Sunny October!

 Sunday 4th October. 3.20 a.m. I am wide awake. I am shaved. I have had a cup of tea. I am listening to Andrew Neil  on a video on YouTube, discussing Andy Burman, our 'so called' Prime Minister, and the disaster that is coming, with the crazy level of borrowing and what he has said in a speech at the Labour Party conference which has ended in Liverpool. As a result if all of this, particulrly the fact that my megre pension (or rather the small amount I get from Carol's Teachers' Pension.) is now taxed, I am now a fully paid-up member of the Reform Party.  Burnham wants to have 'Bigger Government', which is, infact, reversing everything that Margaret Thatcher starterd, by privatising such utilities such as water, power, BT and a whole host more. It might not have been entirely successful, but why reverse everything that works, just because of Socialist dogma? Look what happens, every time we have a Labour government, they just wreck the economy of this country. I seem to remember, when Labour left government in, I think it must have been 2010, when David Cameron became Prime Minister, some civil servant left a message to the incoming government, probably in the Treasury, saying, something like 'sorry, there is no cash left.' 

Well, after all the above, my main bit of news is, I have virtually  completed the play I began just over a year ago, is now finished, apart from a bit of tidying up. It now has a far stronger ending (which I refuse to reveal.) So, once I can afford to buy ink cartridges for my Canon printer, I can then run off a copy so I can at last read the script  properly. Although it is great to be able to use word processing, it isn't that easy to read on a computer screen. Having said that, I find it better to read using my iPad. 

8.20 p.m. Well, that's it. 'Hiding In The Smoke' is now completed. I just need to buy those confounded ink cartridges for the printer and I can then print it off and put it in a folder and it will allow me to read it, as a 'hard copy'rather than via the computer screen.

Monday 5th October. 5.20 a.m. Here I am again, wide awake, fresh as ever. I can't sleep, so I might just as well add to this blog. I can't believe how many 'hits' it has had. 268 for today, so, if it's that number at 5.10 a.m., what figure will it have reached by midnight? It reached 2471 yesterday. The thing I want to know is this; why are they going to my blog? What is it that attracts them, did they find what they weere looking for and if so, why don't they at least leave a comment?

12.50 a.m. I needed to find an A.T.M. machine and take out £10, for various things I pay for. The nearest I could think of, which had a space to park the car, was at Morrison's, so I drove there and actually found a space directly in front of the A.T.M. Two actual machines and one had run out of cash, so I had to wait for the person using the other machine to finish, and I just made the remark 'typical state of things under our new 'so-called' Prime Minister, Andy Burman!' and it started  conversation which revealed the totql hatred of this clown of a 'Prime Minister' and how the country thad deteriorated under out wonderful Labour Government. Particularly how we are allowing illegal immigrants to come here, be given free housing, benefits and generally become parasitic, all at the British taxpayer's epense, while the government does nothing to stop these boats crossing the Channel.

Attempting to get an appointment to have my prostate examination, which was partially arranged at the last doctor's appointment.Let me explain the state of play over this matter. At the end of the appointment, the doctor gave me a slip, which I was supposed to give to reception, onto which they wrote a number, and then it was handed back and I was told to then go on line, this week and get the appointment. BUT, when you go on line, as this is now the only way you cn make  doctor's appointment, you have to fill in one of three boxes, which I did. I now get an email this morning, to inform me that I filled out the WRONG FORM! So, how am I supposed to know ehich is the correct one? So, by now I am seething, and about to blow a fuse, becaue of this stupidity. And they wonder why people loose their patience with the system and hurl abuse at the staff.

The number of hits up until now, as I write this post, is 2305. Why are so many people visitng this blog? 

6.00 p.m. I have mentioned my attempts to get a prostate exam done, but I had a text message informing me I had to fill in one of the wretched on-line forms on the CMKMCwebsite, which I did, and then, I got another email informing me IT WAS WRONG! This is driving me half insane (how tht works, I have no idea. I aiuppose if you can be fully insane, you can be half insane, but never mind.) But, if they never explain WHICH of the stupid windows on the website you're supposed to fill in, HOW ON EARTH are you supposed to know? This is just N.H.S. madness, and they wonder why patients loose their temper with staff. No wonder the N.H.S. has some sort of money pit. They keep asking more and more money, feeding it like some sort of rapacious dragon, endlessly devouring all before it, but never actually getting anywhere, and stqnding still, never improving. It isn't the actual service, the cqre, the quality of he nursing, but to keep throwing more and more down the hole in the ground, when it doesn't improve, seems senselsss.

I think I will have to go into the doctor's reception and sort this out, rqther thqn attempting to fill in the on-line form, and then get told off.

A New Day, A New Dawn

 Wednesday 30th September. 5.10 p.m. I have now purchased an external hard drive for the Macbook, with the idea of transferring any of the precious material, particularly the plays, onto it, so that if anything happens to the laptop, at least I have the plays safe. Well, it does make common sense.Having got the external hard drive, I could not understand why it did not appeqr on the computer's desktop, so I have been into the Apple store, and a lovely young lady showedme that these things don't show up on the desktop, and sre hidden in a different place in the computer, which has put my mind at rest.

I have never mentioned this before, partly because there has been no point, but I have four brothers, James, Robert, Andrew ans Sandy (Alexander). We have never been exactly close, but none of them have been anywher near me, comunicated by text, Facebook or other social media. I do have a sort of vague communication with Andrew, who lives somewhere near Kings Lynn in Norfolk. He sends me  Christmas card and will remember my birthday, which, by the way is 22nd October. He and his wife, Margaret, came to Carol and mine's wedding in 2007, and we went  to stay a weekend with them  a few years after we were married, but I have had absolutely no acknowledgement from them regarding Carol's death. Sandy, who, by the way, is gay, not that that bothers me, was invited to our wedding, but he made such a fuss, because we only invited him and not his partner, so he neve rcame. I am not expecting to get anything from any of them, nothing such as a present, or money, although I wouldn't object to anything. But it would be nice to be remembereed, to be supported, particularly when Carol was diagnosed, and even after she passed away, which was the worst time. But no, not a word, nothing. I think my mother would be shocked, but I cn see where this lack of communicstion and care comes from, because dad was like that. The old 'stiff upper lip' syndrom

New play written and ready for printing and then checking. It is called 'It Must Be Love', and yes, it is inspired by the Madness song, which will be used as its theme music.

I have now got the external hard drive working. There is written material on there I had forgotten about and so it's been a bit of a revelation to unearth quite a few pieces of writing that are actuallt quite good, so I can read them and possibly work with them.

My Canon Pixma printer needs ink cartridges installing before I can print any of my plays, but, since a double pack, which consists of  black and a coloured cartridge and costs around £45, I will have to wait, which is a real pain.

Saturday 3rd October. 10.10 a.m. I've been up and working on my writing, so, this isn't the beginning of the day for me. I am awake at 2.30, basically because I have to go to the loo, and getting back to sleep is unlikely. I have been watching the series 'Slow Horses' via Apple TV and it's somwwhat addictive. Gary Oldman as the thoroughly repulsive leader of the spies, Jackson Lamb, is amazing. He farts, burps, eats, looks, and probably smells disgusting, and breaks all the rules of any other spy drama or novel, and I think it's that which makes it so watchable. I have nevr been a fan of James Bond, basically becaue it is so corny. Spies are supposed to be furtive, lurking around in the background, secret, hidden. Bond is known by everyone, he is an unlikely spy, far too visable and in actual fact, the bond films are more fantasy than reality, which is why I love Slow Horses. The spies who have been relelegated to Slough House. The whole look and feel of the show has a film noir feel, everything is dark, in shadow, muted colours, quite the opposite of the brash, colourful world of Bond. I can thorougly recommend the show, now into it's sixth season, all episodes should be found of the Apple TV website, ready for streaming.

Fiddlesticks!

 Wednesday. 9.40 a.m. Well, another soggy day in fun city, Milton Keynes. The days are beginning to draw in as autumn catches hold.

The digital thermometer currently reads 24ºC.

I wanted to use my Canon printer, but the ink cartridge was more or less finished. When I attempted to print something the other day, it came out very faint, so I suspected that a replacement was necessary. I have this morning ordered one on the Argos website and gone to collect it after 9. I am now back in the flat, and the cartridge is installed in the printer.

Alfie is asleep in this bed. I am taking him to The Groom Room for an appointment at 11 a.m. I have already put the cage in the back of the car, ready to take him.

7.30 p.m. I came back from taking Alfie to The Groom Room, and hoped to have a cup of tea. I went to the fridge and found it was thawing out. How this happened, I have no idea, but all the contents of the freezer part have thawed and, as a consequence, can't be used. After the incident which happened a few weeks ago, when my chopping board and the handle of my best sharp knife melted because one of the rings on the ceramic surface of my oven was accidentally turned on, this was something which I hoped would never happen. As a result of the oven incident, I now turn the oven off at the wall point, but this doesn't explain how the fridge/freezer was turned off. It means I will have to throw away more or less the entire contents.

Thursday. 2.40 p.m. It's another very autumnal day. It's mild but bright. The digital thermometer currently reads 26ºC.

I have been to Sainsbury's and have bought my shopping home; it has been checked off, and two of the freezer drawers have been cleared out. It's not good to eat food that has been frozen, re-frozen and then thawed, as it would make me ill if I ate it, so I have accepted that it is wasted and put what I bought in Sainsbury's in the freezer.

Friday. 1.45 a.m. I couldn't sleep. Alfie was snoring like crazy and was sleeping on the floor, right in the middle of the threshold of my bedroom. The usual thing that wakes me is a need to visit the bathroom. (A thought: why do Americans always refer to the toilet as the bathroom? It just sounds so pathetic, a euphemism.  A bit like the Victorians covering the legs of furniture. Why don't they just say toilet and be done with it? The other one, said by women, is 'I'm going to powder my nose', when in actual fact, they're going to the loo.) Anyway, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to make myself a coffee and watch something on television. With such things as BBC iPlayer, Netflix and other streaming platforms, you are really spoilt for choice. I went on iPlayer and decided to watch one of my favourite sitcoms, 'My Family', which stars Zoe Wanamaker and Robert Lindsay. The actual sitcom is rather mediocre, but it is the acting of these two which makes it worth watching.

New Year!

Sunday. 3.05 p.m. I mentioned in the last blog post about the problems I was having with my Canon Pixma printer. I also had some difficulties finding ink cartridges. I eventually succumbed to Amazon and ordered a set of black and coloured ink cartridges. I was then extremely surprised to have them delivered only a few hours later! I never imagined them to arrive so swiftly and had thought they would at least 24 hours after delivering.

Even with a new cartridge put in the printer it still wouldn't work. There were a few streaks across the paper when I got the machine to print. My only solution was to find the Canon helpline and ring the next day.

I rang the Canon number and the lady who answered went through what was working and not working on the printer. She told me the thing needed a clean and, after several runs of the cleaning cycle, the black printed when tested but the colour remained stubbornly resistant. She told me that only a few cleaning cycles in any 24-hour should take place, so I gave it another go the following morning, but still, the colour would not work.

After church this morning I decided to drive to the Tesco Metro on Oldbrook Boulevard, only to find it closed! I knew that the parade of shops where it is situated was going to be demolished at some point, because Lidl, which is opposite, was going to also be demolished, and a larger store was to be built on the same piece of ground. 

Monday. 12.15 p.m. Quite mild and sunny as I write this, but there had been frost overnight, which I noticed when I took Alfie out earlier.

Thursday. 8.20 a.m. Yesterday wasn't a good day. It began at 6 a.m. I was shaving at the sink in my bathroom. It's not warm in there. No heating (another story there, I'm sure.) I suddenly got a pain in my chest. At first, I didn't take much notice and thought it might be heartburn. As a result, I took a Gaviscon tablet because they do relieve this sort of indigestion. It didn't seem to take much effect, so I thought it might be an angina attack, so I used my G.T.N. spray, which I spray under my tongue. It didn't make a lot of difference to the pain. In fact, nothing at all. By this time I was getting a bit stressed.

It was around 9 o'clock and I was at the point where I needed to ring 999 because the discomfort in my chest wasn't going away. Vashti, the S.H.O., would need to be informed so I went to the front office and she wasn't there. Another tenant went to find her, as she was working in one of the flats. When she eventually appeared, I told her my situation and said I wanted to ring 999. My main concern was leaving Alfie if I went to A and E and then possibly staying in overnight. Then she said that I should use my mobile because the Dexter House telephone couldn't be used (I don't know the technical reason.) So I returned to my flat to fetch my mobile.

I had the iPhone on hands-free, which made it far easier to speak to the operator when I dialled 999. I had to go through the process from the first pain I had at 6 o'clock when I was shaving and where I was with the pain at that time (which would have been around 9 O'clock.) The operator then said she would send an ambulance so paramedics could do their tests on me. It was at least 25 minutes before the ambulance arrived and the paramedics asked me further questions and then wired me up to their portable E.C.G. machine.  One of the two paramedics looked at the printed-out reading from the E.C.G. and could see that my heart rate was normal, but that there was a slight irregularity.

One of the paramedics said that I ought to go to the hospital to be checked out. I could avoid going to A and E and I could go directly to the new unit, The Maple Centre. He phoned and it was arranged. It would, hopefully, mean I would get dealt with without a lot of waiting. Not a lot of chance of that, I thought to myself. So I was loaded into the ambulance, which was parked outside in the street, and we drove off to Milton Keynes University Hospital.

It's only a short drive to Milton Keynes Hospital. It's actually in Eaglestone. I think it takes up around half the area of the grid section. The ambulance was parked near The Maple Centre and I was pushed in a wheelchair. I think I was capable of walking, but they pushed me in any way. The paramedics handed me over and a wrist label was put on my right wrist and I was parked in the waiting area. It wasn't long before I was taken into a triage room to have basic 'obs' done and blood taken. This, as I've mentioned in several earlier blog posts, is no easy task, because, first, I have a problem with this procedure and passed out once, and two, as I have narrow veins, it's difficult for anyone to find one suitable to take blood from, but eventually the nurse managed to raise a vein and took some blood. Then I was wired up to an E.C.G. which measures heart rate and shows up any heart irregularities. Then I went through into a corridor to wait. 

I was eventually seen by a doctor, who had been looking at the print-out from the E.C.G. She told me I hadn't had a heart attack (what a relief, but I guessed that already.) and she would have to look at the results of the blood test to decide what next to do. I had an irregular heartbeat, but she wasn't sure why this had happened.

I thought it was a good idea to let someone at church know where I was, so I texted Jennie, who is the leader of my Bible study group, on a Thursday morning. She texted to say that she wasn't currently at home, but she would contact someone in the pastoral care group.

I was given a cup of tea and a cheese and onion sandwich to eat, which was nice. I don't think I've been given any food when I've been in A and E. You usually have to buy it yourself out of a vending machine.

A lot more waiting in the corridor. You would think, considering The Maple Centre was a new building, that there would be space enough for people to wait and rooms provided so that patients could be treated or triaged without being in a corridor.

Part-way through the afternoon I was informed that the blood test I had done when I came in hadn't worked. Something about 'sticky blood,' which I had never heard of or what it was. The upshot was, that I'd have to have another one done, and the results would take a further hour or so. No point in complaining, these sorts of things happen. So, it was done and then yet another waiting session in the corridor.

Around 3 o'clock, I was joined by Margaret from church! She is part of the pastoral care team. I was given the results of the various tests during the day. The doctor who spoke to me said there were no signs of me having a heart attack and that the pain in my chest was due to an irregular heartbeat. A lot of information is given from the blood test and one particular agent called Troponin T, which is produced by the heart muscle, and which shows up in blood would signal any heart problems, and this didn't. That was a relief. She said that I wouldn't need to stay in overnight and she'd get a letter typed up and one would be sent to my doctor's surgery.

Another wait. At least I had Margaret to chat to!

Another wait . . . The doctor came past and said, had I received the letter? I said, no, and she went away and around 45 minutes later I was handed two sheets, one of which was the letter.

So Margaret went off and got her car from the carpark and said she'd wait in the drop-off space outside and when I was ready I could come out and she would take me home, which is what happened and I'm so grateful for her coming to be with me and then take me home.

Tiresome Tech

 Monday. 7.10 a.m. I have spent the past two days (actually, I have a feeling it may be far more than that.) attempting to get my Canon Pixma printer to work. When I first bought it home, having purchased it from Argos, I had absolutely no problems setting it up and actually managing to get it to print. But now it simply refuses to work. I have now bought it into my lounge from the bedroom, where it has sat on its trolley. It is now plugged in, and I will have another attempt to get it to work. I think I will probably have to ring the Canon helpline and get a technician there to sort the problem out.

10.30 a.m. I have the Canon printer working. I rang the helpline and the technician on the other end of the line went through several options to get the thing up and running. I am not going to describe everything on here, suffice it to say, we went through around three options and the final one worked, much to my relief.

I've been to Sainsbury's, as I needed some food items to take with me in my pack-up when I go to Camphill tomorrow. When I got back to Dexter House, there were workmen in the entrance, with the manhole covers removed, and it looked as if they were about to put something down the drain to unblock the system. This has been on the cards for months, so perhaps the water from my bath and sink will flow better once this has been done. Having spoken to Barbara, the SHO (Sheltered Housing Officer) she told me that they had put a camera down the drain. What on earth were they expecting to see down there? One dreads to think. Does it now mean they are going to use some sort of rod to unblock the drain? But, more importantly, what is blocking the drains within Dexter House? The excitement is just overwhelming. I know, but someone said that sarcasm was the lowest form of wit. You just need some of that around here.

Tuesday. 7.00 a.m. Today would have been Carol's 59th birthday. I am staying at home and not going to Camphill. I am fine, just having a day to myself. They have raised the age when you can retire. I'm not sure what the current age is, but she kept saying that, because of the age being raised, she was never going to retire. For women, the retirement age is currently 67.

I was awake at around 5.45, and I looked out of the window and saw snow falling. But it hasn't settled. Apparently, according to Carol Kirkwood on BBC Breakfast, we're likely to get more snow across the country in the next couple of days and it will settle. There was a warning that transport will be disrupted.

12.20 p.m. I am beginning to write new material which will link to the new character I have developed. It means I have to unpick some of what I had already written in order for this material to be put into my writing and introduce a new character.

Wednesday. 3.30 a.m. Well, here I am, in the middle of the night, sitting here on my MacBook, writing this blog post. My pension has gone into my account. I have checked the balance of my account via the bank's website. I have paid my service charge (monthly payment for such things as water, utilities etc.) and done my daily Bible reading, I had drunk a mug of tea and now I can't get back to sleep!