Tag Archives: lost glasses

A Bad Start, but it Improved

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Moorhen at Arnot Hill Park

Today started badly. I woke up, noted the degree of daylight coming through the curtains and checked that Julia had already got up. I was just deciding to turn over and snooze until the alarm went (which I estimated would be quite soon), when Julia shouted up and asked if I was getting up. It seems, after I looked at the clock, that I had set the alarm for the wrong time and should have been up ten minutes ago. It’s not a good start to the day.

Then I realised, as I set off, that I had forgotten my glasses. Fortunately I have spare pairs. My arms have been getting shorter over the years and I can no longer hold things far enough away from my face to let my eyes focus. It’s very annoying, as nobody warned me about this. I’d have carried weights around if I’d known I would need to stop my arms shrinking.

Arnot Hill Park, Arnold, Nottingham

I arrived at work, trying to act as if I was bright and early, switched everything on and started getting the things together for parcels. The spare glasses I keep on my desk have tortoiseshell frames and seem very bright after wearing black frames. The first twenty minutes felt like I was staring through a luminous orange porthole. Fortunately my eyes soon adjusted.

Last night I had a problem with my injector pen. I couldn’t get the plunger to click and release the needle, which was a bit annoying.  This was multiplied by the feeling that it was caused by the abundant nature of the fat pad I was trying to inject into. The trick, for those of you who don’t know, is to pinch some abdominal fat and inject into that instead of the abdominal muscles. It’s much easier with the needles that you press yourself because they don’t need much pressure. However, they don’t seem to do the arthritis drugs in that form – they come in a massive spring-loaded contraption that has to be pressed firmly against the injection site. When you press hard enough the plunger trips the release and what feels like a massive needle is driven into your flesh. It’s actually quite a fine needle, it’s just the strength of the spring that makes it feel so bad.

Arnot Hill Park, Arnold, Nottingham

In fact, after I failed to trip the spring, i pressed it against a piece of plastic to see if it was working. It was. It narrowly missed my finger and I sprayed immunosuppressant all over my hand. I also ascertained, to my surprise, that it is a very fine needle.

The rest of the day, I’m glad to report, was better than the start. We made last night’s stew into soup and had it with crisps and a pasty whilst watching quizzes on TV. I am better than some of the Mastermind contestants on general knowledge (though I am sitting comfortably at home), got a few of the links on Only Connect (though some were childishly easy tonight) and then entered the world of University Challenge. I still think the team members are part of some freakish experiment, but I did manage to get a few right, including one or two that they got wrong. However, many of the questions went right over my head, because the world of University Challenge is very different from the one which I inhabit.

Mallard

That’s it for now. I will post some photographs, do a bit of reading, attempt to write a few tanka and then go to bed.

 

Day 38

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I’m beginning to realise that although the numbering of blog posts is liberating, and saves time, it is also quite limiting.

In the past it has sometimes taken a significant amount of time to come up with a title, particularly when I was looking for a pun or alliteration. It is a lot easier just to sling down “Day 38” and press the “Publish” button.

Unfortunately, it is also quite easy to get stuck in a rut and just jot down a list of things I did, or didn’t, do in the course of a day. I have been noticing this recently. It is like an invisible editor sitting on my shoulder and prodding me in the ear every time I start to deviate from the format.

Without realising it, I have allowed the blog to become a list of my daily event, or at least, a portion of my daily events. I must try for more variety.

On arrival this morning, I realised I’d left my glasses at home. Next to the notebook I’d been writing in just before bed, in fact. My work glasses were at home because I’d tidied my desk last week and moved them. NO worries, I always carry a spare pair in my bag . . .

Well, that’s the theory. As my hand met thin air I realised I’d been using them at the home computer the night before. Sometimes even the best of plans break down. Fortunately my co-worker had a spare pair that worked for me, and saved the day.

I’m currently wearing my “work pair” which will go in the bag when I finish. The “main pair” are still upstairs. I suspect the “spare pair” are somewhere in the living room or by the computer, it’s just that my “system” consists of putting things down then putting things on top of them. I rarely actually lose things, but the stratification can make it difficult to find lost glasses.

Julia is going to love this post, because she has ben telling me I should tidy my desk for at least three weeks. Sigh . . .

The photo is a cigarette case with the design of a French 1,000 Franc banknote on it . The banknote is around 1927 and the case is probably about the same. We weren’t sure how to price it on eBay and feel that as it sold about twenty minutes after we uploaded it, that we may have erred on the cheap side. That’s the trouble with unusual items, you don’t always get it right, However, we are solvent, so we must be doing something right., and we just made a collector happy, which is an important part of the job.