Chester

My younger daughter has just been for a visit. We picked her up last night in Chester to save her coming through to Wrexham and having to change trains. This afternoon, we went back into Chester as I had an appointment at 2 o'clock and we also hoped to fit in some retail therapy. As it happened, it took so long to get into Chester and locate the car park I needed to park in to be within walking distance of my appointment that we didn't actually get out of the car until 1.20p.m. So, not really any time for retail therapy or lunch because we were surrounded by shops with price tags far out of range of a student and a recently redundant teacher and couldn't find any eating places that were not either full to bursting or charging £1.90 for a bottle of water - which, although rapidly dying of thirst, I adamantly refused to pay! Finally I bought a bottle of water from a little newsagents and we sat down on a bench for a few minutes. Within a few seconds we were accosted by one of the local nutcases who was trying to interest us in a stack of dubious postcards, so we had to move on to get out of his way.
On to the appointment, which took an hour instead of the half hour I had anticipated, and a quick bite to eat and it was time to head off to the train station. It took 10 minutes to find the car park entrance, which had apparently been designated as a completely hidden aperture and then a further 5 minutes to discover that our level, blue level, could not be reached by entering white level, although that's precisely what we had done in the car! (Confused? You will be!)
So, out of the car park, at last, into the Friday afternoon going-home traffic and many road works and detours until, more by good luck than good judgement, we arrived at the station.
Daughter decanted, good-byes said and off I set, once more into the breach, the hills of Wales in my sights and determined not to venture into Chester again in the near future!.

Memories of Paris???

Keith and I were talking about our forthcoming holiday yesterday evening. We have decided to spend a day in Paris on our travels through France and I commented that I had spent 10 days there as a student, many moons ago. Whereupon, Keith asked me if I had been up the Eiffel Tower. When I said I remembered going to see it but couldn't remember whether I had been up it or not, he fell about laughing and flatly refused to believe me!
"You MUST remember something like that!" he choked.
"It was 35 years ago," I reasonably pointed out....reasonably.
"Doesn't matter!" he exclaimed, "You don't forget something like that - the prospect of going up in the lift, seeing all those girders...!"
At which moment I felt the need to point out to him that the feminine mind is not necessarily enthralled by the concept of girders - whether on the Eiffel Tower or anywhere else.
I think he's been watching too much "Scrapheap Challenge" myself. It's turned his brain!!

Another quiz!

Another quiz, folks, for those of you who have nothing better to do with your time!
Have a look at here to find out what type of Winnie the Pooh character you are. Now you know you can't live without that knowledge!
Me? I'm the Owl!

You are Owl! Wise and calm, you constantly feel
that you must help those around you who are...
not as gifted in certain areas as you are. As
in, everyone.


Which Winnie the Pooh character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Doctors? Dentists!

I do agree with this in today's news. There are obviously many people who, for whatever reason, do not keep their appointments with their G.P. There is the problem that in some practices it is impossible to get an appointment within 2 or even 3 weeks unless you are dying, and even then, it's not certain! Not surprising, then, that the less organised of us may forget about the appointment before it comes round. Incidentally, I will pay homage to my previous doctor here. He runs a practice single handed, with a mix of appointment and open access sessions and I have never had to wait more than 2 days for an appointment with him, which begs the question - if he can do it, why can't larger practices?
The problem I have at present, however, is not with doctor's appointments. My problem is with dental appointments, or lack of. It shocked me when I looked at NHS website for Wales and discovered that, in the whole of Clwyd, not just Wrexham, there is not one dentist who is taking on new patients, either NHS or private! So I have the choice of hoping nothing goes wrong with my teeth in the near future or doing a 100 mile round trip to my former dentist near Liverpool!
So much for Tony Blair's wish to improve the state of the nation's teeth! I bet he doesn't have a problem getting his pearly whites sorted out!

Location, location, location!

Having been musing over the ever escalating price of property in the U.K. over the weekend, I came across 2 items in the news today. The first is this one about an island for sale off the coast of Guernsey - a snip at £50,000 to £200,000. Sounds absolutely idyllic although some idiot has apparently suggested that it would be a good place for a casino!
The other is if the quiet island life gets too quiet and you fancy a move to the bright lights of London, Mayfair, to be exact. This little pied a terre will set you back £25,000 a week in rent.
So, the choice is yours. No contest really....I'd go for the island retreat any time, but definitely without the casino!

Baby Boomers

We went over to Sheffield yesterday to visit my elder daughter and see the house she has just (bought) committed herself to a hefty mortgage for. A little over a quarter of a century ago, she was a babe in arms and I had been introduced to the novel concept of being responsible for this new being I had brought into the world.
Now, she is a mature, responsible, confident adult, fully in charge of her life and making 'doctor-speak' comments about my cholestol level and pre-arthritic ankles! It must be a result of my encouraging her to specialise in geriatric care so that she can look after me in my old age!
When I look at young people of her generation, they seem so confident and self-assured, much more so than I was. "Work hard, play hard" is the motto and, indeed in today's culture of working endless hours, they do have to grab the chance to relax when they can. Those who have degrees enter the world of work already committed to paying off their loans before they can even think about taking on mortgages for houses with ever increasing price tags and by the same token, bringing up a family has to be juggled with staying at work in order to pay the bills.
There is a reason for that lifting of the spirits when 60's music is playing! It reminds my generation of our youth - those heady days when going to university or college was possible without having to live at home to lessen the expense. Those of us who needed it, had grants -
not loans, so we were not saddled with huge debts as a result of getting a degree. When the time came to settle down, house prices were usually affordable. Starting a family was usually possible on one person's salary or wages, so mum could at least stay at home for the first few years - as I did, and, looking back, I feel very privileged to have been able to do so.
So do young people now have a better life? I can't help thinking that we were the lucky ones. We were able to enjoy being young without the financial burdens that our children shoulder today. But then, maybe it's a case of 'distance lending enchantment' and I am looking back through rose coloured spectacles. All I know is, pre-arthritic knees or not, I am glad I had my youth when I did!