Monthly Archives: May 2022

Day 122

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I wrote most of Day 121 (Part 2) and then seem to have fallen asleep sitting at the keyboard. When I woke I crawled off to bed and went to sleep. It appears to me that I need to have a good look at my habits, particularly the habits relating to going to sleep at a sensible time.

April has been a poor month from the poetry point of view. Two magazine subscriptions need renewing and only one submission made (though several are still open into May). I know I’m paying for blood, sweat. toil and tears when I subscribe to a magazine, but it still seems like a lot of money. And the tears are often mine. A couple of the submission windows spanned April and may so I bounced them into May. I now have 8 submissions to make in May.  Stranger things have happened, but it’s looking like I may fall short of my plans again.

At this point, I started to write about the bleak world of international politics. I seem to be doing this far to often, and really do need to start a programme of cheering up.

This is always a bad time of year for me – the magnolias have fallen, the lilacs and the laburnum are out an I realise that the best part of the year is done.From here we just have summer and a decline into winter. It seems that spring is quicker every year and winters last longer.

The pictures are some of this years poppy pictures.

Spanish Poppy – slightly wind blown. They seem to be stronger flowers this year.

Welsh Poppy – a welcome self-seeded invader.

Day 121

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I finally got round to soup making. It was going to be roasted sweet potato soup, but as I lined up a group of hapless sweet potatoes, I noticed a bag of carrots lurking at the back of the veg rack. The trouble with my grocery ordering is that it can be a bit unadventurous and if, for instance, you get bored of carrots, but carry on ordering, you soon end up with a sorry-looking assortment. Add that to the bag of wrinkly ginger and my course of action became clear.

I now have a pan of carrot and ginger soup waiting for tomorrow’s lunch. and  a pan of roasting vegetables, mostly carrots, in the oven. As a result of ill-advised handling of my stick blender I also have some new colours on the wall and on my jumper. Fortunately, it will wash. Luckily I had not added turmeric.

As I say, unadventurous.

In a moment I will be warming a few greens and making some gravy. It will be made using gravy granules as I am lazy and have no pride in my cookery. In an ideal world I would be wearing an apron and making gravy from scratch as a cheerful family gathered round. That is how gravy is so often portrayed. You don’t often see gravy adverts where a single man in a bedsit makes a pan of gravy, livens it up with a good slug of cheap vodka and sits down to eat amongst the dust, regrets and tortured memories of times with his family . . .

Julia says I am no loss to the world of advertising.

In actually started off in quite an upbeat mood and intended talking about poppies. I am going to serve up now and think about a second post.

Day 120

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On a scale of 1-10, where 10 makes me think of amputation as a realistic cure, I started last week with a left hand experiencing a flare up to level 8, which has now reduced to a level 4. It’s still sore but is mainly limited to one finger – the hand is just about useless but doesn’t hurt when at rest. The right hand started at around a 6 and has reduced to 2. It’s still not great but, as I proved at work today, if I have the right size of box and am able to get it at the point of balance, I can still lift a decent weight of medallions. The left hand is less good – I came close to letting an empty plate slip from my grasp when moving it tonight without proper planning.

What I consider level 1 has changed over the years. For many years I didn’t even think about my fingers and it was a bit of a shock to suddenly find myself with the hands of an old man, which happened virtually overnight. A bit like my white hair. One day it became shot with grey and after six months of pepper and salt I woke up one morning to find it had gone white. Of course, that was better than the events of a few years later, when I woke up and it had just gone . . .

Fortunately my self-image doesn’t revolve around my looks.

It’s methotrexate night  on Saturday (a far  cry from the Saturdays of my younger self). I take it on Saturday night as it allows me Sunday to get over any possible digestive consequences. Methotrexate can be a strange medication and the effects are still a little random.

It is ironic, as I may have observed before, that pills to treat arthritis, which in my case causes stiff fingers and much diminished grip, should come in the form of tiny pills and, often, in a bottle with a fiendish child-proof top. I intend to have a small laugh about that as I wrestle with them.