Tag Archives: displacement activity

Back to Work

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Sherwood, Nottingham

I could have put it off for a few more days, but I am nearly back to normal and as Julia is no longer on holiday life at home is quite boring. If I had lots of energy I could do things, but as I am still quite tired all I do is drape myself on the furniture and stare at the computer or the TV. It’s OK, but it’s not really a good way to spend the day.

The truth is that if I felt this way in normal times, I wouldn’t even think of having a day off work. I have a sniff and a cough, feel washed out but am generally fine and able to get to work. However, having had three weeks of serious breathing problems, I’m a little more wary. But you have to go back some time.

It ws a gentle reintroduction to work. One person had ordered two things over night and then, a minute later, cancelled. Four others had ordered and paid for items. One more had ordered three things and wanted to know what the combined postage was. By 10.30, they were all ready, and the coffee was on the desk.

Sunset in Nottingham

By early afternoon, as I entered items onto eBay, I was bored. It happens. My camera, despite being turned up to “Vivid” was producing photos with a yellow cast – making white things look cream.  I found the black & white setting (which I had lost) whilst looking for adjustments to the colour. I also secured an ASDA delivery slot and ordered the basics, and checked out the details for applying for a free bus pass. I want to do this as soon as possible so I can use it while it’s still possible to use the trams for free. The Council is thinking of stopping this, as they have to pay the tram company and are currently looking to make budget cuts.

It is convenient for visiting the treatment centre at Queen’s Medical (which accounts for two of the three tram journeys I have taken). If I can get free travel I will make it a project to visit every tram stop on the network before we leave Nottingham. To be fair, at £5.30 for an all day ticket, I will probably do the trip even if I have to pay. Where else can you fill a day for £5.30?

Sunset over Basford, Nottingham

Pictures are general Nottingham shots.

A Day for Small Jobs

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I started off by delivering Julia into servitude at 8.30 this morning. She’s not fond of Thursdays as she has to rush across town at 4pm to get from one job to another before finally being allowed home at 8pm.

Then I went to Newark. It was cold, business was non-existent and the tale of the last two weeks was one of cold, snow and poverty. After an exchange of cards, a cup of tea and a laugh about old times (there’s nothing to laugh about at the moment) I went browsing in W H Smiths looking for writing paper. I didn’t find any. The notes in my Christmas cards will, as a result, be written on paper torn from a spiral-bound notebook. To be fair, this is a more accurate reflection of me than smart writing paper.

A trip round Wilkos netted a tin of Vaseline lip-care products for Julia, a bucket of fat balls for the birds for £4 and a chicken and stuffing sandwich for £1. Yes, I know, I’m not supposed to be eating bread. However, as I’d already treated my self to a sausage and onion cob for breakfast I didn’t think a chicken sandwich was going to do too much extra damage, either to my waistline or my digestion.

From there it was a quick trip to the doctor to put in some prescription requests and on to TESCO for healthy veg and new gloves.

Resisting the urge to go home I visited the shop to drop off Christmas cards to my new colleagues (I’m such a creep) and helped with the delivery of two new cabinets for the new shop. It’s starting to take shape.

I then went home, supposedly to post on the blog but actually to engage in a variety of displacement activities, including sleeping in front of the TV, watching TV, checking ebay, picking Julia up from work, browsing the internet, writing notes to go in Christmas cards and warming up soup. I was tempted to say “cooking” but I’m pretty sure preparing soup and a sandwich isn’t cooking. We normally have something more substantial but after a day that saw us both deviating from our diets we thought we’d cut back a bit.

I even managed to do a bit of reading, having bought the Kindle edition of Maya and the Book of Everything by Laurie Graves. It’s going quite well so far. We’re right into the action and moving along nicely and there’s no boring stuff about chivalry or whales. She is therefore already ahead of Cervantes and Melville in my estimation. On the minus side there’s a definite lack of talking animals, though Sir John Oldcastle is about to make an appearance. I like Sir John.

 

 

A Walk in Wikipedia

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It all started with Derrick J Knight. The man is a bad influence, though probably not as bad as Wikipedia.

His mention of a Spong mincer set my mind back to a time when, in my early 20s, I was firmly based in the cookery traditions of my mother – Be-Ro cookbook, Spong mincer and pressure cooker.

I’ve just spent a happy couple of hours delving into various links and thinking about the cookery of my youth.

In those days we had savoury mince or Cottage Pie (which is not much of a stretch, just savoury mince with mashed potato on top). Spag Bol and chilli con carne were still some years off. If you wanted exotic food when I was a kid you had a Vesta meal or  prawn cocktail, and you had it with lettuce. Avocados ranked with Unicorns in those days. (I was going to say “hen’s teeth” but even as a kid I knew chicks were born with an egg tooth. It’s a throw-back to when they were dinosaurs). Not all my useless knowledge comes from Wikipedia.

I’ve also been looking into the Laws of Rugby in reply to a discussion on yesterday’s France  v Wales game. That’s not as relaxing as thinking about food.

I’m planning to look at poetry next, as I need some new titles and I should really give Gray’s Elegy a rest.

No photographs for now, I don’t have any relevant food photos and there’s no point photographing a pile of poetry books as I’ve just said I’m browsing poetry on the web.

Instead, I’ll leave you with this thought:

“There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.”
― Bill Watterson