinches sitting in the top of the silver birch. They’ve been devastated in recent years by “trichomoniasis, a parasite-induced disease that prevents the birds from feeding properly”. In consequence I’ve not see them around for many years, so wonderful to have them back, however briefly. Add to that, a couple of days ago we had two redwings; they’re winter visitors and it isn’t unusual to occasionally see the odd one or two, probably in transit. Also this week we now have four squirrels!
Sunday 22
For the last several weeks we’ve been getting some really cheerful daffodils and narcissi from the supermarket – and they’re British grown!
They’re ridiculously cheap; in fact I’d say too cheap. But they do give a cheering lift to the dining table. And given the recent weather, I’ll take that.
Tuesday 24
Just after 18:00 I opened the study window. It was pitch dark, but there was still a robin singing its heart out somewhere close by.
Thursday 26
Walking out of the hospital to get my cab early this afternoon after my audiology appointment … the hospital entrance is blocked by at least three police cars, three fire trucks and an ambulance, all with flashing blue lights. Chaos; no-one can get in, but you can get out. Fortunately they all backed off after about 20 minutes so my cab was able to finally get to pick me up. And horrible traffic on the way home meant I finally got lunch at 15:15!
Saturday 28
They clearly know something we don’t! I don’t know what was happening, but somewhere around mid-afternoon I looked out the study window and the tree at the back of us, a couple of houses along, was full of magpies. And I mean full. One or two went away and a couple of others joined the throng. At one point I think I counted 20 birds sitting in the tree, without any that were flying around. Here’s the proof …
[Click the image for a larger view]
February Self-Portrait
[Click the image for a larger view]
Unblogged January
Here begins this year’s series of “Unblogged” posts, being notes of things I didn’t otherwise write about.
Thursday 1
Why is there an empty Champagne bottle by the bed? And an empty crisp packet?
Was it just me or were London’s New Year fireworks particularly dull and uninspired this year? They’re usually much more varied and colourful.
Why is New Year’s Day always dull and grey, even if the previous day was bright sunshine?
Friday 2
Endless paperwork and admin, day 2. New Year is such a pain like this.
Saturday 3
Endless paperwork and admin, day 3.
Sunday 4
What a wonderful bright full moon in the western sky at 05:00, with Jupiter shining brightly below it. No sign of Quadrantid meteors though, but really needed to be looking NE rather than W.
Monday 5
Hi-ho! Hi-ho! It’s off to work you go. Not so fast. You can if you want to but this one’s not playing. If only because struggling for motivation.
Tuesday 6
Snee. Not a lot first thing in the morning and all gone by lunchtime. Then very wet overnight.
Wednesday 7
I don’t want to be here: depressed, anxious, stressed and panicking. Surprising? No, not with N in hospital.
Thursday 8
Despite everything I slept really well last night – right through from 00:30 to 07:00, then to 08:30 when the radio came on. A tot of Armagnac last thing certainly helped.
Sunday 11
Yes, it’s my birthday. But it is not a happy one with N in intensive care and the medics scratching their heads over the cause. Not conducive to jollity.
Monday 12
Better news today. N much improved though still in ICU. At least when visited she was awake and conversing, although not totally cogently. Medics still scratching their heads though.
Tuesday 13
It’s been raining here fairly solidly for days. Boy Cat has just come in and left a wonderful trail of muddy pawmarks across my desk. He now wants his tea, for which he’s two hours late.
Wednesday 14
N now on a general ward, and seems to be improving slowly.
Thursday 15
Another soaking wet day; really horrible. I still don’t understand cat feet. How can they come in, walk across the kitchen and hall, up the stairs, across the landing and bedroom (all carpeted except the kitchen) and still have wet muddy feet when they arrive on the bed?
Tuesday 20
After two weeks, N has been let out of hospital. S&Z very kindly went and picked her up at teatime. She’s obviously glad to be home, even if still feeling fragile. It’s been a tough couple of weeks (for both of us) and it isn’t over yet (if it ever will be). All our friends have been incredibly helpful and supportive in all sorts of ways. So thank you to you all (you know who you are!).
Wednesday 21
Biblical rain. All day. There’s a lake in the back garden large enough to float Noah’s Ark.
Thursday 22
Gorgeous crescent moon on it’s back in the western sky this evening – through gaps in the cloud.
Friday 23
We now have a handrail on the stairs, although a couple of sections to be completed.
Sunday 25
It’s a marsh.
Tuesday 27
That was an incredibly fast cash machine. Everything processed like lightning; three times the speed of most that I use.
Saturday 31
Well Spring must be here! Suddenly our lawn is a sea of pale mauve crocuses. Sorry no photo as I don’t fancy lying on the marsh masquerading as the lawn.
Monthly Self-Portrait
“A green sprout in hand bear I”
[Click the image for a larger view]
Happy New Year
Wishing everyone a Happy New Year
May you have a healthy, happy, and successful 2026
And let’s see if we can make it better than 2025