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April Self-Portrait
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Category Archives: personal
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Unblogged March
Being, as usual, some various things from this month about what I never wrote before.
Saturday 1
St David’s Day. And I’ve heard nothing about it at all this year. So have some Spring sunshine …
Sunday 2
In the alley, at the back of next-door-but-one’s garden, is a reasonably sized, bare, tree. Every evening when it’s sunny the local pair of magpies sit in the top of the tree getting the last of evening sun and getting warm for the night. And doubtless keeping a beady eye open for stray snacks. Who blames them.
Tuesday 4
This evening, 18:30, it’s pitch dark. And the robin is singing away somewhere in the garden. Mind it’s been a lovely sunny day; it almost feels like Spring, especially as I’ve had the window open.
Sunday 9
Very annoying. We have a pile of stuff to get rid of: like dead PC printers and a couple of boxes of miscellaneous metal/electronic recycling; 6 items in all. Just after lunch today we put it all together on the front path, I photographed it and booked the council to collect it on Wednesday – cost £48. Within 2 hours 4 of the 6 items had been magicked away by some slithy toves, leaving just 2 boxes of crap. Just to run salt in the wound, not only will the council not let me cancel the request, nor provide a refund, but I can’t even email them to say “don’t bother”. So they’re now going to have a rather wasted trip; and we’ve wasted £48.
In better news, it was a lovely sunny day, so I decided to feed the pond fish. At first we’re not interested. Then one realises there’s something floating to investigate. Oh, Fred, did you say something about food? Another joins, and another … until most were having at least a snack.
Friday 14
It’s been a deadly week, absolutely swamped with work, mostly for the literary society. In the words of Marvin, the Paranoid Android: “Life. Don’t talk to me about life.”
Saturday 15
Last evening, in bed, something unusual happened. Boy Cat came along. Instead of settling down on top of N, as usual, he snuggled, sausage-like, between us, head at chest level. He then spent 5-10 minutes purring and kneading my armpit. I think in almost 8 years it’s the first time he’s done this; kneading is normally reserved for N.
Sunday 16
A few surprises walking round the garden today. I knew the small bush flowering cherry was in bloom. But I’d not spotted that we had a couple of blue hyacinths out, nor that the flowering currants (Ribes) were just coming into bloom. Lots of leaves breaking on the roses, but none of the trees are yet showing any signs of life.
Monday 17
The gardener came. So did the central heating guy – to look at a radiator which needed bleeding and I couldn’t shift the valve. It needed a completely new valve fitting; which in turn needed a load of stuff moving. Job done. Whereupon the gardener and the heating man had a long talk; they’re old friends and haven’t seen each other for several years. You try getting an Irishman and an Albanian to stop talking!
Friday 21
So Heathrow Airport is out of power and closed – because of a fire at an electricity substation. (I’ve been past that substation hundreds of times, and it is huge! It’s also an open target from the nearby road bridge.) Why do they not have twin-tailed power supplies? They should have at least two connections, on opposite sides of the airport. Both should be supplying power 24/7; and each should be able to automatically pick up the slack if the other fails. That’s normal resilient business operation for critical systems. Not having it is either negligence or a political decision not to spend the money. Whichever it is, someone needs their dangly bits feeling. Having contingency backup that takes time to kick in is not acceptable. I wonder if they’ll be made to pay all the airports who took diverted flights – and, of course, passenger compensation?
Saturday 22
It’s just relentless at present; a continual stream of work on every front; so there’s much that isn’t getting done. Still we had a really good social call for the literary society at lunchtime; only 9 of us but that included one from each of US, Japan, Ireland and France; with an hour or so of interesting discussion. We started with one person in Putney and I (so 8 miles apart as the crow flies) sharing that it wasn’t raining; we ended with the news that it had just started raining in Putney, but not here. Minutes later we started a good thunderstorm!
Sunday 23
The forsythia is in flower. This seems early; I always associate it with May not March.
Wednesday 26
What a wonderful warm sunny Spring day – it really does make one feel much better! Several of the local trees are beginning to burst their buds: ash, silver birch, hawthorn, horse chestnut. The cherry bush in the front garden is an absolute mass of flower; I don’t think I’ve ever seen it with so much blossom. Oh and something obviously had a woodpigeon last night: three significant piles of feathers on the lawn, so it was well plucked. Two of the three below; the third was quite widely scattered.
Friday 28
For the first time since before Covid I had a check-up at the Brompton Hospital for my sleep apnoea. I didn’t need it, but they’re trying to make sure they’ve seen everyone who got postponed. Overall result: Excellent. Modern machines record all the data, so they can download it (I can also get most of it) and the data is good; mostly over 90%. The young lady (Registrar I guess) was fairly delighted. So they’ve put me on the Patient Initiated Follow-up pathway: this means they’ll not call me in for another 5 years, but in the meantime if I feel I need a check-up (or technical support) then I have only to ask. This is a new NHS process which saves a lot of pointless appointments, patient inconvenience, and consultant time; so they can clear the backlogs and get to see those in urgent need much sooner. It has to be win-win all round.
Saturday 29
It’s being one of those days! Even before I’d got down to doing anything this morning, three things had SNAFUed on me. Then the Waitrose delivery was over an hour early! Why do these things happen?
And did anyone notice that we had a partial solar eclipse this morning? I knew it was going to happen, but it was so low-key that it had gone before I noticed! I always seem to miss these things.
Sunday 30
What a glorious, warm Spring day. The pond fish are hungry. The catkins on the silver birch are just starting to break. And the garden is awash with gorgeous sun-yellow celandines – I knew we had some, but didn’t realise quite how much they’d spread themselves around; there are little clumps everywhere, as well as a couple of large patches.
Monday 31
So here we are at the end of March, and in terms of months a quarter of the way through the year already. Although we need another day or two to get to 25% in terms of the number of days. Still, at least, it’s beginning to look and feel like Spring.
Screwing Up the Time Zone
Apologies for the silence, excepting the usual regular posts. No excuses; I just plead life (ie. too much to do) getting in the way. But onward to today’s topic …
So today is one of the two days a year, when we bugger up our time zone – something I’ve written about before in 2008, 2009 and 2012 and probably elsewhere.
Yes, last night the UK switched to British Summer Time and put the clocks forward an hour.
Why? For no good reason that I can understand, and contrary to a lot of scientific research.
Basically what this change does is to mirror the effect of jet lag from flying east. And we know this is much more disruptive than flying west.
But it’s more than that. The disruptions to our circadian cycle can be profound, and possibly last for weeks. This should be worrying when nationally and globally we appear to be more sleep short, and with worse quality sleep, compared with pre-Covid (see, inter alia, here).
There’s a recent short article in The Conversation which summarises much of the evidence on the effects on our circadian cycle. The conclusion is:
These findings suggest the spring transition can have a ripple effect that lasts for weeks. It also suggests we are more finely tuned to the natural world than we might think.
Spring DST may seem like a simple one-hour shift, but for many, it’s much more than that.
We don’t need to keep changing the clocks. We’re not (yet) at war – which is where the clock change originated – and we have much of the technology to manage our working environments; extending, if necessary, to changing the hours we do work.
This whole charade is daft on just so many levels – see my earlier posts.
This Month’s Two Tiny Changes
Each month during 2025 we’re offering two tiny changes which may help improve your life. This month …
- Reduce consumption of ultra-processed food. Read the ingredients. Everything is full of emulsifiers, flavourings, colourings, humectants, stabilisers, preservatives, modified starches and sweeteners. If you don’t know what it is, you probably don’t want to eat it.
- Follow the “two-minute rule”. If you can complete a task in less than two minutes, do it without delay.
Unblogged February
Diary-type thoughts on what occurred around here which weren’t otherwise written about
Saturday 1
Today I was reminded that the traditional Korean equivalent of “once upon a time” is “back when tigers used to smoke”. I’ve always puzzled as to why?
Sunday 2
Spring is on the way. There’s a nice, but small, drift of pale lilac crocuses in the lawn.[Later in the month the lawn was just a mass of crocuses.]
Monday 3
Excellent Zoom meeting this evening for a reading group for Anthony Powell’s 12 novel series A Dance to the Music of Time (one book a month). This was the first meeting so we were discussing A Question of Upbringing. It’s being run by an American literarist, so it’s not an AP Society event, although we’re supporting it and about a third of those present were Society members. Of the rest quite a few were newcomers to Powell. It’s good because it is making many of us old lags reread the books, again!
Wednesday 5
I was woken this morning by the Rosie cat lying between us purring like a Harley-Davidson. I stretched out an arm to stroke her, whereupon she decided I needed a wash. She started at my left armpit and over 10-15 minutes worked her way down to the inside of my left elbow. She spent so long on my elbow that her wonderful raspy tongue made it quite sore and has left a rather red abrasion!
Thursday 6
We gave in and ordered pizza!
Saturday 8
Making coffee in the kitchen this afternoon when through the catdoor comes Rosie. She leaves several trails of superb wet and muddy pawprints, very neatly formed, across the floor. Back at my desk, it is covered in muddy pawmarks; not Rosie as she had followed me, so I suspect Tilly. And that’ll be the second time today I’ve had to wipe down my desk.
Sunday 9
Checking the pond today. Lots of big chubby goldfish. But the ground was like a marsh.
Monday 10
Trip to the dentist for the four predicted fillings. Remarkably she managed to do all four in the one (long) appointment, so I don’t have to go again in a couple of weeks time – result! The credit card is still smarting a bit though – although when you think about what the cost has to pay for it’s not that unreasonable.
Tuesday 11
What an incredibly useful session this morning meeting patients at the doctors, where we do twice monthly “Meet the Patients” sessions. First up a very sensible conversation with couple of black guys, one who’d been in the police for 20 years. Then an old boy of 90 who had walked up the hill to find he was there the wrong day; we listened to him grumble about the NHS for half an hour – after which my colleague very nicely gave him a lift home. And finally a very nice lady taxi driver to run me home who also turned out to be a relatively new patient at our surgery, so we compared notes about the doctors. Overall it felt like a good outreach session.
Thursday 13
Well I was warned. At the hospital today for some blood tests in the new, purpose built, centre. And it’s dreadful. It’s an absolute rabbit warren of corridors, corners and doors. With almost no signage, and half of what there is consists of sheets of paper blu-tacked to the wall. And when you get to the right place the décor is a sunny-ish yellow and sick green. Worse the green area (an alcove) is decorated in four slightly different shades of sick green: floor, wall below the dado, wall above the dado and the seating; none is a nice colour. This is juxtaposed with the yellow area and a plum red area. GOK how anyone can work in it.
Friday 14
Valentines Day, and I got told off because I’d bought her a present when she hadn’t bought me one. It’s a tough life!
Saturday 15
Late this evening I was reading an article in New Scientist about when babies brains develop an integrated consciousness of the world. [https://rb.gy/puso5n] And I suddenly had a memory which I’d totally forgotten. I remembered having a “rattle” consisting of several hard plastic shapes on a string; pieces of different sizes and colours. Now this must have been quite early, as I have no later memory of this toy. I’d completely forgotten it. The memory was just a single still photographic image and fairly indistinct. I don’t think my brain was making up the memory, but durable coloured plastic in the early 1950s seems somewhat unlikely (though not impossible). Unfortunately I no longer have my mother to ask.
Sunday 16
Following on from yesterday’s entry … isn’t the mind strange. So I was minding nothing while washing a houseplant saucer this afternoon and my mind suddenly reminded me about a girl I knew over 45 years ago. She was a colleague; never even close to being a girlfriend – although I think we all fancied her. She sat next to me on our final qualifying sales course, wearing a pale blue, floaty, low cut, summer frock and no bra. But why does she suddenly pop into my mind now, and for no reason, when I’ve not thought about her in ages and ages? I always wonder where these people are now.
Tuesday 18
My dendrobium is in full flower. It’s clearly thriving on benign neglect, although it’s been on the study windowsill getting whatever sun there is, occasional water, and over a radiator. I caught a grumpy-looking Tilly cat was sitting in front of it.
Saturday 22
Absolutely snowed with work. Loads for both literary society (mostly website related) and the doctor’s patient group. Not a chance to do anything else this week or next, and probably the one after.
Sunday 23
Who would have guessed that foxes like pickled herrings and also cream cheese? Earlier in the week they demolished the remains of the duck (mostly just bone and fat) we had last weekend too – except for the orange we’d cooked with it!
In other news we seem to have this one, lone, dark grey feral pigeon; and only very occasionally a second – very odd because there are many others around.
Monday 24
Came the gardener (aka. odd job man) today. Despite the marsh which is the garden he went an filled the bird feeders just before lunch. By teatime one of the peanut feeders was already half empty! Oh and we agreed on a count of 22 goldfish.
Tuesday 25
And it rained again all night and most of the morning. Our garden is just a swamp, with a large area of casual water – larger, I think, than I’ve ever seen it before. The photo gives you an idea: the area outlined in yellow largely under water, despite us having raised the ground a couple of inches.
It’s not really surprising as we think there was probably an old field ditch running across the gardens about where the blue line is. There seems to be a little spring next door to the left. There is definitely water there as we’ve dowsed it, and it runs left to right (downhill) in the photo. The houses were built in 1930 on what was fields, and I bet the builders just bulldozed their rubble in to fill the field ditch and dumped a bit of topsoil on it. If the area where the ditch probably is wasn’t a mass of tree roots, I’d play archaeologist and dig a test pit to find out.
Thursday 27
I was hoping to receive my 300th Postcrossing card before the end of the month, and the three which arrived today hit the target. So here is the board of cards 251 to 300.
Friday 28
So here endeth February, and somehow we’re already 16% of the way through the year. On 14 March there’ll be 20% of the year gone. How?
This Month’s Two Tiny Changes
Each month during 2025 we’re offering two tiny changes which may help improve your life. This month …
- Put your head under the bedcovers. Life can be overstimulating, but you can reset your brain in just 10-15 minutes by cutting out the world completely.
- Get hearing aids. Struggling to hear what’s being said? Get your hearing checked and if needed accept you need hearing aids. It’s so much easier for everyone, and safer, when you can hear well.
February Self-Portrait
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And just for the avoidance of doubt, the liquid was cloudy apple juice.
Unblogged January
Diary-type thoughts on what occurred around here which weren’t otherwise written about.
Wednesday 1
I find it mysterious that I awoke this morning to find an empty champagne bottle in the bedroom wastepaper bin. Such decadence! Happy New Year!
Thursday 2
So the weather people have issued a weather warning for snow and ice (maybe someone needs to explain to them that snow is ice!) over the weekend – and for some much colder days and nights. What are the odds of us getting snow here in suburban west London? In my estimation approximately zero ± a gnat’s testicle. We’ll see; I could be wrong.
Friday 3
It was a nice sunny day, but they weren’t wrong about the cold. Bright sunshine and good light even at 15:30; pitch dark by 16:30.
Sunday 5
The squirrels are cheeky little monkeys; you can quite see why they’re so successful. Over the months they’ve created large holes in the mesh at the bottom of the peanut feeder outside the dining room window; I’m surprised the bottom hasn’t fallen out! Lunchtime today the feeder was almost empty and there was our chubby squirrel raiding it. There’s so little wire that said squirrel was getting a paw in the feeder to retrieve whole nuts – a bit like a cat feeling under the bed for their lost mouse.
Oh and we got a bit of snow last evening: rain turned to ice and then came snow; just enough to make things white. It had gone by morning to be replaced by rain and fog; the former continued persistently all day so by dark-fall we had half the garden under casual water.
Monday 6
I gave in and had my annual pre-birthday haircut and shower.
Friday 10
This week from the supermarket we have tangerines from Tangier … possibly. They’re certainly from Morocco. They’re rays of sunshine at the end of a cold, dull week. Today has only just crept above freezing having been around -6°C last night – and early this evening it is already around -4°C so we’re going to get another cold night. Indeed apart from roughly midday Sunday to sunrise Monday when it was relatively warm and wet, no day in the last week has got up to 5°C. And this is in the relative warmth of suburban west London!
Saturday 11
So that was a birthday, was it? N was at the hospital. I spent the day in the study doing paperwork & admin for various projects, and getting cold because I was resisting putting the heating back on. I work on the basis that it’s known that if you’re too hot you burn extra calories to keep cool, so it stands to reason that if you’re cold you’ll burn extra calories to keep warm – and after all I have plenty of calories to burn!
Sunday 12
Birthday part 2. Again, apart from 15 minutes doing bits outside, I spent the day mostly working on various projects, although I did have a good lay-in. Finished off with cold smoked chicken, new potatoes & fennel slaw, followed by strawberries & cream; all washed down with a bottle of champagne and a liqueur. End result = fairly incapable! Hic!
Wednesday 15
So I look out of the study window this morning and the trees in the garden are full of green parakeets. Count 16. 2 minutes later, count 18. Another 2 minutes, count 21. The final count got to 23! I think that’s a record for us. It’s no wonder N is having to refill the feeders every other day – what with the parakeets, tits, and at least 3 squirrels.
Thursday 16
Somewhere in the house the cats have lost a dead mouse. I can smell it, but not trace it. Gah!
Friday 17
They’re Moroccan and they’re whoppers! Most girls would be proud of them. [Spoiler: see a week ago.]
Saturday 18
Does anyone else have weird, byzantine, waking dreams? This morning my dream was a mixture of travel by taxi or given a lift by a colleague from two adjacent work locations, through a mixture of (London) suburbs, some rebuilt some not; to a big hospital where I was having regular bits of minor (but internal, abdominal) surgery. I think the consultant was one I’ve seen before who has done a couple of colonoscopies for me. And … I was also having dental treatment with my actual dentist in some rather dilapidated Edwardian rooms which were part of the same hospital. I was having to scuttle from one to the other, and trying to arrange appointments. The culmination was this complex dental work on a Saturday (my real dentist is Jewish so doesn’t work on a Saturday!), which involved not just my dentist, but also another dental consultant and an anaesthetist, all together. GOK what it was all about – other than anxiety!
Sunday 19
David the Pond Man came to do a much delayed late autumn overhaul. Blimey he drained the whole pond (the fish were put in a holding tank) and said he removed 2 inches of muck from the bottom. The saved water from two holding tanks went back in; and by dark-fall the hose had refilled the pond about ⅓ – quite enough for the fish and putting the pumps back on (we’ll refill the rest tomorrow, but God help the water bill!). But lo-and-behold, we still have 21 goldfish, which means we’ve not lost any in 2½ years; and they’re now big chunky goldfish which started out as tiny fingerlings.
Monday 20
Make that 22 goldfish.
Wednesday 22
It’s been one of those days where everything either conspires to be difficult, or actually goes tits up. In fact it was one of those days before I even got out of bed this morning. But I take consolation in that I’m not the only one suffering this today.
Friday 24
I still haven’t finished refilling the pond. It’s ⅔ full and filter running so should be OK. But I’ve declined to brave the rain, the lake on the path, and the mud to venture forth. This weather is driving us all up the wall. Can we actually manage to go a week without a major storm? So we consoled ourselves this evening with sausage and chips.
Saturday 25
There must be something wrong! I actually spent most of the afternoon reading.
Sunday 26
Cometh the gardener. He thinks he’s going to finish refilling the pond for me. Why bother? It is pissing with rain. And within an hour the garden is awash with casual water, again. Oh and the gardener thinks we have 23 goldfish – so one of us can’t count!
Monday 27
This afternoon, the usual twice yearly dental check-up etc. And as I was warned last time I need a raft of work done: at least 4 fillings, mostly because the existing fillings are beginning to fail. Well one of those fillings is old amalgam, so it must be 25+ years old. That’s going to hurt the wallet! I might have to have a replacement crown too, but at least for the moment that can has been kicked down the road, so even more cost postponed. It’s all surprisingly draining, even though I don’t actually mind going to the dentist.
Tuesday 28
Well if I pissed him off, it’s just too bad. Tell me on Monday evening that I have a meeting on Tuesday afternoon, and that I’m supposed to know about it, when this is the first I’ve heard? Don’t be surprised if I say “no”, followed by “and not this week”. A lack of planning (or attention to detail) on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine.
Wednesday 29
I had to chuckle this afternoon when we at the doctors doing outreach work. One of the young lady clinicians (not one of the doctors or nurses) was wearing black patent, very pointed, slightly upturned shoes, which reminded me of medieval poulaines – although not as exaggerated; more akin to 1960s winkle-pickers. I said to her that I liked her medieval shoes; she said she called them her Pied Piper shoes!
Friday 31
I’ve just tried some seaweed crisps. My advice: don’t!
This Month’s Two Tiny Changes
Each month during 2025 we’re offering two tiny changes which may help improve your life. This month …
- Incorporate “mobility snacks” into your day. Do some simple exercises while the kettle boils etc.
- Be honest in every area of your life. So you don’t feel fine? Then don’t say you are. Be truthful, but don’t be dismal with it.
January Self-Portrait
Just playing about while I had my annual birthday haircut!
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