Tag Archives: senior moment

An Unfortunate Incident with an Office Chair

It’s embarrassing, but I’m going to tell you anyway . . .

Today I fell off my chair. It’s been borderline before, and I have actually done it at home before, but this is the first time I have fallen off my chair at work. I bent down to pick some bits up from the floor, felt the chair moving under me and hit the ground. It was reasonably soft, as landings go, and I was fortunate only to catch my head a glancing blow on the boxes behind me. That could have been a lot worse.

If I win the lottery I am going to devote some money to developing an office chair with brakes on the wheels. The wheels are great, and it’s much more comfortable than using a chair with no wheels, but they do have a tendency towards betrayal when you bend over.

Normally I get up and then bend over. Today I didn’t, but at least it was worth 150 words. I’m not sure if it counts as a Senior Moment, or whether I have crossed the line into Danger To Myself. I remember when my grandmother did that. We walked into the kitchen to find she was standing in the sink to change a light bulb. My Mother was so worried by the dangers of falling/electrocution, that she forgot to deliver the normal lecture on locking the front door.

That is probably enough blog for today. I(‘ve been frittering my time away on eBay instead of writing, and that poetry isn’t going to write itself. If you ever want to waste a little time, check out “houseboats” on eBay. Considering that I have trouble sitting in a chair without falling off, a house with a gang plank probably isn’t ideal

Day 209

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Three unusual things happened today.

One, I went for my blood test at hospital after a week of avoiding it. Took a COVID test the night before, as I had been in contact with someone who is positive, and I didn’t want to spread anything. I am clear so I went. There were spaces in the car park and a man on the barrier, which I linked in my mind – there used to be space when they had someone there before. Walked in, hardly had time to sit down, was tested (though she only took two tubes when I was expecting three) and left.

Despite the ban on staff parking in the car park, two doctors were leaving as I left. Couldn’t get out. That’s why there was a man on the gate, they have a new system of number plate recognition. No free quarter hour now, just a Big Brother system where you are automatically In The System. Had to pay using debit card. More Big Brother – all my spending monitored . . .

So that was unusual thing one.

Number two. I had a parcel delivered. It contained a medallion I had seen on eBay in the “sold” section as I browsed. I complained to Julia that I would have liked to have bought it. It seems that I must have done. I checked and saw I had used the “Buy it Now” feature. I must have bought it in my sleep. This is a worrying development in both the “Senior Moment” department and the “eBay Addiction” department. I have promised Julia that I will only go on eBay in the hours of daylight.

Finally, a man came into the shop. He had a mask.

“I’ve got COVID,” he said, “But I have a mask on so it’s OK isn’t it?”

My workmate muttered something unintelligible. He doesn’t like to say n0. I rolled my seat back and said: “I am on medication which lowers my immune response, so no, don’t come in.”

I actually thought something which had a lot more swearing in it, but I am a retail professional.

He was slightly taken aback by my refusal, as if he honestly thought we would want an infected person in the shop.

Apart from the possible health consequences to us and our families, did he really think we wanted to run the risk of shutting the shop because he’s too stupid to stay at home?

Even after being told to leave he insisted on telling us about the coins he had to sell – I doubt they came to more than a couple of quid, but they were, in his mind, worth enough to justify infecting a whole shop. remember that my work colleagues have frequent contact with two others and a mother in law who are all 80 +, one being over 90. That’s why I’ve been testing again.

It’s not about me, it’s about my responsibility to other people.

Grumpiness Personified

Day 190

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I made a mess of the on-line shopping last night – disappeared into a tour of the internet and lost my way out. It was interesting, as ever, but when I emerged and found how much time I’d wasted, I decided it was time to get some organisation in my life.

The result is that we only had a third of the shopping we wanted tonight, and it cost us £4 for not having enough in the order.

Annoyingly, something that was out of stock last night (when it was “too late to change the order”) was delivered, so obviously back in stock. And milk, which had been in stock, was now out. Annoying that there are two sets of standards at work here.

We have just spent two days sorting a customer out. He’s a regular buyer on eBay and always seems like a nice man. He had asked if we could do cheaper postage if he bought two items, and we had said yes. The problem was that we could only see one purchase. We tried all sorts of things and eventually, this morning, tactfully, I had to write and ask if he’d actually bought the second item from us. It seemed the only logical explanation after eliminating all others.

Turns out he had actually ordered the other medallion off someone else. Oh, how we laughed as we talked of notable senior moments. Took me several hours in total, as I worked to facilitate a sale of £6.50, but that’s customer service for you. And old age . . .

Day 168

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I had a very efficient visit to hospital this morning, and only need two more to call it a day. One is for a chest X-Ray and the other is to teach me how to vaccinate myself as I will be getting some extra medication. Oh good, I said.

While I was in there I left my car window fully open. As I waited for my appointment time, I read in the car and forgot to wind the window up when I went for the appointment.

At work we had one customer in the shop and one on eBay. We had another who wanted to return something as he’d ordered the wrong thing. His fault, not ours. We agreed he could send it back and w would refund everything, including his postage, which represents a £3 loss to us. We did however, refuse when he asked us to pay the postage costs of him sending it back to us.

In the afternoon I left my phone when we shut the shop. It seems a little strange not having it, but not too bad. It’s fortunate I’m not a teenager as it would be a tragedy if I couldn’t look at it every two minutes.

Two senior moments in one day. It’s a good job I don’t let it worry me these days, as I am resigned to descending into a bumbling old age. Then, when I posted todays blog, I lost it. It must be somewhere, but I can’t find it. Snatched by evil Microsoft elves, no doubt. So that’s now three senior moments in one day.

Things just get better. I’ll probably get lost on my way to bed . . .

Me Being Grumpy About Modern Life

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We had three phone calls on the landline. We know they are going to be nuisance calls but there;s always the possibility it might be a call I want to take. It never is.

Number One was a call from a man telling us that the roof insulation we had installed ten years ago was dangerous and needed replacing. His company, it seemed, would replace it for us and help us institute legal action against the original installers. Julia asked where he was calling from and he said “London”. When she said, “No, what company are you calling from?” he hung up. To the best of my knowledge fibreglass isn’t dangerous, lasts forever (though it does go and get less efficient) and shouldn’t be replaced by strangers who ring at random.

Number Two hung up before I could get to it.

Number Three was a lady who delivered the alarming news that my Sky TV equipment was out of guarantee and needed me to take out a new warranty. I’m not sure what was most alarming – the prospect of spending money or the fact I’d got a Sky TV and hadn’t noticed.Was it possible, I asked her, that she was lying to me and was in fact a criminal trying to defraud a vulnerable, though admittedly cantankerous, old man? The phone line must be faulty as it cut us off before I finished my question.

And that, dear readers, is just one of the reasons that I hate modern life and am thinking of having the landline taken out.

On the other hand, by adept use of Amazon and Tesco delivery services I think I have managed to organise presents and chocolates for Julia’s birthday without setting foot in a shop, so there are some good modern things, just not many.

I wrote this a couple of days ago and seem to have forgotten to post it . . .

I have added “senior moment” to the tags. Julia suggested “idiot”.

A Pleasant Surprise, a Haibun and another Senior Moment

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Today, the 19th of September 2021, I had pleasant surprise. I opened up Drifting Sands Haibun and found my haibun on the front page. I added the date because it will change over time. We are due for a new issue soon and it will change. But for a short while, I was there. Forgive my unseemly glee, but after being accepted a number of times it is difficult to set a new target, and getting to the front page of Drifting Sands was one that I had set myself.

For those of you reading this too late to see it on the front page, you can try here. Don’t get too excited, I think I posted the link before. It’s just the one about the crow and the ants.

Now, I know you are all wondering what I have done in the matter of Senior Moments. Well, some months ago, I had trouble with my emails, and nearly missed some emails from an editor. We managed to sort that out, but didn’t actually find the cause. Last week I finally started looking at my submission diary (remember I have been ill/lazy for a month) and realised that I should have had some contact from editors. I checked up and found that I had a haiku in a magazine. This was a surprise, but more evidence of the fact that I wasn’t getting emails, or I would have known it was being published.

This set up a panic reaction, because I don’t want to miss the chance of publication, or have editors think that I am rude or inefficient. I am both, but I don’t want people to think it . . .

I have just spent my afternoon writing to the editors who may have emailed me, explaining what happened. It’s a tricky email to write (three times) because there is always the chance that they may not have thought me worth responding to.

Earlier in the week I started to realise what I had done but, prodding around with my email controls in an unstructured and ill-informed way, managed to make it worse. Anyway, I have finally found the answer and corrected it.

I had reset my spam controls a couple of months ago to block a particularly irritating advertiser. In doing so, I had also added gmail to my list of blocked domains. This was clearly a bad move. However, it is unblocked now, explanations have been sent and I am a wiser man.

Return to Work and Another Senior Moment

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I went back to work yesterday after having my dressings changed. You can tell I’m going to the doctor too often because the receptionist just shouted across “Take a seat Mr Wilson, I’ll book you in.” to save me walking to the desk and back.

Everything is healing well. I have a selection of photographs showing the development of the problem, followed by the progress towards healing, but I think this probably falls in the area known as “over-sharing”.

At work I lost my camera cable. I know I had it when I arrived because I had it in my hands. Then it disappeared. For three hours I looked for it, worried about it and muttered. Eventually, as we left, Eddie said “Simon, what’s that hanging round your neck?”

It was the camera cable, in a safe place, and hidden by my lockdown beard. I really do need a trim.

Unfortunately, my knee was quite tender so, to ensure more comfortable driving experience, I bought myself a knee brace. I am currently having a free month on Amazon Prime and was able to order it with free next day delivery. I’m wearing it now and it is doing some good. I’m going to try a new route tomorrow, using as much motorway as possible. It’s another stage in the aging process – making sure you know where the toilets are.

Today, having heeded the warnings of my doctor when discussing my return to work, I got up and moved about more. As a result I feel much better. I’m aiming to do full days on Thursday and Saturday next week, so I was pleased today went better than yesterday. I’m aiming to be fully fit and back at work full time in two weeks, so am keeping my fingers crossed.

Back to work, fully fit and free from senior moments may take a little more work.

As I wrote that line, one of the neighbours brought us some figs off her tree, so I re-used the picture from last year. I’m quite fond of figs.

Another Senior Moment

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Today I got up, pottered and made my way down to the surgery for my 8.30 appointment. It turns out I should have been there at 7.30. I apologised and then asked for the blood testing letter they were preparing for me. I had checked with them in person, then on the phone, and had agreed to pick it up this morning. It was the third time I have done this and both the previous arrangements have gone wrong.

Surely nothing could go wrong today.

Ha!

There was no letter and nothing about a letter on the computer. Sometimes I get the feeling that, to the NHS, I simply don’t exist.

After ten minutes of phone calls it appears that the test is not necessary as they used the blood they took last week to do the test, even though it hadn’t been requested at that time. Yes, at the time of the test I had not yet had the letter telling me it was due. When I got the letter I spoke to the nurse (who had taken the blood on my previous visit) and we agreed that I should request a letter from reception to allow me to have the test when I had a regular Warfarin check. She seems not to have known that the blood she took, and the tests she requested, included one I didn’t even know I needed at the time.

Are you following this?

It is almost as if the NHS does things that none of its employees or clients knows about, but as a lot of the budget goes on administration and management this surely cannot be . . .

Of course, in a month’s time, when I can’t get my arthritis medication because I haven’t had the blood test I will find that I have just been told a load of old rubbish, as usual.

Next, armed with the details of my latest prescription request (the one I have tried to collect twice already) I went to the pharmacy and gave them the details the surgery had given me. It took several attempts but they did eventually manage to find the details on their system, but only after I complained when they told me, again, that they had no details of it. Makes me wonder if I should have complained more the first time, and if they would have found it then.

If Alice and the Mad Hatter ran the NHS I wonder if it could be any more dreamlike.

The opening picture is of a confused old man, wondering where it all went wrong.

Time, Pressure and Procrastination

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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

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Life after the Care Farm