A Little Of What You Fancy

I think the Partygate scandal, if indeed it can be termed a scandal, just shows how much Boris Johnson can obfuscate. Now there's a good word. I think I will henceforth attempt to find a 'Word of The Week. This word.

So, obfuscate. Wording something in such a way that it is so excessively complicated that nobody really understands it. This can be said of the crazy and somewhat pointless regulations regarding the pandemic lockdowns. Then, why on earth are there different regulations in the various constituent countries in the United Kingdom? Why are they not consistent throughout the whole United Kingdom? Then, on top of that, we have Boris Johnson who waffles on and seems to evade responding to the various questions in Prime Ministers Questions and debates in the House of Commons, such as, was he at a party in 10 Downing Street or other government establishments?

Wednesday. 2.50 p.m. So, Denmark has got rid of all its pandemic lockdown rules and regulations. So, when can we in Great Britain remove all of our stupid restrictions? Boris was more or less bludgeoned into introducing them in the first place, by the scientists who should have known better.

I think it's time to drop any more mentions of Partygate. It's getting really boring. 

Thursday. 7.45 a.m. Quite mild as I write this. I just hope it stays that way, at least, for the next week or so.

I've bought a Fitbit Versa 2. It replaces the old one I've had for a couple of years, which stopped working. This model isn't merely a step counter, but a watch that measures heart-rate, and many other things. I bought it from Argos, using my Nectar points and points I had collected doing various online surveys. I was surprised how quickly I was able to get it up and running and using it. I had ordered it via the Argos website and collected it from their store in Milton Keynes yesterday morning ('Click and Collect' I believe they call this.) Argos have stopped their catalogue and seem to only work with their website. I suppose it must have been extremely expensive to create these catalogues which came out twice a year and then distribute them. If you have the internet it's far easier to find and order items which you can then collect from their showrooms or have delivered.

I went to my first lecture of the National Trust Association at the Oaktree Centre at 2 p.m. It was somewhat off being there, but not for a church event, but nevertheless it was interesting. It was a talk by someone who used to work for Charles Ross fine art auctioneers in Woburn. Charles Ross is a regular antique expert on such television shows as Bargain Hunt and Antiques Road Trip. This gentleman, by the name of Evan Willison, gave an amusing talk (he didn't like it being called a lecture, and I can see why. Smacks of 'education' and it being somewhat po-faced, which this certainly wasn't. He mentioned many and various incidents which had happened to him over the course of working as an auctioneer for over 30 years. Very amusing. I was surprised by how well attended the event was. There are regular talks given on a variety of subjects as well as outings to various places, one coming up to the British Museum and another to Chartwell, home of wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill. I don't think I will be going on that one, having already visited and the fact that it would take a good two hours to travel down to Kent and then another two hours back on a coach. Not my idea of fun, particularly as I'm over six foot tall and sitting on a coach for any length of time would be uncomfortable. Most coaches aren't designed with any thought for someone my height. I may wait and see what other outings they have and decide to go one something else, especially if it's to one of the National Trust properties.

Wednesday Morning At Whipsnade

We've been to Whipsnade Zoo for the first time in ages. We renewed Carol's Fellowship membership so we can visit as many times as we like without paying. Our one luxury which, at the moment, seems very worthwhile and takes our minds off hospital appointments and other difficulties and it's only about 30 minutes in the car from home.

We didn't intend spending money in any of the restaurants at Whipsnade when we wanted lunch, so we drove to Tesco's at Oldbrook to buy some sandwiches, crisps and a drink. We drove out of Milton Keynes on on the A5 and drove towards Dunstable and eventually along the Downs and arrived at the zoo.

When we eventually got to Whipsnade we were really surprised by how many people were there. Because it was virtually the end of the school holidays, we imagined that it would be vitally empty, but no doubt families intended making one final visit before their children returned to school. We had a bit of a problem parking the car, and some visitors couldn't make up their minds when crossing the road. So, we did our usual tour round the whole circuit and drove through the drive-through 'Passage Through Asia' exhibit. You see deer and other animals in a more natural environment, as you drive through, something like a safari park such as Woburn or Longleat. We didn't see any other people, cars or otherwise when we drove thorough. Then we drove round to park up near the chimpanzee enclosure and walked towards the bears and discovered that a talk was about to be given by one of the members of the zoo staff. It was absolutely heaving with people. We stood and looked at the bears for a while. It's fascinating listening to other people as well as watching them, almost as interesting as the zoo inhabitants. A couple were speaking quite loud, making comments, and one husband said to her wife that they'd gone all the way to Canada on holiday and hadn't seen any hears, but, here they were at Whipsnade and, yes, there were some bears! Seemed to us amazing that they'd gone all that way to Canada, when they could see bears in this country instead. Then on to the penguins. They always seem so amusing, perhaps because of the way they walk. Also, look vaguely human, the way they stand in crowds, vaguely looking as if they're queuing up for something.

We ate our picnic sitting in the car near the bear enclosure.

Digressing somewhat. As I sat here, at goodness knows what time in the early hours of the morning, which I usually do when I can't sleep, I had a buzzing going on in the room. It was a fly of some sort. I wouldn't think flies would be around at night, in the dark. But there it was, somewhere, flying round and round as I attempted to concentrate on writing this blog post. I put up with it for a while and then gave up. I found the fly spray, conveniently left on the bookshelves and sprayed around. I don't like using it, I don't want to sit in a room where it's been sprayed. It didn't work at first, but after about ten minutes the buzzing stopped and I could get back to my writing.

We parked up near the elephants. They have to be my favourites and as they were up near the fence so we got a really good view. The BBC has an annual show which is shown on Sunday evenings called 'The Big Painting Challenge' and contestants had to paint scenes in a wide range of locations and landscapes, one location was actually Whipsnade Zoo. They had to paint the flamingos and also the elephants, and we were at the actual location for that particular painting challenge. H.M. Queen came to open the new elephant house a couple of years ago, and television news showed her actually feeding one of the elephants and a newly-born baby elephant was given the name Elizabeth in honour of the Queen's visit to coincide with her 60 years on the throne.

Having spent a couple of hours at the news we drove around to park near the entrance and went in to browse in the shop and then drove out to return home. A really pleasant morning spent out together. It wasn't too hot, thankfully. We thought it might have rained, but it held off. A certain amount of sunshine, which was actually better than being bright and sunny because it meant the animals didn't hide away in the shade.

Tenth Chemotherapy Cycle Postponed

It's another really beautiful warm spring day. We've been to the oncology suite so that Carol could have the usual blood test so that she can have the tenth chemotherapy cycle beginning tomorrow morning (Wednesday), depending on whether the test is as it should be.

As it happened, at around 6 o'clock on Wednesday evening we had a telephone call from oncology to say that there were not enough neutrophils in Carol's blood, which are the blood cells that fight infection. Which now means the tenth chemotherapy cycle has to be postponed until next week. This happened a couple of weeks ago and the next chemotherapy cycle was postponed for two weeks because Carols parents came to visit for a couple of days (see earlier blog post.)

So, I'm a bit lost as to what to write to make this blog post worthwhile. Well, we've been watching more episodes of 'The Woman In White', the current BBC1 classic adaptation. It seems to have really taken off after the third episode (of 5) but there's so many plots overlapping and so much going on it can be somewhat confusing. I don't think it will be particularly clear what's going on until we've seen the final episode (which was shown on May Bank Holiday Monday.)

I'm currently reading 'White Heat' by Dominic Sandbrook, part of his mammoth cycle of books tracing British history from Suez in 1956 up until the election of Margaret Thatcher. It's an extremely detailed account of the period, this particular volume covering the '60's, Harold Wilson, The Beatles, Mary Quant and other personalities.

It's been a really warm night. As a result, it's difficult to sleep, particularly when you have to keep the bedroom cool with the windows open.  You get the sound of cars along the A5 making a lot of sounds, racing, revving their engines. A lot of loud noises. During the day, then having bees and other flying insects buzzing in and out of the house.

Later. The Christmas tree, which is currently in the garden, in it's original pot from when it was bought in Dobbie's garden centre two Christmasses ago, is growing rapidly. It desperately needs re-potting before it dies off, which usually happens when we buy a 'live' Christmas tree. We have been meaning to find a suitable size pot so it can be transferred so that it can happily grow. In the current plastic pot it's likely to get pot-bound and then the roots will start to rot which will end with it dying which would be a shame since it's growing so successfully. We've seen suitable pots but hadn't got round to actually buying one, so this morning we went to Bunnings (which has taken over the Homebase branch in Winter Hill.) They had a quite spectacular selection of very suitable pots, one of which we purchased, along with a fuchsia  plant which Carol bought, along with potting compost and gravel to put in the pots. We had to use a trolley to convey our purchases to the till to pay and then out to the carpark, but the thing proved quite difficult to manoeuvre through the store and, once at the car, it took some effort to fit the various items in the interior of the vehicle.

We drove home to unload the posts, plants and bags of gravel and potting compost and then went out, first to drive through Woburn park, which is one of our favourite 'go-to' places when the weather is fine, searching out first rhododendrons which have begun flowering along the side of the road leading up to the cattle grids you have to go over on entering the open spaces of the deer park. We could see a few deer straggling across the road ahead of us, with one car stopped, no doubt to get a close-up view of these animals. Unfortunately we hadn't remembered to bring either of our cameras with us, because we might have got some really good shots had we got them with us.

We had to decide on somewhere suitable to have lunch so decided on Dobbie's at Bletchley, which has a good restaurant and we  had lattes, baguettes, panninis and cake. Carol had a rather nice slice of chocolate cake and I had a really tasty lemon frangipani tartlet, absolutely delicious. One of the best cakes I've had in a while. We must return at some time in the not-too distant future to partake of such delights again. We bought some plants which Carol wants to use in a bottle garden which she intends to construct in the former fish tank we have sitting in the garden.

Having finished in Dobbie's we drove back into Milton Keynes, to go to Marks and Spencer's at the football stadium where we bought milk and garlic bread which we needed.

My least-favourite job has to be done, mowing the grass. The grass seems to grow at unprecedented speed once we get any sun. It was cut a few weeks ago, and was somewhat difficult as I'd let it get too long and the mower, not really designed to cut such tough grass, really struggled. I think it's intended for those gardens which possess nice, neat turf and not the type of grass we have to contend with, more suitable to be eaten by horses, sheep and cattle and perhaps not mown at all.

A Morning At Whipsnade Zoo

The day started out fine and sunny, so it was more or less perfect for a morning out at Whipsnade Zoo. We haven't been out for a proper day out since Carol had her cancer diagnosis. We have had trips to the Milton Keynes shopping centre as well as to Waitrose and Sainsbury's, but they were hardly what I'd call outings. She is beginning to feel a bit better, particularly as she hasn't had chemotherapy this week, so she decided she wanted to drive. I have been driving every time we've been anywhere, and she wanted to get back behind the wheel of the car, which she's hardly driven since we bought it last year. As she is a Fellow of Z.S.L. (Zoological Society of London) we can visit as many times as we like without paying. Also, being able to drive in with the car and then park up and then walk around means it's far less tiring for both of us.

My Canon digital camera has been charged up and ready for goodness knows how many months. Always best to have a digital camera well charged before going out, when it's bound to be needed. I bought a spare battery which is still in it's little orange box in the car's storage space. The camera itself has been in one of the storage boxes we got from IKEA when we assembled the shelving unit in the lounge. Infact. looking at the photographs on the card in the camera I see there are quite a few shots taken when we last visited Whipsnade.

We arrived at Whipsnade well past the opening time of 10 a.m. It wasn't very busy, which had an advantage, as it was easy enough to find spaces to park. We drove around the zoo, enabling us to see which animals were out and about. If you go when it's hot, a lot of animals have a tendency to hide away in the shade. The same when it's cold, some animals love it, others prefer to stay where it's warm and cozy.

We stopped off at the pygmy hippopotamus enclosure. We couldn't see them in the outdoor space. It was very cold and almost raining so we went into the house they have. Somewhat hot and smelly. There were two hippos in there, although they were in the pools, but part of them was visible above water, the rest hidden below. I overheard a conversation a woman was having with her male partner. As they looked at the hippos in the water, she said 'Can they breathe under water?' to which he replied 'Of course not.' Then she said 'Do they have gills?' I can't believe an adult would ever think hippos, of all animals would have gills. They're not fish, or reptiles and certainly don't show any sort of gills or could possibly be creatures which have them. Quite amazing what you overhear, but rather sad really.

 We drove through  the 'Animals of Asia ' exhibit. There's herds of deer and other animals in this section of the zoo. We stopped at various points to take pictures with my camera. It's like a safari park where you drive through and remain in your car. There aren't any dangerous animals such as lions are there are at Woburn or Longleat, but still, you have to stay inside your vehicle. We drove on and came to the area where there are camels. Several were standing in the road and wouldn't move. A few more were hanging around near a tree. Ugly things, camels. They look as if they've been put together by a committee, from spare parts. Their legs don't seem to go with the rest of their bodies. These were shaggy and scrawny. When they eat, their mouths go into a really odd sort of movement. These two camels more or less refused to budge, so we could continue on our way. There were not other vehicles coming along behind, so it didn't matter so much if we didn't continue to drive, but by now Carol was getting worried that one of the camels was going to kick the car or do something unpredictable, but fortunately they did move out of the way and we were able to finish out drive and came out of the drive-through area and into the main zoo road.

We drove right round the inner ring road of the zoo. Carol wanted to see the bears. There are supposed to be some new ones. The old bear enclosure would appear to be very old and had rather nasty metal bars, which seem to have been replaced with more modern fencing. A large area of the fence has been covered with some quite attractive woven fencing. They are attempting to make many of the animal enclosures at Whipsnade far more easy for visitors to see the animals in more appropriate enclosures. Without having bars or the old fashioned and totally unacceptable cages that used to house the animals. You can see most of the animals without fencing or bars getting in the way, which also makes taking photographs easier. From the bears we walked on to view the penguins. Always good for a laugh. They just have a comic look, the way they stand and walk, looking for all the world like little old men. A convention of waiters, or similar in their black-and-white feathers.

By now it was nearing lunch-time, so we drove back round to the area called Base Camp and walked towards the café. It has been revamped since we last visited. It is now modernised and you order your food from your table using a touch-screen computer. We're not sure whether we like what they've done. We liked to be able to use the café at Whipsnade to buy sandwiches and cake, as well as helping ourselves to coffee or tea. The modern arrangement may be more sophisticated and what a lot of people want, but it seems a shame that everything has to be changed just for the sake of it. We noticed that what used to be the Lookout Café that overlooked Dunstable Downs the other side of the zoo is now a branch of  River Cottage. Again, it wasn't brilliant before, but this is all very well and good, but will no doubt be expensive. We can always bring our own picnic and eat in the car in future. I'm not saying that the hot chocolate, chips and chocolate cake weren't good, and it was at our table very quickly, but we're prefer it to have remained as it was, with perhaps a few minor tweaks to improve things.

As we sat and ate, it became overcast and it began to rain. There was no real point staying any longer. Carol was beginning to feel tired, so we drove around towards the exit and stopped to look in the shop. They had a few adult T shirts and sweatshirts, some in adult sizes, something which I'd mentioned was missing, merchandise  which was aimed at adults and not just children. Carol bought one for herself and we left the zoo. By now it was really raining quite hard and it was clear we'd had the best of the day.

We stopped off in Beanhill to go to Ashfield Medical Centre to collect the prescription we'd ordered for Carol. It turned out that two were ready, but the one she really wanted, for the sleeping tablets, was for only 7 tablets. Which means we'll have to put in yet another prescription in only a few day's time. I shall take the prescriptions to Lloyd's in Sainsbury's on Saturday morning.

Signs of Spring

Well, the weather may be somewhat undecided. One minute we have sun, the next it is raining and blowing a gale. But for all that, there are definite signs that spring is on the way. Where I parked the car when I drove into the Academy carpark at 3.30 on Friday afternoon there were catkins on the trees in front of the car. Definite signs of the trees coming into bud as well as primroses and snowdrops all along the road-sides around Milton Keynes. We drove over to Woburn and went trough the park to have a look at the deer, as we do on a regular basis. A pleasant enough drive and not too far our of Milton Keynes. About 15 minutes to get there. We went to Frost's Garden Centre in Woburn Sands to have a look round. It seems as if the place is in the process of being given a make-over. They recently did over the restaurant and it now looks as if the rest is being re-arranged. Some areas look a bit empty, but no doubt this is part of the make-over process. It's always a pleasure to visit and we had a coffee in the restaurant. Good quality food, coffee, cakes and a whole range of other items and Carol was pleased to find they had sugar-free biscuits on sale, some of which she purchased.

Kendra, the young lady who has been staying with us for the last month, has at last found a flat, which she is sharing with another young teacher from the Academy. The flat isn't too far from the Academy, in Oldbrook. We helped her move some of her stuff and went to IKEA the other day to buy bedding, towels and other items for the flat. She came back this afternoon with a car to say thanks for her accommodation and support and on opening it I found a £20 voucher for us to use for a meal in a Prezzo restaurant, so that's something for us to look forward to.

Signs Of Spring?

The weather is somewhat deceptive at present. The sun is out, and it appears to be bright and warm, but when you get outside it is quite cold. There was ice on the windscreen and windows of the car early this morning, but some hot water soon melted it so we could drive out. There are crocuses coming out, along with daffodils and snowdrops along the verges on some of the gridroads around Milton Keynes. Yesterday evening we drove out of Milton Keynes to give the car a run after it's service and MoT. It hasn't had a long run for some while and it did it good to be able to run out along the A5 and come off near Woburn and then drive through the deer park. We didn't get a very good view of the deer as they were hiding away from the main road which runs through the park. It was really great to have some sunshine after all the snow and ice of the past few months. Let's hope the summer is better than the sodden 'summer' we had to endure last year. If that's the case we will be able to get out and visit some National Trust properties and not be cooped up indoors.

Beautiful Sunny Day!

Carol did some tutoring this morning, and when she came home we were due to go shopping, but, because it was so warm and sunny we decided to drive to Woburn. We are fans of many antiques shows on television, such as Bargain Hunt, Antiques Road trip etc and parked the car and went to one antique shop on the market-square which has featured in Antiques Road Trip, Woburn Antiques Centre (I believe Charlie Ross, who appears regularly on this show has an interest in it, or may even own it.) It was interesting looking around, particularly a fine collection of Moorcroft pottery, which we both love, but at the prices they were asking, well out of our  price range, unfortuntely.

From there we walked along the High Street  and found a really nice coffee shop and went in and had coffee and cake. Very nice. We went back to the car and then drove through Woburn Park, as we like to look at the deer.

Milton Keynes Spectacular Sunrise

After the storms of yesterday, the deluge and the high winds, this morning it is calm and peaceful. I opened the lounge curtains to find a really spectacular red sunrise over Milton Keynes, over the hospital and towards Woburn and the distant horizon. As a result, I decided to take my digital camera and attempt to capture this sight and then, hopefully, upload it onto this blog. The sky was changing rapidly, so I had to be quick in order to get the shots I wanted. I had to check that the batteries in the camera were fully charged. It often happens that we take the Fuji digital camera out with us whenever we go out for the day, and it is important to make sure that the batteries are kept fully charged, and it can happen that you think you are going to get a really good shot and then discover the batteries run out at the crucial moment you go to click the shutter. I got outside and then went out onto the Redway behind our house. There were children walking towards the Academy, and they must have wondered what on earth I was up to with the camera. I managed to get some of the shots  (as you will see above) over the top of the hospital complex, but in order to get something better I knew I would have to get up a good deal higher and got to the footbridge over Saxon Street (one of the Milton Keynes grid roads.) and this allowed me to get a much better view of the horizon towards the woods towards Woburn. You can see the traffic moving along the road and to the right in one, a street lamp. These photographs were taken at around 8.15 a.m. so I think I've done well to get them taken and then up-loaded  so quicky onto the iMac and then transferred onto this blog!