Christmas Build-Up?

Sunday. 8.15 a.m. Yet another cold and frosty morning. I have dug out my gloves and woolly Oddballs hat before going out. My hands get freezing cold and can get really painful if I don't wear gloves in such conditions.

9.20 a.m. I have been out to defrost the car. Fortunately, I had the sense to buy some spray antifreeze the other day when I was in Sainsbury's and I also have a scraper, which makes the job easier. I don't think it was a particularly heavy frost, and the ice cleared easily. Also, putting on the car's heated windscreen helps considerably.

2.30 p.m. After our usual service at Shenley Christian Fellowship, we had a Christmas party. It was a bring-and-share meal, the idea being that a list of food was put up on a white board and if you could provide something on that list, you prepared it or bought it. I had tomato and cucumbers, cut up and put into one of my metal bowls, crisps, Twiglets and grapes to take. I went to Sainsbury's during the week to do a top-up shop and got most of those items, except Twiglets. Search as I might, there were none to be had. A bit like Lane, the butler in 'The Importance of Being Earnest, who responds to the question about cucumbers, which have been made for Algernon's aunt, Lady Bracknell, 'I went down to the market earlier and there were no cucumbers, not even for ready money.'

Not only is it bitingly cold today, but there's a thick fog covering all of Milton Keynes. It seems to have got worse as the day has progressed. It's just as well I don't have to drive far because I don't like driving in fog, especially when it's so thick you can only see a short distance ahead of you and definitely not on any Motorway. Also, with snow, it would be treacherous.

Monday. 6.30 a.m. I have a feeling we had a fall of snow overnight. I have yet to be outside, but I am waiting to go out and then will discover if that is correct.

8.50 a.m. There has definitely been quite a fall of snow overnight. When I took Alfie out at 7.35 we discovered a thick layer of snow on the grass alongside Strudwick Drive. My car has a blanket of snow on it as I gaze out of the window, and I will have to go down and brush it off. I have also been to take a few photographs with my iPhone and they have been uploaded onto Facebook.

1.10 a.m. I have been out to scrape off the snow from my car. I was surprised by how much there was and how thick it was. I wasn't preparing to go out in the car immediately, but I was thinking it might be a good idea to clear it before there's another snowstorm overnight and that it would need clearing off the car before I drive to Camphill tomorrow morning. I just hope it doesn't snow overnight nor that it freezes, which would make the job easier.

I had a telephone call this morning from one of the pharmacists at my doctor's surgery, Central Milton Keynes Medical Centre. I was actually expecting a doctor to ring. I thought we were going to discuss and review my medications but wasn't about that. I wanted to talk about the cough I keep having, due to the amount of phlegm I have at the back of my throat and the heartburn, which can feel almost exactly like how your body feels when you have a heart attack. She said I would need to speak to a GP and that I can make an appointment at around 7 p.m. for the next day. I also have to have a blood test and an appointment to have an amount of blood taken (not something I like, but still, it must be done.) so there can be a check on my kidney function. That is made for Wednesday morning at 11.20 a.m. Which means,  no food to be eaten beforehand.

I have booked my car into Bleakhall Motors for a service on Monday 19th December and this is at 8.00 a.m. I'm trying my best to keep the car in good mechanical order so having it serviced regularly seems a sensible idea to me.

6.20 p.m. I have just been watching a video on Vimeo, the video-sharing site, of the pantomime which the  Camphill theatre workshop did in July. I had heard all about it and would have gone to see it if I had been able to go to Camphill, but hadn't been able to because of the pandemic and having to wear a face mask. I am absolutely knocked out by the energy and enthusiasm that was put into the production. Everyone remembered their lines and gave such strong performances. A real winner. A great deal of hard work and effort went into the whole show.

Christmas Cheer?

 Saturday. 8.25 a.m. It's cold and frosty. I was out with my little mate, Alfie, just after  7.30. A frost on the grass and a large moon hovering in the chill sky. It was really large the other morning. I'm not sure of the name it gets at this time of year. I'll have to do a Google search. 

Done the Google search. It's called a Cold Moon. Boring really. It's because the weather gets colder. Not very original, then. 

So, we get more football coverage, due to England meeting France in the quarter-finals at the World Cup in Qatar at 7.00 this evening. No, I'm not interested, so won't be watching. There's far too much coverage, and it looks as if the whole country is totally obsessed with football. I know why, it's about money. Too much riding on it all, with adverting and sponsorship tied up with the sport. Going into Sainsbury's the other morning, it was shocking to see how many products are tied into it. They want you to make sure you have plenty of food to eat during the various games, particularly pizza, crisps, lager, and soft drinks such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi. It's not just in supermarkets, either. Turn on any of the commercial television stations, and the advertising connected to the World Cup is more or less at saturation point. If you want to avoid any form of advertising by watching catch-up, you can't avoid it as these forms of television viewing aren't free from commercial overkill. I suppose you can't blame the companies, because they're paid for by advertising, not just during programmes, but they have sponsorship wrapping around each programme, beginning and end and during the commercial breaks. 

10.40 a.m. I've been attempting to move my writing project forward. I think it's more of a serial instead of a novel, and it should be released in episodes, which is more or less how he began life. I wanted to create something, rather in the mould of a television soap, with multiple characters and storylines which interact with one another, but more likely weave in and out of a central storyline, which is how it's developing. 

I have taken Alfie out and have just got back indoors. It's cold enough for gloves and my Oddballs woolly hat (Oddballs being a company that sells clothing items, underwear, pyjamas, gloves and so on, and the profits go towards initially,  research for a cure for prostate cancer, but have also helped fund other cancer research for both men and women.) I wanted to walk around Oldbrook Green, although Alfie had other ideas and was determined to get home in the warm, but I had other ideas and insisted on our circular walk continuing. I had the idea to be thinking about how my writing project could move forward and come up with some sort of storyline which would introduce a new character who would be able to create some tension. So, I am using the method which Charles Dickens used, as he would walk for miles around London and this would be when he came up with storylines and characters. I can see that would be a good method and might suggest why so many of his novels are set in London. 

Sunday. 7.15 a.m. Did I say Christmas cheer in the title of this post? I can't say I'm particularly in any sort of mood for Christmas, particularly as today is the fourth anniversary of the passing of my lovely wife, Carol. She is sorely missed, and she was too young to die at 54. We had such a good life together and were always doing things together, laughing and visiting various places, going to National Trust properties, museums, theatres and many more places. Cancer is so cruel. More research needs to be done to find a cure for the various forms it takes. Far too many people have either died of cancer or not been diagnosed by the NHS due to the pandemic when the various cancer facilities were shut down. Totally crazy and not acceptable.

Flooded Milton Keynes and Bedford

 (Monday) I put BBC Breakfast on at around 6.20 and they were reporting 'live' from Bedford. The centre of the town is flooded and all along the Embankment and around Longholme lake the river has risen and engulfed the fields around the River Ouse, all places I know well.

Although I wasn't able to visit Chloe and family in Worcester over Christmas, I was able to chat with her via Skype, something I haven't done before. It was great to not only chat, but she gave me a guided tour of the extension to the house which is more or less completed. She didn't show me upstairs, because the children were asleep in bed (it was around 7 p.m.). There is a new utility room and the downstairs wet room off the kitchen as well as an office. I hope that probably next week we can have another chat and this time have the boys involved as I haven't seen any of them since last Christmas because of the pandemic.

It's a good deal colder this morning. I was out with Alfie at 7.45a.m and not only was it a good deal colder, but there was a fog hanging over the centre of Milton Keynes which I could see from Oldbrook Green. I am making sure that I wrap up to keep warm, with my Oddballs woolly hat on as well as gloves (which I managed to find.) My hands get really cold and can get so cold they become numb. Something to do with having had a heart attack. Your extremities, such as your toes and fingers, can be affected. I ought to explain that Oddballs is a brand of clothing, utilising brightly coloured and highly patterned clothing, particularly underwear for men and women. Originally set up to sell these items and the profits going to cancer charities, initially for research into men's cancer, particularly testicular and prostate cancer but now also women's cancers. A good cause and I have bought quite a few items, and because of Carol's cancer, I thought it highly personal to me.

I've been out again with Alfie and it was really quite foggy. Well, not too thick that you couldn't see a hand in front of your face, but a good deal thicker than it was earlier.

(Later) I've been watching a documentary on YouTube, called 'The Cult of Doomwatch,' which was an early 1970s drama series which had storylines about what happens when science goes wrong. I remember it quite clearly and it had some really frightening storylines. I have a connection to it as one of the leading actors, Simon Oates, was a guest director when I was at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham in 1969, working as a student A.S.M. I'm desperately trying to remember what he directed. I have an idea that it was 'A Day In The Death of Joe Egg,' written by Peter Nicols. I may be wrong and unfortunately I don't have any way of finding out. I used to have a whole box full of the programmes from plays I worked on. You always got given one on the opening night of the plays I worked on. Some were signed by the cast. It's a pity, as they would be great to look through. I even had production photographs, but they also went astray years ago. I expect they went missing along the way as I've moved quite a few times over the years.

(Tuesday) I've been doing on-line surveys for several years now. You sign up to various sites and give as much detail about yourself and then you get an email with a link to the survey. You have to do a quick survey to show if you are eligible and if you qualify you do the survey, which can take up to 20 minutes and you get rewarded points which accrue and can be turned into cash or vouchers for well-known brands. I usually get Amazon points which you can spend as you wish from their site or else turn the points into vouchers for 'bricks-and-mortar retailers such as Marks and Spencer, John Lewis or any other high street companies. Don't expect to be able to make a great deal from these surveys, but as the Tesco ads tell you 'Every Little Helps.' I am also on a site called Consumer Pulse (you have to be invited. You can't just sign up to this site.) You have to input to their site when you buy products such as clothing, shoes, books, CDs, DVDs etc and the points build up and can be turned into vouchers for such companies as Sainsbury's, Argos, B and Q etc etc. I had reached a good payout of around £100 so I decided to redeem them, turn them into Argos vouchers. You usually get your vouchers sent to you, as paper vouchers, but because of the pandemic, you get them as eVouchers which can be spent on-line. I was expecting them to come in a couple of weeks which is what normally happens, but I was surprised to find they were sent in an email, as a string of letters and numbers. So, I thought I'd spend them. I got to the Argos website and managed to select some items, a new toaster (the old one is beyond repair, frankly, and it took ages to toast a piece of bread.) I found a Breville toaster and decided on that. Then, a new electric kettle. The old one is a Russell Hobbs and it has a Brita filter in it. The one I chose is similar but made of glass. That's ordered, but won't be ready for collection until tomorrow, Wednesday. Also ordered a plate rack for the kitchen sink, bath mats and a 'Welcome' doormat, which might be helpful in preventing mud and other bits and pieces coming into the flat. I got the toaster on Sunday and I had to go to the Argos store in Milton Keynes to collect it. Click-and-collect only and you have to queue up and it took about 20 minutes to get to the check-in. They don't allow you inside the store. A member of staff takes your details, your order number and another code which identifies you as well and the item ordered and it's handed over.