Tag Archives: diary

Dull Day Blues

There are so many things I could write about, but somehow they all get crowded out of my head by the sight of a keyboard. It wouldn’t be so bad if I had an interesting life, but I don’t, and all my days seem to be much the same.

If the town was on fire and I needed to bury my cheese, or if my tailor was making me several new suits I could, I suppose, have a diary as interesting as that of Samuel Pepys. If I had a bicycle or a road full of ponies, I could be as . . .

. . . well, you’ve all been round WP, you tell me.

Other people also write interesting blogs, so don’t feel left out, it’s just that I identify with some more than others.

Today I will just settle for telling you about posting prohibited items to China. I’m not sure of the exact range, but here are a few examples – both of prohibited goods and the irony of some of the listings.

There are a number of sensible prohibitions in place – you aren’t, as far as I know, allowed to send radio-active material through the post to any country. I also know that Bosnia Herzegovina specifically prohibits the sending of nuclear reactors through the post. I’d love to see the size of their envelopes.

Books . . .

For China, you cannot send “Articles infringing upon intellectual property rights; and counterfeit and shoddy products” which is ironic, considering the amount of copyright infringement, theft and counterfeit and shoddy goods which the Chinese are responsible for. Pot, kettle, black, as we say.

“Endangered wild animals as well as their products Such as ivory; tiger bone; rhinoceros horn and their products; etc” Enough said . . .

Then there are books. “Illegal publications; printed matters; audiovisual products and other propaganda materials Books; publications; pictures; photos; audiovisual products that contain reactionary contents; contents inciting nationality hatred; undermining state unity; destroying social stability and propagating evil cults and religious extremism; or obscene contents etc”.

This seems to include second hand reference books on coins. I know this because the courier we tried to employ to deliver two old coin books refuses to take any books at all to China. Fortunately, if you take out the reference to “coin books” and then write “coin catalogues” the automated booking form accepts it without a qualm.

I was enjoying the thought of being a dangerous reactionary intent on destroying state unity by sending two old coin books, but it seems I’m not that interesting. However, it does strike me (and I’m not advocating breaking any laws) that if you did want to send a nuclear reactor to Bosnia Herzegovina you could probably do so if you change the customs declaration to “car parts”.

Stack of books burning

More Time Passes

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It is getting colder and I am wearing more layers. As we move into December I have to remind myself that it is only 15 days until the shortest day. I like the idea of more daylight, and the year starting to turn towards spring already. I am less keen on the thought of my life rushing by. It is now only five days until I have to inject myself again, and I need to organise two blood tests. I just hope that I don’t run out of blood.

Casting an eye over various things, I noted a BBC podcast titled “Why do we procrastinate?” I’ve made a mental note to go back and read it when I have time. There is so much interesting stuff available on the internet that it is hard to keep up.

We have frost forecast for the coming week, but so far it has been very mild. This is probably a surprise to those of you living in cold places, as we rattle on about winter so much in UK but rarely have much real winter weather. I have never, for instance, felt the need to wear snow shoes when going about my normal business in winter, or to use a snow blower. Mostly we sprinkle a bit of salt about and walk carefully. Photographs from a few years ago show frost, but I haven’t had to clear my windscreen yet, though this may change.

It’s getting close to Christmas, and with more Post Office strikes coming, I really must send the cards, as all the final delivery dates have been rescheduled. I am starting to worry about the future of our postal service. The constant strikes, on top of the reduced service levels suffered since Covid, are very wearing, particularly as prices keep rising as service levels decline. eBay is already starting to recommend alternatives, which is worrying when you consider how much Royal Mail depends on eBay business. I wonder how long it will be before we see a catastrophic change in UK postal services. You can send emails instead of letters, and use other delivery services for parcels, but what about Christmas? Emails are not an acceptable substitute for Christmas cards.

Day 89

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So far I have made breakfast, watched TV, done some washing up and looked at some recipes on the web. It is time to start cooking new things. I have not yet done any writing or any planning. Fortunately I have 10 hours left today and 24 more tomorrow. With 34 hours left I don’t need to worry too much. Plenty of time . . .

Julia is out at the moment doing mysterious things. They probably aren’t all that mysterious, and I’m sure that she would tell me what she was doing if I asked. On the other hand, if I do ask she will probably tell me, at great length and probably while I am trying to do something else like watching Pointless.

W had a chat about tofu this morning. She thinks I am missing a nutritious treat but has agreed not to make me eat it any more. This counts as a victory in life’s struggle, and an example of why talking about problems is a good thing to do.

We are still in the middle of a pandemic and WW3 is still on the horizon, but yes, I feel that my dislike of tofu is more worthy of discussion. If this were the BBC rather than a blog about random events in the life of a nobody, things might be different. It would even be different if I had any ambition to be a heavyweight blogger of international reputation, instead of just a heavyweight blogger. I keep meaning to read the diary of Nella Last and see what she writes about, but so far, apart from watching Victoria Wood on TV, haven’t done anything about it. She wrote 12 million words. I’m just coming up to a million. What a slacker!

Interestingly, her son Clifford, went to Australia after the war and has work displayed in the Art Gallery at Ballarat, a town which sometimes features in the blog Paol Soren. Small world, and all that.

Sports, Snake Oil and a Senior Moment

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In sports coaching, they say that it only takes two weeks to break a habit. I’ve even heard an Olympic athlete say that it isn’t self-discipline that keeps people training, it’s habit. When the kids said they wanted to take up sport I told them one thing – that I would support them but that they wouldn’t be allowed to come home from school and tell me they didn’t feel like training that night. The only acceptable way was to arrange it in advance because they had something else to do. I didn’t mind them having a social life but they had to have structure.heir training. As result, even when it meant one of them spending two hours on buses to get to training (I had to give the other one a lift somewhere else that night) we never missed a night’s training unless we’d planned to do so.

Four months ago I had more than two weeks off and I broke then habit of daily posting on WordPress. It always takes a lot more effort to establish a habit than to break it, and it’s taking more time and effort than I thought to get back into it. Same for reading WordPress, writing poetry and checking eBay. They are all broken habits that I’m finding hared to re-establish. The only habit I’ve successfully restarted is procrastination. Ironic really, that I wasted no time in starting to procrastinate once I was well.

The difficulty in trying to re-establish a good habit is covered in the material I’ve had from the NHS on-line weight loss programme. You get a choice of several organisations which will provide support in your efforts to lose weight and keep it off. The one I selected seems to give off many of the vibes I associate with snake oil salesmen. But that, of course, may just be me. Or it might be that I didn’t need a team of bright and bouncy people to tell me that the way to lose weight is to eat less. I knew that without watching a video.

Meanwhile, regarding “Senior Moments”, I got up this morning with the intention of going for a blood test, checked the time, and realised that the test is next Wednesday. I really must get a diary and start writing things down.

Ditto

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It was a cold day and nothing much happened.

I don’t think that Pepys or Bridget Jones have much to fear. I am not going to be much competition as a diarist.

I seem to recall it was a cold day yesterday and nothing much happened…

I might title today’s post “Ditto”. In fact, I will.

Anything that was out of the ordinary today, as in problems with customers on EBay and enquiries on the phone, were just repeats of ones I’ve described before. I won’t bore you with the details, just read an old post where I complain about customers, but imagine I’m cold too.

I’m going to write a short post today, but will write more later to keep up my average.

The photo is Arkwright the Tortoise, you may remember him from last year. I haven’t seen him recently, he’s probably snoring in a box of straw in the garage. Tortoises have a very sensible attitude to winter.

Wednesday 8th July Part I

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Today I am going to use my time wisely, and am going to blog about it at the same time. That way I will end the day with a list of jobs I have done and will also be able to get three or four blog posts out of it.

At 3 am I woke to the sound of swearing and argument. I’d fallen asleep in my chair with the TV on and Gordon Ramsay was offering foul-mouthed advice to an American restaurant that needed turning round in 24 hours. I don’t watch the programme when I’m awake. If I need cursing, conflict and criticism I can get all that at home without having to watch a celebrity chef behaving badly.

You can’t deny that he works hard, contributes to charity and is very successful. But he doesn’t present himself well and he did, let’s be honest, run off to Cornwall when we had to go into lockdown, despite the government guidelines telling us not to leave home.

At 4.59 and 7.46 I woke again. My prostate is playing up again. I’m hoping that it corrects itself as the thought of an examination is actually worse than getting up during the night.

I decided not to go for my regular blood test today. I will go tomorrow before work as I like to be there before 8.30 when it opens – you can’t always get a parking space if you get down later.

The Methotrexate seems to be working for the arthritis and I actually got my trousers on this morning and didn’t even think about it until I typed this sentence. The side effects seem to have gone away. Apart from the bent fingers the only noticeable sign of arthritis is that the little finger of my left hand is stuck out and one of the joints in it is rather stiff. Considering that in March my hands were unusable and I could barely dress myself, this is a good result. I f it means I have a finger like an elitist tea drinker.

I have now checked my messages, read a few links and written 400words. It is 9.16 so I will add photos and post this before making breakfast. (Later – it is now 9.26 after loading a photograph and doing a touch of editing.)

I really ought to take pictures specifically to go with this, but will re-use one of the garden poppies. For one thing, it is a dull day, and for another, I am lazy. I am also adding a layer of complexity to the task by typing without glasses, so will get them while I am up.

Wednesday 8th July Part I

Wednesday 8th July Part II

Wednesday 8th July Part III

Wednesday 8th July Part IV

Wednesday 8th July Part V

Lockdown Diaries

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My diary for yesterday – 29 April 2020. I’m writing it in the early hours of the next day after a full day of loafing. I thought I’d have a go at writing a diary so I can look back in years to come. I also means that I can moan in this one and write a soup recipe in the other post.

Despite my commitment to earlier rising I managed to roll over and go back to sleep after Julia got up. This is becoming a habit and something I need to avoid. It started as a matter of practicality – I would let everyone else in the house use the bathroom and dress before rushing round, eating breakfast prepared by Julia and then giving her a lift to work.

It has, over the years, become less a matter of practicality and more a matter of laziness. I am also finding, with having arthritis, that it isn’t so easy to rush in a morning. I used to resemble a meercat, bright and busy, but I now move like a tectonic plate. The grating in my knees and back adds to the impression of geological motion.

My back has been particularly bad for the last three days and I’m having trouble getting around. I am using my stick even to get round the house. Last week I had trouble with my knees and ended up wearing a knee brace. I seem to be falling apart by installments.

When I finally creaked downstairs the post had already been and I had a letter about a telephone consultation with rheumatology. I’m beginning to wonder why we can’t always do it by phone, apart from blood tests and X-Rays. Later in the day I had a phone call to tell me the blood tests results were OK and I could start taking the Methotrexate. This was an exact copy of the call I had yesterday, They are trying to patch a service together using part-time staff and staff out of retirement, and there are a few rough edges. On the other hand, it’s not a great problem to get an extra phone call – it’s a lot better than not getting the results at all, which, unfortunately, has happened in the past.

The Methotrexate has several side effects, and I think I may have one of them as my stomach is giving trouble. After taking the pills last night (you take six on one day and then take a vitamin pill on the other six days) I did not feel very well. On the other hand it may be coincidence. The vitamin pills are to help counter some of the drug’s side effects. You know you have problems when you have to take pills to protect you from the other pills you are taking.

If I had my life over again I would look after my health and my money more sensibly. And my wife.

I made soup for lunch, which I have already written about.

plastic container with fruits and vegetables on green grass

Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

Later I went online and finalised my grocery order. We have a Click & Collect order to pick up tomorrow and, as it’s difficult to order groceries two weeks in advance, it needed quite a lot of alteration. You have to secure a slot as soon as it becomes available and worry about the details later.

I did put in an order two weeks ago and haven’t been able to alter it until now. The original order had 19 items and they were unable to supply five of them. I cancelled some things and added others. When I went to checkout I found four of the items were out of stock, including the flour. Twenty minutes and they were already cancelling things…

I went back to the flour to look for alternatives and there were none, However, they were still showing my original selection to be in stock. I thought I’d order it again just to check. It was out of stock when I got back to checkout. I am thinking bad thoughts about ASDA.

Six weeks after the panic buying and I still can’t buy flour. I also had trouble with eggs, baked beans and tinned chickpeas. Makes you wonder about the “robust supply chains” they claim they have.

The ASDA site even asks if you can go round the shop instead of using the delivery or collection services. To be honest, no. If I do click and collect or delivery I meet one or two people, who keep well away from me. Mathematically that’s a lot better than walking round a shop full of people who walk too close.

I’m not a great worrier, but I’ve decided on a strategy and I’m going to keep to it.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

Today!

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I’ve given myself a proper talking to, and I really am going to do better at keeping the blog up to date. I rarely seem to write about the events of the day these days, and that removes the diary element from the day’s writing.

I am trying to get that back.

This morning I rose sluggishly and dragged myself to the bathroom. They tell me that exercise is good for arthritis (yes,Clare Pooley, I’m looking at you as I write this) but I’m not sure that’s true. My knee and back seem definitely do not seem improved the day after I’ve been walking.

This handsome Robin is from February 2018, though he has been seen many times in later posts…

I breakfasted on a bacon sandwich (Julia hasn’t quite got the hang of meat-free Mondays) and a slice of toast and jam. This was a good start to the morning, though I’m not sure that a man on a diet really needs a slice of toast and sugar. It’s like offering an alcoholic a cocktail – no matter how you dress it up, the bad stuff is still at the bottom of it. Because I am weak-willed I ate the toast.

This is our fourth week of taking a different route to work on Monday. Julia works from the office on Mondays and we go through town. Unfortunately, part of the road is closed, and will be until May, as they repair a large chunk of Nottingham’s decrepit gas system.

The first gas supply in Nottingham was used on 14 April 1819, to light ten gas lamps in the city. Crowds came to gawp, being mesmerised by the miracle of modern light, and also terrified of a gas explosion. The Nottingham Gas Light and Coke Company provided gas for many years before being taken over by the corporation in 1874, which was in turn nationalised in 1949.

Sunset over Sherwood – February 2018

The mains in question are, like the ones replaced last year, from the 1960s. It surprises me they are so new, I thought they lasted longer than that. Anyway, they have lasted fifty years, and are now going to inconvenience me for the next four months.

If my 31-year-old self had set off walking at the same time as my 61-year-old self set off by car today it’s likely the walk we would have got to town sooner. The roads were very congested and the traffic was slow.

This congestion isn’t helped because there seem to be roadworks everywhere. Whether it’s using up budgets, inefficiency or bad luck, I do not know. Though I can hazard a guess.

After dropping Julia off I manoeuvred by a builders’ lorry which was blocking a road and, judging by the reaction from the builders, used several words they didn’t expect from a white-haired, bald old coot.

Late February 2018, we have a way to go before we can congratulate ourselves on a mild winter

Traffic was light on the other side of town and I was able to get to work in plenty of time to start packing. We had 21 parcels for the post, so it was a good thing I was in early. Several things happened this morning, some of which would be very amusing if I were the sort of person to publish gossip on his blog. But I’m not.

Someone came in from a local Sikh temple with the foreign coins and notes out of the various charity collections they have made.

After that it was time to close and spend the afternoon in errands. I shopped, took prescriptions to the doctors and made an appointment, then took my tyre to the garage. They will look at it and tell me if I simply need it reinflating or if I have damaged the (nearly new) tyre and need a new one.

A better Little Egret – February 2017 Blacktoft Sands

At home I washed up, blogged, watched TV, fell asleep, woke to eat vegetable stew and dumplings, watched TV, washed up, made sandwiches (tuna) for tomorrow and blogged. That’s what I’m doing now.

Well, I’m blogging and wondering at the the repetitive banality of my life.

To further labour the point I’m going to use some photos from previous Februaries.

Thomas Paine is from February 2016.

Blogger or Diarist?

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This is, I suppose, the sort of day that differentiates a blogger from a diarist. A diarist would examine the ins and outs of the election results, give a few opinions and generally squirrel away a bit of archival material for future generations. A blogger would merely write about potatoes and similar trivia.

A diarist might try to pass opinions on what has happened, but they might turn bitter and after half an hour of bitterness he might get fed up with it all and turn back into a blogger.

That way I can suggest that the political life of this country may well be improved if we cut Scotland loose, literally, and floated it off to Europe. Then we could give Ulster to the Republic of Ireland, dig a moat along the Welsh border and settle down to running our own country properly.

While we are all breaking up I might also declare my house and garden to be independent, add a sentry box to the front garden, put one of those stripey poles across the entrance to the drive, call it Checkpoint Charles.

It will be a small country but every bit as useful and relevant to world politics as Wales or Scotland or any of the other ambitious but useless tiny countries that clutter the UN up.

I will, I think, be in a stronger position than many of these countries as I’m going to offer Amazon the use of my shed for “accounting purposes” and operate an “offshore” financial institution from the coalshed. The garage is already spoken for – it’s going to be the official mint of Quercusonia and we’ll be knocking out coins, banknotes and stamps for collectors, just like Tristan da Cunha I might even start my own internet domain, as there are plenty of q’s left – the only current one being Qatar. Quercuscommunity.qs sounds quite good.

Coin of Cabinda

The coins are from Cabinda. I bet most of you are thinking “Where?” I think there’s a bright future ahead for us smaller countries.

We will, of course, be happy to take part in UN Peacekeeping missions, preferably for two weeks at a time and in Cyprus, or another holiday destination, though we don’t really have the manpower for full-scale military operations. More to the point – we don’t have a gun.

I’m not sure whether to be a Republic, a Monarchy or a Soviet, or merely continue with our current system of benign despotism, where Julia orders me around most of the time but also brings me cakes when she comes home from work. It has worked for 30 years, which is more than some countries manage, and as you can see from the header picture, she is among the better looking world leaders. We had Belgian Buns tonight. If you look at the link you will see they are mentioned along with something Swiss, and Danish pastries. If cakes can be international and get on with each other, why can’t humans?

Doctors, Death and Diaries

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I had my phone call from the doctor today and I will be picking up my replacement prescription tomorrow. We had a wide-ranging discussion, with him insisting that I’d had the prescription and me insisting that I hadn’t, and that his own receptionists had sworn blind to Julia it wasn’t on their system and we had never handed it in. After asking me if it was possible that I’d had the prescription and forgotten it (I said no) he conceded it was possible it had been mislaid around the practice.

He then laid into me for not following up on a year-old blood test which shows me have worryingly high levels of something I didn’t quite catch.

“When I rang for those results,” I said, “I was told it was all good and didn’t need any action.”

“Ah, we seem to have coded it wrong.” he said.

I’m definitely going to start keeping a diary of my dealings with the NHS from now on. It’s quite possible that at this rate I’ll end up with a letter telling me I only have 12 months to live, and a second one apologising for the 13 month delay in sending the other letter.

I’ve still not had satisfactory answers to the questions I asked about my two cancelled operations in 2017. I gave up on one of them and the other one promised to get back to me. I’m sure that having taken 30 months to compose her answer, she will have a really good answer when it arrives.

That, I think, will do for the day. Nothing much happened and my brain is slowing down. I probably need chocolate, but that, according to the doctor, would be the same as ingesting poison.

There are some days when, to be honest, a glass of hemlock seems very attractive.

The pictures are from a set of silver Britannia coins we have in stock – they were specially made in 2006 by the Royal Mint and have had an additional coating of matt-finish silver and highlighting in gold. They are handsome coins.