A surfeit of mutations

Where have I been this last week and a half? Shame on me for neglecting the blog and actually, I have no excuses at all really. I could say that I have had a bad back and so everything has been taking longer than usual, I have been dealing with carpet fitters, mowing the lawn, practising my welsh, all of which would be true but none of which would be a good enough reason for not blogging so maybe the true reason is that I didn't feel inspired enough to write anything. It happens! Ask Jane Austen!

Welsh classes have become a little more challenging as we have been doing battle in a big way with mutations or 'treiglads' as the Welsh have it. As the language has evolved, someone evidently decided that it was a bit too easy in its original form and they should do something to make it more complicated and I have to acknowledge, they did a pretty good job.

So, depending on which verbs, nouns, adverbs etc you are using, you have to think about whether the noun is masculine or feminine, which bit of the sentence is going to determine which 'treiglad' you use, if any and then string the sentence together, remembering that the Welsh have obviously had an operation on their throats which enables them to pronounce the sound 'ch' so much better than you could ever do. You must do all this within a second or two because, if you take as long as I currently do, the person you are speaking to will be halfway to Chester before you've said anything beyond ' Er...'.

However, it's all great fun and keeps the grey cells in tip top condition - at least I hope it does.

In my group, three of us are not Welsh but it seems that the Welsh have a great line in excuses for non-production/questionable condition of homework. Forget 'The dog ate my homework, Miss.' Yesterday, one of my co-learners handed a slightly muddy sheet to the tutor with the unforgettable sentence,

"Sorry about the mud but I had it on the table and one of my hens stood on it." 

Beat that!

Doggy hairdresser

Being a Border Terrier cross, I have never had to bother with grooming parlours and fancy hair clipping, but Jake here, being one of those fancy dogs with soppy curls and stuff, needed to be spruced up now that his coat has grown back, so Jenny took him off to the doggy hairdressers this morning for his short back and sides.

As Jenny has never had a 'cissy' dog before, she didn't know what to expect, so imagine her surprise - and mine - to see this finished result after three hours of crimping!

He didn't look too happy about his new look and I did hear Jenny say she thought he looked like Gromit, whoever he is.

What a girl!

The dentist

Today was the day I had to go to the dentist for a filling. Yes, just when you thought this week could get no better! I get nervous when I have to go to the dentist. It's a new thing. Years ago, it was something I took in  my stride, just one thing among the myriads of others that made up my day but in those days, the dentist we went to was almost a family friend, Our children went to the same school, he used to put Younger Daughter on the chair at eighteen months old, just to get her used to dental visits in preparation for when she actually needed them, we exchanged tales of our respective children's doings. Oh, and although he had toothbrushes, toothpaste etc for sale in his practice, he always used to give them to us free of charge.

Now, my dentist is Latvian and, while she is a very pleasant, albeit quiet young woman, there is no communication between us and I miss the chit chat.

"The older I get, the more of a baby I am with injections," I joked today, after squirming under the enormous needle which had just been stuck in my gum. 

She smiled and said nothing. I guess her english is not up to chit chat standard and certainly not up to my sense of humour, but thinking back to my friendly dentist, he probably wasn't any more competent than this one - I would say both are good - but a few moments conversation at the start of my visits to him must have taken my mind off the possible pain in store for me and so acted as a relaxant and a diversion.

I know that, with the dearth of NHS dentists these days, I am lucky to have one, whatever her conversational skills and silence during the treatment is certainly easier to deal with than someone who asks you where you are going for your holidays and then expects you to answer while he is excavating your mouth and my old dentist has probably retired by now anyway.

Maybe I should add lessons in Latvian conversation to my welsh lessons.

Out, damn'd spot!

This quote from Lady Macbeth when she was a bit upset, seems to sum up the experiences of Keith and myself over these past two days.

About seven years ago, Keith had a few episodes of venous bleeds from one of his feet but  fortunately, nothing since, until yesterday, that is. The day before, he had noticed a tiny pinprick of broken skin on his left foot and put a plaster on it, which he removed yesterday morning in the bathroom. It wasn't until he was halfway down the stairs, and I was in the middle of making the bed, that I heard a cry of anguish and, rushing to the top of the stairs, I was confronted by the sight of Keith, sitting on a step vainly trying to stem the flow of blood spurting out of his left foot. Several sodden towels later, the bleed was showing no signs of stopping so I took the decision to dial 999 and request an ambulance pronto, which duly arrived within minutes, together with two very nice men in green who proceeded to investigate, interspersed with a conversation about their ambulance and Keith's  along the lines of 'My one's better than your one.'

And, guess what? The bleeding had stopped under all those towels, but they bandaged it up, wrote copious notes, decided he didn't need to have a ride in their ambulance after all and departed.

The rest of the day was as normal - for Keith anyway. For me, it involved lots of cleaning up of blood and phone calls about insurance and quotes for new stair carpet. 

So, last night, with the stairs now looking as if half a dozen axe murderers had been let loose on them, we took ourselves off to bed.

Fast forward to this morning. Keith got up at six o'clock, as he has a 'round bottom' and doesn't tend to linger in bed once he's awake, whilst I promised myself that, today, I would not be leaping around with towels, doing battle with fountains of blood, and turned over for another hour of zeds.

Unfortunately, fate decreed otherwise and we were soon in the middle of a scenario almost identical to yesterday's except that, this time, it was the bedroom carpet that was getting it.

This time, the bleed didn't stop properly so, foot tied up in a plastic bag, I drove him smartly down the road to the hospital. This time, he saw a very nice doctor, who put a couple of stitches in, which, fingers crossed, have sorted it.

However, Keith has spent the day looking pale and interesting and confesses to not feeling 100%, so I am hoping a good night's sleep will have him feeling much better by tomorrow.

"I can't see how murderers are able to clean up every speck of blood like they do in the films," Keith mused last night.

"Oh they probably have dark coloured carpets," I said.

"What colour carpet are we going to get?" he asked.

"Something dark," I said...

Bank Holiday ...

...dawned bright and sunny - yes really! However, it didn't last any longer than it took me to walk the dogs and then the cold and grey set in. Meanwhile, Keith took himself off to the van to do mysterious things therein. Just think 'shed on wheels'. 

At lunchtime, he emerged. "Ah," I thought, "he's going to suggest we go out for lunch."

Fool that I am.

"Would you like to come to Maplins with me?" he said. "I need to get some SZX3257s (or some such thing)."

He certainly knows how to live it up on a bank holiday.

I went.

It was ... such fun!

Just driving along...

How's this for Elf and Safety - Russian style!

Trolley rage?

In the great scheme of things, it's insignificant, but relatively annoying nonetheless. Sainsbury's have one checkout which is specifically for baskets, the idea being that if you have only a few items to pay for, it's quicker to go through one checkout specifically for that situation and it makes sense, or at least it does if everyone reads and takes notice of the large sign above which says, 'Baskets only'. Heck, it doesn't even say it in welsh, just pure, simple, straightforward english.

But this morning, I and another basket-carrying lady were held up by a man with a trolley and a fairly well filled one that that. We shared sympathetic glances and mutterings and then another man pulled up behind me with his well-laden trolley.

I pointed out to him, politely, that this was a basket-only checkout and after he had pretended not to hear me or to have any idea what I was talking about, he said,

"Oh, I didn't realise you were an employee of Sainsbury's!" Followed by, "Yes OK, I can read!"

"Ah," I said, "so it's just that you are quite happy to inconvenience other people?"

To that, I got no reply. Mind you, I was quite pleased that, for once, I had been able to think of a smart reply at the time instead of ten minutes later. I must be getting better at this 'grumpy' lark!

But what I was really annoyed about is that the checkout person, also a man, but let's not read anything into that, completely failed to point out to either customer that they should not be at that checkout. 

"Oh well, they'd already started unpacking their trolleys," was his excuse.

To which I say, if the store has decided to have a checkout dedicated to baskets only, the employees should be enforcing it, not leaving it to us customers to slug it out between us!