Overnight Snowfall

We've had quite a bit of snow falling on Milton Keynes overnight. The car had a blanket of the white stuff on it as I walked Carol over to the Academy. She's still not completely over the throaty bug she's had for the last day, but if she stays off work much longer she will need to go to the doctor's for a sick note. Another case of burocracy. When I got back to the house I scraped the snow off the car windows as I need to go out later to do some shopping. We're down to 68p on the electric meter. The gas ran out yesterday and we had to use emergency, so that will need topping up too. According to the B.B.C. weather forecast we can expect more snow, but it can't be as bad as Scotland, which has had something like two feet of snow over the past week or so.

During my last doctor's appointment the other week I mentioned some of the side effects of the drugs I am taking for my heart. I have changed the times I take the Isosorbide Mononitrate, from 4 and 9 p.m. to the original 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. I have some slight headaches (these were really bad when I was originally prescribed this medication, but it wore off after about a month.) I have found that I wake in the night and cannot get back to sleep. I was informed by my doctor that it wouldn't be the Isosorbide Mononitrate that cause the sleeplessness, but the Bisoprolol which I have been taking since I had the original heart attack in May 2006. I have done some research on the internet and one site has mentioned 'sleeplessness' as one side-effect. Certainly, I can say that at times I have the opposite, I get very tired, usually during the afternoon, but at the moment I am finding that I do wake in the night and cannot get back to sleep. I am currently trying other things to help me sleep, such as having a bath before I go to bed and sometimes having a warm, milky drink, such as hot chocolate to help me sleep. My dosage of the Bisoprolol have been halved, from 10mg to 5mg, but I cannot say I have noticed any difference as regards my sleeping pattern. The other side effect has been muscle cramps, which was the chief reason for halving the dosage, and the muscle cramps seem to have subsided, although at times they can be fairly mild. 

A Cold and Frosty (and Snowy) Morning

The temperature dipped to well below freezing overnight. We had the heating on yesterday afternoon as the house became really cold. The lounge can become really warm when the sun comes out, as it acts as a sun trap, but even the weak sun we had yesterday failed to warm the room enough so that we could do without the central heating. I had to put on emergency gas (we pay using a pre-pay meter and it is 'charged' with a card, which has to be topped up, which we do regularly at the local shop.) so that we could have the central heating on. It's quite a job to do this, as the meter is outside at the front of the house in the meter cupboard (where else?). I have to stand on a chair to reach this meter, and lean into the cupboard (who on earth had the bright idea of putting it in such an awkward place?) I'm over six feet tall, but even standing on a chair and leaning into the cupboard at full stretch, it's quite a difficult procedure. The electric meter is inside the house, on a wall in the corner at the bottom of the stairs. Why couldn't they both be put inside? Then you have to put the card into the slot in the meter, having remembered to turn off all appliances (usually the gas boiler.) You then have to hold the card until the digital display shows up that it has accepted the payment, and then press the button again. The whole thing bursts into life and this shows that the payment has been taken. And that's it. At least with the electric meter you can see immediately how much there is left before it runs out. When it gets to around 50p the meter will make a noise, not unlike a mobile telephone ringtone, at which point you put in the payment key (not like the card which is used for gas) and it puts on around £5 of emergency electricity, which gives you enough time to go out and get the key/card charged to make your payment. Then the amount used is subtracted from what you've just paid, and so the cycle goes on. Paying in this way does at least mean that we can keep track of how much we use and it's a good deal easier than a monthly or quarterly bill. The gas meter, being outside, is a little more difficult to see how much credit remains. The first you know that the gas has run out is when you go to use the hot taps in either the bathroom or the kitchen, to have a bath or to do some washing up and the water runs cold. There is a red light that flashes on the boiler which indicates that the gas has run out, at which point you have to charge the pre-payment card and put it in the meter.

We woke up this morning to find that there had been a modest fall of snow, not as much as they had in other parts of the country. Scotland and Yorkshire had a good four inches or so. The car had a covering of ice and snow on it when we went out to Morrisons to do some shopping. I had to scrape this off the windscreen and the windows before we left the driveway. On the weather forecast on television this morning they said this cold spell could last around two weeks.

Coughs and Sneezes

Carol has been off work since Wednesday with a really sore throat. At one point she could hardly speak, so it was really no good her going in to work as she would never have been heard by the children she teaches. There is enough problems with behaviour at the Academy, without problems being able to speak. 

It is bright and sunny at the moment, but the temperature has been dropping gradually over the past week or so. According to the BBC Breakfast news there has been snow in parts of North Yorkshire and Scotland, and it would appear that we are going to get snow here before the weekend. They had a report this morning on television from Pickering in North Yorkshire, an area we know well as we had a holiday there a few years ago and went by steam train from Pickering to Whitby which was a great journey up over the Moors. 

We had severe snow and ice last winter and as a result many of the roads within Milton Keynes became potholed, many of which have since been repaired. It took the Council quite some time to get round to repairing these holes, but many have only just been dealt with. I have seen Council workers out repairing the road near here, so I suspect someone has decided that it would be best to repair any remaining holes before the wintry weather hits hard. 

Walking Home

I walked over to the Academy to fetch Carol from work at around 4 p.m. yesterday. It's getting dark at that time and she doesn't feel 100% safe. You have to buzz reception at the gate to get in, and you are being constantly watched by surveillance cameras, as a security precaution. Carol has a card which she swipes to open the gate as she's a staff member, but I don't have a card, not being a staff member. I waited in the reception foyer when I got inside the building. Carol appeared after about 15 minutes and we walked out of the Academy campus. There was a group of students leaving as we left, and they were walking ahead of us. They were somewhat abusive to a man who was about to enter the campus, calling him all sorts of names and  and we walked in the same direction back towards home and across the footbridge over Saxon Street. The group of students were gathered near the bridge and going down steps towards the bus stop on Saxon Street and they were shouting abuse at Carol. Then, as we got to the middle of the footbridge and looked down at the road, there was a boy running backwards and forwards across the road. There was fairly heavy traffic passing, including busses. It appeared as if the children were playing some sort of 'chicken' game and at one point one of them, a boy whom Carol knew from teaching him, looked as if he was very nearly run into by a passing car. When we got home Carol telephoned someone at the Academy telling them about the incident with the man entering the campus as well as the 'chicken' game the children were playing in the road. Apparently the abusive behaviour was caught on the C.C.T.V. cameras and would have been recorded. The 'chicken' behaviour was definitely a safety issue and if it was ignored there could be a fatal accident. Further round, on   Chaffron Way there is a small model lighthouse at the side of the road, with plastic flowers on it, and I had wondered what it was there for. People leave flowers and messages at the site of fatal accidents as a sort of memorial. Carol told me this was where a child from the Frank Markham school (the school she worked at before the Academy replaced it around 18 months ago) was run over and killed because he attempted to cross the road. There are perfectly good under-passes and footbridges across these roads around Milton Keynes, so there is absolutely no need to cross the busy grid roads at all.

Wintery Weather

It's relatively mild this morning, but still quite nippy nevertheless. We are being warned that we can expect the temperature to drop mid-week, and with some possibility of snow in some areas of the country. I just hope that it's not going to be as bad as last winter and the winter before that (read my earlier posts.)

New Heart Drug

 A new heart drug looks as if it's on it's way. From what I've heard about it, it sounds as if it has the same sort of effect as statin drugs, reduces the amount of cholestrol in the blood, thus cutting the risk of clots and, consequently, heart attack. The following was taken from the Reuters website:

'An experimental Merck & Co heart drug, from a class of medicine with a troubled past, appeared to be safe and had a "jaw dropping" effect on both good and bad cholesterol levels, according to data from a clinical trial.

Merck's anacetrapib increased good HDL levels by a stunning 138 percent after 24 weeks of treatment, and lowered levels of bad LDL cholesterol by 40 percent in patients already taking LDL-lowering statins, researchers said.

"The lipid effects are jaw dropping in both directions," said Dr. Christopher Cannon, the study's lead investigator from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. He presented the data at the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Chicago on Wednesday.

Researchers found no anacetrapib safety issues during the 18-month study, and patients receiving the drug had fewer serious heart problems than those given a placebo.

Even if development of the medicine continues without a hitch, it will likely be at least five years before Merck can begin selling the drug.

Anacetrapib belongs to a class of drugs called CETP inhibitors that produced one of the most spectacular clinical failures in pharmaceutical history. A pivotal study of Pfizer Inc's highly touted torcetrapib was stopped in late 2006 after higher death rates were found among those taking the drug, pulling the plug on an $800 million Phase III program.

Based on the data from the anacetrapib trial, called Define, "we are 94 percent confident that anacetrapib doesn't have the clinical (side) effects of torcetrapib," Cannon said.

The HDL increase seen with anacetrapib "is double what torcetrapib does; it's four times what niacin can do if you can push niacin to its full 2 gram dose; and 10 times the effect seen with statins," Cannon said, comparing anacetrapib with other therapies.

It is believed that HDL has a heart protective effect, possibly by carrying LDL away from the arteries.'

By Bill Berkrot and Ransdell Pierson

NEW YORK/CHICAGO | Wed Nov 17, 2010 8:44pm IST
 

 (Reuters)

All very fine, but what about the side effects? Will there be muscle cramps, and other side effects? Most notably, running to the toilet a lot, which is a side effect of statins. 

Cold, But Sunny

So we get to Friday. Not a great deal to report, I'm afraid, except to say that it's sunny and bright but there is a definite nip in the air. I walked Carol to the Academy and put on scarf, gloves and wooly hat. The car's windscreen had a slight coating of frost on it, but it would have taken longer to de-ice the car than the time it would take to walk to the Academy, so we left it. Which reminds me, I ought to buy some antifreeze and some deicer spray when we go shopping later, as it will be a necessity as the winter progresses. They've had flooding in Cornwall, according to the B.B.C. news, and Scotland and parts of Yorkshire have had snow. I just hope this doesn't bode too ill for the remainder of the winter, and certainly not as bad as the last two winters.

Cold and Foggy Morning

The day began foggy and cold, but as the morning progressed the sun come out and as it warmed things up the fog  gradually disappeared. The extreme weather we were expecting has not really come to anything, although I'm not so sure about the rest of the country. It was wet and windy on Friday, but then that soon cleared up. As we were driving to Bournemouth on Saturday we were hoping that the weather would improve, which it did. As I write this (12.25 p.m.) the sun is out, although it's not particularly warm, but when I drove into the centre of Milton Keynes to go to Sainsbury's, it was really quite foggy and visability was quite poor. One thing I don't like is driving in fog. It can be really rather dangerous, particularly when other drivers don't seem to care about the effect their driving has on others. Hurtling along as if they hadn't a care in the world, and not slowing down to take into consideration the weather conditions makes driving really difficult and stressful. As I drove past Milton Keynes College, which is over the road and beyond the Academy on Woughton Campus and a mere stonesthrow away, I saw a group of what must have been students standing in the middle of the road attempting to cross. They seemed to have absolutely no sense of danger as they were perilously close to being run into by a passing car because they could only been seen when you were relatively close as the fog was quite thick in that area. I also saw a youth wandering across the road with his attention taken up with his mobile, checking his text messages or something and almost certainly totally unaware of any traffic that might run into him. This seems to be a common sight, people more interested in their mobiles, either talking on them or texting, or else with headphones on plugged into their iPods. I have even seen people riding bicycles with headphones on, which must be even more dangerous because they can surely not be able to hear any car horns or just the sound of cars approaching. Even worse is the sight of car drivers using their mobiles as they drive, which is actually illegal and can get you a fine of around £60 and a few points on your Driving Licence.

Trip To Bournemouth

Last Saturday we went to see Carol's parents, who live in Moordown, Bournemouth. We haven't seen them for well over a year, what with one thing and another. We left bright and early, around 7.30 and got there just before 11 a.m. Carol's mother went through her kitchen and has given us a lot of things that she no longer wants, such as cooking tins, cake tins, glasses and a food chopper/mixer. We went to Allum Chine, which is in the up-market of Bournemouth, full of big houses and really expensive, walked along the promenade, and, although it wasn't particularly warm, was fairly crowded. We had coffee in a restaurant and sat out on the terrace. We saw a couple of seagulls approach, and they looked as if they could give you a nasty nip with their beaks if they were that way inclined. I was surprised how large they were. You normally see them at a distance, and not at such close range. They were picking up the remains of food that people had left behind. We then drove into the centre of Bournemouth and went to a Weatherspoons pub and had a meal. It was very busy. We then went into Debenhams, which was immediately next to the pub. I am looking for a decent shirt and we went into the menswear department and had a look. We bought a shirt in Milton Keynes on Friday, in the Debenhams branch there, but it was worthwhile having a look in the Bournemouth branch. When we finished the meal we drove back to the flat and left for home at about 4.30, arriving home at about 7.30.

Internet Off-Line

We had problems with the internet, starting last Tuesday, when the modem/router got damaged. I had to ring TalkTalk (our internet service provider) to get a replacement. Have you ever had to deal with a company through it's call centre? I bet you have, and I bet it's been a really awful experience, having to listen to dreadful music when you're put on hold, and the droning voice of a woman who say 'your call is important to us.' The endless waiting, the patronising tone of the person who eventually answers. The ridiculous questions. The security checks. I could go on and on. And then, eventually,  getting through to some sort of menu and THEN having to make the decision on what key to press. Or to just 'hold' until 'one of our agents is free to speak to you.'

I eventually got through (after about three attempts. I almost lost the will to live, or to throw the phone out of the window . . .) I had to go through a load of nonsense to find out what was wrong with the router, at one point having to stick a sharp point in a hole in the back of the thing. I used a ball-point pen. It didn't get the thing to work, as you would imagine. I was then passed on to another person, and each time this happened I had to go through all the security rigmarole. They decided that the old router wasn't going to work so they'd have to send us a new one. This arrived yesterday, when I went into Central Milton Keynes yesterday morning. There was a  card from the Post Office stuck through the door when I got home to say that they couldn't put the parcel through the letterbox as it was too big (and thank goodness they didn't as it would most likely have broken the router.) and if I went to the sorting office after three hours I could collect it.

Anyway, it took most of the evening to set up the new router (a considerably smaller and less complicated gadget compared to the old one.) and get the internet working again as we couldn't work out which password and username was which, as the broadband had one and the connection between the iMac and the router had another.

On a different matter, but still with TalkTalk. You have to pay your monthly bill by direct debit. By the time this is due there is never enough money in the bank account to actually cover the bill, so this gets returned to TalkTalk (as it would with any company who you pay your bills with.) As a result the amount we owed got into arrears. I rang up last week and payed the outstanding bill using my debit card, a simple enough task. But the whole idea of setting up a direct debit, you would have thought, was that it's an easier, simpler means of paying your bill, as you can just forget it and the company gets it's payment without any fuss. Further to this, you tell them when you want the money to come out of your account, usually at the time when you have money going IN to the account, so that the direct debits are covered. Well, this is what I tried to explain to the person I spoke to at TalkTalk. They told me that it wasn't possible to change the day that the money came out of our account. I said that virtually all the other companies we pay our bills to by direct debit allowed us to set up the day they are paid. But TalkTalk won't play ball over this issue. I said that they were totally inflexible. I will have to wait for them to phone up so each monthly bill can be paid by debit card. I'd just like to know if other people find this a really annoying business and totally inflexible. There must be  a few as I'd expect them to have quite a lot of customers.

Anyway, all this to explain why I havent' managed to post anything to this blog for a week.

Doctor's Appointment

On Friday I put in a repeat prescription at the doctor's surgery, as my medication is beginning to run out. I like to get this sorted out fairly rapidly, as I don't want to find that I am down to one or two tablets before I put in the repeat prescription. Then, at midday, I got a call from the surgery to say that I would have to make an appointment with one of the doctors before they'd give me a prescription. I think it's the statins that they are concerned about. As I've mentioned in this blog elsewhere, I have had problems with statins from the first time I was prescribed, and have been taking Pravastatin for quite a while without too many side effects. One of them has been muscle pain. So I attempted to make an appointment by telephone this morning. I started ringing at 8.15, and the automated system told me 'the surgery isn't open at the moment . . .' and a few minutes later I got through and the message was 'the surgery is experiencing a hight demand' etc. I then decided, as the surgery wasn't too far away, I'd drive there. The traffic was quite heavy, but I got there fairly quickly, parked the car and then walked into the surgery. There was quite a long queue at the reception desk, but I got to the receptionist and managed to get an appointment at 9.50, so I returned home as there was no point waiting at the surgery for an hour and a half.

On returning I didn't have to wait long. I was hoping that the surgery would have had the letter from the hospital regarding my consulatant's appointment last Thursday, and the doctor had it on his computer screen. I mentioned that I was getting headaches and imagined it was a result of taking Isoborbide Mononitrate. The doctor now tells me that it would be as a result of taking Bisoprolol, the headaches are the cumalative effect of taking this particular drug, and that I should take only 5 mg rather than 10 mg each morning. I am to continue taking the Isorbide Mononitrate. I am to have a blood test and he wants to check my cholestrol, so on the way out of the surgery I made an appointment at reception and have to come back at 9 tomorrow morning. The doctor printed out a prescription and I took this to the pharmacy in Netherfield, a short walk from the surgery, to get it made up. One of the advantages of reaching the age of 60 is that I don't have to pay for my prescriptions, which is quite a considerable saving. The prescription was made up, except of part of the Pravastatin order, which was incomplete, so I will have to return tomorrow sometime to get the remainder of the prescription.

I got home to discover the Post had been delivered. There was a bank statement and a buff, official-looking envelope, which I never like the look of as they invariably mean trouble, but, on opening it, I discover it contains good news. A cheque from H.M. Inland Revenue, a rebate of Tax for nearly £500. I was expecting it, so I immediately drove into the centre of Milton Keynes to deposit it in my Nationwide account. It should be cleared through the account by Friday.

Wild, Wet and Windy

The weather has changed dramatically overnight.  From being relatively mild and dry, with some sunshine, we have now got torrential rain and wind. We knew this was on it's way, as there was a 'Severe Weather Warning' on the BBC weather forecast yesterday, and they're fairly accurate. They're forecasting rain and wind and it looks quite dramatic on the television weather chart with arrows all over the place and the prospect of really heavy rainfall. As a result I drove Carol to work at the Academy in the car.

What are the Blogs I'm Following?

What are the Blogs I'm Following?

Bonfire Night

It was November 5th, Bonfire Night last night. If you don't know the significance of this date, because you don't live in the UK, then you won't know why we celebrate this day. It was the day when Guy Fawkes almost blew up the Houses of Parliament when King James came to open Parliament. You would do better than Google 'Guy Fawkes' or 'Bonfire Night' in order to get a better idea of what it's all about. Anyway, effergies of Guy Fawkes are made by children and bonfires built and lit and fireworks are let off.  Also, there is a lot of food available at Bonfire parties, such as baked potatoes, firework toffee and  soup. Poppy, our shitzu/Westie hates the noise of fireworks, and we had a few bangs and crashes outside last night, just as it was getting dark. She hid under the coffee table and wouldn't come out and then sprang onto the sofa where Carol was to get some attention. As a result, Alfie, our Yorkie, couldn't understand why she was hiding and tried to get her to come out of hiding. He doesn't seem to be effected in the least bit by the sound of the fireworks, which seems to be a bit strange. There are likely to be far more fireworks this evening and most likely tomorrow evening as it's a weekend. It seems that Hallowe'en has taken over from Bonfire Night as a celebration in this country. I think it may be something to do with the old health and safety police getting in on the act and prevent people having a bit of good old harmless fun with fireworks and building bonfires. It needs one or two silly people letting off fireworks in the wrong place to get it banned, which is a pity.

To Accident and Emergency . . . Again!

Carol came home from work at the Academy at midday yesterday. She said that she was in a lot of pain in her ribs. On Monday there had been an incident when some children had barged into her coming into the building and she had got in the way and she'd been pushed against a door and was hurt. I was somewhat concerned this morning when the pain didn't go away. She took paracetemol yesterday and this morning I thought it a good idea to get a doctor's appointment.  She sent in cover for her lessons and then I rang the Academy to say that she wouldn't be in. They knew that she was injured and that was why she came home early yesterday lunchtime. We then decided it would be better to go to either Accident and Emergency or the Walk-In Centre to get it checked out. I have First Aid training, but as there was nothing broken or bleeding there wasn't a lot I could do, except go with her to hospital. As I say, we could go to either the Walk-In Centre or Accident and Emergency, but I'm not sure what the difference is between the two services, except perhaps the Walk-In Centre is for minor illnesses rather than accidents (I went through A and E when I was last in Milton Keynes Hospital having had an angina attack which didn't subside.)

We drove to the Hospital. The parking arrangements are such that you have to pay, and get a ticket as you drive through the barrier and then, before you leave, you put this ticket into another machine in which you put the cash after the machine has processed the cost of your visit. Does that make sense? Then you use the ticket to get out of the car park.  Anyway, we managed to park and then went into the Accident and Emergency department. I'm begin to get a feeling of deja vous coming to this place, the number of times I've been here recently.

The waiting area was packed. We had to sign in (for want of a better term to describe it) and were told it would be a least 20 minutes before Carol would be seen, so we sat in the waiting area. Time seemed to pass slowly, as it always does in such places, but then a nurse called Carol forward. Carol went through what had happened again and was told that, due to the type of injury she had received, there wasn't a great deal they could do. She should go home and take paracetamol and just rest. If we wanted to stay and see a doctor we could, but as there was nothing much they could do we decided to leave and go home.

I had to get a repeat prescription and as the surgery is a short walk away from the hospital we left the car in the hospital car park and walked through the underpass towards the doctor's surgery. I handed over the repeat prescription form and got a prescription for Carol which had been waiting for the past few days. I'd taken that into the surgery on Monday.We then walked to the pharmacy which is just a short walk along the parade of shops from the surgery to get the prescription made up. We had to wait ten minutes or so to get the medications made so we went into the Co-Op grocery store to get some items for lunch, soup, bread and doughnuts. They do some really nice ones, filled with custard, and they are buy-one-get-one free, so we had one packet to put in the freezer. Actually, they are even nicer if they are partly frozen and the custard is just beginning to thaw out . . . but that's something else . . . Then we returned to the pharmacy for the medication and then walked back to the hospital carpark, and put the ticket in the ticket machine and pay for the time in the car park . . . Yes, I know, it does get rather complex, but that's life.

We then returned home. A little later I got a phone call from the doctor's surgery to say that I would have to have a doctor's appointment before the doctor could make out a prescription for the Pravastatin which was on the repeat prescription form. I couldn't make the appointment then (which, logically, would be the obvious, simple thing to do.) but would have to ring on Monday to do so. I was also told that I'd need to have a blood test, then I told them I'd gone through all that when I'd been in hospital a few weeks ago. I'm not having another blood test just for the sake of it.

Cardiology Appointment

It's really mild at the moment. There's quite a strong wind blowing, but it's unseasonably warm. We have had the central heating on last night, but we decided to turn it off as the lounge was far to warm. 

I had an appointment at the Cardiology Department at Milton Keynes Hospital at 10.50 this morning. It's no more than a 15-minute walk from here, along the Redway that runs behind this house and into the hospital campus, and a short walk around the ringroad within the hospital grounds. The waiting area was really packed, and I was called into a room to be weighed and have my blood pressure checked before going in to see the consultant. The queue seemed to go down fairly rapidly as people were called in one by one and then I was sitting all on my own. It must have been a good 45 minutes after I arrived that I was called into the consultant's office. It seems odd that I have to keep on repeating what happened the last time I was taken in to hospital through Accident and Emergency, as I would have imagined that it would have been in my clinical notes. I had to describe the sort of pain I get when I have an angina attack. A sort of persistant pain in the middle of my chest, usually brought on by something strenuous or stressful. Sometimes it can be bought on by stretching up, (ie putting something on a shelf where I have to lift it above my head) carrying something, pushing (ie a shopping trolley) or generally just doing light exercise, like walking. I have felt very dizzy when I have bent down to pick something up quickly, but all this usually goes away if I sit or lie down for a short time. The last time I was in hospital and had to call an ambulance I wasn't doing much of anything, just about to read a book, quietly sitting in an armchair, so I can't pin any one thing on what caused that attack.

The consultant suggested having another stress-echo test. I then told him I thought that was what I'd had a few weeks ago. He wasn't sure and had to look on the computer to find documentation. He told me they had a new computer system and it was taking a while for people to get to grips with it and it was difficult to find anything. It seemed a somewhat random system. Anyway, he then decided that it wasn't really necessary to have another similar test. Which pleased me, as I'm not too keen to go throught all that again in a hurry! Anyway, it would appear that there is nothing wrong with my heart and that the 'prognosis was good.' I still don't need any sort of surgery and I should keep on with my medication.

He went through my medication. I said that I had started taking the Pravastatin again, and that there was no muscle pain as a result. I said that the Isosorbide Mononitrate was giving me headaches, and that I had changed the times which I took it from 8 a.m. and 2 p.m. to around 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. I told him that I was having trouble sleeping, and then he said that he would recommend changing this medication to something which worked in a similar way but which would not cause headaches. Also, I have been having really bad heartburn, so he will prescribe something to ease that and also I am to be prescribed something which should help my heart function better and help reduce blood pressure, although I don't have excessively hight blood pressure. I wanted to know about my cholestrol levels and that we had seen that this had been checked when my blood was tested when I was last in hospital. He told me that it seemed alright.

He is going to write to my G.P. and tell him the recommendations for my medication-changes and that the doctor will give me the required prescription so I can get it made up by a pharmacy.

Anyway, it's good to find that things are going O.K. I left the cardiology department and walked the short distance home.

"Sunflower Seeds" at Tate Modern

 I have discovered the following piece about the "Sunflower Seeds" sculpture at Tate Modern, whilst surfing the internet:

When an installation by the Chinese conceptual artist Ai Weiwei opened on Tuesday at Turbine Hall, the cavernous entrance space of the Tate Modern in London, visitors were encouraged to touch and even walk on the 100 million hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds that gave the piece its name. But on Thursday this kind of intimate interaction stopped. Officials at the museum closed off access to “Sunflower Seeds,” and is now only allowing visitors to see it from a walkway above the hall. 

The movement of the crowds released a “greater than expected level” of ceramic dust, according to a statement released by the Tate, which added that it had “been advised that this dust could be damaging to health following repeated inhalation over a long period of time.” As a result, the museum, in consultation with the artist, “decided not to allow visitors to walk across the sculpture.’’

Haircut

I got my hair cut yesterday morning. The same place I usually go in The Food Centre near the Milton Keynes  shopping centre. I didn't have to wait  long and I feel a lot better after I had my hair cut. My hair had become very long and unkempt and I really like it kept short. I suppose at my age I should be lucky that I have any hair at all, so I shouldn't complain. Most men of my age have very little hair, or they are bald, but I don't have to worry about such things.  

Anyway, they have this incentive scheme there to encourage you to go back again. You are given a card and each time you have your hair cut (or any other service they offer.) you get the card stamped, and then, after you have six stamps you can have a free haircut (or use it for some offer they might have on.) Seems a good idea to me to keep your customers loyal. I have a Tesco Clubcard and a Nectar card and collect points on them, but, to be honest, as a family we're not that loyal to any one supermarket. In Milton Keynes we are spoilt for choice as we have a large Tesco at Kingston, and another at Bletchley, a huge Asda at Bletchley, near the football stadium, a Morrison's at Westcroft (where we did our main shop on Saturday.) and a newish Sainsbury's at The Hub, which is near the City centre, as well as Lidl (see below) which is what you'd call a budget supermarket and they have remarkably good products. Then there are quite a few mini Tescos, or Tesco Express stores dotted around the city, which we use for basics such as milk and buying a newspaper or items we might run out of if the supermarkets are closed.

It's surprisingly mild this morning. It was fairly windy in the night, and there was some very slight rainfall, but certainly nothing to write home about. 

I went to Lidl for some milk and cheese crackers on my way back from the City centre yesterday and  I found that they've rearranged the store. Doesn't it annoy you when you go to a store regularly and you know exactly where everything is that you want and then they have to move it all around? Well, it was like that. They can't move the milk as the refrigerated units are fixed in one place, but I had a good idea where the cheese biscuits were. I had to walk up and down the aisles several times in order to find what I wanted. I have a good idea why it's been rearranged like this. It's partly because they have to bring in Christmas stock, and partly it's because most shoppers only go in (like I do) and by the essential items (ie. bread, milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables.) and if you know precisely where they are, you just go to those places in the store, pick up your items and then go to the next place. It's to make you look at other items you might not necessarily want to purchase, and you search for your essential items. I found the cheese crackers and I was annoyed. They had moved them right next to the entrance! The last place I expected to look for them!

For those who are interested, the barber's website is at www.centralbarbers.com.

Day Trip To London- Part 2

We had brought rolls and crisps and drink in Asda. We have learned from experience that if you have a snack, or indeed, any kind of food in London it's going to cost the proverbial arm and a leg. So, before we entered the Tate we sat on some benches, conveniently placed nearby, and ate our rolls, or at least, half of them. Then we went into the building. This was opened by H.M. Queen ten years ago, and was converted from it's former use as a power station which supplied the London Underground.

We'd seen an item on The Culture Show on BBC 2 the other week about the installation by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, called "Sunflower Seeds" which is in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. We walked through the main entrance and saw a crowd gathered around one end of the massive space that is the Turbine Hall, and an area that was sectioned off. Carol thought, because the presenter of the television show had stood on the sunflower seeds, that we would be able to also, but it would appear that was not the case.  This is how it is described on the Tate Modern website:

'Sunflower Seeds is made up of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but actually unique. However realistic they may seem, these life-sized sunflower seed husks are in fact intricately hand-crafted in porcelain. 

Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Far from being industrially produced, they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Hall’s vast industrial space, the 100 million seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape.'

Like a great deal of art, and particularly modern, it is open to interpretation, and this particular piece is no different. You don't get any idea of the scale of it, from seeing it on television, so it was quite interesting to see it for real. I'm also interested to see, and hear, how people react to bits of art, which makes visiting somewhere like the tate so interesting.

We had to go up to the various floors via escalator, and it is quite a good way up to the top of the galleries. You could see down into the Turbine Hall, but, the truth be told, I didn't really like it because it was so high up. I do prefer to keep my feet firmly on the ground.

We spent quite a long time walking through the galleries and looking at the artwork. We spent some time on a digital display doing a quiz on various art movements and individual artists, and we got a fairly good score. We began to come down on the escalators and went in one of the shops which had a really good selection of things to buy and then we left Tate Modern and decided to then go to Covent Garden.

If you want to visit the website here is the link: www.tate.org.uk

We got on the Underground at the nearest station which was over on the opposite side of the Thames and we had to cross over on Southwark Bridge and caught a    train at Mansion House as far as Leicester Square and then walked the rest of the way to Covent Garden.

It was really crowded in the Piazza, where the old flower, fruit and vegetable markets were. I have never seen it so busy. As we walked through the Piazza we saw quite a few street performers and large crowds gathering to watch, one was a tightrope walker who had taken  a young boy out of the audience and was attempting to get him to throw a hat at him as he stood on the wire which was set up in the portico of St Paul's church (incidentally, not the Wren St Paul's. If you know either "My Fair Lady" or the George Bernard Shaw play "Pygmalion", on which it is based,  you will no doubt know that this was the setting for the opening scene of that play when Professor Higgins first meets Eliza Doolittle.)

We wandered about the market, looking at the stalls. There was a lot of really good quality things for sale, such as pottery, some nice candles set in really nice wooden containers and things like scarves, a great place to come to for some extra-special Christmas presents.

We had tea in a central restaurant area, and it was nice by this time to just sit down as we'd spent a lot of time walking. We went into a branch of Accessorize, as Carol wanted to have a browse. As we walked in, a member of staff barged into the shop and ran into Carol. It was really a shock to think that a member of staff could be so rude. She had no apology. We could easily have been secret shoppers or even management of the company for all she knew. We left the shop and then went into Pollock's Toyshop. I've been there before, but I'm not sure whether they have another branch in London, because I was certain that it was on far more floors. I love model theatres and puppets and it was great to look at what they had for sale, although we didn't buy anything.

As it was by now getting late we decided to start to make our way back to Euston Station to catch our train home.

The platform at   Leicester Square was really busy and we eventually got on board an Underground train and soon got to Euston. We couldn't leave immediately and the only train we could get home was one that terminated one station before Milton Keynes, at Bletchley, but we decided to take it and to get a taxi home from there, rather than waiting for a train on to Milton Keynes. As we didn't have the car waiting at Milton Keynes there was no urgency to get back to the car.

By the time we got home we were really tired, but our day out in London had been well worth it.

Day trip to London- Part 1

We went to London on Friday. The car hasn't been taxed and insured for around a month, which will explain why it has been sitting on our front drive going nowhere for the past few weeks, even if Carol has been off for Half Term. We woke early and decided to go to get the car fulled up and do a bit of shopping in Asda. 24-hour opening does have it's advantages after all, I suppose. The petrol station is one of those places which has no staff on duty, you put your card in a slot in the pump, key in your P.I.N. and then fill up. The car almost breathed a sigh of relief when it got it's drink of petrol.

As we drove round and into the Asda car park, a lorry came hurtling towards us through the empty car park. Had it not been for the fact that there was a shopping trolley in the way, I swear we would have been run into and there would have been a really nasty accident. I very much doubt whether either of us would be here now to tell the tale. The driver was being totally reckless. I presume he'd been to unload his goods somewhere in Asda, or had been to buy something and was in a tearing hurry to get home, but in all honestly it was really dangerous. Had we been able to see his registration plate we could have reported him, but as it was under-lit where we were and there was very little light we could see nothing and the lorry sped off before we could read the number. We just sat and drew breath before we went into the supermarket  and  got milk and breakfast cereal, so we could go home and have something to eat before we went to the train station.

We went to the bus stop, which is just over Saxon Street (over the bridge and down some steps, very near the Academy where Carol works) and waited for a bus. There was a youth tuned into his iPod standing and waiting when we got there, but very soon the bus appeared. You always know when the bus is approaching as they now have these digital displays, very like the system they use on Underground  and mainline railway stations. The bus turned up and we paid something like £1.20 each for our journey into the Milton Keynes Central station. Having lived in Milton Keynes for nearly four years it's the first time I've been on a bus. I suppose that's what comes of relying on a car for your means of transport. Perhaps we ought to use the busses far more. Anyway, the journey took no more than 10 minutes.

We went into Costa coffee and bought two coffees to drink on the train and then went to book our tickets. There is currently an offer on through the internet to get your return ticket into London for £10 each. We had to sign up to the train company's website (London Midland) and then download the voucher and get it printed, which we had done and then queued for some time before we could actually reach the ticket booking window in the concourse of the station. Once we'd paid for our tickets we walked down to the platform to wait for our train, which wasn't due for twenty minutes or so. It wasn't too clear which platform it was coming in to, but there was quite a crowd of people standing and waiting on Platform One, so we assumed it would be from there, but, as there was a train already on Platform Two we got on that train. I think the other train was a faster train which went straight in to Euston, whilst the other train took longer, as it stopped at all the stations along the way, but even then we got there relatively fast. I have to say we were somewhat surprised by the dirty state of the carriage we sat on, as it was littered with old unread newspapers, coffee cups and other litter.

On arrival in London we had to purchase another ticket which allowed us to use the Underground within the centre of London. We then had to get onto the Underground and go to Embankment. We got off the train and walked over the Thames via a footbridge at Waterloo Bridge, at least, I think it was Waterloo Bridge.  We could see the London Eye quite clearly as we went over the footbridge. Nothing would get me to go on this huge wheel thing, contraption. And neither would Carol, as neither of us has a head for heights. We walked along the South Bank of the Thames, past the Royal Festival Hall towards Tate Modern, which was to be or destination.

It was a fairly mild day, surprising considering the time of year. There were a great many people walking along the path, looking in the shops which lined the route and generally enjoying themselves. We went past The National Theatre and then eventually reached Tate Modern. This has been open ten years and was converted from a former power station which was used to power the London Underground. It has become quite a good attraction mainly, I would say, because it is free to enter.