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Category Archives: personal
Unblogged December
Being some of the things that happened, but which I didn’t otherwise write about. Not every day, as foretold last month.
Sunday 1
Just what is it that screws up the universe? Both N and I have had one of those days, where everything has gone wrong, not worked, fallen on the floor, got tangled, or otherwise buggered up. Apart from wasting time and stuff, it is not good for the blood pressure. Why is it like this?
Monday 2
More garden bird fun today. While we were eating lunch a jay appeared on the peanut feeder a few feet outside the dining room window; I wasn’t too surprised as I had seen it fly across the garden a few minutes earlier. It had a good feed, went away, came back … Of course the green parakeets were around as well, and took exception to the jay. On one occasion a parakeet saw the jay off the feeder; the jay having flown into the top of the ballerina crab apple, was then bombed, quite deliberately, by another parakeet and displaced again. The parakeets were defending their feeder against this jay, and despite the jay being a bit bigger they were winning. This went on for a good 15-20 minutes, interspersed with visits from the squirrel and at least one great tit. Meanwhile another two squirrels were chasing each other, nose to tail, to and again across the middle of the garden. All highly amusing to watch.
Friday 6
I got some tangerines in this week’s supermarket order. Real tangerines. None of this satsuma rubbish. They’re absolutely wonderful: sweet, flavourful and not a mouthful of membrane. They’re a good size too. Just as they should be. It is a real change to find some citrus which is worth eating these days.
And while we were eating lunch there were squirrels running about the garden as if they’re on speed or something. One is quite podgy, so I guess could be pregnant although it’s not showing any signs of nipples and it’s a bit too early as they generally don’t start giving birth until late-February after a gestation of 45-ish days. So maybe we just have a Billy Bunter squirrel.
Saturday 7
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain … For the rain it raineth every day.
Monday 9
Blimey creatures! Yesterday afternoon the seed and peanut bird feeders were refilled, to the brim. A combination of mostly squirrels and parakeets have emptied the peanut feeder outside the dining room window, within 24 hours. While we ate lunch there was our podgy squirrel almost continually eating the peanuts: it would extract a nut and sit there nibbling away, rinse and repeat. In the time it took us to eat lunch this squirrel got through about an inch of peanuts!
Tuesday 10
16 green parakeets sitting in a tree.
Friday 13
Today I received my 250th Postcrossing card – which is rather sooner than I had initially expected. Here are cards 201-250 on our corkboard.
Saturday 14
And today my 250th Postcrossing card arrived at it’s destination in Switzerland. And another 3 cards in my letterbox, so we’re off to a flying start on series 251-300.
Monday 16
Tom came and brought us a couple of very nice fillet steaks – he knows somewhere he can get them at a sensible price (we don’t ask!). So we had steak (pan-fried, medium-rare) and chips for evening meal, and very good they were too.
Tuesday 17
What an awful dull, grey day, which seems to have fitted everyone’s mood. I started wrapping Christmas presents while N was at the hospital, and didn’t make a lot of progress. I’ll have to finish them on Thursday afternoon.
Thursday 19
Our friend Sue dropped by for a coffee this morning, having disgorged her husband at the hospital for a minor op. It was about the best time we could muster between us; fixing our Christmas pressie swap is always fraught. Sue originally suggested we go to them for food on 23rd or 24th, but N is being extra cautious about too much mixing at the moment, especially with the amount of flu there is around – and it’s looking as if this year’s flu jab is not very efficient.
Friday 20
Don’t you just love the NHS’s ability with communications! Late today N was told she has an appointment with the renal consultant on 7th January (not before time!), exactly at the time she is supposed to turn up for her dialysis session – although, for a wonder, it’s the same area of the same hospital! Moreover it is clearly expected that I go with her – which I want to anyway, as it’s time to harass the consultant. But of course this means I have to rearrange, for the third time, the meeting scheduled for that afternoon.
Sunday 22
Who knew that foxes like garlic bread? We had the crusts left over from the end of a loaf we’d made into garlic bread. So N put them out along with some chicken remains. Looking at the trail camera images, the chicken of course vanished first, but the foxes came back for the garlic bread. It’s all easy calories, so useful for them at this time of year.
Monday 23
Working in food retail is a pig of a job at this time of year; I know because I did it in the early days of UK supermarkets in late 1960s. So I wasn’t surprised when today’s grocery delivery turned up with only 3 crates out of 4 – luckily nothing missing that would have been a tragedy. The delivery guy said that the fourth crate would be delivered “this afternoon”. But at 19:30, no sign. I rang Customer Services who promised to give the Fulfilment Centre a prod. Sure enough, as soon as we sit down to eat the missing crate appears. Phew! I do have great sympathy for the guys at this time of year; both those working in retail and on the post, having done both.
Tuesday 24
As usual there’s just the two of us for Christmas, so we did what we traditionally do and bought a small bronze free-range turkey and a pork joint (leg, boned & rolled). I butchered the turkey: remove spine, legs and wings. That leaves us the crown for tomorrow; the rest is in the freezer for later. The pork came up 25% larger than we expected, so I removed a third which is now also in the freezer and the larger piece will be roast tonight. Result: we have a good amount of meat frozen for the future, and after roast for two days we’ll have lots for cold/pie/meat loaf/etc. over the next week. No doubt the cats will help too; in fact Rosie was wanting raw turkey (no chance).
Wednesday 25
A pretty normal Christmas Day here. Just the two of us; very quiet. Roast dinner in the evening with a bottle of champagne. A mountain of washing-up.
Monday 30
It’s that disconcerting time between Christmas and New Year when nothing is happening, little is working, you don’t know what day it is, or even what year it is. For some reason this year seems to have been more disjointed than usual. I wonder if that is because Christmas, and then New Year, are midweek so there’s no run of “normal” days from which to get one’s bearings. Of course N’s hospital trips don’t help, especially as the schedule has been juggled to avoid holiday days, so even that isn’t stable. Hopefully thinks will become more reliable next week when everything opens up and we’re no longer subject to Christmas TV.
Tuesday 31
So the old year ends, much as it started, grey and miserable, with little bits of rain. It’s scheduled to be a wet, warm and very windy start to the new year, but after tomorrow it gets much colder for at least a couple of weeks, although there is little sign of snow at least here in outer London. But we’ll keep warm, if only because we have a full wine rack! And, of course, we have a bottle of champagne in the fridge up for later: a glass just before midnight to say good riddance to the horrors of 2024, and a glass or two at/after midnight to welcome in 2025 with a wish that it is a much better year for everyone.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE
Happy Christmas
Happy, Healthy & Peaceful Christmas
and a
Calm & Successful New Year
to all our family, friends and followers
Click the image for a larger view
December Self-Portrait
Here’s this month’s self-portrait. Apologies for the lack of fairy lights; I haven’t got into the swing of Christmas yet.
[Click the image for a larger view]
Unblogged November
Being a record of some miscellaneous things and thoughts during the month.
From here on, I don’t guarantee to write something every day, mainly because life is dull and there isn’t always something interesting to record – and I doubt you all want to hear a continual tail of my woes and the weather. However the interesting, curious, strange, and just downright stupid will continue to be noted down. See also the entry for Sunday 17th.
So here are this month’s observations …
Friday 1
What an awful, dull, dismal day. Anyone would think it was November. Oh, wait a minute …
Saturday 2
A really good and positive GP patient group meeting this morning which left me with lots to do and much food for thought.
Sunday 3
We’re surrounded by the Paraffinians! Last night the locals were even returning fire. Why do people have fireworks which do little except sound like artillery fire? Actually why do people have fireworks at all? How can they afford it?
Monday 4
The gardener was here and he filled up the bird feeders. Within minutes there were 7 green parakeets having a party. Meanwhile I spotted a solitary redwing sitting in the ash tree a couple of gardens away.
Tuesday 5
What shall we do today? Oh, I know, let’s have our annual celebration of terrorism.
Wednesday 6
I’m not sure which is the worse example of shooting oneself in the foot: Brexit or another Trump US Presidency. Just never under estimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. Buckle up guys, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and we may not see you on the other side. 😟😟😟
Thursday 7
I found an odd screw on the study floor. It must be the one I lost out of my ear the other day. It would explain a lot!
Friday 8
Overnight, someone took all my elastic bands out. Very depressed, achy, energy-less and sleepy all day, but somehow I managed to make myself cook dinner. Roll on April.
Saturday 9
I’m completely confused. I have no idea what day it is, and I never have these days. It’s not just that once retired all the days are alike, because it wasn’t always like this. Everything has been thrown asunder by N going to the hospital three times a week – and as one of the days is a Saturday it means that weekends almost don’t exist any more, which throws everything out. This, plus the grey winter weather, is one of the current causes of my depression. It’s enough to drive you insane!
Sunday 10
Oh dear God! It’s bloody Remembrance Day again. Can’t we do away with it? I blogged about my views back in 2015 and 2010 so I won’t bore you all at length again.
Monday 11
Spend some time this morning doing maintenance on the pond, which I’ve been putting off, partly due to the cold and wet, because cleaning the filter and pumps is a wet, dirty job. It was quite pleasant out; dry and not even too cold – although it didn’t help that, as always, I got wet and dirty. Soon sorted with a good scrub up and some clean togs.
Tuesday 12
I seemed to have spent at least half the day trying to sort out and order Christmas presents. I think I almost suceeded, at vast expense, as always.
Wednesday 13
I slept so late this morning that I was woken up by the Rosie Cat coming along to see if I was OK.
Thursday 14
Trying, in vain this morning, to finish the supermarket order but completely stymied because the supermarket website is all over the floor – some bits work; some don’t; and for some it depends on which route you take to what you want. Aaarrrrgggghhhhhh!
Friday 15
What is it that creates “one of those days” when everything conspires, gets in the way, or just destroys itself? There seems no rhyme nor reason, especially when it is happening to both of us at the same time.
Saturday 16
Talk about dereliction of duty. We have an intruder (entire male) cat; he’s a pest and has been around for a long time, although I’m not sure if he’s still the alpha male. Can our three not see it off? Not a chance. Boy and Rosie are each twice his weight and could make mincemeat of him; but none of them work together. No, we do nothing, even when we have him trapped in the kitchen between me one end and Boy Cat guarding the exit through the catdoor. Provost Sergeant would not be impressed.
Sunday 17
This is silly, and I fear getting slightly pointless. There’s so little happening, that there’s nothing much worth writing about. The depression doesn’t help, but it’s more than that. The world’s gone to the dogs in a wheelbarrow and trying to make any sense of anything is only going to make the depression worse. So I might take a break; perhaps write sporadically when there’s something worth writing about – or not if there isn’t. After all you don’t all want to hear of nothing but my misery!
Tuesday 19
Awoke this morning to really large chunks of snow falling from the sky. We weren’t expecting this, it wasn’t supposed to get south of Leicester! It didn’t last and had turned to rain within an hour; but it was quite pretty while it was falling. Snow this early in November is I think fairly unusual. But then everything’s fairly unusual at the moment.
Wednesday 20
Blimey it was cold last night; cold like we’re not used to these days. So this morning a very heavy frost; all the roofs were white. It’s the sort of frost that when I was at school we wouldn’t have been allowed to play rugby as the ground was dangerously hard.
Thursday 21
Yes, it’s Beaujolais Nouveau Day – the 3rd Thursday in November – when we get to taste the first fruits of this year’s vendage. I’ve not bought Beaujolais Nouveau for many years, after a few bad years, but as the Wine Society are stocking it this year (which they don’t normally) I figured it would be worth a try. So a box of 6 arrived this morning; and was sampled this evening. It’s clearly nouveau, but not a bad bit of “blackberry juice” for all that: slightly acid and slightly yeasty as one would expect, but with some flavour too. So with luck this year’s vintage may well be reasonable.
Saturday 23
A wild, wet and windy morning. And the first thing I see: a red kite drifting in the wind across from the west. I then went down the garden to check on the pond; there was an almighty scattering of parakeets and squirrels. And there are fallen leaves everywhere!
Monday 25
A relatively calm, although still breezy, and intermittently sunny day, after a very wild, wet and woolly weekend due to Storm Bert. We must have had a deluge last night as there was standing water down by the pond this morning – the cats weren’t impressed; Boy Cat was seen walking past on the railway sleeper edging of the border.
Wednesday 27
Today a number of amusements …
- Our wild rose grows vigorously well across (but above head height) the garden next door to the north. Stuck in the middle of it there is a football!
- Again we must have had a deluge last night because there is standing water the size of Lake Tanganyika along the path between the silver birch and the far end of the pond – that’s actually an area about 2×20 feet!
- The rose-ringed parakeets are having a conference! Looking out mid-morning I counted 13 of them (there may have been more) around the bird feeders. They were being assisted by two woodpigeons, one feral pigeon, a magpie and a squirrel.
- And as is traditional, the Boy Cat has the right idea: stay in bed.
Friday 29
Up betimes this morning to see a glorious deep pink an gold sunrise which was impossible to photograph from here. This was shortly followed by seven green vultures sitting on a branch (well that’s what the parakeets looked like!).
November Self-Portrait
In lieu of scary shots illuminated by a bonfire, this will have to do for my monthly self-portrait. There’s no special significance beyond the fact that I was buggering around with my mobile.
[Click the image for a larger view]
Unblogged October
Things from this month that I didn’t otherwise write about …
Tuesday 1
What can one say about today except “fucking hell!”? Last night the freezer went on the blink, so I ended up cutting our losses and and ordering a new one at midnight. We just hope enough of the freezer stays frozen until tomorrow – not that there is time to do anything with the new one tomorrow! So I slept badly and had to get up early as the beginning of the month is always busy with admin, of various types, not just ours. It went on all day; every job either had to have something else done beforehand, or caused a follow-on job. I was still at my desk at 8pm – tired, hungry an with a headache – when N arrived home very late from the hospital. Now I have to go and cook tea. Happy bunnies are not us!
Wednesday 2
Well our new freezer did finally arrive, late. So it had to be left cooling down for the afternoon while N and I did a session of talking to patients at the doctors. When we got home we had to heave to and move everything over from the old freezer; it was still playing up but everything had stayed frozen. The new freezer is slightly smaller, so a few oddments had to go – well most will be used as we needed to take out stuff for the next 2-3 days anyway, which will most likely include soup.
Thursday 3
Dear God, the cost of postage is just unreal – and it goes up again on Monday. Today I had to send two tote bags to USA; the package is just big enough that it has to go small packet, and it weighs just over 400gm – so it isn’t large, just annoyingly over size. This cost £15.80 in postage. How on Earth can Royal Mail justify this? By contrast sending a book, also a small packet but just over 500gm withing the UK was just over £3, which still feels too much, but is at least reasonable.
Friday 4
N’s birthday, and I gave her a special present – we went to get our Covid boosters and our flu jabs. But then I cooked a couple of very nice, decent size steaks for dinner – with a brandy, garlic & cream sauce, chips and a fennel slaw – followed by peaches in brandy; plus the obligatory bottle of champagne and a liqueur.
Saturday 5
Absolutely floored. I expect the flu jab to knock me down for 24 hours, but this year it’s also set off an attack of my vertigo/labyrinthitis – which always takes most of a week to resolve. Very unstable on my feet; spent the day in bed; just about OK if I lie flat and still.
Sunday 6
Still flattened, but a bit better.
Monday 7
Now only half flattened, but still struggling with vertical hold and brain fog. Had to cancel my diabetes check-up this morning, and will have to reschedule it. Sadly I also had to cancel lunch later in the week with friends visiting from Japan; really annoying but I’m far from sure my head will be able to travel into central London. That’s the trouble with this vertigo, once it arrives it takes a week to properly resolve.
Tuesday 8
Massive thunderstorms predicted for today, but they didn’t happen. There was some rain, and there was stygian gloom in late afternoon: some of the darkest cloud cover I think I’ve ever seen.
Wednesday 9
Great fun this morning. 06:30 awoke to blue flashing lights. Car wedged(?) diagonally across the road 100m away by a parked white van (I was later told the car had hit the van and done a lot of damage). Police car behind it (nearer us) and further away a fire truck, so it had been going on for a while. No ambulance. Copper and 2-3 firemen wandering about with no sense of urgency. So no clue what had happened. N said later that at 08:30 they were taking the car away. Then about 11:15 there’s a parking attendant putting a ticket on a car which is parked across the boundary between us and next door; whether because he’s parked on the hump, or because the front is encroaching over next door’s dropped kerb we may never know.
Thursday 10
We have some Virginia Creeper rooted at the bottom of our garden – not that we ever see it on our side. It rambles all along the fences at the back of us (the other side of the overgrown alley, and up the far side of next door’s fence – that’s over 30m in length. It’s currently absolutely gorgeous in its autumn red leaves. How can anyone ever want to remove it?
Friday 11
Last evening I rescued a small fruit fly from my apple juice – it was clearly alive, but not very good at doggy-paddle. I lifted it carefully, from below, onto my finger and encouraged it to walk onto a tissue to dry off. It was about 3mm long and clearly black and yellow striped. It sat on the tissue cleaning its legs, its wings, its head and its antennae for several minutes. It was quite an amazing performance to watch, especially as it was previously trying to drown. Then, suddenly – poof! – it was gone. It’s odd how you can feel attached to such a tiny creature in such a short time; I hope it survived for a normal fly lifespan; at least I gave it another chance.
Saturday 12
Why is household paperwork and admin so tedious and time-consuming? I have a routine of doing the not-immediately-urgent paperwork at a weekend, but not having done any last week, today it took me all afternoon rather than the usual hour or less. It wasn’t even interesting or exciting.
Sunday 13
A busy but interesting Sunday. (1) Unloading the last 2 weeks photos from the trail camera there were a number of occasions where Boy Cat was either carefully watching, or actually trailing, the fox as much as to say “I’m just keeping an eye on you to make sure you behave properly in my garden”. (2) I picked our apples. Not a huge crop from our 2 small trees: 20 or so from the Pinova, many small but a couple of a nice size for eating. And just one from the Falstaff which is a good size to eat. (3) We spent an hour or so choosing the photo for this years Christmas card, and getting them on order. Postcards as usual because they make writing cards so much easier: no envelope hassles and no worrying about which card to send Aunt Ethel; plus they’re ridiculously cheap from VistaPrint.
Monday 14
Mmmm. Those apples I picked yesterday are really lovely: crisp, juicy and slightly tart. Much better than anything you buy in the supermarket, and known to be organic too.
Tuesday 15
I actually managed to get done today pretty much everything I needed to. N heroically covered a session talking to patients at the doctors for me after one of the other volunteers dropped out last night. She then had to hot-foot it to the hospital. Meanwhile I sorted out all sorts of other tedious jobs, including taking my keyboard apart to clean it, and starting the grocery order. Why do I always end up falling asleep over the grocery order?
Wednesday 16
Did anything happen today? What day even is it? I’m totally lost. Still at least the council came and took the old freezer away. And N’s flowers arrived.Click the image for a larger view
Thursday 17
Well much to my surprise I not only had nothing much scheduled for today, and I got the afternoon off to do … nothing much except read – which is rare! Our Christmas cards arrived, and look lovely – but you’ll have to wait upon the day to see them. On the downside I had a panic attack about what’s happening at the weekend which necessitated a change of plans – I never understand why these things happen; it’s a real bummer!
Friday 18
A lovely foggy start to the day, and the first real fog of this autumn; although not really thick, just enough to block out the top end of the road. I always liked the fog as a kid, despite growing up in the 1950s with the tail end of London’s pea-soupers and not being able to see more than a couple of meters in front of your face. There was always an air of mystery with the fog (even better if there was fresh snow as well), partly down to the restricted vision, and partly the muffled sound.
Saturday 19
Yet again I missed the literary society AGM. I was intending to go, but everything recently has just turned out too difficult: I still have occasional remnants of the vertigo; the depression isn’t any better and triggers the odd panic attack; transport is a pain with the tube here off at weekends plus major roadworks everywhere; and then N isn’t always great when she gets back from hospital.
Sunday 20
A wet and windy day, so nothing doing outside. Instead we used the last of our apples plus a few strawberries and a dribble of peach liqueur to make an huge crumble – enough for breakfasts for most of the week – which turned out very tasty with cream. Managed to slice my thumb peeling the apples – idiot! Cooked some stuffed chicken thighs (with a drizzle of curry jus) in pastry for evening meal – not the greatest success ever, but very tasty and has potential.
Monday 21
Feeding the pond goldfish today I was struck that although it’s clearly autumn (but not yet that cold) they’re still feeding voraciously – and blimey are they getting big and chubby; seriously substantial fish considering they were tiny tiddlers 2 years ago. It’s said that for tropical fish (I don’t know how true this is of carp) that they can survive on 1% of their bodyweight of food a day, and with 3% they’ll grow rapidly.
Tuesday 22
Why do cut thumbs always spring a leak 24 hours (or more) after the event, when you think they’ve scabbed over OK?
Wednesday 23
Comes upon this day, the gardener. Amongst other things he gave the lawn it’s last cut of the year and top dressed it with home-made compost. It looks a mess at the moment, but if the weather stays mild the grass will soon grow through.
Thursday 24
Had a friendly annual diabetes check-up this morning with one of the Practice Nurses – the one I usually see and get on well with. As usual she knows she doesn’t have to read the riot act at me – unlike some of her colleagues – as I know what I ought to be doing and if I haven’t it’s because for whatever reason I can’t. Taking blood the nurse managed to spring a leak around the needle, so I lost a teaspoon more blood than planned – it’s all good fun! She had a young student nurse with her, who got some hands on practice. I also managed to get a message in, really aimed at the student, about not bullying patients but ensuring they have the information and letting them make their own decisions – with some quiet nudges, which is generally more effective. I also managed to make an appointment with the Practice’s physio, to see if I can get some exercises for my back.
Friday 25
Comes the window cleaner. Quick and efficient as always. And he offered that next time he comes he’ll get a ladder up and check some of the guttering.
Saturday 26
We seem to have very few sparrows around; I’ve hardly seen any in the last couple of years. But today, looking across the road, there were sparrows going everywhere – too many to count!
Sunday 27
So the clocks have gone back, and we’re now on GMT again. I wish we could stay on GMT; continually meddling with the clocks is a pain, and totally unnecessary. Unlike in wartime when every useful scrap of daylight mattered, it isn’t needed now and just causes confusion etc. Anyway GMT is our heritage, so as the country is a theme park we need to keep, and show off, our heritage!
Monday 28
Waking up: “Oh it must be 9 o’clock. What?! No, it’s only 8 o’clock.” Stupid brain hasn’t adjusted to the clock change.
Tuesday 29
Up betimes, only to find my morning meeting being moved to Thursday. So I spent half the morning trying to fix up one of our laptops to replace N’s desktop PC – I failed and gave up. Why is Windows so obtuse and obscure? It’s vaguely friendly for the dumb user, but totally byzantine if you know what you need to do under the bonnet: either you can’t or you have to guess the magic incantation. Gah!
Wednesday 30
One of those days where you get stuck in trying to prepare for unpredictable meetings and everything conspires to stop you – so you end up unreasonably knackered.
Thursday 31
After some unexpected preparatory work by a colleague we had a long, detailed and very forthright meeting this morning makes me hopeful that things might start to happen.
I’ll leave you with some suitably Halloween frosty-looking fir cones I perpetrated a few weeks ago!
Worming into Fame?
Well now here’s a turn up for the books. I’m in this week’s New Scientist. Each week in the Back Pages, they print a couple of questions sent in by (named) readers, and answers (or at least ideas of answers) from other readers to earlier questions. And this week they’ve printed a question I sent in a while ago.
The question is printed as:
Some worms regenerate when cut in half laterally, but what would happen if they were cut in half longitudinally?
Keith Marshall, London, UK
Hmmm … I’m not sure this is quite what I meant because “worms” is going to get interpreted as “earthworms” by too many people, especially as the online version has an image of earthworms. Maybe the question is appropriate for “earthworms” and not just the “flatworms” I had intended – I don’t know.
But space is limited, so the question as printed is a cut down version of the question I submitted:
There’s a recent report in Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/regenerating-deep-sea-worms-harness-live-in-algae-as-they-split-into-three/, of acoel flatworms regenerating when cut in half laterally. The head grows a new tail, but the tail grows two heads and then divides. But what would happen if the worm was cut longitudinally, with each half containing some head and some tail? Would this be viable, or is the presence of (say) a brain a binary requirement?
Nonetheless I shall be very interested to see what the readers come up with over the next few weeks. I’ll try to remember to report back.
Monthly Self-Portrait
This year’s Covid & Flu jabs didn’t just knock me down for 24 hours (which is normal) but also triggered an attack of my vertigo/labyrinthitis. That makes me unstable on my feet with everything going round and blurry. A bit like this month’s self-portrait.
[Click the image for a larger view]
Unblogged September
Things I didn’t write abut in the last month …
Sunday 1
Well that got the second half of the houseplants re-potted – apart from two large (tall) cacti which are probably best left alone. This was mostly the larger plants: aloe vera and sansevieria, all of which needed dividing so lots of bits discarded including an enormous jade plant which was harvested for cuttings. But who knows how much of the offshoots etc. will take, and heaven knows where we’re going to find space for them all.
Monday 2
After a lovely warm, even hot, sunny day yesterday, today was dull, dismal and not very warm. Autumn is definitely on the way; the silver birch has started to change colour. It all left one thoroughly demoralised.
Tuesday 3
Today my 200th Postcrossing card arrived here. As usual I’ve just managed to get the last 50 on the corkboard, although it’s always a bit of a challenge to fit in the last 2 or 3. Anyway here are numbers 151 through 200.
I wonder how soon my 200th card sent will arrive at its destination? [Actually just 2 days later on 5 September.] I have a full complement in the mail (and a few which have expired) but outgoing post seems to be generally much slower than incoming. (Although today’s 200th card has taken 2 months from Canada!)
Wednesday 4
A fun afternoon, which N and I spent at the doctors, supposedly meeting the patients as part of our patient group activity. We didn’t do a lot of that! But we did reorganise the noticeboards (which we supposedly manage) and then discovered that the contents of “our cupboard” hadn’t been touched since Covid closed everything down – despite that we had been told the Practice had cleared it out. It was crammed with books (the spares from the defunct book exchange) and 3 boxes of out of date leaflets. We brought about half the non-book material away (basically as much as we could carry); it all has to be sorted through but most of it is destined for recycling. Such unexpected fun.
Thursday 5
It’s been so dark today, I had to have the lights on all day – which I don’t expect in September. Moreover it absolutely threw it down with rain for about 15 minutes this afternoon. Real white water. It was so heavy I couldn’t see the hill a mile away.
Friday 6
Why is it that some weeks, like this week, the grocery order is so much more than usual? It’s not as if there was any more meat on it and no alcohol, which are the two things which bump up the price, although fruit and veg isn’t cheap these days.
And talking of prices, how can Royal Mail get away with yet another hike in the cost of postage. From early October first class postage goes up 30p to £1.65 (although second remains the same at 85p) and the cost of a postcard or minimal letter abroad goes from £2.50 to £2.80 – it was £2.20 in the first months of the year.
Saturday 7
It’s a bit early really, but somehow I’m already working on all my regular blog posts for next year – well the ones I can do in advance, like quiz questions and historical events; whereas posts like monthly links, monthly collected quotes etc. have to be one at the time. So the afternoon was spent finding information – in between falling asleep!
Sunday 8
As mentioned elsewhere today was our 45th wedding anniversary, and we still don’t know how we’ve managed it! Anyway we celebrated quietly this evening with a very nice piece of flatiron steak, garlic roast potatoes & mangetout (cooked by me), followed by peaches in brandy with cream, and washed down with a very nice bottle of Champagne and a liqueur. It was, as N said, restaurant quality. My cooking was always pretty good, but is getting better over the last year or so – well one of the things we said when Covid struck was that, whatever else happens, we’re determined to continue to eat as well as we possibly can; and we do, but without spending ridiculous money; we still always look for the bargains.
Monday 9
Well the week’s hardly started and it’s already gone to the dogs in a handcart. I woke up even more depressed than usual. I wish I understood it! Comes the gardener? No, comes not the gardener as he’s unwell. And I needed to move my diabetes check-up from Wednesday to the first full week of October; at least I can probably get my flu jab at the same time, though I just hope it doesn’t knock me out for days as we’re due to meet up with friends from Japan two days later (bad planning on my part; I really wasn’t awake!). As a result, nothing got done apart from a few odds & sods admin jobs.
Tuesday 10
I caught the beginning of Escape to the Country this afternoon. Parents, 2 daughters & a boy wanting to move to North Norfolk. Never have I seen such a set of gawd-blimey Essex (I assumed) chavs in my life. They all looked alike: pale podgy puddings, who survive on a mix of Big Macs, KFC, chips, milkshakes and pop; and giving the appearance of wood between the ears. But of course, everyone’s greatest desire is to be on the TV; it was probably the highlight of their lives.
Wednesday 11
At last! Cometh the man to service the boiler. We finally managed to get our diaries together a couple of weeks back, and today was the day. An excellent job as always, which took about an hour, including standing and chatting! Good job done for another year. We now just have to put the contents of the airing cupboard back.
Thursday 12
As usual I’m trying to buy something sensible, but which doesn’t exist. It seems that whatever you try buying and want options A, B, C, D, but don’t want E and F, either you have to have E but not C, or F and not B & D, or all 6 options at double the price. And every manufacturer makes essentially exactly the same two products, in the same format, but with a subtly different shape and/or colour casing. You’d think there was only one supply of the innards – there probably is, in China. It does my head in. As my father was once told “There’s no demand, Sir, you’re the fourth person who’s asked for that this morning”.
Friday 13
So what have we got available to concoct dinner from? We need to clear some space in the freezer. Ah … noodles, frozen turkey strips, a few runner beans, yellow pepper … OK so I did a stir-fry with a slightly sweet and sour sauce (brandy, lemon, light soy, HP sauce, ketchup, tomato paste, ginger, chilli …). Not my finest achievement, but it worked OK. Especially when followed by summer fruit salad (dressed with a little cherry brandy) and cream.
Saturday 14
It’s Saturday, just like it was yesterday! So of course I spent the day working; I’m inundated at the moment, having just had three extra pieces of literary society work dumped on me at no notice and without a by your leave. Some people never seem to learn that a lack of planning on your part does not constitute a crisis on mine. But then N was at the hospital, so I needed something to keep me occupied.
Sunday 15
Here beginneth a new regime. Our house is something approaching a tip; after 40+ years it’s silted up to the point of there being no navigable water. So I’ve instituted a rule: we do some clearing up every day. 15 minutes on days when N is at the hospital; 1 hour on days she isn’t. We started with an hour this morning, and it’s surprising how much you can get done, together, in that time. But you have to be a bit ruthless, although not necessarily Marie Kendo ruthless – if only because I wouldn’t get away with it! Let’s see how long it lasts.
Monday 16
I quite accidentally ended up going down a curious rabbit hole in my family history. My 2x great-grandparents (Henry Williams & Catherine Nowers) had 7 children; my great-grandmother was the youngest. I came upon my 2x great-grandparents (both dead before 1900) on the 1915 naturalisation papers as the parents of a Susannah Margaret Mann, born 1848 in Dover, but given as German and living in Eastbourne. What?! This doesn’t make sense. I go looking. There is no such Susannah Margaret Mann. And Henry & Catherine don’t have a child Susannah Margaret. Ah, but they do have Margaret Susannah, born 1847 (their second child). Right. And yes, when you follow through Margaret Susannah Williams marries a guy called Jacob Ferdinand Mann, in Dover in 1871. He’s obviously a German, and a bootmaker, as later censuses confirm. Jacob Mann dies in 1893 having fathered five children (all born in Eastbourne). So despite having been born in Dover, of parents also born in Dover, and never obviously lived anywhere other than Dover, Hastings and Eastbourne, Susannah Margaret is legally a German because she married an ex-pat German, now deceased. And thus in 1915 she needs naturalisation papers to make her British again. I shouldn’t have been surprised; this whole family is full of oddities.
Tuesday 17
A quiet morning talking to patients at the doctors – something we’ve started doing again a couple of times a month. It was so quiet that once I got home and had lunch I fell asleep for a large chunk of the afternoon – quite without wanting to. Why does this always seem to happen as we get older?
Wednesday 18
A happy half-hour this afternoon getting dust everywhere going through our 5 solander boxes of maps. As trips around are now getting difficult, we’ve kept only about 25% of what we have; the rest will go to our nearest Oxfam bookshop along with at least a couple of boxes of books.
Thursday 19
Another day. The same coalface.
Friday 20
This afternoon, as another part of our grand sort out & tidy up we went through several solander boxes of guide books. Only about 70% were kept, re-boxed and rehomed in a different shelf. End result we have the unprecedented luxury of 2 feet of empty bookshelf space!
Saturday 21
A good social call for the literary society at lunchtime. As usual only about 8 of us, but some good discussion and good to see a couple of our American friends. It always surprises me that, when you scratch the surface, how many disparate things people know, and the connections they can make.
Sunday 22
One of our neighbours hates trees; the leaves make a mess and they’re untidy. He’s probably had apoplexy as the Gleditsia in the pavement outside is shedding it’s thousands of tiny golden yellow leaves everywhere, including on his hard-standing. And because it’s wet, they’re sticking and resistant to being cleared up. In Buddhist terms “Your fate is the sum total of your stupidity”; to reduce that sum, stop doing stupid.
Monday 23
Blimey did it rain last night; I looked out of the bedroom window at one point and the gutter on our side of the road was an absolute torrent, like a mountain stream in spate, about 3 feet wide and 3 inches deep flowing down the hill at some speed. Then today, at last, we see the gardener again, and he started the autumn tidy up in the garden (despite the wet) and did a couple of odd maintenance jobs.
Tuesday 24
Yet another day at the same old coalface.
Wednesday 25
This evening I hosted a literary society trustees/executive meeting over Zoom – because the Secretary who normally hosts it is away on holiday in the Far East. But I’m not a trustee, nor an executive officer, so I opened the call and once there was a quorum handed over to the Chairman and turned off all my sound so I wasn’t privy to the business – I left video on so if needed I could be visually hailed. I busied myself with various small tasks and when they all wandered off I closed the call. Crazy, but it seemed to work OK.
Thursday 26
Once more I spent most of the morning on literary society work. This time getting all the papers for next month’s AGM online. It took forever, mainly as I’m still working out how to do things in the new system. Despite losing some more hair I eventually got there without having to ask for help from the website provider. Like every system, things work differently so you’re always having to work out how to achieve what you know you can do. I then consoled myself by ordering a couple of cases of wine.
Friday 27
Big cook-a-thon this afternoon. Apple crumble, enough for several days breakfast. Two small chicken pies for cold tomorrow evening. Small cheese roll to use the pastry remains. Tray of roast veg, and some garlic roast potatoes, to go with this evening’s steak which I pan-fried. So tomorrow’s lunch and evening meal sorted, apart from the wine, as well as this evening and several days breakfasts. Result!
Saturday 28
Much to my surprise I ended up with nothing pressing to b done today, apart from a bit of household admin. So did I have a day off? Of course not! I spent most of the afternoon thinking about a household emergency plan and getting all our important information reorganised and gathered together. So at least now I have the concepts of a plan.
Sunday 29
It’s cold, grey and miserable. And not just the weather, ‘cos that’s very much how I feel too. I’m totally out of elastic or any other form of energy supply, today.
Monday 30
Spent a surprisingly tiring 90 minutes sorting out the household filing drawer, weeding aged paperwork out for archiving (or the bin), creating some new files and discarding a couple of others. It badly needed doing as it probably hasn’t been done for several years. It’s a good job done; just don’t leave it so long next time. Now I just have to sort the pile of papers etc. for the archive.
I’ll leave you this month with a photo I took a few years back of the Gleditsia outside our house. It’s not been quite so magnificent this year as the wind has removed all the leaves much quicker than normal.