Assortment

No 28    Sunday 6 May 2012

With my last blog I must have been a little premature because for the last week I have been significantly unwell. I suspect that some of this is due to the side-effects of an antibiotic which was prescribed for me and, fortunately, I take the last dose on Monday morning. I won't bother you with the peculiarities of what laid me low because I seem to spend too much time detailing my troubles.

This is not the place for politics so, apart from saying I didn't vote for any of the major parties, I will merely mention that it is nice and convenient for me to be able to vote by post. The ballot paper arrives in plenty of time, and usually I am able to get my vote in before I start getting paperwork from the various political parties - only three of the five candidates in this ward even bothered to send anything. Needless to say the guy I voted for was not elected!!

With the World Snooker Championships on I have been watching rather more television than is good for me. I do not normally watch sporting programmes apart from occasional car racing, but with snooker it is slow enough for the speed at which I can think comfortably. I cannot understand why people get all worked up about football, rugby, tennis, etc. But then I have not been interested in any of them anyway which presumably explains my lack of understanding. I even got through my Air Force career doing nothing more energetic than smallbore rifle shooting, acting as scorer at a cricket match and playing three games of badminton which I couldn't talk my way out of.

I have decided to have solar panels fitted on the roof of the bungalow. One of the agents who came to give me a free survey told me that my roof was almost ideally positioned - at just the right angle and not far off facing south. I have had three surveys done and am still trying to decide between two of them - there seems to be little to choose between them in that cost and performance are both pretty similar. It looks as though it is going to be down to whether I want Japanese or American or German panels.

Flanders and Swann certainly knew what they were making fun of when it came to their Song of the Weather - the verses for April and May seem to fit what we've had this year;

April brings the sweet spring showers,

    on and on for hours and hours
Farmers fear a kindly May,
    frost by night and hail by day.

I will give your eyes a rest now and pack up for this issue - hopefully there won't be such a long gap until the next one.

Mike

I'm back

No. 27    14 April 2012

At last I am able to bore you with details of my happenings. I have recovered almost completely with very little assistance from doctors. Since my last blog I have seen three doctors, had three blood tests, an ultrasound scan and yet none of these have resulted in finding what was wrong. Then, fairly recently, I saw on TV an article which said that young children and people over 65 should have vitamin D supplement. As I am well over 65 (I was 77 in March) I checked this out on the Internet and then ran it past the most recent of the doctors. She agreed that this would be a good idea and prescribed some vitamin D and calcium chewable tablets. After modifying her ideas to roughly half the amount of calcium but maintaining the level of vitamin D it was almost like throwing a switch. Now I have reached a point where I am what (roughly) passes for normal again.

Examples of my normality are that, when the weather permits, I'm able to go to the supermarket on my wheelchair without needing to use a taxi. I am also able to go to my Quaker Meeting spending the necessary amount of time in a wheelchair. Talking of wheelchairs I have twice caused a certain amount of wreckage with my waterproof powered wheelchair. The problem, I think, is caused by the length of the shower curtains which I have. The drive wheels of the wheelchair are just the right size and material to catch the bottom of the shower curtain and pull on it. The result of this is that it pulls down the whole curtain assembly and I have to get the builder to send someone to fix it. Since the second destruction I have decided how I'm going to position the chair and how I'm going to use the curtain so that this doesn't happen again (I hope).

The weather in March may not have been what we normally expect, but April is living up to the expectations of April showers. One small advantage with showers is that, if I'm careful, I can go out during gaps between them. That is how I managed to go to the supermarket without getting soaked. I understand that showers are not very helpful to the areas which need water because a sudden downpour of rain is too much for dry ground to cope with and the water just runs off. They say that the drought conditions that many parts of England are experiencing may partly be due to climate warming. The local arboretum is carrying out experiments to see which trees from other parts of the world will grow in England so that as the weather gets warmer they can use them to replace those of our existing trees for which it becomes too warm or dry.

Early next month I am planning to go to an exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. This exhibition (to which I have been on two previous years) is entirely for people with disabilities – and entry is free!!. On my earlier visits I found things which were useful such as my power operated front door, my waterproof powered wheelchair and my bed. In these days of modern technology new inventions are coming out all the time and this exhibition, being specialised, is the ideal place for me to have a look around. Once I have been I will let you know how it all went.

Mike

Delay

No.26    Monday 6 February

After having been unwell for the past 4 weeks I thought I’d better explain the silence if only by this short note.  Nobody has yet sorted out what’s wrong despite 2 recent visits to A&E at the local hospital.  I will resume these blogs when I’ve recovered a bit more.

Mike

The first of 2012

No. 25    Wednesday 18 January 2012

The New Year hasn't started well, I caught a bug which involved a week of antibiotics, and with my usual luck the antibiotic didn't entirely agree with me. However, I have now mostly recovered and have found that this session of being unwell caused me to lose a bit more weight and bring it down to my target. I can now relax just a little because I have succeeded in losing about a stone (7 kg). The target I set was based on the advice a surgery nurse gave me some time ago. She said that for my age and build I should be around 86 kg but that anything under 90 kg would be okay. I have succeeded in coming down from 93.4 kg to 86.5 kg without too much effort.

The company I mentioned in my last blog, who had got their deliveries a little bit wrong, have, after prompting, apologised for getting things wrong and will be sending me a gift card - which may or may not turn up!! The one thing this apology does is that it allows me to occasionally shop from them, which I prefer because of the high quality of some of their goods. This little incident proves to me my point that if I carry on pursuing a complaint something will happen - eventually.

Since being unwell I have had another session of not playing my early morning music but I think that will restart tomorrow. I don't know why this is because music, as you have probably gathered, is a large part of my life. Sometime this year I intend trying to get some of my vinyl records converted to CD. I say ‘some’ because I have a collection of about 800, and apart from the ones which have been reproduced on CD anyway I will need to be a little bit more discerning about what I collect. The main reason for the editing is that I will run out of space to store the new CDs as I am already up to the limit in my built-in cupboard.

This new system used by the banks for transferring money is quite remarkable. I wanted to make a transfer to the older of my two sons, Bill, so he sent me details of his account number and sort code. On receipt I went into the website of the bank with which I deal and organised the transfer. I then phoned him to tell him that I had made the transfer and he called me back a couple of minutes later to say it was in his account. Three cheers for modern technology!!

Some time ago I mentioned that I had taken advantage of a special offer on washing-up liquid, getting three for the price of one. I have just started the second of the three so I'm fairly sure that the estimate of them lasting until Easter (which I made originally) was possibly an under estimate! I quite like the special offers which save me bits of money - but of course I am not always able to take advantage of them due to the quantities involved. I have one minor complaint about supermarkets, and I think this applies to all of them, they occasionally rearrange their shelves (or partly do so) and things are not where I expect to find them. Normally my trip to the supermarket takes me about half an hour inside, as long as I don't have to search for something which has been repositioned.

In about 20 minutes someone will be coming to check a minor problem I have with my hearing aids so I'd better shut up and get this on the web for you.

Mike

The end of 2011

No. 24    Thursday 29 December 2011

The last blog of the year, but I'm not going back over the year to review everything that has happened (which isn't much). The only comment I will make is that I seem to have been in a very very gradual decline physically. I realised this when I was thinking back about what I was able to do at the beginning of the year. As far as mental capacity is concerned, that seems to be pretty much the same - but then I am the wrong person to judge!!

Of course, surveying the past is something which I try to avoid as far as possible except where there is something outstanding from a previous occasion. I have always said that the two words ‘anger’ and ‘regret’ don't occur in my thoughts. The former is sometimes replaced by ‘retribution’ or ‘revenge’ but mostly by ‘why bother’. The latter is basically ignored because it is something put down to experience or something which is past and cannot be changed anyway. Edith Piaf had the right idea with her song ‘No Regrets’ of which I have both the English and French versions.

There is one thing which is still outstanding from just before Christmas. I mentioned in my last blog the company who had got their deliveries a little bit wrong. The last item eventually turned up on the 22nd so on the 23rd I sent them an e-mail pointing out the error of their ways. Apart from having an acknowledgement, there hasn't been any response but then I won't expect anything for a little while because I believe they are likely to have been swamped by complaints and been sorting things out after the Christmas and New Year break.

I don't watch a lot of television, because I want to try and avoid becoming a TV addict, but I do wish the BBC would restore their regular programming as soon as Christmas is over. I get used to arranging my day, or my watching, by when particular programmes appear and it confuses me when I am not able to do this. Fortunately there is a very good website which shows all the programmes and which can be set to show the stations in which one is interested. It also shows which channel each station is on and, by positioning the computer pointer over a particular programme it gives a potted synopsis of the programme - very useful!!

The improvement in smart phones has raised the thought in my mind that it might be an idea to get one which is smarter than my present one. There are two problems with this, the first being that I don't need a lot of the facilities which have been added to them, and secondly all this touch sensitivity is not much good when you have limited hand use, like me. My present phone is reasonably satisfactory in that I can make alterations by using a pen with the point retracted. I really only need a phone for its telephonic abilities and to display my shopping list (to support my not-too-reliable memory). I suppose my interest in the new ones is just my interest in new gadgets anyway.

I will conclude these meanderings by wishing you all the very best for the New Year.

Mike

Wrongs to be righted

No. 23    Wednesday 21 December 2011

At last I feel nearly human again. The problem has been that, about a week and a half ago, I had picked up some sort of infection which made me feel pretty rotten. After having had the doctor on the Monday I started on a prescribed course of antibiotics and the side-effects of these made me feel nearly as bad as the infection. Fortunately I finished the course four days ago and I think I have worn off most of the side-effects now.

It is all very well having technical gadgets to make life easier. The only problem is that when they go wrong I have to get someone to come and fix them. The latest concerns my power operated curtains which close and open by remote control. The one in the hall started still trying to open when it should have stopped (i.e. when completely open) and still trying to close, again, when it should have stopped. This happened a little over a week ago but I was able to stop a clicking noise (which it made) by pressing the intermediate stop button. Then, three days ago, the one in the sitting room started doing the same thing but the next day it refused to open all the way. I managed to get hold of the person who fitted them and he came yesterday to have a look. It turns out that this does happen sometimes and is due to a fault in some mechanical device in the motor. He is getting two new motors for me which will, of course, not arrive till after Christmas!!

Shopping on the Internet from well-known companies is normally a fairly stress-free job. I have found, however, one quite famous company (which produces high-quality goods) which seems to be unable to sort out deliveries at Christmas, even though they have been in business since 1707 - so it's not as if Christmas is new to them!! What happened was that I placed an order for four items for me and three quite large items for my three offspring for their Christmas presents. I placed this order on 7 December and their Internet receipt told me that the goods would be delivered by the 15th. On the 15th three of my four items had arrived but not the three which I needed as presents. On 16th I rang asking what had happened and was, eventually, told that someone would phone me back later that day. When, by late afternoon, they hadn't rung, I rang them and was told that somebody would ring me on the next day. The next day the same thing happened so I rang them again and was told that the three presents had been dispatched that morning - and they eventually arrived safely on Monday. Now there is still one item from the order outstanding, and after it arrives I will be sending them a slightly stroppy e-mail.

The sort-of Desert Island Discs, which I mentioned in my last blog, was reasonably successful. After an entertaining a few minutes trying to get my wheelchair up a small step into the cafe and juggling the furniture so that I could set my equipment up everything went fairly smoothly. Certainly the people who had requested music seemed to enjoy it and all had their little say about why they had chosen the particular pieces. Afterwards I was invited to comment about how things had gone and I'm afraid I wandered on at some length about the odd variations I would have made. I thought this might upset them but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Reading back through what I have written so far it looks as though I am full of complaints. This is not really the case, everybody has their difficulties and those show that I am no exception. I know that I should try to make life as easy as possible but sometimes faults in outside world tend to intrude.

I have Christmas nicely planned out in that I will be going to my elder son's for lunch on Christmas Day. This will follow my usual Sunday outing to the Quaker Meeting and fortunately I will not be delaying the lunch at all because my daughter-in-law will be going to church with the children and should be home around the same time as I am likely to be able to arrive. On the 27th my daughter will be visiting from Banbury and will be accompanied by my oldest grandson and his wife (who are expecting their first child - my first great-grandchild - early in February). The latter two will have been spending Christmas at her parent’s in Cheltenham and strangely enough it will be the first time I have met her.

I seem to have run out of rumblings so I will end by wishing all my readers (if any) a very Merry Christmas and all the best wishes for the New Year. As an afterthought I do not celebrate the arrival of the New Year at midnight because, in my view, there are 365 days in which to celebrate its arrival - so what is special about the first!!!

 Mike

Outings and (more) music

No.22    Friday 2 December 2011

Winter seems to be upon us now, certainly it is chillier now and forecast to get quite cold next week. I hope we don't get any snow because it makes getting around in a wheelchair that bit more difficult. Last year, on the odd occasion when we had some snow, I stayed on the road rather than the footpath because the roads were either clear or gritted. This year I may well travel a bit more by taxi because it takes me half an hour to get wrapped up for a wheelchair journey. That said, if I take the trouble to pile on the protection it is adequate and stops the weather getting at me!!

On Tuesday (6th) I will be operating a sort-of Desert Island Discs (in reality a glorified request programme) at a cafe in Stroud. This is for a new company which recently started up in Gloucestershire with the aim of helping people, who would otherwise not bother, to do things that they would like to do. They seem to think that as I can provide music I am going to be an asset!! At least this first effort will give them an idea of what is possible. They have rounded up a few requests - 14 so far plus one that I have added to improve the mixture a bit. Apparently the idea is that each person who has requested something will stand up and give a few reasons why they chose it. I'm not sure how this will work out but it's worth trying.

I have solved the problem of sorting out my paperwork (see blog 21); a lady comes once a fortnight to go through it for me. This means sorting it into four piles, Important, Shred, Chuck and Brochure. The poor old shredder worked overtime yesterday when the first attack on the accumulated paper was made. The lady is one who does jobs for the company for which I am playing music on Tuesday.

When I go shopping I sometimes encounter freestanding baskets with special offers in them. This is, I realise, a good way of attracting people's attention, but it doesn't help if the freestanding basket is right in the way of somewhere I want to get to because I can't reach over it. Sometimes the basket is positioned in such a place that it obstructs my access to a particular item although generally I can find a way of managing (usually by using the wheelchair to shove it out of the way). Another disadvantage of modern shopping systems is that frequently offers involve buying two or more of an item. It is often the case that if I bought two of something the second one would be past its expiry date before I could get around to using it. Luckily if I'm careful about the dates on packages I can sometimes take advantage of these offers. Some many weeks ago there was an offer, which was too good to refuse, for three bottles of washing-up liquid for the price of one. I am still using the first one and I reckon the other two should last me until well past next Easter!!

In sorting through my CDs to find various tunes I found that I have all sorts of gems about which I had forgotten. One in particular is called ‘20 Gramophone All-Time Greats’ and the title doesn't disappoint. It has such people as Rachmaninov playing one of his own compositions and Elgar conducting one of his. A number of the artists on this CD have faded from modern memory in many cases. Another CD I have is of music hall artists from the Victorian and Edwardian eras. One section of my filing system for CDs is what I call Chronological which covers the period roughly from 1900 to the 1970s. Even that excludes some which are filed under other headings like Traditional Jazz or Dance Bands. I suppose it's a good thing that I am the only person using this filing system because I think it would baffle anybody else!!

Mike