Tag Archives: senior moment

Time, Pressure and Procrastination

Yesterday I went to work as usual, checked the overnight sale, found there were just two, and decided to catch up with some writing admin that needed doing. On an ordinary evening I have seven hours to do this and haven’t managed to do it. Yesterday, with 30 minutes to spare, I managed to get it all done. There’s something about time and pressure that makes me a lot more industrious.

I go in about an hour before I’m due to start, in case you are wondering about me skiving – it’s the time I get to work after dropping Julia off. It’s not terribly convenient, but it’s hard to do anything useful in that time when you’re worrying about getting to work on time, or worrying about getting a parking space, so it’s easier to go to work. I give them a few hours a week extra, but I don’t feel guilty if |I need an hour here and there for medical reasons and vaccination.

The same applies to submissions. I can, on a slow month, spend weeks getting round to it and then, as this month, do three in two nights when the end of the submission window starts to loom.

I still have one set of submissions, possibly two, for the end of this month, but I’m nearly there with one set and have to decided if I’m going ahead with the other.

Half of me says I should have ago. The other half says that it’s a new editor and I don’t want to send in something that might not be 100% right. I’m in possession of three halves again, I must stop doing this. The third half has just cut in and pointed out to me that it’s never 100% right anyway and one of the editors I’m submitting to this month never takes anything anyway. We don’t seem to be fated to work together. It’s like thee is some cosmic mismatch. Or, to be more sensible, he has an idea of what a haibun should be, and I fail to match it. He has even told me, several times, why he has turned something down. I struggle to understand why he thinks I’m missing the mark. I read the magazine intently looking for a clue, and as far as I can see, many of the accepted submissions aren’t hitting the mark either. One day, with persistence and experience, I will get one in.

Anyway, time for work now. Eighteen minutes and I have written a blog post, something that took several hours last night, including playing games and staring at the ceiling. Time pressure is good for me.

Having said that, I just realised I wrote the post as a new page rather than a new post. Another senior moment…

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Not Quite a Senior Moment…

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I really don’t know what to write about. I did do part of a post earlier this evening but I decided I ned more time so I can do it properly. That’s the trouble. My past is littered with posts that need more time. Somehow I manage to forget about them time after time…

It’s cold here tonight, and wet and windy. I really want to put the fire on, but it’s the second half of May and it doesn’t seem right. Better to be cold than soft.

I’m starting to get perilously close to a couple of deadlines and I’m falling behind with a daily writing challenge I set myself. It’s been going for four weeks now and I’ve managed to get behind every week. Fortunately I manage to pull it round each time.

I woke up in front of the TV last night after Julia had gone to bed and thought I was having a heart attack. I had a terrible burning pain in the chest, radiating up through my neck and into my jaw. Even as I was searching for pen and paper for a final message to Julia, I remembered some of the final words of the pharmacist relating to my new anti-coagulation drugs.

“Take it with food,” he said, ” preferably a proper meal.”

Yes, I had indigestion caused by throwing down a pill several hours after I had eaten, completely forgetting all I had been told. I spoke top the Anti-coagulation Service this afternoon, they also reminded me I had to have the pills with a meal, though they did say it was for the purposes of absorbing it better. There’s always something extra to remember, and as I’m having to do it with a decreasing amount of brainpower it isn’t easy.

Not sure if it’s a senior moment or not. Probably just stupidity…

Talking of stupidity – a couple of years ago, Julia brought some dried teasel home and left it on the floor as she sifted through her bag searching for keys. It seems to have released some seeds and we had teasel growing last year, hence the header picture. This year, we seem to have around 50 self-seeded teasels, including some in very tricky places. They are all rooted between paving slabs, so we can’t get them out to transplant and will have to weed quite a lot out to allow us to get to the front door. I don’t think we will have flowers this year, as I seem to remember they are biennial, but we will have lovely show in 2022.

This is my version of the old Greek proverb – “A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never sit in.”

I just noticed that it has slid past midnight – another day missed…

Bee on Teasel

Cyanosis and a Senior Moment

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I have, as I may have said once or twice recently, been struggling for inspiration, enthusiasm or the ability to think clearly. I have also been suffering from cyanosis. For the last few days. In some ways this is a bit of a relief, as at least I can blame lack of oxygen for my problems, which have, so far, been confined to blue lips. There are a number of causes, and they aren’t all serious, so I consulted Julia about it. Obviously, if I’m going to die, I have to tell her what my computer password is.

So, there I was, with a grave demeanour and a serious tone, explaining that my blue lips could be a sign that she might be a widow this time next week when she started laughing.

It wasn’t quite the reaction I’d hoped for, but I suppose we all have our own ways of coping with bad news.

“Are you sure it doesn’t have anything to do with cleaning your fountain pens?”

I was about to deny it when I realised that my method of getting pens to write (by licking the nib to persuade the ink to flow) has ben linked to blue lips in the past. My cleaning method, which involves soaking the pens and blowing water through them, also involves lips and blue ink. It had also involved a few sharp words this week, as it resulted in blue blotches on the work tops. I gave them a final blow through this morning, which was when I noticed the cyanosis again (having first noticed it on Friday after licking the nibs of two pens).

It’s likely that this is one of the less serious cases of cyanosis and we won’t require a doctor. I will however, keep a close eye on things just in case. The pens, in case you were wondering, are both writing well.

Car, Garage, Senior Moment

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They day has started in mixed fashion. The garage thinks that the fault on the car is probably a simple blockage which should be reasonably easy to fix, and inexpensive. Fingers crossed. I called a taxi (they have moved and it is now too far to walk) and this was a little more complex than usual.

Of course, in my day, when cars were simple and lights were fewer, this wouldn’t have been a problem at all, and if it had a tap from a hammer or a quick twist of a spanner would have put it all to rights. faults these days tend to be in parts we never actually had in the 1970s.

It’s the first taxi I’ve taken in nearly 12 months and the system has changed. You have to ride in the back now. For a man who is over six feet tall, overweight (to say the least) and has a bad leg, this is not easy, even in a generously proportioned vehicle. With one of the small Japanese cars that taxi firms seem to favour it was a cross between playing Twister and packing a holiday suitcase.

Eventually I got in and we set off. They have barriers now, rather like black cabs, but made out of flexible plastic and fixed with cable ties.

Five minutes later I remembered that I’d left my phone charging in the car.

Could I communicate through a mask and plastic barrier and then unravel myself to get the phone before doing it all again in reverse? No. I really couldn’t be bothered. I’m at home now. I’ve rung the garage from the land line to give them that number ( I really should have remembered the phone when I gave them my mobile number). Now I’m going to email Julia to tell her I don’t have my phone with me. It would be easier to ring, but I don’t know her number.

All the numbers are stored in my mobile these days. Oh, what a to-do. I can feel myself turning into that elderly parent who seems constantly bemused by modern life and is a worry to the children…

Link to Bricks

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https://www.theposthole.org/read/article/341

I just noticed someone has seen this – I’ve posted again haven’t I? I just meant to make a note for myself and expand it at a later date. It’s the second time I’ve been troubled by premature publication recently.

Anyway, it’s a great post. I hope you all enjoy it. I’d like to be able to write posts like that. Bricks are brilliant things – we take them for granted but we’d be in trouble without them. I’d be typing in a tent if it wasn’t for bricks.

Meanwhile, put it down to another senior moment, and to me typing whilst looking over my shoulder in a subversive manner. Read this post to see what I mean.

Adventures in Amnesia

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I fell for what was possibly an internet scam website last night. There is no fool, it seems, like an old fool. My computer loaded it, despite its normal disinclination to load websites without security certificates, so I suppose it must have one. The address started with https, so I thought is was OK. It even had some convincing testimonials on it. But you would do wouldn’t you?

When I came to pay, it didn’t seem to work properly, so I contacted their helpdesk. The email was returned. I looked for a phone number or address but there were none.

At that point I realised that I may have paid money for nothing, and that I had given up my name, address and three digit security code to a stranger who possibly had felonious intentions aimed at my bank account.

Fortunately the bank was very helpful. They confirmed that no payments had been made and that nobody had tried to use the card. It looked like someone had just left a dead website floating in cyberspace. However, they were very helpful and cancelled my card just to be on the safe side. It will take four working days to get a new card and it is already becoming a nuisance that I can’t use my card. Without my card, for instance, I can’t book an online shopping slot.

They did assure me that lots of people get caught every day by things like this and said there was no need to feel bad about it. (I was at the time bemoaning the fact that my mental faculties had become so blunt that I would fall for something like this.

It was a bit like the time I forgot my PIN number. It had, at that time, been the same for 25 years. Then one day and as I stood at a cashpoint I realised that my mind was blank. I did not have a clue what my number was. I couldn’t even think of the first number.

They told me then that it happened to lots of people, but I think they might have been lying to make the old fool feel better.

I am beginning to hate these senior moments.

I even forgot the title once. I thought of it as I wrote, but by the time I’d scrolled to the top I’d forgotten it. Scrolled down again, and I remembered.

The Sanguinary Sequel

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This was meant to be posted last night but I seem to have forgotten to press the “Publish” button. Senior moment! Bah!

I have reduced my “Following” list to 33.

At this point I realised that I have several people missing who should be on. I may eventually get up to around 50.

I was surprised to find that Derrick Knight was not on my list. He is one of my most visited sites, alongside Tootlepedal, but I didn’t seem to be following him. As with a number of people who are frequent visitors to this site I just get back to him by clicking on his link. Sorry Derrick.

So far it’s only halfway through the day and apart from cooking brunch and watching one episode of Diagnosis Murder I have done nothing but Word Press related work. I have answered comments, finalised the “Followed” List, followed Val’s instructions on how to delete followers and read a few blog posts. It is not a lot. Finally, as I am working towards a secret self-imposed target, I decided it was time to write.

Unfortunately I just calculated the target and I’m going to miss it. So, craftily, I reset the target and I’m going to meet it. All I had to do was adjust the time-scale. And, as it’s a secret, you will never know…

It’s later now. I’ve been on the phone to my sister, ordered a prescription online from a reluctant NHS system that kept kicking me out, washed up from brunch and made a pot of soup that will see us through the next couple of days.

I am making slow headway towards my 250 word target. This is 261. At 250 I can persuade myself it’s a proper post. At 240 it’s probably OK, but at 230, it doesn’t seem like I’ve made a serious attempt.

Some days, the magic just doesn’t happen. This may be linked to the bad night’s sleep I had last night. I have made many mistakes in my life, and last night they all came back to me. They do that once in a while. It has been within my grasp at times to be richer, happier, thinner and more widely published, but I have shown an uncommon talent for failing to failing to close the deal. It’s as if my subconscious likes to torment me every so often by letting me know that it knows…

The photos are just random work photos.

Greek banknotes

Saturday Afternoon

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I watched the title very carefully as I typed it this time, and typed slowly and smoothly so as not to frighten it. So far so good, there was no jumping and no loss of letters. It’s a shame that WP can’t provide me with a decent system in exchange for my annual fees, but at least I know it’s possible to cope with the problem by creeping up on it. I hope that more software providers don’t start using ambush activated systems as it is a little wearing.

Now all I need to do is work out a system for making the media run properly again. Perhaps something steam powered might improve things.

There was only one overnight order, which was quickly wrapped, and I went on to listing banknotes.

Julia rang. It’s often bad news when she rings, and I always worry when I see her caller ID. It wasn’t too bad this time, she had found the two Parker fountain pens I lost last week – they were in the pocket of one of my dirty shirts. That was good news. I’m always misplacing them and I miss them when I don’t have them.

Half an hour after that the post arrived with my new Parker fountain pen in it. It’s bright orange, inexpensive and has an attachment to let me fill it from bottles of ink instead of using cartridges.

Twenty minutes later, after getting it working, I addressed an envelope with it for an order that had arrived by post. That was the last I saw of the top. I searched the desk, the areas where it could have fallen off and my pockets. Nothing. Not a glimpse of the bright orange top. I searched creases in my clothes, the floor (carefully) and the stationery drawers. Nothing.

I endured laughter, ribaldry and ridicule from the owner and the few customers who came in, but I came no closer to finding the top.

This was quite annoying.

I worked, thought, backtracked and considered a prayer to St Anthony. I’m agnostic, to say the least, but there’s nothing like adversity for producing feelings of religion.

Finally, I employed the Sherlock Holmes method – “When you have eliminated all which is impossible then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

Having eliminated the impossible (alien abduction, telekinesis and a passing pen top thief) I was left with the improbable thought that when I had thrown the litter away after packing the order I must have been holding the pen top and dropped it in the bin.

It’s improbable, it’s incredible, and it’s embarrassing, because there it was, shining bright orange in the bottom of the bin.

It’s been my first senior moment for a while.

My Orange Parker Pen

Did I mention they were Parker pens? I just though it worth mentioning in case anyone from the Parker Pen Company was looking for a reviewer, a tester or just someone to generally send free stuff to. You never know…

Another Senior Moment

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When I had a look at the last post, before going to bed, I realised it wasn’t there. I vaguely remembered that it had flashed up on the screen while I was doing something else and I think I probably deleted it at that point. I’m sure there should be a single button to restore it, but I couldn’t find it and had to reload it bit by bit. This is annoying.

It’s annoying because I had another senior moment, it’s annoying because I had better things to do with my time and it’s annoying because out there on WP there are probably people thinking “Does that idiot really think a picture of banknotes is a proper post?”

No. I don’t. And the worst bit of it is that the best I could do was American money. I live in a country where you can’t even get a decent banknote picture of my own currency. I do have a few somewhere, but there’s not enough money to be a suitable picture for an article about being a millionaire. Or, in my case, not being a millionaire. Again.

The electronic prescription service, which I distrust, has failed me and I have had no text to tell me I have pills to pick up. It already takes two days longer than doing it manually, and now the system is even more delayed because it seems to have crashed. I will say no more, but I am very disappointed.

The pharmacy has a score of 2.7 out of 5 on Google, despite a few people giving it five with no further comment – looks like staff trying to boost the rating.One reviewer actually said he would have given it 0 out of 5 if he could have done. Thinking of it, that means it would score 1 out of 5 even if it was the worst place in the world.

If they think you order the pills too far in advance they won’t let you have them. If you order them just in time, the system breaks.

Of course, if they lose your paper prescription, as they did a few months ago, they ask if your memory is up to scratch. That’s why I’ve started keeping notes.

At this rate it looks like I might have to try keeping notes about how to work WordPress too.

Just two library shots for this one – a man writing and time passing. What sort of blogger can’t even be bothered to take his own photos?

Photo by abdullah . on Pexels.com

Murder, Muttering and Medical Malpractice

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There was, to be honest, only one point in the day when I was in danger of becoming over-excited. This was during the phone call from the surgery which told me that the doctor had returned my prescription request as I’d only had a prescription issued on the 7th of this month and it was therefore January before I could have a renewal.

This was a surprise for a number of reasons and I didn’t really do myself justice in arguing my case.

It wasn’t actually the doctor who rang me, and in fact no doctor will be able to speak to me until next Thursday. I pointed out that this would be inconvenient as I only had medication to last until Tuesday, but that was all they could do. I know this because that was the answer they kept repeating to me.

I am therefore officially displeased with being treated like an idiot. Constantly repeating something does not make it either an adequate answer or good customer service.

I am also unhappy because this is the fourth error in three months.

And finally, because of an error on their part I can’t have tablets which I have been prescribed, and which are supposedly necessary for my health.

We have three possibilities here.

One, Julia is part of a complex plot to murder me by messing about with my prescriptions when she takes them to the surgery for me.

Two, my memory problems are more grave than I feared.

Three, the surgery has made an error.

Let’s examine that in more detail.

Means, motive, opportunity. Julia keeps feeding me bacon, sausage, pork pies and chips. No, not as one meal. This isn’t working so she is trying to deprive me of my medication. It’s still an unlikely scenario, though it might make a plot for an American crime drama.

The main problem is motive. After 30 years of marriage I suspect she is either used to me or suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

All in all, I think we can rule out the complex murder plot theory.

The mental decline theory probably has more legs, though even I might struggle to forget that I’d ordered tablets. I really can’t say one way or the other. Anything, no matter how improbable, is possible.

Finally, the doctor making a mistake. Traditionally, doctors don’t make mistakes. This is partly because they don’t admit it, and partly because, as the old saying goes, they bury their mistakes.

This, unfortunately, leaves only one logical explanation – that I have experienced the biggest senior moment of my life.

Watch this space…

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Life after the Care Farm