Like most people I carry a mobile phone around with me whenever I am out of the house. Its now an essential piece of equipment for modern life, like carrying my glasses and my credit cards. The trouble is that I’ve been cursing my old mobile for ages because although it worked well, recharging it was a real pain. Connecting it to the charger was so very fiddly and I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve spent a long time and lots of curses trying to get the connection just right so that the phone would recharge.

After a couple of years of this I decided out of sheer exasperation to make a change and started looking around for a new mobile phone last November. The trouble is that I am one of those people who find themselves baffled by too much choice. I can remember years ago, long before I was married, going into the local Toys-R-Us for a Christmas present for my young nephew and leaving with empty hands after a couple of hours as I was just totally confused and baffled at the amount of choice available. There are so many different mobile phone models around, all with different facilities and all at different prices that my brain fused every time I went into my local mobile phone shop. And I’ve been going into the shop virtually every week, staring at the display of all the different models, failing to make a decision and beating a hasty retreat.

Then this Thursday I saw this one. Not black as in the photograph but purple. Just what a Red Hatter needs. It not only caught my eye, the price was reasonable and it has lots of facilities that I can play with. So I bought it, with real relief that my ordeal was finally over. Orange (the mobile phone service I use and have always received good service) transferred my (old) phone number to my new mobile overnight, and Yesterday it became my new phone.

The first thing I did was to download onto my new phone a tune to become its new ringtone. Too many times I have been on a train or on a station and an ordinary ringtone has gone off and everyone in listening distance has reached for their own mobile phone to see whether it was theirs ringing. I did not want that, I wanted a ringtone that was special to me alone. So my old phone had the music from Mission Impossible (the tv series); this one has the film music from Superman (the original film – I’ve always loved John Williams music from this film). I am unlikely to find too many other people reaching for their mobiles if someone rings me.

I’ve got a lot to learn about my new phone and much I can do with it, from downloading music onto it to learning how to use its FM radio. Those I shall learn and play with over the future months. For the moment I have a phone that works effectively. And isn’t a pain to recharge.

The other day I’d moaned like the dickens here when virtually everything that could have gone wrong in my life did, although it was just lots of little things. I’m feeling a lot more cheerful now, although I can’t think of anything in particular that happened. I just got on with things and it all got better.

Last Thursday, though, I didn’t spend all day alone after all, because the Husband did a real Man thing. Last year he walked a minimum of 16 – 18 miles every day and became really fit. He stopped walking last October and winter put him off walking. As the weather has started to improve and the first vestiges of spring started to appear he decided that now was the time to start walking again. So, last Tuesday he walked 8 miles. And in the evening he complained that his feet hurt but that didn’t stop him walking 16 miles on Wednesday. He could hardly walk by the evening and was little better on Thursday morning. So he decided just to go up to London for the evening concert as he wasn’t up to walking around London and walking around exhibitions. So I wasn’t alone all day Thursday after all.

Friday I was, as he had another concert in the evening and felt able to walk during the day. But I wasn’t feeling down and enjoyed the solitude. I also managed to watch a DVD I was given for Christmas but that the Husband didn’t want to watch.

Sunday was nice as I am a member of the Crimson Crumblies, the Red Hat chapter based in Chelmsford and yesterday was the chapter’s third birthday and we all went around to our Queen’s house for tea and chatter. There was about 12 – 13 of us there, some of our members couldn’t make it, and a good time was had by all.

Today is not a nice day to be out as GB is being lashed by heavy rain and high winds. I was woken by the weather early this morning and it hasn't abated. We are staying indoors today in the dry and the warm. The only flaw at this moment is that the Husband is listening to Berg, not my idea of fun.

Dogs in Elk

I am crying with laughter. As I write this I cannot see the keys properly because of the tears (of laughter) in my eyes. The mental images I have.....

You can read it here: http://dir.salon.com/story/tt/post/2005/10/19/posts_of_the_decade/index.html

This is a post of me moaning. Avoid if you wish. I just want to get it all off my chest.

Yesterday was one of those days when I wished I had never got out of bed. Everything that could have gone wrong did.

First I had made arrangements for a Red Hat visit to the "From Russia" exhibition in the Royal Academy of Arts in Picadilly for this Thursday. But it had over the last few days became clear that this date wasn't suitable for many and so I've rearranged the visit for April. Fine for the many but I was looking out for something to do out of the house this week, especially as the Husband is out for two days.

Then I had a phone call to say that the day course in British Prehistory I was going to do on this Saturday had been cancelled due to lack of interest. I am fascinated by the subject. Clearly no-one else is.

Then the doctor had arranged an appointment for me to see the nurse to have my blood pressure checked. That was yesterday afternoon. Only the nurse decided to discuss my "lifestyle" and started wittering on about eating less and walking more. When I left the surgery I bought a big bar of chocolate. And ate it. I've spent my whole life being told what to do - first my parents and then, of course, at work. Now I'm free and NO ONE tells me what to do anymore.

I should have made some soup but I forgot to buy the onions. So the poor Husband went out again just to buy some for me. He is kind and knew how fed up I was.

Anyway, Monday is over and life goes on. Now what shall I do with the time that was formerly booked up?

Three of our Camellias are in bloom at the moment, only the white one has still to come out. The problem is that we are expecting snow and cold winds in the next couple of days and I suspect that these blossoms are soon to become damaged.

It's Mothering Sunday today and the Stepdaughter came around for most of the day. After lunch we watched the DVD the Husband has just bought - "Atonement", the one that has had all the plaudits and wone some Oscars and other awards. All three of us decided afterwards that it was one of the most depressing films we had ever seen and we all felt like slitting our wrists. So afterwards we watched "A Close Shave" with Wallace and Gromit, to cheer ourselves up. So the day ended up quite nicely after all.
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A friend sent this to me. Real teamwork and friendship.

Sounds like good advice.

I'm not sure whether we are in Winter or in Spring. Neither seems to be the plants. We have had lots of the early Spring flowers out already, including crocuses, daffodills and snowdrops. Unfortunately the very, very mild weather we have been getting at regular intervals since December is being regularly interrupted by very bitter frosts at times. The first blossoms on our pink camellia came out two weeks ago, much earlier than usual, only to be very badly frosted last week. Still I suppose I shouldn't complain too much, living in a part of England that has lots of sunshine and mild weather and absolutely none of the heavy gales and snow that Northern England and Scotland has (sort of) enjoyed. I understand that Scotland has actually had a skiing industry this year, so much snow has fallen (unlike last year when there was no snow at all).

When I was a child my father had a favourite saying “from the sublime to the gorblimey”. I’m remembering that saying at the moment as it is an appropriate description of the last week and a bit.

Christmas was good although it was very clear that we are going through a new phase in life now that the kids have grown up. The Stepdaughter is 25, the Stepson is 21 and they want to be away spending time with their friends rather than to be with us, the old fogies. Nevertheless Christmas Day was good: the Stepdaughter and her boyfriend turning up in the morning, there was cooking for the big meal, eating and drinking, mid-afternoon the Stepson left to stay with his mother, an evening with the Stepdaughter and boyfriend who then went home. Boxing Day was even quieter as it was just the two of us.

The Thursday was expensive as the tv in the sitting room had started to play up so we braved the sales and found a new one. Having paid for it we discovered that it would be a while until it could be delivered – in fact Monday 14th (an irritation as our old one has now completely packed up).

Friday was quiet and we prepared for the following day’s drive to Cardiff to visit my mother. Little did I know….

When I awoke on Saturday I had a pain in my tummy, which I ignored. The drive to Cardiff was better than either of us had expected as the roads, usually some of the busiest in the country, were clear of major roadworks or jams. But by the time we had got there my abdominal pain had begun to get worse. But we saw my mother, who was delighted to see us and we stayed for a couple of hours which was as long as she could cope with. The less said about the journey back the better what with the pain and the nausea I was now feeling. So when we got home again I rang the out-of-hours GP and made an appointment for his clinic in the local hospital for after midnight and the Husband drove me there.

I saw the GP who immediately sent me next door to their A&E department. To cut a long story short I was admitted to the hospital with suspected appendicitis…or kidney stones…or gallstones, no-one was certain at that stage. There followed a series of tests and scans, as well as some heavy duty painkillers for which I was very relieved. Monday morning I received a visit from the hospital Urologist who informed me that my appendix is fine but that the scan had shown a kidney stone which was causing the problem. About 10 minutes after he left I had a personal experience of the separation of medical disciplines with the arrival of a General Surgical team which informed me that the scan had also shown that I had a supply of gallstones but they weren’t immediately causing any problems. Wonderful. The next couple of days were a mixture of drugs to get the kidney stone to move through my system and painkillers.

Yesterday the Urologist returned to say that things were clearly getting better and that I could go home that day. So the Husband picked me up in the afternoon and I am at home again. The terrible pain has gone, although my side is still a little tender, not surprising I suppose. And so I am taking it easy and hope soon to be well and up and doing things again.

Then I suppose I shall have to find out how to manage kidney stones and gallstones in future. I wonder how you can prevent them?

The Christmas Song sung by Nat King Cole

Happy Christmas everybody and may we all have a healthy and peaceful New Year.

One of the things we do when we put up Christmas decorations is to replace the normal candles in our big candle holder with Father Christmas ones.

Although we've done this for some years this time the Stepdaughter took a step back and said "those Father Christmasses are doing the Nazi salute"

Well, taking another look at them I feel that their arms are at the wrong angle for that. I feel that they are just waving at us.

They certainly give me seasonal feelings and nothing else.

Hmmm. I'm feeling a bit dubious at the moment. I've just back from an appointment with my doctor to monitor my blood pressure. Again. This time it was 150 over 85 which is a lot better than a few months ago when he first put me on BP pills. (Loathsome things - difficult to swallow as they disintegrate in the mouth.)

He said that as a last stand before doubling my BP medication I should use a home kit to monitor my BP every day - just in case visiting the surgery is making it go up. So I bought a kit from the chemists and am trying to learn how to use it. I'm not sure I've got it right though. Just now it said that I was 189 over 122. Either I'm not using it right or perhaps the mere effort of using it makes my BP go higher.

The Christmas Decorations are up

It took the Husband later than usual this year to decide to put up the decorations, not surprising given what he has been through. But in the last few days he decided the time is right and called the Stepdaughter around the other evening to help put them all up.

I've taken pictures of some of the decorations but not of the chains. Luckily these are chains we've had for years because it's now difficult to find them in the shops. I can't imagine why as I always feel that they give a really Christmassy feel to a room.


And yes, that's a picture of us to the left of the clock, taken on our wedding day. 14 years ago now.

How time flies.

Now This I Couldn't Resist

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.



You are Charles VI of France, also known as Charles the Mad or Charles the Well-Beloved! A fine, amiable and dreamy young man, skilled in horsemanship and archery, you were also from a long line of dribbling madmen. King at 12 and quickly married to your sweetheart, Bavarian Princess Isabeau, you enjoyed many happy months together before either of you could speak anything of the other's language. However, after illness you became a tad unstable. When a raving lunatic ran up to your entourage spouting an incoherent prophecy of doom, you were unsettled enough to slaughter four of your best men when a page dropped a lance. Your hair and nails fell out. At a royal masquerade, you and your courtiers dressed as wild men, ending in tragedy when four of them accidentally caught fire and burned to death. You were saved by the timely intervention of the Duchess of Berry's underskirts.


This brought on another bout of sickness, which surgeons countered by drilling holes in your skull. The following months saw you suffer an exorcism, beg your friends to kill you, go into hyperactive fits of gaiety, run through your rooms to the point of exhaustion, hide from imaginary assassins, claim your name was Georges, deny that you were King and fail to recognise your family. You smashed furniture and wet yourself at regular intervals. Passing briefly into erratic genius, you believed yourself to be made of glass and demanded iron rods in your attire to prevent you breaking.


In 1405 you stopped bathing, shaving or changing your clothes. This went on until several men were hired to blacken their faces, hide, jump out and shout "boo!", upon which you resumed basic hygiene. Despite this, your wife continued sleeping with you until 1407, when she hired a young beauty, Odette de Champdivers, to take her place. Isabeau then consoled herself, as it were, with your brother. Her lovers followed thick and fast while you became a pawn of your court, until you had her latest beau strangled and drowned.


A severe fever was fended off with oranges and pomegranates in vast quantities, but you succumbed again in 1422 and died. Your disease was most likely hereditary. Unfortunately, you had anywhere up to eleven children, who variously went on to develop capriciousness, great cruelty, insecurity, paranoia, revulsion towards food and, in one case, a phobia of bridges.

I’ll be glad when tomorrow comes and we’ll no longer be pestered by political canvassers. Yes, we’ve an election in this ward tomorrow. December is an odd time to have one but it has become necessary due to the exploits of our previous councillor, who was also Mayor for the Borough of Chelmsford.

You could, I suppose, call him a Naughty Boy. Personally I would call him a Complete Idiot. Let’s face it, if you are Mayor and are using a Council’s computer on official business then you don’t download child pornography onto that computer. Of course the police found out and undertook a formal investigation. And then the local media found out and so on and so forth. Finally he resigned as our councillor and as the Mayor.

There are four political parties all desperate to fill his place: the Conservatives, Labour, the Lib-Dems and even UKIP. The trouble for us is that they don’t have every ward in the Borough on which to disseminate their efforts and so this time everything is concentrated just on our ward. So we are being pestered and pestered. Hardly a day goes by without at least one paper or leaflet being thrust through our letterbox. I’ve had telephone calls and one candidate knocked on the door. Yesterday I handed to the Husband a handwritten envelope addressed to him that I assumed was a Christmas card. It wasn’t, it was another leaflet.

We’ve even had a leaflet from the UKIP candidate which really amused us. Talk about a total lack of understanding of the extent of power held by a local councillor: he clearly thinks that being elected will make him controller of our government. But other than that light relief we are just exasperated at the amount of stuff they have sent us. The paper recycling sack is full of it.

Oh well. It’s a prime lesson how the actions on one can affect the many. And the sooner tomorrow comes the better.

Yesterday was a good day, busy but good. The Stepson came back from Cambridge for the weekend, spent Saturday with his mother and came to us on Sunday and stayed overnight. His sister came round yesterday with her boyfriend.

It was just a normal Sunday really. I cooked a meal. Then we sat and talked and talked. The Husband pursuaded the Boyfriend, a techie in work life, to look at our computer. He did a lot to the machine but in the very limited time he had we still haven't worked out how to transfer files of audiobooks recorded from cassettes into iTunes. I'll have to have another look at that.

The Husband has just returned from driving the Stepson to visit a friend in Bishops Stortford and turning on the computer I see that the Step Daughter has sent us something that made us smile. Some of them make you think too. So, here it is....

The Philosophy of Ambiguity

1. Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.
2. One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor....
3. Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
4. If man evolved from monkeys and apes, why do we still have monkeys and apes?
5. The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
6. I went to a bookstore and asked the saleswoman, "Where's the self-help section?" She said if she told me, it would defeat the purpose.
7. What if there were no hypothetical questions?
8. If a deaf person swears, does his mother wash his hands with soap?
9. If someone with multiple personalities threatens to kill himself, is it considered a hostage situation?
10. Is there another word for synonym?
11. Where do forest rangers go to "get away from it all?"
12. What do you do when you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant?
13. If a parsley farmer is sued, can they garnish his wages?
14. Would a fly without wings be called a walk?
15 Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?
16. If a turtle doesn't have a shell, is he homeless or naked?
17. Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?
18. If the police arrest a mute, do they tell him he has the right to remain silent?
19. Why do they put Braille on the drive-through bank machines?
20. How do they get deer to cross the road only at those yellow roadsigns?
21. What was the best thing before sliced bread?
22. One nice thing about egotists: They don't talk about other people.
23. Does the Little Mermaid wear an algebra?
24. Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
25. How is it possible to have a civil war?
26. If one synchronized swimmer drowns, do the rest drown too?
27. If you ate both pasta and antipasto, would you still be hungry?
28. If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?
29. Whose cruel idea was it for the word "Lisp" to have "S" in it?
30. Why are haemorrhoids called "haemorrhoids" instead of "assteroids"?
31. Why is it called tourist season if we can't shoot at them?
32. Why is there an expiration date on sour cream?
33. If you spin an oriental man in a circle three times does he become disoriented?
34. Can an atheist get insurance against acts of God?

Sometimes change is sad but inevitable.


When we moved into this house, about 12-13 years ago there was a cherry tree in the front garden, almost on on the boundary to the pavement. It had obviously been there for some years, we assume since the house was originally built. I used to enjoy the green leaves that really added something to the view from any of the front windows of the house from spring to autumn. And, of course, for about a week every Spring it was a mass of pink which decorated the entire street. For this beauty we used to put up with the layer of pink petals that used to cover every surface of the car, flower beds and drive immediately afterwards.


Anyway last spring there wasn't as many blossoms as usual, in fact they were very sparse. And as the summer continued leaves on the branches died several months prematurely. It became clear that the tree was in a poor way. I knew we had to do something about it and we had decided to remove it. I was getting a bit worried in fact as after every strong wind there would be twigs laying on the road and in the garden. My (always active) imagination began to play visions of a branch falling onto a passer-by on the pavement. But I'd no idea of where to find a good tree surgeon.


Then one day last week I heard the sound of a circular saw close by and looking out of the window I realised that one of the houses nearby was having some work done to their sycamore tree. In fact they too were having the tree chopped down. This was a magnificent specimen but I knew that they wanted to get rid of it and clearly they had found a company capable of doing the job. And to my eyes they looked very capable.


So I nipped along and had a word with one of them and asked for an estimate to remove the cherry tree. He had a look at it and told me that at some stage it had been pollarded and then left to grow naturally, something that always weakened a tree.


Two days later an estimate arrived in the post and it was much less than I expected both to cut down the tree and poison the roots. So yesterday I rang them up and asked them to do the task. Their first action was to contact the council to check that there were no planning restrictions on the tree and no preservation order. They rang us back this morning to say that they had heard from the council, all was well and they could do it today. I nipped down to the bank, for obvious reasons, and by the time I had returned home they had already started.



It didn't take them long. And when they put poison on the roots (to avoid suckers - a real problem with cherries) they also did so on my neighbour's sycamore, which explains how they happened to be in the area.


When he had finished the tree surgeon told us that the cherry's trunk was almost completely dead and that if left the branches could have been a health & safety hazard. So we were right to have the tree cut down.

But it hasn't stopped both of us feeling sad that the tree had to go. It was lovely in its prime. But life moves on. In the Spring I shall look for something pretty to cover the stump.

Upon due reflection I would have to say that my favourite piece of kitchen equipment is my stockpot. After I retired I started make a lot of soup and realised early on that my largest saucepan wasn't big enough and even the pan from the pressure cooker wasn't really up to the job. So we went shopping for a stockpot and bought the biggest and heaviest domestic one we could find. Even in a Debenhams 20% off sale it was still a lot of money but it was worth it, definitely. I use it frequently and it has the weight and the volume I need, although at times I still wish it was a bit bigger, especially if I've sized up a recipe as I often do. Anyway, here it is, full of scotch broth and sitting on a chopping board made by my father when I first left home. When he retired from work he developed a fascination with woodwork and although this is just a big piece of wood with no carving on it at all it is definitely fit for purpose as a chopping board.

Photography

The Beeb has been showing a wonderful series on BBC4 called "The Genius of Photography", described as the first real documentary describing the history of photography from the very beginnings and the way that the taking of photographs has affected the way we look at the world and the way it still affects us. The most recent one, shown last Thursday was about pictures taken of family life, not happy family pics but pictures of family life showing real lives. We saw pictures of people in the act of taking drugs, pictures one photographer took of his alcoholic father living in a high-rise block in a less then salubrius part of outer London. There was also one Japanese photographer who published series of books of pictures from his marriage day, throughout his marriage until his wife's illness, death and the subsequent funeral. Although it might not seem so we've found the series fascinating and many of the pictures really speak to you. Very, very thought provoking.

In this latest programme several of the photographers were takinhg pictures of everything in their lives and I've found it reminded me of something I had planned to do early this year - namely to take pictures of my life and what interests me. And why shouldn't I start to do so.

Victoria Wood - Let's Do It

I just love this.

I seem to be going through a period of lethargy at the moment. I have a list of things to do and no wish to get on with any of them. For example the garden needs work, I have all the materials to do a crochet-a-thon but haven’t started it yet, I’ve put my (unfinished) knitting to one side, there’s a pile of papers and books in the study to sort out, and so on……and I don’t feel like starting any of them. The weather doesn’t help – it’s so damp and chilly that it makes me not want to do anything. And when I do try my chest starts to complain – having asthma that is triggered by damp weather isn’t easy, especially in a wet winter in England. Even working on the computer isn’t easy at the moment.

But just before the cold wet weather (and the wheezing) started I found a wonderful site where it’s possible to spend a lot of time improving my vocabulary and at the same time helping to feed the world’s poor. The Free Rice site is well worth a visit.