Tag Archives: worries

The Things They Never Warn You About

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There was a time when I could knock out a blog post in around twenty minutes. It wasn’t necessarily profound, but it was 250 words and it did have some sort of structure. It seems to take longer these days, but everything does, doesn’t it?

A Bear in a Tree

Even getting a tie on is a bit of a performance these days, as I recently found out when I attended both a wedding and a funeral in recent weeks. I hadn’t worn a tie for years. Like riding a bicycle, the basics do not desert you. At least, I believe they don’t. I’ve not checked to see if I’ve forgotten to ride a bike, I’m just assuming you never forget because everybody says so. If I ever find myself on a bike again, I will report back.

The knotting bit is fine. In fact it seemed easier than it used to be. It was the folding down of the collar that proved tricky. My shoulders are not what they used to be and after putting my collar up and tying the tie, I seem to lose the ability to use my arms in a raised position, a combination of stiff joints and tiredness. Yes. my shoulders get tired after a couple of minutes of tying a tie. They keep that one as a surprise. You never think of shoulders wearing out until you start using sticks. It is very frustrating, and one of those things nobody tells you about getting old.

Hair loss yes, grumbling, yes, aches and pains and a vague feeling that things used to be better, yes. But the inability to hold your arms up to put a tie on? When did that happen?

Paddington Bear at St Paul’s

Talking of which, I got stuck trying to put my trousers on last week. I know that socks and trousers get steadily less easy, and am resigned to sitting on the bed to attend to such things, but I didn’t realise that they actually started to actively resist as you got older. The second one seems to be worse. I can usually get one leg in without too much problem, but the second always seems to be at a more difficult angle. Maybe it’s the design of modern trousers, or the Russians/Chinese (they always seemed to get the blame in the 60s, and that seems to be coming back). Maybe it’s just the design of my legs. But it’s definitely a problem of old age that nobody warned me about.

I could write an entire series about this, but I won’t. My older readers already know all about it, and my younger readers won’t believe me.

Time to go to the doctor now. I’m on weekly visits at the moment with one thing and another. It’s nice to be looked after, but it does tend to mess the day up. At least I won’t have to worry about the clutch now.  However, I have no doubt another worry is just around the corner.

Straw Bale Bowie Bear

Yes, pictures are of bears again.

Oooops!

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I fell asleep in front of the TV after Julia went up last night. When I woke up I still felt groggy so I made my way upstairs and, halfway up, realised that I hadn’t blogged. I’m a bit erratic, but even for me 24 hours is quite late. It’s not even as if I’ve used the time to come up with any ideas. I’m sitting here in the brief time between Eggheads and Mastermind and trying to come up with something interesting to say.

The shop has been suffering from drainage issues lately. It’s happened before in rainy spells and w have never quite traced or corrected the problem. Judging by the smell yesterday, the shop is either built over a plague pit or I was working in a toilet. BY the end of the day I was feeling quite queasy, which is unusual for me, as I spent many years in poultry sheds and my stomach is not easily turned.

Fortunately the smell had mainly gone today. This is also unfortunate, as it means the owner has another excuse to ignore it.

Whatever happens, I was at least able to spend a happy half hour trawling the internet for details of health and safety relating to drains and sewers, and renew my acquaintance with the word effluvium. It is a nice word foo an unpleasant occurrence. It is also a condition which causes your hair to fall out. I didn’t know that until I checked the meaning to ensure I was using it correctly. hair loss is not something that concerns me much, if I’m frank. Any concerns I may once of had about it have long since passed, and any fears it once held are mere phantoms of memory. Being a bald man is so much better than being a man who worries about his hair.

And with that thought I will post a random picture, load this post and go back to TV until I can think of something else to write.

A Treat from the Back of the Cupboard

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Yesterday, as part of my efforts at self-improvement, I researched ways of improving my writing. I will, as a result, not be using the phrase “doom and gloom” but will say that the morning is gloomy, and so is my mood.

Still no car. Still no news of the car. No news of my prescription either. This is a worry as I have run out of some things. The new system means that I don’t have a clue if my prescription has been processed. The screen says it is in progress but it is a day late already and that is not a good sign. Fortunately I am not short of anything essential. Apart from good humour, I am running short of good humour because the system takes several days longer and seems to produce more errors.

It seems to be a common feature of these “new and improved” systems that they are actually just “new”. The “improved” part involves cost-cutting and is no improvement to me at all. I am worried that this may be the case with my writing too – it may produce a crisper and more concise style, but is that going to be an improvement. I am a poet and raconteur rather than a business consultant or a copywriter.

Things will get better, as I always tell myself. I told myself that when boundary and building issues threatened to bury me six months ago. They didn’t really get better, they just faded. The main one was sorted out but we are waiting for a second planning application from the neighbours on the right and the builder still hasn’t come to repair the chimney stack. problems do that – what seems the end of the world at one point is almost forgotten six months later.

I just looked up and noticed that the drizzle has increased in intensity and has lumps in it. It is now a wintry shower.

I just checked that up.

Wintry is the preferred form and is used approximately 20 times to every one use of wintery. However, as the article points out, many people pronounce wintry as wintery. I do, and I feel wintery is a more logical development from the word winter. On the other hand, this is English, so logic has little to do with it.

Time for Late Breakfast now, one of my favourites among my recent new words. I like stewp too, but it excludes bacon sandwiches, which late Breakfast does not. I will be having chilli jam with my bacon. I found it in the back of a cupboard recently. We bought it when we went to The Lakes for our 25th wedding anniversary (yes, six years ago) and the Best Before Date is in 2016, but it was unopened and it still tastes good.

That is the problem with Best Before dates – people mistake them for Use By dates.  Best Before dates can safely be ignored (according to me, though not to Julia). Use By dates indicate that the product can kill you if you leave it too long.

The picture is a Late Breakfast from happier days.

 

Sea Buckthorn

Rambling Mind

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I noticed something interesting on Wednesday, which I forgot to mention. When I stopped at the petrol station to fill up and put air in my tyres I found that the air pump takes cards. This is new. It takes a minimum of 50p, where it used to take smaller coins, but that is hardly a surprise as it’s the norm for everything to go up. It’s only surprising that it hasn’t gone up to £1 minimum.

It’s all part of the drive towards a dehumanised cashless society.

Eventually, with all payments being electronic and all shops having loyalty cards I’m sure the Government will take the opportunity to start poking its nose into our spending and resting habits.

How long before my weekly shop is greeted with red lights and klaxons and an automated message: “Put that cake back, fatty, and buy some crispbreads.”

It’s a chilling vision of the future.

My problems, as listed a few days ago, are decreasing. This isn’t because I’ve actually solved any of them, just that I’ve stopped worrying. I’ve already bored workmates, sister and wife by moaning about the boundary dispute at the bottom of the garden, so I won’t add my blog readers to the list. Anyway, it’s not as if my back garden fence is going to need a UN intervention, and despite some elevated rhetoric from the neighbour, I can’t see it escalating into actual warfare.

Unfortunately, the dispute is taking too much of my attention and I’m finding writing is dragging, so will sign off now and look for a random photo to use. I have decided on the sea buckthorn from Skegness on our last trip to the coast.