Tag Archives: health moans

The Surly Bonds of Earth

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Plastic Poppies at Wilford

Just a few notes. I’m short of time and style must give way to speed.

Off to Nottingham for a while tomorrow – we have things like blood tests and parcel deliveries to attend to, and more things to pack.

The splint on my wrist, after failing me yesterday, is back doing its job and everything feels more comfortable. Having said that, I am quite frustrated by the constant small things that keep going wrong with me and my life.

The methotrexate injection sage is an example of this – basically two months messing about to get a prescription changed from pills to injections. So much red tape! Hopefully that will all be settled next week. It will make the move easier because they only give me 4 weeks of pills, but I get 12 weeks of injections.

Poppies with bee

It was the meeting of the Military History Group tonight – a detailed piece of research done by one of the members on airfields of WW2 and the squadrons that used them. It was packed with tantalising snippets of information, but there was so much else to get through that we didn’t have time to fully appreciate them. Did you know, for instance, that the great airfield expansion plan of the 1930s (when the government finally realised we were in deep trouble) was the work of the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, the man who designed the Cenotaph and  was involved in much of the Commonwealth War Graves architecture. To be honest, I thought he was dead by WW2, but he didn’t actually die until 1944.

He also mentioned (briefly) John McGee, an American serving in the RCAF. It seems he would like it read at his funeral. At that point I would have had a slide and a quote up on the screen, but he just passed on to another list. It’s here for people who don’t know it or, like me, never get tired of it. Sentimental? Yes, me and the poem.

There was also the story of the WAAF who took an unexpected flight. He dismissed that in a few lines and went back to talking about aeroplanes and bomb loads and runway lengths.

Poppies in the Mencap garden – Wilford

It took well over an hour. I know this because there is a clock in the room. I didn’t look at the start time but it was before 8..00 and it went on until almost 9.30. Julia, meanwhile, was beginning to think I’d been kidnapped.

Two other members provided extra material – one brought models of various aircraft mentioned in the talk and another brought some paperwork relating to a WW2 RAF bomber crewman from Peterborough. It was nice to see other people joining in. It was also nice to be in a warm room. I always find the heating to be insufficient at the

Poppies at East Leake

Numismatic Society.

A Rant About Groceries

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It’s just after midnight. The typing chair is a bit harder than I would like and is becoming uncomfortable, as my recent urological problems are still playing up. They aren’t really recent, it must be five weeks now – I will have to look it up. I will be discussing these problems on Thursday when my appointment at the GP finally comes round.

But first, I will look for a cushion. Self-help is always my first choice.

I can’t do much self help with the other problem, the lump on my arm. It is probably nothing, but it needs looking at. I lost a friend about 15 years ago. It started off as a small discolouration of the leg and over the course of three years, despite medical attention, it killed him. His wife, who coincidentally had a similar problem, but more advanced, had a more successful intervention and is still alive today. The moral of this is that you never know what is around the corner. I’ve had a couple of biopsies, several chest X-Rays (which are always a knee jerk over-reaction so don’t really count) and some cream to burn off some skin problems. What I haven’t had, so far, is cancer.I’m hoping that the current problem won’t be cancerous, and am hoping they can dig it out under local anaesthetic at the surgery. If it was on the front of my arm I would probably have a go at it myself, but it’s round the back and I can’t see it.

Meanwhile, more annoyingly, I switched from TESCO to ASDA for groceries this week. I have been getting annoyed with TESCO for never having parsnips so I tried ASDA. They are significantly cheaper with both food and delivery costs. Unfortunately they sent me a message this afternoon to say that they were substituting four items and that three were out of stock.

They swapped the lettuce, sent strawberries instead of raspberries, blueberries instead of figs and a full size cucumber instead of the small picnic size ones I ordered for Julia’s lunchbox.  Lettuce I can understand and the swap, and the same goes for the berries. They are all reasonable substitutions. Blue berries for figs, when we already have blueberries in the order? No way are they similar. Same for the cucumbers. I have half a full size one left, I specifically wanted the small ones.

Then there were the peppers – they couldn’t supply them. That is incomprehensible – TESCO has them in so many ways, surely ASDA could have found  a few, or a bag of mixed, or some green ones . . .

And finally – no flowers – which totally spoiled my great romantic gesture.

Then, to add insult to injury, they split the milk container and we found, after the driver had gone, that several cans were damaged. After paying them to deliver groceries we will still have to go out to buy milk.

This is very annoying.

I thought I’d reuse the Bath Inn and Doctor Who photos from Julia last week.