Tag Archives: senior moment

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.

Simon Wilson, Nottingham Poet

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

 

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

Greek banknotes