Wednesday. 8.45 a.m. Another bright and mild morning. Thank goodness the wind has dropped.
Every two years, I have to do a bowel cancer test. It's because I'm over a 'certain age' which means I would be prone to bowel cancer. I have done the test, but I won't go into detail. It is posted off, and I should get the results in around 2 weeks. The actual test is now far easier than the original test, fortunately. I do not see why the N.H.S. has to send me a letter around two weeks before the test kit arrives, informing me that I am due for this test and the kit will soon be sent. This seems a real waste of money. Why not just send the kit? I can imagine that if every man who has to do this test has a similar letter sent, it must cost a considerable amount. First class is £1.70 and second class is 75p, so you get an idea how much it's likely to cost if several million of these letters get sent out.
4.50 p.m. I have been to sit with my friend Mike who has Parkinson's so his wife, Margaret, can go to a meeting. I have been doing this for several months now. I think she needs respite as it must be quite challenging being his carer. I drive past the entrance to Camphill, and on the way home the traffic ground to a halt and I could see an ambulance ahead and someone controlling the traffic. There was glass and debris everywhere on the road and I could see a car at the side of the road, looking as if it has been in an accident and in a pretty poor state, totally smashed in. I don't think the accident can have happened much before I got to that area. I have a feeling the driver might have driven out of the road leading into Camphill. I couldn't see a second vehicle which might have caused the accident, possibly hitting the other vehicle, but I have the feeling that the driver wasn't being careful enough when they turned into the flow of traffic. If that was the case, it would have been easier to turn left and go to the next roundabout and come back in the direction they must have wanted to go.
Thursday. 7.20 a.m. The weather has done another about-turn. It's 'sort of' raining. Not torrential, but thin and rather miserable, as if it can't make its mind up.
2.20 p.m. I have mentioned my problems getting my new Sony camera to connect to the hand grip via Bluetooth. With this you can operate the camera, the zoom function as well as the still photo and video functions. It makes operating far easier because it can be held as well as transforming into a mini tripod. I now have to set up the Joby microphones, which I recently bought on Amazon.
As I say, my options to finding a solution to the problem were running out. I had gone on YouTube to watch videos about setting the camera up with the hand grip, but to no avail. There are few cameras in Milton Keynes. There used to be two branches of Jessops, but both have closed down. I then recalled a company called Wex, which I thought had a branch in Milton Keynes. I found it, in the Exchange building in Midsummer Boulevard. I seem to remember working for a care agency which had there offices in this shopping centre, so I knew how to find it. The problem was not just finding the place, but parking my car. I could have parked in the Seklow Gate car park, which is next to The Point, but it would have meant a long walk to the store. I decided to see if I could park along Midsummer Boulevard, so I drove there and eventually found a space. Fine. Then I attempted to use the RingGo app on my mobile. But for some unfathomable reason it would not work. Plan B sprang into action! Pay with my debit card at the parking machine, just along the street a couple of yards. You have to type in your car's registration number and press a couple of keys and use your contactless card and, hey presto! But no! That decided to fail. After two attempts I was not in a particularly good mood. I drove away, thinking that I'd go home and forget the whole sorry situation, but at the last moment I thought I'd park in the car park underneath Sainsbury's and walk to Wex, which is what I did. So, I drove to Sainsbury's car park and found a space and then walked to Wex store. Meanwhile, it was drizzling which didn't help my mood, which had been shattered by the problems with the RingGo app and the ticket machine. It was easy enough to find the store within the Exchange building. It's not a place I know well and it would not have been the most obvious place to find a camera shop. It didn't seem exactly busy, so goodness knows what the foot fall was like.
I went inside the store and asked one of the staff if he could help with setting up the grip on the camera. It turned out that I had pressed one of the wrong buttons on the grip which was why it wouldn't connect to the camera via Bluetooth. I have to say I was more than pleased and may go back if I need to go to Wex, basically because there are so few camera shops in Milton Keynes. I am thinking more for advice, such as I did when I went there to help set up the grip with the camera.
