Tag Archives: good day

Turning a Corner

We set off earlier than usual and fought our way through a morning of glorious sunshine and patchy fog. It was bright, atmospheric and not great for visibility. On the way down I saw a kite closer to Nottingham than I’d ever seen one before (though they have actually been filmed in the Market Square) and another one being pursued by a crow. It’s amazing how they seem to have expanded their range in the last 12 months.

The delivery driver rang us to tell us he would be with us at 9.00, which was the start of our delivery window. We arrived minutes before he did. The delivery went well, the furniture slotted together and all went well. It is a touch smaller than expected. Or I am a touch larger than I ought to be, according to my sister. However, it is large enough and the compact nature of the product make s the living room look larger.

So far, so good.

I had my pension documents with me in case the new photos had gone wrong but, on checking my emails, found that the solicitor is now happy with them and I should be able to sign everything soon. Looks like we will get it done in time. It’s amazing what a difference a day can make. Now all we nee is for the builder to turn up and start the list of jobs that need doing and everything will be fine.

On the way back we even managed to get back to Nottingham before the traffic built up.

Next week, the new guest bed will arrive and we will be able to spend the night in comfort.

Sunbeams over Nottinghamshire

A Much Better Day

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Got up. Breakfast. Wrote a bit. Two cups of tea and a bit of exercise. Drove down to surgery.

The nurse, after much prodding and considering her options, hit blood on the second attempt and filled the necessary three tubes. I gave her a urine sample, which she had texted me about yesterday afternoon (my texts to and from the nursing profession, if that mythical future PhD student ever finds them, will appear slightly strange).

Did I ever tell you about the photo of my leg which I sent to the doctor. During the phone consultation surrounding my cellulitis (which I had a month before my first Covid) I was asked to provide a picture of my leg, which I did. It was not pleasant. A few minutes later I got a call.

“Mr Wilson,” she said, ” It’s X here from the surgery. Can you tell me why you sent this picture of your leg?” (She wasn’t really called X, I just forgot her name).

“The doctor asked me to send it.”

“Oh, that’s alright then.”

“Did you think I’d just sent you a picture of my festering leg.”

“You’s be surprised,” she said, with the air of one who has suffered, “if you saw some of the pictures people sent me.”

Got a parking space at work. Had a call from the man who sent Julia’s birthday present. It seems Parcelforce tried to deliver it three times – all at 9 o’clock and all to a shop that has it’s opening hours displayed as starting at 10am. Three times, no success. Why? And why no cards through the door? Normally would be there at 9.00 but because Julia has been off it’s been more like 9.15, or I would have seen them.

To try the exact same time twice is hopeful, to do it three times is jsut plain stupidity.

The rest of the day was quite good and my sister, having been round town with Julia all day, saw me for tea and chocolate biscuits before her return home.

Fish and chips for tea.

The pictures are some Julia took when they had a tour of some of the Mediaeval caves under the centre of town. This set used to be a tannery. The stench must have been dreadful.

All in all, a good day.

Day 134

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Got up, had a bacon croissant sandwich for breakfast, went to work and found a parking space. Home for lunch (it’s my half day) for vegetable soup I made last night. Does it get better than that?

The answer seems to be “no”. Nothing in the rest of the day, even watching Mega Shark Versus Kolossus and eating a Magnum choc ice, though good, failed to improve on the morning.

I suppose that an outbreak of world peace and a sudden dose of common sense influencing international politics would improve on a bacon sandwich, but it didn’t happen and so the day is tailing off. Julia will be making burritos for tea and Pointless Celebrities is on soon, so there are still things to look forward to, despite this anti-climax.

Yesterday, I found out a very interesting fact. Two, in fact. One is that rats and mice are unable to pass wind, in either direction. Julia said something very unkind when I told her this, but as I said, blame my healthy high-fibre diet. The second is that simply calling yourself “organic” doesn’t make you a nice person.

The reason I say this is because I found out how organic gardeners kill rats. Unfortunately, with neighbours who put out too much bird food and have BBQs and decking (all good stuff if you are a rat) I am forced to take action from time to time. I don’t want to poison a cat and I don’t want rats in the garden, so I use a trap. Organic gardeners have another method.

They don’t use poison, because that would be bad. They use baking soda, delivered in a number of ways,, usually mixed with peanut butter or a flour and sugar mix. The rats eat the baking soda, the soda reacts and produces carbon dioxide when it hits the digestive acids of the rat. And the rat, instead of releasing the gas, inflates.

You aren’t actually poisoning the rats, you are inflating them until their internal organs rupture. This, to me, seems a lot worse than simply poisoning or trapping them. Maybe I’m not cut out to be an eco-warrior.

An Excellent Apple Crumble and an Amusing Book

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Today started reasonably well and has ended up not being too bad.

That’s probably not the most inspiring opening, but it’s a fair summary. I have managed to get another submission done, have polished up a few bits for another one, tries writing a new form and still had time to cook.

We had shop-bought fishcakes tonight, with roasted cauliflower and cheese sauce (using the remains of the cheese sauce from yesterday’s Welsh Rarebit), potato wedges and sweetcorn. It was tasty, reasonably nutritious, and beige. I didn’t photograph it because the light golden brown fishcakes were the most colourful bit. The sweetcorn had faded to magnolia (it was half a tin left over from the fish pie), the cauli was off white and the sauce was made with white cheese and Dijon mustard, so was light beige. It would not have looked good on film.

After that we had apple crumble, which is basically a beige topping on a magnolia base. Again, tasty but uninspiring in a photographic sense.

Apart from that, it snowed. Several times. There wasn’t much but as it fell on frozen snow we could have done without it.

I’m sure other things happened in between, but I’m having trouble recalling them. All I want is another 41 words and I can sign this off and go to bed. Then, later in the week, I can have another blood test. The amount they have been tapping off recently you’d think I was made of the stuff.

Number One Son bought me a book club subscription for Christmas and the first one just arrived – The Diary of a Nobody. If I believed in fate anything like that, I’d think this was a message from a higher power. I am reading a chapter a night and picking up a few tips on diary writing as I go along.

Another day, Another List

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Determined to make up for my slow start to the week I wrote a list of jobs for Wednesday. The good news is that I completed the shopping list and think I managed to put everything on it (so many weeks I suddenly remember I’ve missed something off as it becomes too late to add anything). I also wrote the blog post for the day and typed a few haiku that were lying dormant in my notebooks. I need a few for the end of the month so this seems like a timely activity.

We also watched Father Brown this afternoon and ate the fresh bread that Julia had baked. It’s a tomato and cheese bread from a kit and, nicely crusty as a result of her use of the “Crusty” setting. It’s so long since I’ve used the bread maker that I had forgotten there was a setting for crustiness. If only I’d thought to put those two activities on the list.

The rest of the list did not go so well. It rarely does.

I conspicuously failed to shred the box of old documents by the side of the shredder, forgot to ring the Pharmacy with my PORN number, didn’t do any of my online course (I have lost the habit since they messed me about with the password change) and forgot to do anything about the casserole until too late (it needs two hours in the oven).

Sorry, what was that? You want to know why the Pharmacy wants a PORN number off me. It’s a Personal Order Reference Number. I really don’t know what you were thinking…

Nor, to be fair, do I know what the inventor of the PORN acronym was thinking of. I thought of making it one of my tags, but didn’t want to disappoint anyone, or attract the sort of readers who would be disappointed by this.

That’s a fair summary of my day. Nothing bad happened. On the plus side, though I didn’t pull up any (metaphorical) trees, we watched Father Brown and ate warm home made bread with cheese and pickles. I have had many days that have been worse than this. Judging from the weather forecast, I had a better day than a lot of people who are having snow and floods.

A Man Without a Smiling Face Must Never Write a Blog

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Or, as the Chinese proverb says: A Man Without a Smiling Face Must Never Open a Shop. I’m dubious about many of these so-called Chinese proverbs, but the content is accurate, even if the attribution is not.

I’ve been unloading the stress of the day by complaining about roadworks, emails and various other things when I thought I’d look up the ten worst days in history. Compared to them I’m doing well. I have not been killed, tortured or rendered extinct today. Nor am I hungry, thirsty or in fear of my life.

In fact I’ve had a more than adequate day. It would have been better for the absence of roadworks, emails and the variety of other things that happened, but we did make jam and biscuits, we did start to get the Technicolour Dreamcoat song right and we did have a visit from a representative of the Woodland Trust, who thanked us for our efforts in tree recording, gave us gifts and delivered copies of the latest report. It’s nice to be appreciated by someone. Sound people, the Woodland Trust, and I’m not just saying that because I’ll be needing a job in a month’s time.

Our Woodland Trust Reports

Quite apart from the work they do with the farm, they have supported Quercus in various ways over the years and always treated the group with respect. Working with them is one of the main things we are going to miss when we leave because it’s a proper project with the possibility of important results. It’s a bit more serious than looking after a few hens or making biscuits, though I do like chickens and biscuits. Mainly biscuits, if I’m honest.

Biscuits

Anyway, back to smiling – it makes everything seem better. I could have made myself quite miserable by moaning about my day, but instead I’ve made myself happy. (Though that may be because of the biscuits).

The Fifth Day

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It’s Friday so it must be…

…another school.

Fortunately it was just a class of 12, which made things easier. The keets behaved impeccably and the dough was the best I’ve ever seen a group make. That was surprising as many of them were quite small and small people often have trouble putting enough energy into the job. It’s even harder when you have difficulty reaching the table.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The hardest bit of the week is turning out to be finding new things to say each time, though the endless cleaning is, I admit, making me lose the will to live.

😉

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Life after the Care Farm