Tag Archives: unblogged

amusements, memes

Unblogged April

Hereinafter follows the usual summary of the last month’s doings not otherwise reported upon.

Mon 1 OK so it’s April Fools’ Day. I must admit I never really saw the amusement, although over the years the media have pulled a few good stunts – who remembers the Spaghetti Tree? The origins are unclear, and the first British reference to “Fooles holy day” appears to be by John Aubrey in 1686. April Fools’ Day is not to be confused with the medieval Feast of Fools, celebrated by clergy across Europe on 1 January.
Tue 2 The place is awash with roadworks. Our nearest major road is hobbled, north and south, by ongoing works associated with HS2. And the alternative north-south route from/to the A40 Westway is also closed this week for resurfacing work. This latter has a diversion, which takes you at least 2 miles out of your way, and which this morning also had two sets of roadworks, one with temporary lights. Coming north from the A40 there is no decent alternative; going south is little better. Oh and from next month there will be 6 months of roadworks on the A40 itself, at one of London’s busiest roundabout/underpass junctions. Just to pile on the agony even more, not far away the major road at Old Oak Common (major HS2 station site) is about to be closed for four years, with no sensible alternative route! Why can the planers never manage to join the dots?
Wed 3 I chaired a really good meeting of GP’s patient group at lunchtime. Some interesting background from our Practice Manager on a recent development (later postponed) and some good ideas for futures. But blimey weren’t the minutes hard to write even though I tackled them almost immediately afterwards.
Thu 4 Dear God! What a day. Spent the whole day, apart from taking the supermarket delivery, doing stuff for the patient group: meeting minutes, monthly news bulletin, meeting prep for next week. It was never ending, and I just cannot clear the other miscellaneous stuff off my desk. It’s completely knackering.
Fri 5 My brain is frazzled to a cinder. Working on literary society stuff all day – mostly membership renewals and getting the member DB tidied up for the move to the new website etc. It is Saturday, isn’t it?!
Sat 6 Fuck! To put too fine a point on it. I’ve got this f’ing cold again; I think that’s 3 times in 8 weeks or so. Felt miserable all day and doing things at about half speed, at best. But here are some daffodils to cheer things up! Pale yellow daffodils with orange trumpets
Sun 7 Boy Cat certainly had the right idea for a Sunday occupation. An almost all white cat lying with all 4 feet in the airFollowed by fresh cod for tea, and another good snooze.
Mon 8 Why the the Americans get a total solar eclipse and we get nothing. How do they deserve it more than we do. It’s a conspiracy I tell you. I shall never see a total solar eclipse, and I’m pissed off about it.
Tue 9 Cloudy, dull, rain, sunshine, wind … I think the only things the weather didn’t throw at us today was thunder & lightning and snow. Everyone is getting really hacked off with the rain and the wind. “With hey, ho, the wind and the rain … For the rain it raineth every day. With a hey, and a ho, and a hey-nonny-no.”
Wed 10 Phew! That was a bit of a fight: taking all three cats to the vet for check-ups and their annual injections. Each cat has to go in its own carrier; sharing is not permitted. N had much the worst of trying to catch and imprison them. Luckily we had our friendly local London cabbie to take us, so there is plenty of room on the floor of the cab for 3 cat baskets. We were early to the vet’s, and they were running late, so we had to sit around for nearly an hour waiting. But at least all three got a clean bill of health except that Boy Cat has to have some dental work done, which will hurt the credit card even more than today’s little outing.
Thu 11 I don’t believe it! Not only has it been dry today, but it’s been considerably warmer too. Cloudy and dull most of the day, although this evening there is at least a bit of blue sky. It was even warm enough to have some windows open and get some fresh air in the house. It also made life a lot easier and more pleasant for the window cleaner this morning.
Fri 12 Well what a surprise: a sunny, warm and dry day. And there’s still a little daylight at 20:00 BST (so 19:00 GMT).
Sat 13 As befits a lovely warm, sunny Spring day, we have our first rose in bloom – one of the pink ramblers.
Sun 14 As usual on Sunday afternoon, I unloaded this week’s captures from the trail camera. I got a good shot of one of our foxes (we have at least three visiting regularly) in morning daylight. The fox is standing about 5m from the house and 3m from the camera. It’s not a brilliant shot due to camera resolution. I’ve no idea what it was watching on next door’s roof!Red fox standing looking intently upwards at something
Mon 15 Full marks for the doctors today. I’ve got this filthy cold for the 4th time in 8-10 weeks; the same sinus/cold. Sent a request to GP, explaining this was how I was 30+ years ago before a sinus op, and the only fix to stop the cycle was antibiotics. The doctor didn’t even call me, but just sent a prescription over to the pharmacy, who walked round the corner with it for me. Now that’s what I call service.
Tue 16 Back on Sunday I actually took a few photos in the garden. This one’s called “Lions on the Savannah”.three dandelions amongst the green grass
Wed 17 We’re getting there. Spent the day working on the new literary society website etc. including helping the developer start switching our email accounts and doing a chunk of testing and small updates. Hard work!
Thu 18 So the magpies are still using the nest they built in the top of the silver birch tree. I’ve seen one going into it several times today. It’s not obviously been carrying beaks-full of food, but it could be feeding chicks.
Fri 19 Getting more and more despondent about N’s health. Hospital are not acting with any urgency while her health is just deteriorating. Hospital called at 17:30 this afternoon; she now has to have an appointment with an anaesthetist in a week’s time before they’ll confirm a date of the procedure she needs which is pencilled in for a week later. That then has to heal before it can be used for treatment. That’s going to be much too late and probably past the point of no return.
Sat 20 It’s that time of year, when this week I’ve had an absolute deluge of financial and other important paperwork. Like today arrived the renewal for the house insurance. But it beats me why they have to email 11 (yes, one short of a dozen) separate documents one of which is 50+ pages and another 20+. Then when you renew (online!) they send another three documents which only duplicate the ones you’ve already had. It’s no wonder the premium has gone up almost £80 (or 17%); they’re clearly overpaying people to write by the yard.
Sun 21 Oh dear! It’s many years since I’ve consumed a whole bottle of wine at a sitting. But I managed it tonight with a pretty strong bottle of my favourite Tavel Rosé – and it did slip down easily. Everything that’s going on is enough to drive you to drink! (Actually I’m typing better after the wine!)
Mon 22 Amazing! Today I picked the first six ripe Hot Lemon chillies from the one odd plant I overwintered from last year. And there are at least another eight well on the way; but currently no further flowers. This is amazingly early.six ripe yellow chillies on a black cloth
Tue 23 I avoided going to the hospital with N this morning. I wanted to keep an arm-wrench on the consultant, but I didn’t need to as he decided that N needs treatment urgently. So there will hopefully be several more appointments & procedures over the coming days. Really worrying to have got to this stage quite so suddenly; I feel sick in the stomach. And it’s always when you’re under stress from other things too.
Wed 24 N off to the hospital this morning – at their request – as not feeling good. She was well looked after and there all day, but sent home late afternoon. She now knows what constitutes a real emergency. It has also finally got her appointments sorted out, including a procedure on Monday morning.
Thu 25 Everything just gets worse and very stressful. Having to watch N’s condition like a hawk. And trying to get to implementing the new literary society website over the weekend. And of course everything is conspiring against it. Not a happy bunny today. Beer is definitely needed.
Fri 26 Although N is not in an especially good place, and has a very depressed appetite, we’ve had interesting sandwich combinations last night and tonight. Last night was brie and (warm) asparagus, which worked remarkably well. This evening I had hot bacon and asparagus between bread with some HP sauce; again this worked surprisingly well for a combination one wouldn’t normally even consider palatable. If nothing else the English asparagus season is so short one needs to make the most of it.
Sat 27 Our oak tree is coming nicely into leaf. But if you walk down the garden there is a veritable carpet of small twigs with clusters of young oak leaves on the lawn. Yep, it’s the squirrels again! They clearly like nibbling the fresh oak buds and/or flowers, and in the process are dropping the remains. Obviously they don’t realise that the more oak tree they destroy now, the fewer acorns they’ll have come the autumn.
Sun 28 A day of watching paint dry, at least metaphorically. The literary society’s new website due to go live today. But of course a delayed start as the developers have to update another part of their platform first. So nothing started until after 17:00 and is still not complete as I write about 19:30. Nothing I can do except twiddle my fingers until it’s done. And true to form with most of these things it’ll doubtless run on until pushing midnight! How many times have I been here over the years?
Mon 29 At this moment, 19:20, I have no idea what is happening. Sent N off to the hospital at crack of sparrow fart this morning for the plumbing procedure to facilitate dialysis. She managed to ring me at lunchtime to say it had been done, but no further news. At 17:30 she texted to say she was starting a 2 hour dialysis session. I’ve no idea if they’re keeping her overnight, or if I’m going to have to race off to the hospital to collect her in the dark. It doesn’t help that she can’t get much of a phone signal in the hospital. So I await instructions.
At least yesterday’s website migration went OK and completed just before 21:00; barring the inevitable few silly things, of course.
Tue 30 Well 10 minutes after writing yesterday N rang to say the hospital were sending her home. Brief discussion ensued and concluded she was OK to get a cab herself, rather than me going to collect her – especially as it would likely be an hour before I got to her. In the event she arrived home in about an hour, pretty exhausted. This evening she has gone off to a nearer hospital for her first real dialysis session, which will now happen 3 times a week. While none of it is good, thankfully she now has the treatment she needs – and should probably have had 3 months ago. Fingers crossed that she’ll start seeing some improvement over the coming weeks.

And breathe!

a single pink rose against a bright skyOur first pink rambler rose of the year, taken earlier in the month

It’s been a hard month, but hopefully we’re ending it in a better (if not ideal) place than we started. Please can we now have a quiet, warm and sunny May!
amusements, personal

Unblogged March

Here follows the usual list of things what I did done but didn’t feel impelled to otherwise write about.

Fri 1 We shouldn’t wonder that everyone is depressed and fed up. February has been warm and wet: the warmest on record in the SE half of England, with up to twice the average rainfall (and the 4th highest total ever), and about 50% less sunshine. The long-term trend for our winters seems to be that they’re getting warmer but wetter. If the rest of this month follows the pattern of today we’re all going to drown: apart from a short time at lunchtime the rain has been lashing it down all day, and I’ve just been greeted by a half-drowned cat. Meanwhile it’s Leeky Daffodil Day, and our first daffodils are now out.
Sat 2 Where the fuck did that come from? Woke in the middle of the night with a streaming nose. Yes, I’ve got a filthy cold: runny nose and eyes; can’t stop sneezing; can’t breathe; feel meh. Think I might go back to bed.
Sun 3 Sunday; I think. Still got the cold but somewhat clearer than yesterday. A long sleep last night helped. But I didn’t do anything except beat my brains out over the postage rate increases coming in April and how to adjust literary society merchandise pricing. Postage rates, especially overseas, are making merchandise unaffordable.
Mon 4 Things must be on the up. Not only is it a lovely sunny day … but the forsythia is suddenly a mass of yellow flowers. And the dark purple crocuses are out – they’re usually a bit later.
Tue 5 Today has been a real struggle with this **** cold. Yesterday was better, but today we’ve gone backwards. It’s a bloody nuisance to say the least – and always when there is more than enough to do. Still I did make myself do about 75% of what I needed to before giving up for the day.
I did a Covid test mid-afternoon, which was negative as I expected. But pissed off that a over a box of tests we had were expired; luckily we have others which are valid for some months yet.
Wed 6 News today that one of our friends has lost their cat to a tumour. This is always hard, especially as the cat was only 5 years old and should have been in the prime of life. I know it is sad; that they are a loved and valued part of the family; and that one must grieve. But why does it always reduce me to tears, even when it’s not my cat and indeed not a cat I’ve ever met. I think I’m getting ever more soft-hearted in my senility.
Thu 7 I do hope things really don’t come in threes! Two today has been quite enough, on top of everything else that’s piling up. First this morning I discovered we had no email – it just didn’t. Seems the provider have had a major hardware issue and are having to recover, and it’s taking a lot longer than expected – writing this at about 21:00 and it’s been down since before 07:30 this morning. Then I find the literary society website is down. It seems the security certificate renewal which I did on Friday didn’t go through properly, so it’s expired. Our ISP ask me to put it through again, whereupon they bill us twice! Oh no you don’t!
Fri 8 I had a call today from a friend locally who I’ve not spoken to since before Christmas. He’s nudging 85 and been in the wars: what was thought to be a goitre turned out to be cancer – which they have apparently fully removed. However he had a stoke while on the operating table and is having to learn to talk well again, and remember all the words – at least he’s getting speech therapy. He can’t praise the senior medics and nurses highly enough; less impressed with the junior medics; and has no opinion of hospital admin – it sounded like everything admin touched got buggered up. But he’s up-beat, cheerful and still doing for himself, which is half the battle.
Sat 9 So much for weekends; spent another day at the coalface. Much of the time taken up with testing some parts of the new literary society website (now well into development); overall it’s looking good but inevitably there are the usual few glitches. The rest of the day seems to have been taken over by paperwork and cats demanding krunch. I have a tin of mixed cat krunch on my desk, which they know, so they always come to me for a little something for the starving kitten. It’s no wonder I have to refill the tin every few days despite attempts at rationing!
Sun 10 What an odd day. It was peeing with rain all night and all day; really dark and miserable. And I succeeded in doing absolutely bugger all apart from piddle around. Well actually not quite true as I did get the literary society subscription renewal notices sent out: already setup and mostly by email so it was quite quick. Oh and I bought a couple of art works on eBay, in between falling asleep all afternoon. Here, have some daffodils to cheer things up!group of white & yellow daffodils
Mon 11 The next couple of months are going to be pretty crazy. We have literary society year end and membership renewals, plus the new website in test with cutover planned for late April – so lots of setup and training to be done to get us all up to speed. There’s the usual GP patient group too, with an open meeting and a newsletter to finalise; plus some development work. On top of which we have all N’s hospital appointments to be supported. And of course everything will shut down over Easter.
Tue 12 So I didn’t go to the hospital with N today, if only to avoid the stress of sitting about all day! Although N was there early and away earlier than expected, it sounds like I missed a fair amount of boredom – and some nasty weather too. Meanwhile I got quite a bit of fiddly work done which I’d otherwise be scrambling to catch up on.
Wed 13 You do have to wonder about the medical professions at times. N is supposed to be on (I hate to call it) a special diet. The problem is that you look at various NHS sources (like different hospitals) and they cannot agree with what is/isn’t on the forbidden list. OK the bulk of the inclusions are the same, but there are so many differences between hospitals, as well as apparent inconsistencies on each list. Just as an example: nuts and seeds are forbidden, yet olive oil, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil are OK. It seems nonsensical; it probably isn’t but it’s never explained.
Thu 14 Yesterday evening I found a cat whisker on the bedroom floor. The photo (below) doesn’t show it well but it is incredibly kinky and curly – so it must be a Boy Cat whisker.white curly cat whisker on a black backgroundThis is one reason we think he’s probably part Devon Rex: he still has good curly whiskers, and they were even better when he was young. Here’s the little tyke pictured by our vet when 10 weeks old: just look at those whiskers!headshot of white & tabby kitten with very curly whiskers
Fri 15 Beware the Ides of March for it shall bring forth lions whelping in the streets and the bird of night hooting and shrieking at noonday, whence unicorns shall be betrayed by trees. Yet Caesar shall go forth.
Sat 16 We’re living like the gentry again, as I’m sure our gg-grandparents would have thought! Yesterday we had the first English asparagus of the season – as part of a beef & noodle stir-fry. Today we had a second round, steamed, with roast chicken. OK, we know it’s grown in poly-tunnels, but mighty nice for all that; really sweet and succulent. And of course we had to toast the noble asparagus with a bottle of Champagne. We always eagerly anticipate the English asparagus season; it’s so much nicer and I object to having it shipped round the globe from places like Peru.
Sun 17 So it’s Green Leprechaun Day. There’ll no doubt be quite a few sore heads, especially as Ireland won the 6-Nations Rugby yesterday. But I do get tired of all these celebrations in central London: New Year, Ramadan, Chinese New Year, St Patrick … and that’s just so far this year! Anyone would think the Mayor had loads of spare money to throw around.
Mon 18 One of those days when we both felt totally without our rubber bands. But we still managed haircuts and showers, after which I reckoned we had negative stuffing left to spare.
Tue 19 They tell me today happened.
Wed 20 After a burst of activity a few days ago, the magpies seem to have given up working on their nest in our silver birch. There’s been no sign of construction work for several days, and no coming and going to suggest one of them is sitting on eggs. And I’ve seen only one magpie about in the last few days – hopefully that’s not a bad sign.
Thu 21 Cometh the gardener, to do odd jobs and not gardening. Job the first was to fit a new loo seat, the current one having cracked apart yesterday. And a good job I enlisted him to do it, because the old one was an absolute pig to get off, especially as I’ve managed to lose the tool for it since I turned out the bathroom cupboard a couple of weeks ago.
Fri 22 Why can people not get their life in order? Tomorrow at midday we have a literary society social call over Zoom. This was announced months ago, with an email reminder sent to members 10 days ago, both asking them to register with me. Yesterday I sent out the Zoom link to those who’ve registered. Today I’ve received four last minute requests, which means extra emails and work. And I almost guarantee I’ll get at least two more requests tomorrow in the hour before the call. Oh and at least one American who gets the time zone adjustment wrong. Clearly people don’t realise quite how disruptive all this is.
Sat 23 A really excellent literary society social call at lunchtime. Several new faces, which is always good to see, and lots of thoughtful, interested and wide-ranging discussion. It was marred only by a couple of participants having computer issues and hence being able to contribute little.
Sun 24 This morning in the space of 5 minutes watching the ash tree at the front (actually just in next door’s front garden) we had a great tit; coal tit (very pinky-buff underneath); and twice a blue tit with a beak-full of nesting material – in addition to the usual miscellaneous collection of pigeons. The blue tit(s) went off over the house, so is probably nesting somewhere at the back, but no idea where.
Mon 25 A nasty, crap, stressful day; mainly because N is unwell and the kidney issues may be the cause. So several phone calls with various medics.
However in good news I ignored the problems and did a couple of hours testing on the new literary society website. I found the usual few little silly things, but it’s basically looking very good.
Tue 26 This morning in the bathroom I was looking at the forest of hairs on my forearm. They’ve never been dark, only ever light brown, and are now mostly grey, so they’re not especially visible. But there they are in luxurious growth. Some are even rather long – at least longer than I would expect – with a few making 6cm or more. Mind you, I have one hair in the small of my back which must be well over 10cm, possibly as much as 15cm. I’m sure they’ve all got longer with age; I don’t recall such long hairs when I was young.
Wed 27 Out this afternoon to get my annual NHS Diabetic Eye Screening, and as the last few years the female doing it managed to get good enough pictures without having to put drops in my eyes to dilate them. Looking at all the trees, an signs of Spring, I was surprised to note that effectively no silver birch was yet showing any signs of catkin growth. However I did spot both a horse chestnut and an ash with buds just starting to open.
Thu 28 Rain, rain, rain. Admittedly it didn’t start until mid-morning, but it then lashed it down for most of the rest of daylight hours, at least. And blowing a gale … I was sitting in the kitchen about 17:30 when N opened the back door, and I nearly got blown off my stool in the gale. It’s unusual for the gale to be felt quite like that indoors, so I wasn’t surprised that some weather forecast had said there was a (small) chance of tornados in London.
Fri 29 It’s mad! It’s Good Friday and not even the end of March. We’ve had a warmer than usual winter, and a wetter than usual winter. Today is intermittently sunny, but with little bits of rain; it isn’t very warm. And yet the apple blossom is beginning to come out; which I reckon is four weeks earlier than usual; and it isn’t all apples trees (despite compatibility). Moreover there are few insect pollinators around yet. None of which bodes well for a good apple crop.
Sat 30 Really lovely dinner this evening for Low Saturday. A very tasty salmon fillet (because on offer from the supermarket), steamed English early season asparagus, and new potatoes; with lemon & butter. Followed by some fresh raspberries. Accompanied by an excellent bottle of Greek white wine, and liqueurs. Plus daffodils on the table too.a jug of bright yellow daffodils with wine
Sun 31 So we’re now on artificial time for the next seven months. What a pity no-one told the cosmos and my body clock.
memes, personal

Unblogged January

Mon 1 So … Happy New Year to everyone! I don’t want to alarm anyone, but having just been outside everything is the same. We really need something different. Maybe snow? Or sunshine?
Tue 2 At least three power blips late last evening. Literally off and on instantaneously. I think there was a bigger problem elsewhere locally, but I can’t find out. After the first couple of blips I made sure all the computers were OK and then powered them down until this morning. No damage done although one of the servers needed its disks scanning for errors. But curiously one of our neighbour’s lights came on. As she was away N went to investigate this morning and it turned out to be a side lamp which has a touch sensitive switch – presumably this was triggered by the power blip.
Wed 3 Cometh the gardener … to lift more artichokes, before the squirrels find any more of them!
Thu 4 Somehow this day has been like walking through a never-ending swamp of treacle. Made worse by the fact that I can’t wear my hearing aids due to a sore ear where the left one rubs where it meets my glasses.
Fri 5 I’m still doing Postcrossing, in fact today is one year since I joined (although I didn’t send my first card until mid-February), and today I sent off my 100th postcard to a guy in Finland. If I’m very lucky I might receive my 100th card by mid-February – I’m curious to see what it is and where it’s from.
Sat 6 The neighbours directly opposite us seem to have moved out, quite unobtrusively, over Christmas/New Year – having been here for 5 or 6 years. I saw a large van (nowhere near pantechnicon size) there one day but no other sign. But the house now looks empty and none of us saw the going of them.
Sun 7 When you’re awake for the best part of 2 hours in the middle of the night it’s no wonder you feel sub-par the following day. Not up for having to concentrate on a lot, so very glad I didn’t need to.
Mon 8 Snee. Not really any amount worth talking about. It started about lunchtime as some desultory drizzle of small flakes, and quite wet. There was a brief snow shower in early afternoon, when it started to lie, but it didn’t last at all. I’m not sure whether to be pleased or not.
Tue 9 So NASA’s latest shot at the moon isn’t going to get there. Peregrine 1, which was hoping to be the first commercial space probe to make a soft landing on the moon, lost propellant shortly after launch. Good! Now stop wasting money on unnecessary space missions; we’ve been to the moon, why do we need to do it again? There are much better uses for trillions of dollars.
Wed 10 This gets better. Now NASA have postponed the Artemis II and Artemis III lunar missions each by a year. Good. Keep going. Postpone them indefinitely (ie. cancel them). We (collectively as humanity) don’t need to do this and can’t afford it – financially or environmentally. As a scientist I’m all for discovery, but not at any cost, especially if the cost can be better used to rescue our planet.
Thu 11 At lunchtime today I completed my 73100rd circuit of our local star. How? It really doesn’t really feel like more than about 30. But how many more can I do? If my ancestry is anything to go by at least another 10 and maybe even more, but I’m not holding my breath.
Fri 12 Short of sleep again, so feeling fairly wrecked. I wish I understood what drives such variable sleep.
Sat 13 At lunchtime the garden seemed awash with squirrels, although I counted only four. But they were running around hither and yon like things demented.
Sun 14 The usual brain cock-up with knowing what day it is. By Friday afternoon I was, as always, convinced it was Saturday. Yesterday, being Saturday, I was absolutely convinced it was Friday. Today is Sunday and I’ve completely lost the plot. They tell me that tomorrow is Monday, and the gardener cometh.
Mon 15 As predicted, comes the gardener, and does lots of odd jobs – including changing the bathroom light switch, which has been on my agenda for months. But will the cord on the light pull thread through our existing toggle? Not a chance, it’s much too thick, so we have to rescue a thinner cord – but what a faff around.
Tue 16 A day of struggling to keep all the ducks in a row.
Wed 17 Good patient group meeting at lunchtime, with a very helpful presentation about asthma from one of the Practice Nurses. It’s surprisingly common, and like many conditions unless you or someone close has it you tend to not know a lot about it.
Thu 18 Someone please tell me what I did today and where the time went.
Fri 19 They do pick their times, don’t they! N had requested a phone call from her GP, and was told she’d be called between 13:00 and 18:00. Fair enough. Except that they then ring at 11:30 when we’re in the middle of dealing with the supermarket delivery. You just can’t get the staff these days!
Sat 20 There’s water running through our garden down by the pond. It doesn’t appear to be the pond leaking – at least I certainly hope it isn’t; will have to check again tomorrow. It seems to be running down from by the lilac bush which is a few inches higher than the path at pond level; and you can see it running in places. Also parts of next door’s garden are under half an inch of water, including their slightly (4-6 inches) raised area. Have they left their outside tap running again? Do we have the spring, which we think is there, in full flow? Or the backfilled field ditch, which we think runs across the garden at about this point, dammed and in flood? Or is it a problem further up the hill?
Sun 21 The mystery of the water is solved. It appears that next door’s wilful 6-year-old turned the outside tap on and left it. He had a habit of doing this a couple of years ago, but we all thought he’d been cured of it. Seemingly not, the little urchin. Anyway by this morning the flood had disappeared.
Mon 22 As regular readers will know, I’ve been taking part in Postcrossing for almost a year having mailed my first card on 12 February 2023. Having mailed my 100th card earlier this month (see above), today I received my 100th card. It was from a Postcrosser in Germany with a picture of the great Dr Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) – Lutheran minister, theologian, organist, musicologist, writer, humanitarian, philosopher, and physician, who won the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize.Dr Albert SchweitzerAnd here’s the pinboard of postcards 51-100.Postcards on the noticeboard
Tue 23 For many reasons, not least the inability to dry laundry outside in this weather, we’re struggling to keep up with the laundry, especially the bigger stuff like bed linen and towels. So we’re experimenting with laundry services. We’re trying the apparent three front runners. A load off to each of two yesterday, and awaiting thee third to collect this evening. It’ll be interesting to see how they do when stuff starts coming back tomorrow.
[PS. No we don’t have a tumble dryer, and aren’t about to get one, if for no other reason that we have nowhere to put it.]
Wed 24 N to the hospital this afternoon, leaving me at home for the laundry deliveries. Finally the hospital did the ultrasound scans of her arms. It turns out she has particularly small veins, like her mother.
Thu 25 Wasting time this afternoon helping N to get her MedicAlert reconstituted online. You can’t join as there is an existing account with this email address: verify the account or login. Verify how? – no clues. We can’t login because we don’t know the password, so try to reset it. You can’t reset the password because the account doesn’t exist. Oh you can enter the membership number – N hunts existing tag – date of birth and postcode. No that account is archived; you have to phone us. And at 16:00 we’ve all gone home. Arrggghhhh!!!!!
Fri 26 N finally managed to talk to MedicAlert and get her membership reinstated. We then spent a happy(?) hour getting the online access sorted and all the details set up. But what a fight! Anyone would think they wanted to take our money.
Sat 27 This is just getting ridiculous! As usual, last evening I was sure it was Saturday. But I awoke in the middle of the night convinced that it was Monday. By teatime I was still convinced it was Monday, despite doing all the Saturday things. Guess I’ll be in the funny farm fairly soon.
Sun 28 Wandering round the garden at lunchtime, I noticed we had the first mauve crocus in flower, and the snowdrops starting to show.
Mon 29 Something must have happened today. Oh I know, I spent most of the day doing work for the patient group, putting together posters for the surgery’s waiting area noticeboards which we’re going to revamp.
Tue 30 I seem to be sleeping really well at the moment, although still struggling to wake up and get going in the morning. But what I have found is that I’m better if I make myself get up at a respectable hour, like 08:30-09:00 rather than allowing myself to sleep away the morning like a teenager.
Wed 31 I spoke too soon about sleeping well. As mentioned before, being awake for two hours in the middle of the night doesn’t do much for the following day. But we survived. And there’s nothing a good sleep tonight won’t fix – and that’s needed as the next two days are going to be busy.
memes, personal

Unblogged December

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Fri 1 Another bright sunny day, but what a stinging frost; the roofs almost looked as if it had been snowing lightly. But oh bugger … Why is the heating not working? Error code on the boiler display; low water pressure. Why? Call our heating guy; I adjust it as instructed, but too much so it still won’t work. Luckily he was in the area and dropped by – problem fixed in 2 minutes with the cover off the boiler. Phew! From there the rest of the day was an uphill struggle.
Sat 2 Well there was no real frost last night and this morning is really dull and misty – they’ve taken away the hill which should be about 1km to our SE. Bat at least we have hot radiators and water.
Sun 3 This blasted cold. I’ve had it for about 10 days and I cannot shift it. Snotty nose; bunged sinuses; watery eyes; inflamed ears and Estacion tubes. It fair gives you the willies.
Mon 4 Absolutely wrecked. Had a dreadful night sneezing and snotting with this cold. Much clearer once I got some ibuprofen and decongestant on it. Also better having got the pond guy and window cleaner here and gone. Nothing else to get up early for this week as my Wednesday meeting has been postponed – for once not by me!
Tue 5 I must have had something in excess of 10 hours sleep last night – solid sleep as I woke up only once for a few minutes. As a result all the head bits are somewhat clearer, although not best, and one is still feels very disinclined to do anything – so I didn’t.
Wed 6 Once more it’s finances day, and yes we’re solvent for another month. We also get the government’s geriatrics’ winter fuel payments, as well as well as a miserable £10 each “Christmas bonus” from DWP. While one doesn’t mind having extra cash from the government (we have and still do pay enough in tax) how sensible is it to give this money to people like us who, let’s be honest, really don’t need it. Mind you when our health insurance is going up 20% this year …
Thu 7 Well that was fun – NOT! 22:30 this evening, we have a blocked loo. Very blocked. N and I eventually managed to clear it, after much poking, prodding, hosing, flushing and bailing. It took us an hour. We and the bathroom all ended up soaked (fortunately mainly clean hose water). Much mopping and cleaning, followed by showers all round. And so to bed. Why do these things always happen last thing at night?
Fri 8 Heard today that one of our neighbours had died (at home) over night. Not really a surprise as she was a heavy smoker and had had lung cancer for quite a while. We of course drank her health and memory with our bottle of Rioja this evening – which I feel sure would have upset her Baptist beliefs.
Sat 9 Blimey we must have had quite some rain overnight, as we had standing water – colloquially known as the Great Lakes – down by the pond this morning. And it stayed most of the day, despite the rain easing off by lunchtime, so the water table really is high.
N reckons we’re going to have a relatively mild and wet winter. I’m not so sure.
Sun 10 Yet again I have no clue what day it is. By lunchtime Friday my brain was convinced it was Saturday. Yesterday felt like Sunday. And today: well I have no clue. So it’s no real wonder I’ve managed to get almost nothing done; the big tasks just keep being kicked down the road.
Mon 11 We finally managed to get all the Christmas cards written. We do send a lot – because we like to – but because we get our own cards printed as large postcards, and print address labels, the job is much quicker than fiddling about with envelopes, and uses a lot less paper. It is also much cheaper; like 10-15p for a card (postage is obviously the same).
Tue 12 Yesterday the hospital rang and gave N an appointment for this morning! So I with N to the hospital for the start of a round of consultations & procedures for her hereditary condition. Consultant, specialist nurse and an armful of blood tests. More to come after New Year. Some of the blood results back before the end of the day. And she has an online seminar tomorrow morning. But trying to get them to schedule anything else quickly is a Sisyphean task of pushing jelly uphill with a toothpick.
Wed 13 Afternoon spent sorting out and wrapping presents which have to go in the mail. What’s good these days is not just the ability to buy the postage online, and printing it all as an address label, but that the Royal Mail will come and collect anything larger than an ordinary letter which has been paid online – and the collection is free too! So having done the online postage you click the button and pick the day you want the items collected (usually tomorrow). Letters still have to go to the postbox, but as long as you can pack, weigh and pay for items online there’s no longer any need to go to the Post Office. Now that’s what I call service.
Thu 14 Bastard! Started sneezing, sneezing, sneezing late last evening and couldn’t stop. Wet runny nose too. Couldn’t breathe so ended up with a sore throat and didn’t sleep well. Got up at 03:30 for 30 minutes to do a Covid test (result: negative). This morning it’s clear that I have this <expletive deleted> cold back. At least I assume it’s a cold as I’m not especially feverish and I tested negative for Covid (using two different makes of LFT).
Fri 15 Situation normal: Yesterday I was convinced it was Saturday (I blame the cold). Today I have no idea what day it is, but this evening erring towards Saturday again. WTF is happening to my brain?
Sat 16 I learn that I’m not the only one with this strange time dilation in the brain. Today we had a good social call for the literary society. One of the members admitted to having tried to join the call yesterday (Friday), quite believing that it was Saturday. Basically it seems this is what retirement does to you!
Sun 17 We always have our Sunday lunch in the evening, and very often not the traditional roast. This evening: steak & chips. And senior cat did OK too with a three course meal. The cats had fresh cooked cod for tea (their weekly-ish treat); junior cat is so stuffed he’s incapable. Senior cat being more sensible paces herself: so she had room for a few morsels of our steak, followed by a small amount of cream for pudding. It’s all right when the cat gets a three course meal!
Mon 18 Attended an interesting online talk about the entomology collections of the National Museum of Scotland, given by a young and very enthusiastic curator. Lots not just about the collections, but why they’re useful and important – especially for tracking things like climate change and biodiversity.
Tue 19 Good to see S&Z (wasn’t expecting to see Z) who dropped in for a quick coffee and cake this morning. S on the way back from a physio checkup following her hip replacement. Seasonal gifts duly exchanged. Z much professionally occupied by the volcanic eruption in Iceland.
Wed 20 A few days ago I was moved to write to my three “girl” cousins (sisters; two older than me) on my mother’s side. I also wrote to my three half-aunts (on my father’s side). What a pleasant surprise this morning to get a call from the eldest of the cousins, who I’ve not spoken to in hundreds of years (although we’ve always kept in touch). A lovely 45 minute phone call.
Thu 21 Spent all afternoon sorting out and wrapping presents. Totally knackering.
Fri 22 Butcher the Dinosaur Day. Christmas supermarket delivery – slightly early against all our expectations. It included a decent medium-sized turkey and a nice looking piece of porchetta. A happy half hour spent butchering the dinosaur – crown for Christmas day and the rest in the freezer. Porchetta for Sunday and cold cuts.
Sat 23 If the NHS want me for a health check, why do they need to send me three text messages and a letter in three days. I’ve not yet had a chance to respond to the first text. This is just bullying and harassment, which I won’t take from anyone. They got a very snotty email. Ball back in their court. Of course nothing will happen now until New Year.
Sun 24 Well I got there! I’m not sure N has though. And I cooked dinner: a very nice piece of Porchetta – and plenty for cold cuts over the next few days.
Mon 25 Warm, wet and windy. Just as well we didn’t want to do anything other than get up late, open presents and eat. But OMG wasn’t TV dire!
Tue 26 Boxing Day. The highlight was the first of this year’s Royal Institution Lectures, this time about Artificial Intelligence. Did I learn anything? No. Should I have done? Probably also No. But I’m not sure how much it would have meant to 12-ish year-olds; as so often there were a lot of long, complex, words and concepts which weren’t explained.
Wed 27 What is the weather coming to? Another wet, windy and dreary day on which to continue eating Christmas left-overs: cold meat and sort of bubble-and-squeak.
Thu 28 Oh the joy of those dull days between Christmas and New Year! Turkey, Pork, Leek & Mushroom Pie. And there’s enough for lunch tomorrow.
Fri 29 I hate printers, especially laser printers. The new one has now decided that it doesn’t want to play anymore. Not sure I can fix it. So as I need a workhorse printer (for many reasons) I have to throw money at the problem and buy another new one – for delivery tomorrow And I’ll go back to HP (at least their toner is cheaper).
Sat 30 So there I was, sitting in the kitchen putting together individual bowls of salad for our evening meal. And I thought “Blimey it’s really quiet; what’s wrong?” Until it dawned on me “You silly bugger of course it’s quiet, you’re not wearing your hearing aids!” Duh!
Sun 31 And so ends another year, much as it began: grey, miserable and wet. Here’s hoping 2024 is better for everyone. Have a happy, prosperous and healthy New Year!
memes, personal

Unblogged October

Sun 1 Good grief, we’re 3/4 of the way through the year! Although it’s quite warm, it’s getting dark and dreary – the dismals (ie. SAD) are beginning to get me. Arrggghhhh!!!!!
Mon 2 It’s time to think about Christmas cards. As some here will know for the last 20 years we’ve had our own cards printed, as large postcards, often using one of my photos. We’re investigating something different this year; if it works it’ll still be a postcard but of some collage. We’re experimenting.
And as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, postcards work extremely well. Printed in bulk they’re cheaper than cards, they avoid all the faff of envelopes, and they hinder the writing of “family letters”.
Tue 3 A few days ago, when watering the plants on the study windowsill, I managed to water the scanner – rather more than I thought. In consequence it had some significant water ingress and despite mopping it out there was obviously water damage to the electrics as the scans didn’t properly. So buy a new scanner, which arrived today. It’s cheap and cheerful; not yet convinced about the quality of the scans, but it’ll do for a while.
Wed 4 N’s birthday. We went to dinner wih a long-time friend, and very pleasant it was – made better by it being our first social outing in in seems like forever.
Thu 5 Late abed last night, so had the luxury of a lie-in (well more like a good sleep-in) this morning. Consequently not much got done, except we did manage to audit the freezer – and just as well because the running log was 50% wrong!
Fri 6 How can the supermarket so comprehensively bugger up our delivery. 75% of what we ordered was just shown as unavailable. Of what we did get (ie. not a lot) we got milk which we hadn’t ordered, and double rations of two varieties of cat food. Central Customer Services didn’t know what had happened and had no reports of anything – but did help by creating a repeat order for tomorrow. Customer Services at the Fulfilment Centre rang me later on, but she still didn’t know what had happened and was demanding the warehouse find out – we both suspected a computer glitch. But everyone was duly apologetic and agreed it really shouldn’t have happened under any circumstances and we’d none of us seen anything like it before. Luckily, having worked so long in IT, I understand that these things can occasionally happen.
Sat 7 Fortunately today’s repeat supermarket delivery was fine, barring the expected odd couple of items unavailable. So a great cook-a-thon happened this afternoon – using all the old apples and tomatoes (not together), as well as making mincemeat & apple tart and a sausage and veg traybake for dinner.
Sun 8 At last the Jerusalem Artichokes have got a good display of small yellow sunflower-ish blooms. They’re only about 10cm across, but rather pretty. This isn’t surprising as they are very closely related to sunflowers; they’re all Helianthus spp.Jerusalem artichoke flowers
Mon 9 Having casseroled all the surplus tomatoes on Saturday, today they were turned into tomato & bean soup. Tomatoes pushed through the Mouli; onion & garlic sweated in butter; add the tomato, various seasonings & herbs, and a tin of blackeye beans. A substantial evening repast with some added grated cheddar and hunks of bread.
Tue 10 02:45. Fox barking out in the street. Can’t see it, but it sounds as if it’s a short way away. Actually I’m not sure there aren’t two – one in each direction. Probably territorial; it’s a bit early for fucking season.
Wed 11 Decided that my dermatology appointment scheduled for tomorrow would be a complete waste of time – it’s only a follow-up from January and there’s nothing worth looking at. So I cancelled it.
Thu 12 There’s something odd in the air round here at the moment. A couple of evenings ago one of the local pubs was burned out. It created absolute chaos at the time as it’s on a busy main road – and of course there was the usual crowd of sightseers. It’ll be interesting to see the conclusions of the fire investigation.
Then yesterday a family of beavers (2 adults, 3 kits) were released into an enclosure by the canal, about a mile away. Even the Mayor of London turned up! Said beavers are supposed to be re-engineering the water/marsh there, but I don’t see that there’s enough tree habitat for them. I hope I’m wrong, but I’ll give them 3-4 months before some thug has either culled them, or they have to be rehomed.
Fri 13 Our Christmas cards have arrived. They’ve turned out better than I expected. But you’ll have to wait to see them.
Sat 14 After a summer hiatus, another excellent literary society online talk, hosted by yours truly. We’re getting too good at this.
Sun 15 Why doesn’t it get any better? There’s always so much to do, and however hard you work you never seem to make any progress or reduce the length of the to do list. It’s almost always a case of you really need to do A urgently, but before you can do that you have to do B, and that needs C and D doing – but D can’t be completed until A is done! Arrggghhhh!
Mon 16 Oh bugger! Woke up this morning with a headache and dizziness – so much so that I was slightly queasy. That scuppered accompanying N to her hospital specialist appointment. Bloody labyrinthitis.
Tue 17 Rinse and repeat – although some of the soapiness has been washed out.
Wed 18 It’s raining. How unusual! The Rosie Cat has just come in and she’s sparkling in the light from tiny water droplets in her fur, almost as if the kids have sprinkled her with glitter. Really a rather fetching look!
Thu 19 Oh God! It’s crap IT month. First a dead scanner. Then a dead printer. And today my PC won’t start. No time to try to find out what’s happening, so I have to try to do everything from the laptop, plus the backups (on the server) which, of course, didn’t run last night. I don’t need this!
Fri 20 What a nightmare week. I feel completely shell-shocked. I’d like to say I’ll have a quiet weekend, but if nothing else I need to investigate what ails the PC. First I have to extract the tin box from its corner. Lucky I had the laptop pretty much ready to roll – although I keep having to drag files off the backup server and install odd bits of software, so everything is taking extra time. But we’re getting there.
Sat 21 Result! After lunch I bit the bullet and attached my wounded PC. It was refusing to boot; clearly not picking up the boot drive. Ensure everything inside is firmly plugged; and it has power OK. Swap the two drives to see if the cables are dead; or maybe the boot disk. Nope. Nothing. So I wonder if the power cable is dead; try plugging into a different socket on the power distribution. Yes! Everything works. So clearly one channel in the PC’s power supply has died; but (for now at least) the rest are OK. And we’re back in business! Job done in an hour, including recovering the updated files from my laptop. Phew!
Sun 22 After all that rain and gloom the second half of the night was clear – at least it was crystal clear at 06:30 with Saturn shining really brightly in the western sky. It was, however still overcast at midnight, so we missed the display of Orionid meteors.
Mon 23 What happened!? I actually managed to pick up a project rewriting web material for the literary society I’d not touched for over a year, and which should have been done ages ago. That was after I’d spent ages on IT support for the society.
Tue 24 Spent half the day looking at new laptops for N and maybe a new PC for me. More money! We’re having an expensive month. Luckily we have the money – but not for long at this rate.
Wed 25 Wasted so much of the day, again, looking at laptops and PCs. Nothing much usefully achieved other than the grocery order.
Thu 26 So finally I managed to get our new PCs on order. Laptop for N, and a new high-spec PC for me.
After this I discovered that somewhere in the IT chaos I’d lost the records for half a dozen new members from the literary society membership database. So that wasted a good hour putting it right.
Fri 27 Things are definitely weird round here. I’ve never been one for dreaming a lot; I could go weeks or even months without being aware of a good dream. But recently – say the last month – that I’ve been dreaming much more than usual. Well at least much more than I am normally aware of. And it seems to be mostly before waking in the morning rather than the middle of the night. I’m not one for recording dreams, trying to store them in memory, or trying lucid dreaming, so I don’t have much of a handle on what these recent dreams contain. I just have this vague memory that they’ve all involved some bizarre synthesis of school, university and my former work – pick any two, or even all three. I cannot explain why this is happening. There’s no obvious trigger: no change of medication; I get really good scores from my CPAP machine; I don’t watch horror movies or read horror stories; I don’t eat late at night. But there must be something triggering it. It’s very odd.
Sat 28 All children should be microchipped at birth. Discuss over dinner. Well we do it for our cats, dogs, horses etc., so why not our kids?
And the rest of us can get a catch-up chip with our flu jab or the like.
Sun 29 Evening meal: Roast chicken thighs with pork stuffing, with bubble-and-squeak du maison; followed by apple & mincemeat crumble & cream. And a bottle of very nice Greek white wine.
Mon 30 It’s no bloody wonder the counrty’s in a mess. You book the guys to come and take away a pile of rubbish. Yes, they say, we’ll be there between 13:00 and 16:00. Are they? Not a chance. It’s now 19:40 and pitch dark, and they’re now supposed to be here in the next 10 minutes. Ah, door bell; they arrived as I typed at 19:45. One lad; but very efficient; here and gone in 20 minutes. Job done, apart from some sweeping up to do in daylight. Phew!
Tue 31 Is it my back? Or my bowel? Or my bladder? I can’t work it out, but it’s bloody uncomfortable. I foresee another trip to the doctors. One is not amused.