Demob happy teacher

An arm with a hole in it

Reminding Keith that I had an appointment for another blood test this morning, my parting shot was, "When I come back, I shall have an arm with a hole in it from the needle." As an attempt to elicit some degree of sympathy from him, it was a miserable failure.

The result of my last blood test, after seeing the GP about possible gall bladder problems, was a phone call two days later asking me to return in two weeks as my 'C reactive protein' level was raised. A quick scout around the internet informed me that this indicated some infection, so today, I am hoping that my blood will be back to its original pure, unsullied state.

Also last time, I was asked the usual questions about my lifestyle and then the nurse wondered aloud about taking my blood pressure. "Well, I tend to suffer from white coat syndrome," I said, "and I do keep an eye on it at home." So she left it. This time, I didn't get away with it. "It's a little higher than last time," she mused. "Maybe you could come back in a month and I'll check it again."

Now, I am already on statins and have possible gall bladderitis and this in spite of a blameless (more or less) diet and lifestyle. I was drinking skimmed milk before most people had even heard of it!

I'm too young to be going down this 'medication for life' route - at least that's what I tell myself - and I don't really know what else I can stop eating/ start doing / start not doing.

Maybe I should just start living a disgracefully unhealthy lifestyle and I might turn out to be one of those centenarians who boasts about drinking a litre of whisky and eating 27 beefburgers a day.

No, that's no good - I don't like either!

Au bord du canal

My counselling supervisor has her rooms in Chester, right by the canal, so if the weather is half decent, I sometimes drive into Chester a bit earlier than usual so that I can have a few minutes contemplating the scenery. This is how it was today.

The sky was beginning to cloud over but it was still fairly bright.

This is the lock and if you look carefully, you will see my thumb in the top right hand corner. David Bailey I ain't!

Anyone from the south east will notice from the water level that we have definitely NOT suffered a lack of rainfall over the past few months. No drought here!

Meanwhile, the resident swans were snatching a few zeds. It was lunchtime, after all.

And now ...

Well now, Keith has discovered an app for his phone which reads barcodes. He tried it first on a jar of Sudocrem which he happened to have sitting by his computer and discovered that it could seek out where it was available and at what different prices.

"Ooh, this is good!" he said and off he wandered into the kitchen, returning with a tin of corned beef (his, not mine!).

"Now, if I went on Tesco's site," he said, grinning manaically, "it would tell me how much this is and it would order it! So now I can go round scanning cakes and buying them!"

I foresee no good will come of this...

Click, click

The clicking sound that has permeated the living room chez Jennyta is the sound of Keith ~~playing with~~ setting up his new mobile phone. It needs a lot of setting up as it is an all singing, all dancing Android dual sim phone, which means that he can have two sim cards in it. The reason he needs two sim cards is that the mobile phone reception up here in the wilds of north Wales is so variable that it can go from 5 bars to none in the twinkling of an eye, so the idea is, that if one fails, he can use the other one.

Anyway, he has finally got it as he wants it, after several hours and is happily reeling off all the things it can do, including, it seems, making and receiving phone calls!

Who knew!

Looking forward

Today was great. The dogs and I actually managed reasonable length walks without skidding either on the ice or the mud - a first for a good few days. And while that made a very pleasant change, I couldn't help thinking how lovely it will be when we can go walking again in surroundings that look more like this...