Lazy Sunday Afternoon

I’m not going to try to do a catch up this time. Rather if something that has happened since my last update has any bearing on what is going on now, I’ll mention it in passing.

Today I’ve decided to have a lazy Sunday, which is most probably appropriate as the clocks went forward last night. So far I’ve stayed in bed reading for an extra hour. Ok I’m reading trash – well, young adult fantasy novels to be precise – but the key thing is that I’m reading it on my new Kindle. Yes, I finally decided to splash out and get myself an eReader. I had not been convinced, since you can’t share books around and it seemed a bit expensive just to buy books for me to read. But there are now loads of cheap ones on there (although they are not normally by the popular authors) and many of the classics are free. I find it easy to read as well: the screen is clear and it’s not like reading a PC screen, where I find it hard to take in the information that I’m reading. It’s also easier than a book to hold and carry around. I bought it last Tuesday and so far I’m on my 4th book, although I’ve downloaded quite a few more to it.

The weather has been good and I have been working in the garden. I’ve managed to clear virtually all of the winter and autumn debris and have finished my cutting back, with the exception of the laurel bush in the front garden which I need to cut back hard again. The whole of the back garden is done, and most of the front. I’m really pleased. It’s all looking good – far better than it normally does at this time of year. I’ve even been able to sit out in the sun and read! Shame about the lawn though. I think I just have to give up on that.

Have you ever noticed how life has its rhythms, and that over time those rhythms change? For example, the shape of our days now is different to how it was a year ago, and that is different to 3 years ago. Part of that is due to the change in our patterns for walking the dogs, as both are still suffering with joint / muscle problems so are not having 2 long walks a day. They now have an off-lead walk of about an hour together in the morning, then Max has a swim in the afternoon and Jez has another lead walk in the evening. Even that may change now the clocks have changed, though, as we have been taking Jez out about 7.30pm as she loves walking in the dark. I’m not sure what she’ll make of the lighter evenings and whether we’ll change the time of her second walk. We’ll have to see. I have also found it easier to relax since I was laid up after having the operation on my foot: I find I’m able to sit down and read for an hour without feeling too guilty.

I’ve been doing a lot more cooking of late, especially baking, although the more I do the worse I seem to get. In the past 3 weeks I’ve been trying to make flapjacks. I started out with a recipe from a Guardian article about making perfect flapjacks, where the reported had supposedly tried different combinations of ingredients to come up with the perfect flapjack. Well, the first attempt didn’t work as the oats didn’t bind together properly, but I put that down to the fact that I didn’t have quite the right oats. So the next week I tried to follow the recipe having got the right oats and didn’t like the result at all: far too many quick cook oats which left a floury texture, although the mixture did bind quite well. This week I’ve used 3 types of oats in my own mix and the result is really good. I think one final tweak with the quantity of quick cook oats and I should be there.

I also made a carrot cake for the first time yesterday. Chris has always said he doesn’t like carrot cake, but only because he doesn’t like the idea of carrot cake. This was a Mary Berry recipe (I treated myself to Mary Berry’s Baking Bible a few weeks ago) and involved banana as well. The resulting cake looked a bit odd before it was topped with its cream cheese topping, but tastes good. Chris says the topping is a bit sweet for him, and come to think about it the last buttercream filling I made from the Mary Berry book was a bit sweet too, so I’ll have to remember to watch the sugar content in her recipes.



I’ve also been trying to set up a better list of recipes that we like and those to try. The number of cookbooks I have has risen again and I can’t keep track. We have eaten some really good food recently though. Last night I made a Sri Lankan chicken curry from Rick Stein’s ‘Far Eastern Odyssey’ which was very hot but really tasty. I have noticed a common thread in a lot of the food we are eating at the moment though: chilli. Everything nowadays seems to involve chilli. Oh, and either lemon or lime. But I’m not complaining – I like all three.

I’ve continued with my photography too, although only spasmodically. On Friday I finally decided that I would try taking some photos for this month’s Guardian Camera Club assignment on Photographing the Recession. When I walk Jez at night we sometimes do a circuit that takes in Soper’s Lane and York Road, on the corner of which stands the site of the old Poole Pottery factory that closed a few years ago. They are starting to pull it down, so I thought it would make a good subject. I ended up with 6 photos I was pleased with, so have submitted those. You can see them on my Flickr account if you want to have a look: Flickr . Other than that I’ve been trying to catch photos showing aspects of Spring. The problem is that there is little to photograph over Canford Heath where we normally walk. I did manage to get some really good shots of a buzzard at Upton Country Park earlier in the month though.



Well, that’s about it. Time to go back to my reading.

Oh Paddy will you carry me? I think I've lost my way

I’m not very good at this any more, am I? All of my good intentions have gone out of the window – I just never seem to feel like sitting down at the PC and writing anything. In January I at least had excuses for it – now I have none.

Part of the trouble is that there is not a lot to say. The weather is, on the whole, miserable, and my mood matches it. I’ve been feeling pretty down in the dumps lately. This is despite, or maybe because of, the fact that I’ve had a birthday since I last posted. As birthday’s go it was ok, although nothing to shout about. I decided that I would replace my food processor for my birthday present from Chris, and even that didn’t work out well, as we got back from John Lewis only to find we had the wrong one. I had to go back and change it the next day. Going to John Lewis to choose a present – that was my birthday treat. I made the mistake of taking Chris, who moped around the shop after me so that I felt pressured and left as soon as I could. We had lasagne & chips for dinner though, so at least that made up for it a bit.

The day before we had Dad & Pat over for lunch. I’m not quite sure how I ended up cooking lunch for my birthday, but I did. I had a half shoulder of lamb in the freezer though, so treated us to that. Chris doesn’t like lamb, so I got him a pork steak. Also Dad wanted me to look up some car insurance quotes for him online. I tried to explain what a pain it was, but he wanted me to go ahead anyway. In the end though, we didn’t get anywhere and he ended up deciding he would have to phone round. And I got really upset when I kept trying to tell him about my car insurance, and neither he nor Chris would let me speak. I shut up in the end. I have to ask myself how many times have I realised that it’s just best to keep my mouth shut and not say anything. Either I say too much, or no-one is interested in what I have to say, or I try and be helpful and everyone takes it the wrong way. I often wish my brain would just refuse to let me talk anymore.

I’ve given up on the idea of writing too. I am not getting anywhere – I don’t seem to have the discipline. I thought I had a fairly good plot outline until Chris found a few scribbled notes and laughed at them and said they were just weird. And I tried to envisage actually going ahead and writing something and sending it off to publishers, and I realised that I would never actually find the courage to let people read it. I couldn’t face being laughed at. And Chris would be worst of all. I am trying to read more though. I feel my brain it atrophying. All I do is watch rubbish TV and walk the dogs. Conversations are with dog walkers only. Which reminds me of another problem with the writing thing – I have absolutely zero social skills, so there is no way I’d be able to write decent, or even half decent conversations.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, reading. I used to read a lot (well I’ve studied enough in my lifetime). But in recent years I’ve found my concentration has got worse and worse. I can’t even concentrate on the TV for more than a few minutes at a time. I used to put it down to work stress, and I’m pretty sure that’s what started it. But it seems to have snowballed. I can read a decent novel for quite long periods, but anything else and my brain switches off after 5 minutes. But I’m trying to read more anyway, in the hope that even if I only read for short periods of time initially, the ability to read for longer, and to take in what I’m reading, will return. I have also been encouraged with the recent findings that show the brain increases in size with activity, and that this can happen throughout your lifetime. So there’s hope for me yet.

Our latest problem is that Chris’ PC gave up the ghost on Saturday morning. He started getting warnings that the CPU was overheating on Friday, but by Saturday morning it would not boot at all. It was due for replacement though – he’d just been putting it off because of all the hassle of re-installing programs and moving all of his data over. So we went out and bought a new top of the range HP PC, with an i7 chip, 8 gb of Ram & 1.5tb of hard drive. Trouble is, he can’t get the stupid thing to work properly. It’s Tuesday now, and he’s spent 3 and a half days on it. This morning it was blue screening on him. I wanted to take it back, but it at least seems stable for now. It seems the worst of the problems was caused by Zone Alarm, which doesn’t want to work with 64 bit machines. Of course, a load of the Windows 7 updates have refused to install. I think he needs to re-install Windows from scratch, but he’s not sure how as none of these PCs come with discs any more. And I’ve got well and truly hacked off by people telling me he should have bought a Mac. For a start he doesn’t like them. For another thing, the last thing you want to hear when you’ve just spent an entire month’s salary (well pension) on something is that you should have bought something else.

Is that it? I doubt it, but I can’t think of anything else to say at the moment so I’ll leave it there and post it.

We reach out over race and hold each other's hands

Well that wasn’t very good was it? So much for my writing a bit each day. And I don’t really know where the time has gone. Ok, I did finish up with Chris’ tax return – which got delayed a bit while we asked a couple of questions of the company accountant – and then after that I put together the book-keeping for his new company and brought it up to date, and that took a while. I also seem to have got most of my bits and pieces straight and up to date, so I’m feeling quite pleased and as though a weight has been lifted.

In terms of what else we have been up to in the interim, we went to London two Sunday’s ago for our ‘Christmas’ visit to Chris’ parents, his middle brother and his wife. On the way there we stopped off at Virginia Water lake to give the dogs a bit of a walk. If we don’t do that they are not only over excited by the time we arrive (which they are anyway, but would be a lot worse) but they don’t get any exercise during the day either. And Virginia Water is handy, being just off the M3, and is a lovely spot to walk. For those of you who don’t know, Virginia Water is part of the royal parks at Windsor. You can read about it here, plus take a look at the gallery:
Our actual visit to Chris’ family was dominated by football: it was called ‘Super Sunday’ as there were 3 matches on back to back which everyone bar Rosa (Chris’ sister-in-law) and I wanted to watch. So the TV was on the whole time. We did manage at least some conversation though, and Rosa had made a lovely lunch, with an even lovelier chocolate cake. There are photos from the day on my photo blog.

Last week we had one or two really nice sunny days, although we had some fairly hard frosts. It meant that I was able to get a few photos when I was walking the dogs (also on my photo blog, and on my Flickr stream). We have stopped walking Max so much again, though, as he has started limping badly again. To make matters worse he is skipping steps with his back right leg – not a good sign. However, I’ve watched him the last couple of times I’ve taken him out (Saturday and today), and he only does it about 5 minutes into his walk for about 5 minutes, then stops. If it doesn’t improve though I’ll have to take him back to the vet. Meanwhile we are swimming him twice a day every other day, with a short walk and a swim on the other, alternate, days.

Jez isn’t that great either – she’s not putting her full weight on her back right leg. Generally it doesn’t seem to be bothering her, although she refused to go for a walk one day last week, so I put her back on her meds for a couple of days. She has to go to the vet on Wednesday for her annual check up and booster, so I’ll get them to have a quick look at her then. We’re assuming it’s something to do with her spine, but I’ll get them to check just in case it’s a problem with her leg. This is the one that she’s had 3 operations on to stop her knee slipping out of joint, so I hope it’s not her knee.

On Thursday I had a check up with the podiatrist, who was really pleased with the progress on my foot. I have to go back again in 4 months. As I had to go into Poole for the appointment I did a bit of shopping using gift cards that Chris had I have had over the past 2 years. So I ended up buying the Blu-ray version of all 3 Bourne films, together with a Blu-ray version of all 4 Dirty Harry films. I’m not sure when we’ll get round to watching them though. We seem to be struggling to get through all of the TV programmes and the rentals that we’ve got. On top of that I’ve given Chris all 5 series of Supernatural, so we’re watching series 1-4 again in order to finally catch up and get to watch series 5 for the first time. Then we’ve got into the habit of taking Jez for a night-time walk, since she only has one walk during the day at the moment; and that interrupts our evening. She does love it though: she gets out there and does a full speed Staffy strut all the way round, trailing us behind her.

This Sunday morning I gave Max a good clip – he’d go so shaggy that it made him look a lot fatter than he actually is. After that we went to Dad and Pat’s for lunch. Dad had cooked a piece of gammon he’d bought thinking we’d go over Boxing Day although he didn’t actually ask us until a couple of days before, by which time I’d got food in myself. And Pat made the lemon chiffon pie that I gave her the recipe for. It was a really nice lunch, and the dogs always enjoy going over there.

There, I seem to be about up to date. I can’t let this entry pass, though, without comment on the two Sky commentators who made derogatory off-air comments about a woman lineswoman at a footie match on Saturday. They suggested someone should go down and explain the off-side rule to her, as being a woman she wouldn’t know it: I suggest they try explaining it to a lot of the male commentators, who frequently get it wrong. There comments were totally uncalled for. And what have Sky done? Given them a gentle slap on the wrist and stopped them from commentating on tonight’s match. In my view they should have been sacked: that’s what would have happened if they had made a racist comment. But apparently in Sky’s view, sexism in the workplace is ok. At least it reminded me to cancel my subscription to Sky Sports though, so I suppose some good came of it.

Who's that knocking on my door?

We overslept this morning. Although my alarm went off, I turned it up and lay dozing, as it was Chris’ turn to get up and get the coffee. Only I did slightly more than doze: I went back to sleep. Unfortunately Chris’ alarm chose today for the battery to run out, so it didn’t go off. It was just before 9am when he finally woke up and came to see what time it was.

The reason we were so tired was that Jez had had us awake for quite a while at around 4am. We’re not entirely sure what was going on, but she started barking, then came down to the front door which she wouldn’t leave alone. She was snuffling and breathing round it so loudly. And she kept going back to it. We think a fox must have taken shelter from the rain on the doorstep, as next door’s cats sleep there all the time and she never makes this amount of fuss. Eventually she got up on my bed and I shut my bedroom door. After that she settled down and went to sleep.

Once I’d got us this morning I took the dogs for a walk on Canford Heath. It had rained a lot over night, but was fairly warm and sunny this morning. It was very wet underfoot though, and I was glad I had my wellingtons. In places the paths were completely flooded and, as with Upton Heath, new streams had formed in many places. In addition, a lot of the more regular streams that dry out during the summer are now filled with water. In many places they actually form the paths, and although you can try and walk along a narrow strip with no heather along their ‘banks’ it is actually easier most of the time to walk in the stream bed, which tends to be gravel and sand, rather than the boggy mud of the bank.

I’m not sure exactly who is responsible for maintaining the heath: I think it’s Poole Council. Anyway, whoever it is, they have been cutting back some of the young trees and rhododendrons again. I know it is good for the heath, but it looks dreadful where it’s all been cut back; flat and barren.

This afternoon I have continued with Chris’ tax return. He’s hopeless at record keeping, although at least he tries which is more than can be said for some of my clients when I used to work as an accountant. I mainly rely on my records of what’s been paid into and out of our bank account though. By the end of the afternoon I had finally got everything worked out, and am ready to input it to the tax return tomorrow.

Look for the bear necessities

I’ve not been having too good a day today. I need to do Chris’ tax return for last year, so settled down to do it. It should only take a couple of half days normally. But as soon as I started to sort out the interest on investments I ran into trouble. It appears I’ve mistakenly deleted my Spreadsheet of savings and investments, so have lost my record of what we’ve had where at any given time. The only back up I have was last updated in 2008. So it took me ages sorting out accounts before I could start. At least now I’ve done all the investment stuff, so I’m only left with his earnings & expenses. I will have to recreate the spreadsheet at some point though, unless I can recover it. The one program I’ve tried so far couldn’t find it, but that’s not too surprising. Although I didn’t delete it very long ago, my hard drive is almost full and I’ve been moving loads of photos to and from my external hard drive.

Other than that the only thing I’ve done today is go to Wimborne. I needed to go to Waitrose food shopping, and wanted to have another go at getting some wellington boots. This time I was successful in my boot hunting expedition, and managed to get a pair of Hunter’s in the sale. They are really expensive, even in the sale, so I hope they’re all they’re cracked up to be. Meanwhile I got Chris a normal cheap pair (that was what he wanted).

After I’d finished writing my update yesterday I sat and watched the last part of The Bear Family and Me, which is a 3-part wildlife film by Gordon Buchanan, who does a lot of filming for BBC’s Springwatch and Autumnwatch. I always enjoy watching him: I remember last spring when he got so excited because he got to film some killer whales in the North Sea. This particular documentary is a film about black bears. He filmed it with the help of a bear researcher who, controversially, has discovered that if you approach the bears with food initially and talk to them, they will then ignore you when the food has gone and let you observe them. As a result he managed to get up close and film an amazing insight into the life of these much feared creatures.

I also finished reading Stardust by Neil Gaiman last night. He has an excellent writing style, making his books very readable, yet at the same time very well written (although I have to admit I find it impossible to read badly written books). I was surprised how different the book was to the film: in the film they had changed some parts (including the ending) and some characters, significantly.

Finally, I am pleased to see that Gabrielle Giffords, the US congresswoman shot in the head two days ago, is responding to treatment. I was fascinated to learn that they have removed half of her skull temporarily (i.e. not just for the operation) to counter any swelling of the brain. If she survives, then I suspect she has a long, hard recuperation ahead of her. Sadly, brain injuries can change people completely, and I see that in this case the bullet went through the parts of her brain governing speech. But the brain is an amazing thing, and can quickly re-route itself. I truly hope she can make a full recovery.

Those autumn leaves

I’ve just thought. The last decade was the ‘naughties’. And in two years time we’ll be in the teens. But how do we refer to 2011 and 2012?

Anyway, the big news last night was the shooting of the US Congresswoman and a sort of constituency surgery in Arizona last night. Some guy walked up to her and shot her in the head. I feel so sorry for her. But it does appear as though she will survive. He then pulled another gun and killed 6 people, including a child, and injured a further dozen or so (reports seem to vary). He was 22 years old, reportedly had mental health problems and had been turned down by the US military. So what was he doing with at least 2 guns, one of which appears to have been an automatic weapon? Does the right to bear arms really outweight the right to life? And Sarah Palin has a lot to answer for: posting 20 target states, including Arizona, with crosshairs on them, simply because they supported Obama’s health bill. I try not to get involved in foreign politics, or even UK ones too much, but there are times I am glad I am not an America.

Meanwhile we watched the film Iron Man (more weapons and killing) on TV. We had seen it before, but I have this funny feeling I watched it in a drunken stupor. Chris could hardly remember it either, so it makes me wonder what the occasion had been that we had both drunk so much before watching it before.

Today has been nice and sunny, although there was a sharp frost overnight. I took the dogs over Canford Heath for a walk, wrapped up well, and then was too hot. When I came home I finished raking / sweeping up the leaves (well, apart from the front lawn). There are now nearly 30 bags of leaves waiting to go to the rubbish tip for composting. Chris had said he’d do it, but apparently planned to start after the football finished. It took me over 2 hours to do it, so given that the footie finished at 3,30pm, I have to wonder just how Chris thought he was going to fit it in.

Max was with me in the garden all the time again today. He just bounces around and never stops, which I feel must be good for his weight. In fact, both Chris and I think he’s starting to look thinner, although it’s hardly surprising as we are virtually starving the poor dog (on vet’s advice, he says we won’t hurt him). Jez is still not right. She’s quite bouncy in herself (and Chris has taken her for another short walk now), but clearly has trouble standing at times, especially after she’s been resting. I’ve still got her on her Previcox to help ease any pain and inflammation.

If you look at the Flickr uploads on the sidebar of this blog you’ll see photos from today. I would post them in here, but won’t have time before Chris comes back from his walk.

Will you still need me, ... When I'm 64?

What sort of fair-weather writer am I? One day of being busy and my blogging goes by the board. You have to wonder: I’m retired and yet I can’t find half an hour to update my blog. I was pretty busy yesterday though: updating & reconciling the finances, mending, cleaning out the fridge, cleaning the house, going to Tesco to pick up the Blu-ray player, setting up the Blu-ray player, trying to get the PC to play via the TV…

It’s those last two items that need further comment. I hate technology! I try to explain to my Dad that all this plug and play, easy to use technology takes up hours and hours of your time; firstly to get it working and then to sort it out when it goes wrong. To be fair setting up the Blu-ray player was pretty simple – it was just a case of plugging it in and following on screen instructions. I’m a bit perplexed over what Sony had in mind when they created a TV controller that you can sync with the DVD, but which doesn’t have a pause button on it. It makes it worse than useless as a controller for a DVD player. If I had an additional out port on our broadband modem I could link it to the internet as well, but, typically, the modem only has one out port, and that goes to the wi-fi box. Looking on Amazon I may be able to get an adaptor though, in which case I’ll be able to connect the player to the internet, as apparently some DVD’s have connections to additional internet content.

We’re pleased with the DVD player. Our old one is getting a bit flaky when it comes to playing back DVDs, although we still use it to record TV to as that function is working fine. The upscaling means we’re getting a really good picture from normal DVDs – I was particularly impressed with the picture quality from Monsters Inc., which I tried out as it just happened to be lying next to the TV.

My real problems came when I tried to connect the PC to the TV. I’ve found that on Love Film there are lots of old TV series that you can stream to a PC for free, which are not available for streaming direct to the PC. They are the sort of thing we watch a lot when they pop up on TV so I thought it makes sense to see if I can get the PC to play through this TV. I could also connect to 4OD and ITV player which aren’t yet available on internet TV. I used to connect it to our old TV, but sadly I’ve lost the S-video lead I use (not that there’s anywhere to plug it in on this TV that I can see). So having looked on the Sony site and at my laptop manual I bought a VGA lead. Connecting it wasn’t a problem: getting the laptop to work was. I don’t know what was going on with my laptop, but it chose to have a funny 5 minutes while I tried to connect it to the TV last night. First of all I lost the picture completely and had to re-boot. Then it lost the internet and couldn’t find it anywhere, so I had to re-boot again. Finally, when I did get it working it was streaming so slowly it was hopeless. I’m going to have another go today and see if I can get it streaming properly so that we can judge whether this is a go-er or not.

At the end of all of that I had a headache and felt worn out. It was supper time though, so I poured myself a G&T to fortify me, and tackled dinner. I did a Rick Stein recipe for Omelette Arnold Bennett last night – it was very good. After that we watched the second episode of the new series of Primeval, a Homicide: Life on the Streets, and then the new series of The Hustle.

The other thing that happened yesterday was that I aggravated my foot where it had been healing nicely. When I went to Tesco I squeezed into my Ecco sheepskin boots, which were a bit tight but which I thought would be ok. Wrong! Half way round Tesco my foot really started to hurt. I couldn’t wait to get home and get my boot off. It hurt all last night, and is still hurting this morning.

Jez, meanwhile, seems a lot better. She brightened up yesterday, was almost walking properly, and spent a lot of time playing with her toy giraffe and hassling Max. I gave her another half a Previcox last night in case she needed it, and she had a much more settled night. I only felt her stir once, which suggests she was a lot more comfortable. We weren’t going to walk her today, but she seems so much better Chris is trying her and Max on a short walk at them moment. If he can do a short walk, that is. Jez tends to boss him while they’re out on walks, so if she wants a long walk, a long walk it is.

Today is David Bowie’s 64th birthday. I’ve post a greeting on his website, not that I expect him to see it as he hasn’t been on there in years. But, as they say, it’s the thought that counts. And I have a lot to thank him for. Unbeknownst to him, he helped me lose weight and change my look back in 2003-2004 (I could do with that help again now David), partly by showing me I didn’t have to be old and frumpy at 47, and partly because I used mainly his music as the rhythm for my lunchtime power-walking. And, via his website, he introduced me to other fans all over the world, some of whom have become my friends (whether I have met them or not). And when everything was going so badly wrong for me in 2005, it was those people who helped keep me sane. So happy birthday Sailor – I hope it’s a good one. And if at any time you feel like reconnecting with us again, we’d love to hear from you, and, yes, we do still need you.

Well, that’s it for now. I want to post this and see if I can find a way of increasing the font size on my blogs. It’s a real struggle to read when there’s a lot there, so it hardly encourages people to stop by and see what I have to say.