Category Archives: ramblings

personal, ramblings

Unblogged September

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Being some things noted in this last month which I’ve not otherwise written about.

Monday 1
Blimey, what a day! It started on dodgy ground, with too much to squeeze in, and went down hill all the way from there.
Follow-up call from GP first thing: Can I come in today? No. Forced an arrangement which much better suits me as I don’t think this is urgent. Downside is I have to go get some blood tests on Wednesday morning.
Then to the optician. We both got away without needing new glasses – result! However the optician spots something in N’s eye(s) that she doesn’t like and insists on her going today to the eye hospital in central London. It takes N ages to get a cab, by which time I’ve had my eye test so I cadge a lift home. Home at 14:00 having gone out at 11:00!
Along the way I forgot to stop and consign the post to a postbox, and drop into the doctors for some sample tubes.
I would have gone with N except we’re due a supermarket delivery between 16:00-17:00. This turns up, unannounced, at 14:35! Gah!
I then forgot all about this evening’s reading group Zoom call.
N finally got home at something well past 21:00 having been buggered around by the cab company!

Tuesday 2
A very unexciting day, which was good after yesterday, and was spent regrouping. A quick dash out first thing to the post and doctors – before the rain arrived. Then, apart from falling asleep for an hour mid-afternoon, spent the rest of the day catching up on admin and paperwork, which should have been done yesterday. Most of the day from mid-morning was punctuated by heavy rain showers – which is good because we really need it.

Wednesday 3
Cometh today the gardener, which was just as well as overnight the metal arch over the path outside the back door has fallen apart (in the wind), and of course taken the honeysuckle and rambler rose with it. We shouldn’t complain as it came from my parents 20 or more years ago, and was not new then, so it’s done well. The rose (which hitherto has not been prolific but which we don’t want to lose) has been propped up, but I suspect we’ll lose one good stem. The honeysuckle has been cut off at about 3 feet for now, and will doubtless come again from the bottom. The upshot was to order a new metal arch. Well it’s only money! And all of a piece with the rest of the week.

Friday 5
Result (I hope)! I discovered I can get this autumn’s Covid booster. The rules say it’s available only to those over 75, but when you read the small print it is anyone who is 75 or over on 31 January 2026. So I creep in by about 2 weeks. I’ve been able to book my Covid and flu jabs for early October, so we’ll see what happens.

Monday 8
8 September 1979 was a gloriously warm and sunny Saturday, so N and I walked the 400m to church to get married.

Tuesday 9
What is happening today? There’s been a lot of helicopter traffic around. We always see a few choppers as we’re close to Northolt airfield, which stables a few including London’s Air Ambulance. But today there’s been much more traffic than usual, including, at about 17:00, three Chinooks in line heading towards Northolt. We normally only see them (and then normally only singly) if there’s some big military event, or a visiting someone who needs extra security. And blimey, they’re huge noisy beasts.

Saturday 13
We seem to have made a habit of of having king prawn salad on a Friday or Saturday evening. And so it came to pass this evening. But who knew cats like prawns? We always keep them two or three prawns, which are divided out between whichever helpers appear when we’re eating. This evening we had all three cats, within two feet of each other, sitting there saying “I do like prawns. Please Mum, are there more?” It’s a good job we always buy plenty of prawns as they probably got through the best part of two large prawns each; and that was after cleaning their bowls of their weekly treat of fresh cooked cod.

Tuesday 16
Make up your bloody minds! Tooth op tomorrow and I was originally given an 11:30 arrival time. Then a few days ago they decided to change it and get all the surgeon’s list in for 07:00, so no food after 02:00! This afternoon it was changed back to 11:30; much more civilised. Apparently the surgeon’s secretary told the hospital they weren’t having patients sitting around all day to no purpose; so some of us were moved back to a sensible time. I must say I was rather relieved, and welcomed the elbow room. And this is private healthcare too!

Wednesday 17
After a few days of panic, the surgery to remove the remains of my molar was easy – apart from still spending too many hours sitting around the hospital and feeling apprehensive (as below).Everyone eventually found their correct hymn sheets and agreed I was having sedation and local anaesthetic, which was brilliant. The sedation turned out to be only like having downed a full bottle of wine!
I was in and out of theatre in 45 minutes – arrive at theatre at 14:20; in Recovery by 15:05; home before 18:15. Yes it’s a bit painful, but I have strong painkillers if I need them.
Along the way the senior theatre nurse spotted my infected elbow (which I’ve had for years). I was robustly told off and ordered to go to my GP.

Thursday 18
I slept well and tooth much better than anticipated. Yes, some pain, but controllable with ibuprofen. Gradually getting back to food: soup and softer things; will likely be almost back to normal tomorrow. Spent the afternoon with friends as, somewhat ridiculously, I was supposed to have a babysitter for 24 hours (and N was at hospital herself) – probably wise as I do still feel somewhat disconnected.

Friday 19
Definitely improving. Eating pretty much normally, although being careful. Almost don’t need painkillers. But still dozy in the head, so nothing accomplished except a request to GPs to look at the elbow.
I was sent home from hospital with antibiotics (because elbow), opioid painkillers (which contain paracetamol and thus conflict with the antibiotics), and some laxative (because opioid painkillers). What a complete waste; I’m taking the antibiotics but not the opioid painkillers and hence not the laxative – so these last two will just end up being taken to the pharmacy and destroyed.

Saturday 20
Blimey; it’s blowing a gale out there this evening. Mind there is a yellow weather warning out, so we can’t say we’re surprised.

Sunday 21
This evening I rescued a small fruit fly from N’s wine. Obviously it was wet and doused in alcohol. Will it survive? Of course it will. It sat on my paper napkin for quite a few minutes. Firstly running around, possibly to clean the feet and get the body working. Then, which I’ve noticed before, it used its front feet to clean its face; and back feet to clean its wings; rinse and repeat many times. After maybe 5 minutes, poof, it was gone. Clearly all systems restored. I continue to be amazed at the delicateness of these creatures; fine thread-like red-brown legs; tiny black heads; black & yellow striped abdomens; delicate transparent wings. At first sight you think they’re just black; but they aren’t. And how you can make something that small, which works, defeats my brain. They’re amazing little creatures.

Monday 22
Today we picked the apples from our two small (planted in large containers) trees. Although they’re not yet fully ripe, many were getting eaten (snails, ants, etc.) so we needed to cut our losses. A huge number from one of the trees (Falstaff), although many are small and will have to be used for chutney or the like. Not so many from the other tree (Pinova), but they are large.
I’m still feeling pretty washed out after the tooth op, which I guess is the body needing to recover from the stress and shock. So taking things gently.

Tuesday 23
It is wonderful to be able to eat fresh, tasty, organic apples – even if they are still slightly tart, which I don’t mind (I have been known to eat Bramleys as a dessert apple!).

Thursday 25
This morning my annual diabetes check-up with the nurse at the doctors. I spent almost 40 minutes with her; we covered a lot of ground, and not just diabetes. Overall she is very happy with me and trusts my numbers on blood pressure, weight etc. No blood tests as key ones were done a few months ago; but she suggested we do them again in December (before Christmas). Moreover she likes the way I track some things and took a couple of my charts away to use with other patients!

Friday 26
Tooth now pretty much back to normal. Just a slight niggle remaining so I’ve not needed any painkillers for at least 48 hours. Still having to be careful with the toothbrush, and not chewing on that side.

Sunday 28
After all this time it does feel slightly odd to be going out socialising. We had a very pleasant lunch today with friends who looked after me 10 days ago – so the treat was on me. They took us to their local tapas restaurant. Surprisingly for Sunday lunchtime it was not packed, with just two other tables occupied, one of four people (as we were too) and the other with a party of, I think, seven. Plenty of plates of tapas shared: salads, whitebait, sardines, sausage, chicken, patatas bravas …; followed by the obligatory churros with chocolate sauce. And it was good; nothing much more needed today; and the healthy eating option satisfied for the week – maybe!

Tuesday 30
I’ll leave you this month with a fairly rubbish photo of Tilly Cat in repose this afternoon amongst the miscellaneous garbage in the study.

photography, ramblings

Hospital Panorama

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Just to prove that I occasionally do some real photography these days … Earlier in the week I was sitting outside our local hospital, waiting to be picked up after having just interviewed my wife’s consultant. Unusually for me the only camera I had on me was my mobile phone – I normally carry at least a small “point-and-shoot”. But I thought, let’s see if I can take enough OK shots with my phone to make a panorama.

I like this this joiner technique, which I originally saw done by David Hockney. The angled edges and not quite perfect fit of the images make the whole thing interesting.

Here’s the result. It’s turned out better than I expected.

Panorama of Ealing Hospital
Ealing Hospital
[Postprocessing in Photoshop Elements and Paintshop Pro]
[Click the image for a larger view]
memes, personal, ramblings

Unblogged July

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Being some things what I done, or what happened, during the month of July.

Tuesday 1
OMG! We’re over halfway to Christmas. Already!

Wednesday 2
There’s just been a Cavalcade of Hats going up the road. (There’s a community transport group here called HATS, who use minibuses to deliver disabled children to the school down the road. So every morning, shortly after 09:00, there’s a line of their minibuses promenading up our road.)HATS minibus; stock image

Friday 4
And fun was had by all. We needed to swap in N’s new PC. This meant she had to clear the rats nest off her desk, and the one under her desk, then play like a rat to crawl under the desk to find where everything plugged in. Having ripped out all the old cables we put the new machine in, with less, and rather tidier, wiring. We had a countless number of various cables left over. We still have to clear up the remains. Oh and having recovered the space on my desk, I can now start work on our new file server.

Sunday 6
The only trouble with spending Friday humping computers etc. around is that I’ve done my back; and it isn’t settling down. It’s probably the old, old injury, but I don’t now have an osteopath. So tomorrow it will be find a new osteopath.

Monday 7
So today we went a-hunting an osteopath – and captured an appointment for late tomorrow afternoon.

Tuesday 8
Hopefully that trip to the osteopath has fixed my back; although it doesn’t quite feel like it yet.

Wednesday 9
This hot, humid weather makes everything hard work; it’s completely draining. But the butterflies like it. In the last couple of days we’ve had Large White, Small White, Brimstone, Red Admiral, Peacock, and Comma on the buddleia outside the dining room window – not as many as there used to be, just odd ones, but better than none.

Sunday 13
We sat down to evening meal, and suddenly there were two small whiskered faces looking up at us. As so often, word had got round amongst the felines that the humans were about to devour cold chicken (well make that any chicken). I think the only thing which out-ranks poultry are prawns – they hear them come in the door!

Monday 14
The evening of the two tarts. (No, not that sort!) We had gooseberries (albeit from the supermarket), we had blackberries from the garden, and we had some very ripe nectarines. We also had two sheets of puff pastry. Sheet one was used flat with gooseberries in a layer on it; no need to pre-cook the fruit, just sprinkle with sugar. Sheet two had blackberries and nectarine piled in the centre and the ends folded over, to make a sort of rustic pie-cum-pasty (again sugar applied). The gooseberry was delicious, still warm, with some cream. Haven’t tried the blackberry yet as it was still too hot. As N said, they’ll make breakfasts for the next several mornings.

Tuesday 15
Rain! We have rain! Only short sharp showers, but it’s water from the sky, which we desperately need. And if you believe the weather forecast we’re likely to have rain on and off for the next week.

Wednesday 16
So the gardener cometh not, which verily was a nuisance as we had lots that needed doing. On the other hand it gave us a “free day” in which to savour the delights of completing this year’s tax returns. And ouch! How much to we owe HMRC?

Thursday 17
It’s been one of those days when everything is a struggle. I wish I understood why this happens – what in the Universe controls it – then I might be able to circumvent it. Otherwise it is very annoying and depressing.

Friday 18
And suddenly there was on my desk a small Common Green Lacewing (Chrysoperla carnea). They’re surprisingly pretty (note the red eyes) – and their larva are great aphid eaters.Lacewing

Saturday 19
A good doctors’ patient group meeting this morning. Only half a dozen of us with the Practice Manager, but sane and sensible considering the recent appalling patient survey results. The Practice Manager and I were both dreading the meeting. Basically something has to happen to improve the front of house, which we’ve been bleating about for ages. Meanwhile: we have rain! Lots of rain! Just as forecast. And badly needed.

Sunday 20
In the kitchen this evening, a very lively ichneumon wasp. I think a Woodland Darwin Wasp (Echthrus reluctator) but I’m sure the experts on iNaturalist will confirm (or not). Also found a very dead, melanistic ladybird; confirmed later on iNaturalist as a melanistic Harlequin.Oh, and this afternoon, three greenfinches in the top of the silver birch. Haven’t seen greenfinches for some years as they’ve been almost wiped out by a virus; so great to see them again.

Monday 21
So what happened to all this rain and thunderstorms we were supposed to be having? Well we had a few heavy drops of rain, but hardly enough to properly wet the pavement.

Tuesday 22
Do other people have days where they just feel totally incapable of doing anything? Because I had one of those days today. Apart from starting the supermarket order, I spent the day fiddling about because I could not get down to do anything. Very irritating.

Friday 25
I’ve spent a large part of the last couple of days striping apart several old laptops and PCs. If nothing else I wanted to get the hard drives out of them so I could clean off the data. I can’t get over what hard work it was to get them apart: hundreds of tiny screws, half of which you can’t move; and then plastic components clipped together and equally recalcitrant. Any way I’ve eventually got them stripped down to recyclable electronic components, several chassis, miscellaneous metal which can also be recycled, and a bin bag full of garbage plastic. All the hard drives have been added to my collection of “spares”; all two dozen of them. Mind, all that work has created almost no free space! Now I’m wondering what we’ve got hidden in the loft!

Sunday 27
Just how did the England girlies manage to win the European football? They never seemed to have been in a winning position, always coming from behind, and then somehow mesmerising the opposition when it came to the penalty shootout. Did they deserve to win? I have no idea. Am I surprised? Yes, very. I guess at the end of the day it all comes down to who has the best self-belief and can keep the cooler head. On that score: well done Lionesses!

Monday 28
Is there no end to the excitement? Today, for both of us, the 6-monthly trip to the dentist for a check-up and the hygienist. Clean bill of health for both of us; so we’re just booked again for January.

Tuesday 29
Rescued this morning, one Harlequin Ladybird, which was trying to drown itself in a sink of soapy water. It seemed to recover OK and, having had a rest, was released outside.

Wednesday 30
It’s a medical week. Dentist on Monday (as above). Audiology for a new hearing test yesterday; followed by a call from my doctor’s to book my annual diabetes check-up. And this afternoon N and I were round at the doctors for a couple of hours – in our patient group capacity to talk to patients in the waiting area. We never talk to many people (most just want to sit and zone out) but the conversations we do have always provide useful feedback. At the same time we tidy up the book exchange and check over the noticeboards etc.

Thursday 31
Today the first sizeable chilli harvest of the year … I picked 15 Hot Lemon chillies; the largest are about 4cm long. OK they’re not huge, and this isn’t a gigantic haul (although we have already had two or three smaller picks), but it’s from two plants crammed in a pot on the study windowsill, and now in their third season.Considering the number chillies, both these and scotch bonnets, we have in the freezer it wouldn’t matter if we never grew another plant. These Hot Lemon Chillies aren’t very hot if you remove the seeds/pith, but if used raw do have a slight citrussy flavour.

personal, ramblings

Unblogged May

Some things to be recorded, or that happened, during the month and which I’ve not otherwise blogged about.

Thursday 1
Phew! 1 May and it is unseasonably hot even for mid-summer. We’ve hot around 28°C today, which is almost 10° above the average for May. The hottest ever recorded temperature in central London was 32.8°C in 1922 and 1944 – and that was towards the end of the month. Apparently this is the hottest London May Day on record. The Met Office are saying the previous UK record temperature on 1 May was 27.4°C in 1990 at Lossiemouth, Scotland.

Friday 2
Today we completed the next set of 50 Postcrossing cards: numbers 301-350. Here they are on the display board.postcards on a pinboard

Sunday 4
Gah! I’ve had one of those days. Pond pumps both choked full of algae which took an hour to clean out. Then the credit card company decided to block my main card as they didn’t like me putting through two transactions for mobile phone top-ups within minutes. And guess what – they can’t unblock it until office hours on Tuesday. Nor can I file a complaint until Tuesday either. Very not impressed.

Tuesday 6
Why do hospital trips take up so much time and energy? I went with N today to her consultant’s appointment, which was booked for 13:00. We left home about 12:15, and I finally arrived back at home at 15:00, the actual appointment having lasted no more than 20 minutes. Mind, I did stop for a sausage sandwich, and spent a very pleasant 20 minutes sitting outside in the sun while waiting to be picked up.

Thursday 8
That was a quick Conclave; they usually take far longer than 2 days. And we have an American Pope; albeit one who has served most of his priesthood in South America. This surprised me – and many others. I had expected the new Pope to be from either Africa or SE Asia; and to be a traditionalist rather than a progressive. So this could all be interesting.

Sunday 11
We moan when it’s wet. So now I’m going to moan about how dry it’s been. So dry that everything outside needed a good watering. Hopefully tomorrow the gardener will manage to get the watering system up and working.

Monday 12
The gardener did come, and did get the watering system set up – just before the thunderstorm. Really heavy rain for about 15 minutes, including some hail. But it is still horribly humid.

Tuesday 13
I woke up with vertigo. Not very bad, but bad enough to put a spanner in the works. Took some ibuprofen and took the day easy; and it went away during the day. It can just stay gone away! As one friend said to me: “So I’m not the only one waking up with a hangover without having a drink the previous night?”

Wednesday 14
I fell over in the kitchen this evening, as I stumbled against the stool and didn’t have anything solid I could grab onto. But I did have enough that as I fell, back down, I was able to descend relatively safely and not crack my head on the tiled floor. But getting up was a real problem as my (replaced) knees won’t kneel, I had nothing helpful to hold onto, and a non-grippy floor. I managed it eventually, but not without having to kneel and really hurt my knees and toes. This is my second fall this week, although the first could have happened to anyone. On Sunday, in the garden, I needed to sit low down to fiddle with the trail camera. But my weight sitting on an upturned bucket doesn’t work, it collapsed and I tipped gently backwards. Getting up from that was easy as I could roll over, put minimal weight on one knee, and had a grippy lawn for foot grip. We’ll not have a third, thank you!

Thursday 15
Pleased today to have a couple of very pretty but unexpected flowers on my dendrobium orchid.purple dendrobium orchid flowers

Saturday17
Really really good meeting of GP’s patient group this morning. As expected I was asked to continue as Chairman. Lots of good discussion and feedback from our Practice Manager. I do sense a greater openness and less defensiveness, which is good.

Sunday18
A day of doing absolutely nothing except piddling about, because I couldn’t do anything more. I’ve been very depressed the last few days, so I was even less inclined than usual to do anything – especially as I could not wake up and it was gone 10:30 before I managed to rouse myself and get vertical (which I hate). The last two nights being full of anxiety dreams hasn’t helped at all – you know, the usual dream stuff: losing people in a crowd, exams, work. I wish I knew how to get rid of all this.

Monday19
Oh bugger! N has been suffering over the last few days with a filthy cold which seems to be going round her treatment centre. So of course I now have it: the usual cold, sinus problems, headache and some vertigo too. I was obviously starting it yesterday, which would explain my inability and why it persisted through today. This is the first really filthy cold I’ve had for several years. Luckily N felt up to taking two of the cats to the vet for treatment; I feel guilty for ducking my part of the exercise but I couldn’t face the car journeys. Fortunately the gardener cancelled which took some of the pressure off.

Wednesday21
Still struggling with this cold, which makes the depression worse, so I’ve done nothing much for the last few days. I keep thinking “One good night’s sleep will see it off”, but it hasn’t yet – although it is slowly receding. At least I don’t (yet?) have the awful chesty cough that N still has – and I would appreciate not having it, thank you.

Friday23
“Have you thought what you want to eat this evening” I say to N late in the afternoon.
“No not really” she says, “probably just a sandwich. What do you want?”
“What’s important is what you want; you’re the one who’s struggling. But I’m tired of eating sandwiches.”
I’m thinking, when did we last cook a decent meal; we seem to be eating bread and something for lunch and dinner every day.
“Well, we could have pizza” she says. “At least it’ll give you something hot.”
So I order pizza – it’s our one (occasional) concession to fast food and ready meals.

Saturday 24
Yesterday’s pizza was a damn good move. Two large pizzas not only fed us last night, but lunch today and a picnic evening meal when N got back from the hospital.

Sunday 25
Yum, yum. Two packs of very good meaty pork ribs for evening meal. Marinaded overnight with brown sauce, garlic, tomato etc.; and oven baked on a baking sheet so they were nice and sticky. Served with lots of roast vegetables (an excellent way to use anything getting a little tired). And there’s enough for a quick tea tomorrow.

Monday26
It’s another bank holiday, so of course it is wet – but at least it was forecast. Luckily the rain held off until mid-afternoon, as the gardener came. He had to spend too long clearing algae from the main pond pump; I should have done this but couldn’t get past the depression, and moreover I could not work out how the casing came apart (turns out it needs a screwdriver!).

Friday30
Couriers are the pits. I have a fairly expensive package coming from Italy. It’s been consigned to UPS; originally for delivery today. Now UPS are normally one of the better couriers; but this time they decide to deliver the package early: yesterday afternoon. Except that they didn’t. They claim they tried and there was nobody here – not true because I was here. So they try again today, with the same result; although this time both of us were here. Now they say we’ll try again, a third time, on the next business day (apparently tomorrow) but if we fail again the package will be returned to the sender. At this point I wonder if they’re trying the wrong address, or not leaning hard enough on the doorbell. Having fought UPS’s website, I call customer services. The young lady says: yes I can see that; and OK so it does take you time to get to the door; I’ll talk to the depot; they may ring you. Soon after a young lady rings me from the depot; I explain again. Oh, she says, I can see what’s happened: it’s been put on the wrong van so the driver should have logged it as a sorting error, but instead logged a failed delivery; I will talk to the warehouse to ensure it gets on the right van, and it is flagged for delivery tomorrow between 9 and 12. I’m guessing there’s a driver who’s going to get a rocket. In fairness, both young ladies were very helpful and owned the problem; 10/10 for their customer service. We’ll see what happens tomorrow; because if they try and fail again, and send the package back to Italy, I shall be very annoyed indeed.

Saturday31
Well my package from Italy did arrive, and in the time slot they said. Judging from all the mangled labels on it, it really has been round the houses to get here.