Houses

About eighteen months ago, Paddy and I passed these poor, neglected houses quite often on our walks.

They were completely boarded up and the gardens were choked with vegetation but I thought it was a shame that they couldn't be bought and renovated by someone.

Last week, we passed that way again and, look at the difference!

Not finished yet and I'm not enamoured of the pvc window frames and doors but a vast improvement on  their original state and hopefully, new homes for someone.

Trouble at t 'ouse?

I hope Shooting Parrots won't mind, but I read his hilarious latest post this morning and now I just have to pass on the link to those of you who don't already visit his blog.

Go and have a look here.
Enjoy!

Welsh email

It was  half term last week, so we had no Welsh course. The week before, our topic was the weather and the sheet we had been given, not done by our own tutor, had a couple of omissions and regional variations on it so, harking back to my primary teacher days, I revamped it and gave it to our tutor to look at. She thought it was great and asked me to email it to her so that she could use it with all her groups, which I duly did,

In reply, I got this:

Diolch yn fawr Jenny!

Ardderchog.

Wela i chi wythnos nesa ar ddydd Gwyl Dewi!

Hwyl.

Ymlaciwch dros y penwythnos.

The point is, I understood it - all of it! Which I think is da iawn - don't you?

Treats

There is a ritual in our house which takes place every evening. Keith decides to have a snack, which he does. The dogs know that once he has finished, he will have biscuits in his pocket for them, three bone shaped ones for Paddy and one for Jake. Jake delicately breaks his up and eats it in pieces in the same length of time as Paddy practically swallows his three whole.

What is interesting, though, is the different ways in which they prepare themselves.

Jake is all action, planting himself firmly at Keith's feet as if to say, "I'm here waiting. Don't forget me!"

Paddy, on the other hand, is much more circumspect. He has known the drill longer than Jake and has been lying on the sofa, apparently snoozing, but in reality, keeping his gimlet eyes on Keith's every move. As soon as he sees Keith''s hand go to his pocket, he slides smoothly off the sofa and is at Jake's side in a trice.

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...