The week in pictures

The Daily Telegraph has a regular item, The Week in Pictures, which is well worth a look at even if you are not a Telegraph fan.
This is the one I picked out from this week's gallery:

If you're a fan of pink and of traditional phones, this is just the one for you. Of course, you'd need a pretty large bag to carry it in, but hey, you can't have everything.

And it is pink....   Everyone will want one!

At the doctor's - again

Yes, again because on Tuesday I had a call from the surgery telling me that my GP would dearly like to talk to me about my cholesterol level! All that worrying I've done over the years about my blood pressure and it's the cholesterol that's sneaked up on me.
On Keith's advice, I went early, arriving at half past eight so that I would be one of the first patients to be seen, which would have been a good strategy had not the rest of the practice decided to do the same. Next time I go, I shall definitely take a shelf full of books with me, or my Kindle, which has a shelf full of books on it anyway. Two hours later (yes TWO HOURS), I got to see my GP.  At least she is not jealousy-makingly thin and there was a sense of heartfelt empathy as she agreed with me that losing weight is much harder after the menapause. Anyway, she was quite happy with my blood pressure, althought interestingly, she did comment that it had been very high in 2004. (Anyone who scoffs at the idea that teaching is stressful, please take note...) After taking some family history and asking me about my diet and exercise, it only remained for her to type up my prescription for Simvastatin.
"What about diet?" she asked, "What are your weaknesses?" "Well, nothing really," I started to say.
"Do you eat cheese?" "Well yes, sometimes..."
"What kind?" "Er, Red Leicester usually, but I don't ..."
"HA! You'll have to cut down on that, then!"
While I am anxious to do whatever it takes to avoid strokes and heart attacks,   this seems like the first step towards the dreaded senior years and a reminder that the old body does have a finite shelf life, however much I like to think otherwise.
You think I'm being a bit melodramatic here? Of course I am - it's what I do!

Upper end of normal

This morning was my appointment with the nurse for BP and cholesterol test. She looked vaguely familiar when I went in and then I remembered, in her other life, she is one of the receptionists. I was hoping she was also trained for taking blood, as she sank a painful needle into my arm. I explained about my 'white coat syndrome' which means that my blood pressure tends to rise when it's taken in the surgery or hospital and told her what it had been at home earlier. She nodded politely and then told me that it was now a little lower than that.
"Upper end of normal. I'll pass it on to the doctor," she said.
"I would prefer not to have medication if I can do without it," I said. "Of course, if I could lose a few pounds it would help. They say it's more difficult to lose weight after the menapause - it certainly is!"
She, stick thin, nodded politely.
"I walk about 45 minutes every day with the dog," I continued desperately, "and I eat healthy stuff..."
She nodded politely.
"The results of the cholesterol test should be back on Wednesday," she said.
"Right," I said and got up to leave.
It's just great getting feedback, don't you think?

Twittering...

Something on TV this morning set Keith off on a grumble about the inanity of social networking sites.
"I just can't see the point," he said. "What possible interest could anyone have in my tweet that I had just had a tomato for breakfast?"
A great deal, I should think. The day he has just a tomato for breakfast without the bacon, eggs and sausage to go with it, will be extremely newsworthy. However, I kept these thoughts to myself.
When Paddy and I got back from our walk, Keith announced (to me, rather than to the world) that he had had his breakfast, including a tomato.
"You'd better set up your Twitter account right now!" I laughed.
For the record, although I have long been a fan of blogging, I can't see any point at all in Twitter and am only on Facebook because it makes it easier to follow the doings of Elder and Younger Daughters (Be warned, girls!) and I am always concerned when I read that Facebook powers-that-be have surreptitiously introduced yet another 'improvement' that chips away a little more at people's privacy.
Still, if Keith does set up a Twitter account (unlikely), it will be interesting to see how many millions of followers around the world will respond to his announcement that he had a tomato for breakfast.