Tag Archives: September

personal, ramblings

Unblogged September

1 Comment

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.

environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

1 Comment

Here’s this month’s action packed collection of links to items you may have missed.

Science, Technology, Natural World

It’s that time of year again, when the Ig Nobel Prize winners are announced.
Two articles:
Tipsy Bats and Perfect Pasta, from Scientific American. [££££]
Teflon diet, garlic milk and zebra cows from the Guardian.

And so to something else approaching reality … the oldest known ankylosaur fossil shows the creature was “bristling with spikes”.

I’m not sure this isn’t so obvious it qualifies for an Ig Nobel, but it seems that primates with longer thumbs tend to have bigger brains.

While on brains … apparently the brain’s body map is surprisingly stable even after you lose a limb. [££££]

Researchers have done an incredible amount of work to map out every nerve in a mouse. [££££]

And still with brains … here’s a look at what owning a cat does to your brain and theirs.

On top of which, like humans, cats can get dementia.

When is a dancing spider a different species of dancing spider?

One guy noticed that thousands of flies kept landing on an oil rig in the middle of the North Sea, and then leaving a few hours later.

How do you manage to track, find and record invasive Asian hornets in the UK?

Now a couple of items for the deep nerds out there … first, much of advanced maths and data analysis depends on Fourier transforms. But what is a Fourier transform?

Now here’s a look at conceptagion – the idea that an outbreak of “mass hysteria” can cause physical symptoms.

OK, so a shift of focus … there’s what appears to be a huge crater in the sediments at the bottom of the North Sea, which most scientists now think was caused by an asteroid impact.

So a robot lander may (or may not) have found signs of ancient life in Martian rocks – but we won’t know for certain at least until scientists get their hands on the samples.

Health, Medicine

The death of an American child shows just how measles can kill years after the initial infection. [££££]

Here’s some low-down on a virus almost everyone gets – HPV.

And here’s a short tutorial on immunology and the basics of vaccines …

… And a look at how hard it was for germ theory to become the prevailing understanding of infectious disease.

Environment & Ecology

A rare continental ladybird has been recorded for the first time in southern England.

History, Archaeology, Anthropology

Somewhat surprisingly there is a dearth of historical items this month …

First off, the story of human evolution is being radically changed by a Denisovan skull. [££££]

Here’s an introduction to a new(?) website of maps of some English cities showing the incidence of violence in 14th century.

Finally here … Ten things you maybe didn’t know about forks.

Food, Drink

The UK’s food system is based on keeping prices low, but recent droughts are showing up where and how this fails.

There are increasing concerns over the quality of our food, and here are some red flags on spotting chemical ingredients, kitchenware etc.

Which begs the question: do we actually know what we’re eating?

And how do we tell ultra-processed foods from minimally processed foods.

Lifestyle, Personal Development, Beliefs

Ladies … here’s a theory of why your husband “forgets” everything you tell him.

Here’s a piece on the Māori and their tradition of nudity.

And finally for this month, one young lady asks why nudity is such a big deal.

quotes

Monthly Quotes

1 Comment

Welcome to this month’s collection of quotes.

One passes through the world knowing few, if any, of the important things about even the people with whom one has been from time to time in the closest intimacy.
[Anthony Powell, The Kindly Ones]

And it is according to his faith; his faith in the power of numbers, in the stability of order, in the assurance and perfection of law; and deviation and irregularity stand revealed as results of the perfection of order and the assurance of law; or – to go to the essence and reality of which order and law are but the apparent and sensible exponents – of the presence in his providence, faithfulness, and power, of HIM who calleth all these stars out by name, and leadeth them on in order.
[Scientific American; 11 June 1847]

Clubbing is, and always was, shit … If I wanted to feel some sweaty man’s bollocks pushed into the curve of my equally sweaty back whilst being deafened by indecipherable garbagio, I’d hop on the Central Line.
[Harriet Richardson; https://substack.com/@harrietrichardson/p-166601507]

If he ejaculates semen it’s because his body is full of toxins and he has had too many sexual partners. Men are not supposed to have semen, its unclean! Vegan men with few sex partners ejaculate fresh water.
[unknown]

Capitalism is based on ridiculous notion that you can enjoy limitless growth in a closed finite system. In biology, such behaviour of cells is called cancer.
[unknown]

Don’t waste time worrying about things you can’t control. You can’t fight every battle. Choose which ones are worth fighting and let the others go.
[unknown]

The purpose of propaganda is to make one set of people forget that other sets of people are human.
[Aldous Huxley]

Polyamory might actually be friendship operating within a patriarchal framework that continues to essentialize sex and romantic relationships.
[unknown]

A computer can never be spiteful or horny; therefore a computer must never make art.
[unknown]

We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.
[Benjamin Franklin]

Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles.
[Fyodor Dostoevsky]

books, memes, words

September Quiz Answers

1 Comment

Here are the answers to this month’s six quiz questions. If in doubt, all should be able to be easily verified online.

Literature

  1. Which Tolstoy novel begins “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”? Anna Karenina
  2. Who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016? Bob Dylan
  3. Who wrote A Child’s History of England? Dickens, 1853
  4. Who succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in Nov 1850? Tennyson
  5. Apart from his novels, what is Anthony Trollope remembered for? Introduction of pillar boxes to UK
  6. Which two-word term was popularised by a 1948 Robert Heinlein novel of the same name, which inspired a science fiction franchise centring on a character named Tom Corbett? Space Cadet

Answers were correct when questions were compiled in late 2024.

books, memes, quotes

This Month’s Poem

1 Comment

A Modern Hiawatha
George A Strong

When he killed the Mudjokivis,
Of the skin he made him mittens,
Made them with the fur side inside,
Made them with the skin side outside.
He, to get the warm side inside,
Put the inside skin side outside;
He, to get the cold side outside,
Put the warm side fur side inside.
That’s why he put the fur side inside,
Why he put the skin side outside,
Why he turned them inside outside.

Find this poem online at Poetry Nook

books, memes

September Quiz Questions

5 Comments

Each month we’re posing six pub quiz style questions, with a different subject each month. As always, they’re designed to be difficult, but it is unlikely everyone will know all the answers – so have a bit of fun.

Literature

  1. Which Tolstoy novel begins “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”?
  2. Who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016?
  3. Who wrote A Child’s History of England?
  4. Who succeeded Wordsworth as Poet Laureate in Nov 1850?
  5. Apart from his novels, what is Anthony Trollope remembered for?
  6. Which two-word term was popularised by a 1948 Robert Heinlein novel of the same name, which inspired a science fiction franchise centring on a character named Tom Corbett?

Answers will be posted in 2 weeks time.

history

September 1925

1 Comment


Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.

3. The Second International Conference on the Standardization of Medicine was held in Geneva, with the goal of standardizing drug formulae worldwide.

7. Born. Laura Ashley, Welsh designer (d.1985)

13. Born. Mel Tormé, jazz singer, in Chicago (d.1999)

16. Born. Charles Haughey, Taoiseach of Ireland; in Castlebar (d.2006)

amusements, memes, personal

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.noticeboard covered with postcardsI 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.Gleditsia

history, memes

September 1924

Our look at some of the significant happenings 100 years ago this month.

2. Born. Daniel arap Moi, 2nd President of Kenya (d. 2020)

4. Born. Joan Aiken, English writer (d. 2004)

16. Born. Lauren Bacall, American actress (d. 2014)

28. US Army pilots John Harding and Erik Nelson complete the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe; it has taken them 175 days and 74 stops before their return to Seattle

30. Born. Truman Capote, American author (d. 1984)