Invasion of Flying Ants

Yesterday afternoon (Sunday) we had an invasion of flying ants in the lounge. It was Carol who noticed them, along the skirting board under the window and near where we store Alfie's toys in a basket next to the television unit. I can't think how they got in the house, but no doubt the recent warm weather has something to do with this invasion. It's supposed to happen annually when the queen ant of a colony sprouts wings ready to mate. They don't usually sting humans, but we weren't over-keen to find out one way or another and certainly didn't want them in the house. Carol doused the carpet with ant-killer powder, and we whisked Alfie out of the way into the kitchen, much to his dismay, but we weren't sure he wasn't likely to get bitten and didn't want him near the poison. They began to die as the poison took effect and I then used the vacuum cleaner to clear up the powder. Unfortunately Alfie's toys got covered in the powder, so the only solution was to put them in a black bin bag and put the whole lot out for the dustmen. We really didn't want him playing with them after they were doused in the ant killing powder. They were crawling along the skirting board and on the carpet. Panic over, we could then return to watching television.

Monday morning. I took out Alfie as usual for his walk. There were people in the children's playground area who had an alsatian which was not on a lead so I avoided that area and immediately put Alfie on his lead. I was concerned that the bigger dog might harm Alfie. He isn't scared of bigger dogs generally and always wants to make friends, but it's difficult to know whether this alsatian was going to be aggressive and wasn't keen to find out so to avoid at all costs seemed the best solution.

We drove over Woburn Abbey to drive through the park. The deer were not close to the road and having looked I could see them in the distance over towards the road leading to the Abbey. There is a sign up as you drive into the open park space which tells you the number of deer killed so far this year. It says 12. It seems crazy that drivers don't slow down to avoid the deer as they are large animals and do have a habit of wandering into the road, so how on earth do people manage to hit them and kill them? Surely not impossible to merely slow down, or are some drivers just too reckless when they drive through the park? We drove round the loop which we always take so as to make a return journey back through the park and then went to Wyevale Garden Centre at Woburn Sands to have a browse in The Works there as Carol wanted to buy glue sticks for her crafting. The Works always have a good range of not only books but also a wide range of other items such as for crafting and had Christmas stock in for those who make Christmas cards and decorations. Let's just say it's the first sign I've seen of Christmas, even though we're only in August.

Lots of children in the garden centre, because it's till the school holidays. Some very well behaved but  one or two screaming to get their own way. Some parents let their children get their own way and don't know how to discipline them. They don't know how to say 'no' when a child demands something. We avoided Frost's garden centre, which is the first garden centre you come to when driving from Woburn. I could see many cars in what must have been a carpark extension and we know from experience that they put on special events for children during the school holidays, such as a circus, so drove past to go to Wyevale instead.

We ended up in the café and had lattes and scones, jam and clotted cream. The scones were really fresh and were warm, straight from the oven. Almost like homemade. The latte was better than average and would seem to have a far higher coffee content than at most places we've been to.

We left Wyevale, heading back to Milton Keynes through Wavendon. There's lots of roadworks along this stretch of road and it looks as though they're building more houses on the piece of land between this road and the main road that leads out towards the M1, which is now lined by large warehouses, the biggest being for John Lewis. Very soon Wavendon will be totally engulfed by housing. The large roundabout which is on Staanding Way and which is the first roundabout you encounter as you come into Milton Keynes from the M1 has been totally transformed and expanded, with traffic lights on it which make it safer and easier to negotiate.

A Tropical Heatwave

I just have to sing the song 'Heatwave' from some musical or other, or 'Too Darn Hot' from perhaps the best-ever musical, 'Kiss Me Kate.' It's because we're enjoying a heatwave at the moment. I love it warm and sunny, but it's been far too hot. With a heart condition I have to be careful in sunshine. It can be quite dangerous. Likewise, Carol, with her health condition. Having been on chemotherapy for over six months too much sunshine can be just as dangerous for her as it can be for me. I don't want to complain about the warm weather. We don't get much decent weather as it is, and considering what we've had to go through during the past year.

It's been a really hot and sticky few nights. Even with the window open in the bedroom and an electric fan on at full blast, it's been rather difficult to sleep. Then you get extraneous sounds coming into the house, adding to further difficulties sleeping. It gets light early, the dawn chorus. Boy, can those little critters half sing? I don't think they sleep. A real racket. No wonder I wake up early in the summer months.

I've continued with the clearing of the brambles and other overgrown plantlife in our garden, such as it is. I did some more work on it early this morning, as it was over-cast at around 7.30. I was determined to get more done as a lot of the stuff I managed to grub out and cut back had gone in our Wheely bin and the rubbish is collected on a Wednesday morning. I had to bring it through the house as we don't have a side gate which would obviously make life easier. The space where the gate should be had to be blocked up when the fence was repaired and it would cost at least £150 to have a new gate put in. Our lovely landlord wouldn't spend out on having this done, I am sure. But it would make our lives easier if we could just push the bin round to the front of the house for collection by the Council workmen. I'm not sure whether they take this every week. I have a feeling it's only taken every fortnight because when I put it out a couple of weeks ago it was either forgotten or ignored by the Council workmen. I have no idea when it's supposed to be taken. But it was taken and emptied early this morning. Which means I can now fill it up again. With more garden waste.

I've been looking for new shoes. I went on line as I wanted something like a trainer but made of leather. Also, with substantial soles, so I don't feel gravel or whatever through them. On using Google I went on the Sports Direct site and found some Sketchers, a lightweight sort of shoe with a more substantial sole. When we went to Waterperry Gardens the other week, no sooner had we parked the car and were walking towards the entrance, across gravel, I could feel the gravel through the soles of my current pair of Adidas trainers. Not good. They are still in good condition. Since I was at school I have always kept shoes I own and wear clean. I use treatment to keep them waterproof and make sure they are polished or at least wiped clean. I don't suppose today's children have to worry about their shoes being cleaned like I did when I was at school. They should do. Having a sort of sense of personal pride should surely be instilled into the younger generation.

I digress. Never mind. Anyway, as I say, I found what I wanted on the Sports Direct website. I could have bought them through the website, but really wanted to try them on. Which you obviously can't do from a website. I could have bought them and tried them on, not liked them, for whatever reason and then had to send them back, which I didn't fancy doing. So on Monday we drove to the retail park at Bletchley and had a look at their vast selection. I found what I was looking for and then tried them on. A very helpful lady assistant got me the second shoe (a size 10 1/2, which I found to be slightly too large. I take a 10. When she came back with the size 10 pair I tried them on and they were perfect, so I decided to buy them, together with a shoe-care kit comprising special 'rain and stain' protector as well as instant cleaning spray.

We went to Frost's garden centre in Woburn Sands this morning. Carol had another scan this afternoon at the hospital and couldn't eat after 2 p.m. We had lattes and really fantastic scones, jam and cream. These scones are larger and far tastier than the average and are to be recommended. Also had a quick browse before we went home.

We decided to drive to the hospital for Carol's scan appointment. We could have walked, but, as it was so hot, it seemed a better idea to go in the car. On getting in the car, which had been standing on the drive all day in the full force of the sun, we discovered it to be extremely hot, rather like sitting in an oven (not that either of us has done such a thing.) I had an idea it wasn't as hot as the previous day, which was supposed to have been the hottest day this year, according to the weather forecast on BBC Breakfast this morning. Anyway, we drove round to the hospital and then had to park outside the scanning department which fortunately has several dedicated parking spaces for patients. I wasn't over-pleased that we had to park on a sloping piece of tarmac, so trusted that Carol had successfully applied the car's brakes, otherwise the car would have rolled forward and crashed through the scanning unit's glass facade. The unit was running approximately 20 minutes late. No reason given, but at least the staff on reception apologised. No doubt this was due to patients being bought in from the hospital wards to be scanned. Carol was soon taken off to be scanned and I was left to read the magazines in the waiting area. It was hot in the waiting area, but the staff closed the blinds and the place soon cooled down. About 45 minutes later Carol returned, the scan having been done, and she had to sit for 15 further minutes as she had a cannula in her arm. They put some sort of dye into the patient's arm (possibly radioactive? I don't know.) and eventually it was taken out by the nurse and we returned home, having had to make a somewhat difficult reverse out of the parking space outside the unit.

Another Stormy Night

Just when we thought we'd got over the previous night's thunder storm, we had an almost exact repeat of storms last night. The sky went a strange colour, with the sun sort of diffused a yellowish tint and then the rain began, with a couple of thunder claps which sounded like bombs being set off which almost made us jump out of our skins and Alfie started barking. We almost wandered whether anything had been hit, it was so loud, but nothing was, thankfully.  Then the rain fell in such intensity it was like someone turning on a power-shower, and it seemed to go on for an extremely long time. You could barely see across the garden when I peered out of the bedroom window. The thunder rolled around and we thought it had gone away, but about twenty minutes it all started up again, a sort of repeat of the earlier storm. In all the whole storm sequence seemed to go on for several hours, with the rain falling heavily. This morning I looked out of the kitchen window to see what sort of damage there was and the road outside was completely dry. I was expecting there to be large puddles, but nothing. Carol said that when she'd looked during the storm there was quite a torrent of water flowing past. At one point it rained so hard that we though the windows had blown open at the front of the house, especially in the bathroom, but it was just the rain rattling the glass. As I wrote this (at 1.35 p.m.) the sun is out, although it's not that warm, although it is quite clammy. We just hope we don't get a further bout of storms tonight.

Only a short blog post, but there's not much else to report, although we did drive to Frost's in Woburn Sands to have coffee. We got there really early and as a result the carpark was virtually empty.

Birdfeeder Returned To It's Rightful Place

We've had a birdfeeder in our garden for the past couple of years (if you can honestly describe the space to the rear of our house as a 'garden.' More like a mere oblong of grass, brambles and other indescribable vegetation.) I bought Carol what they term a 'bird-feeding station' a couple of Christmases ago in Lidl, which consisted of a central pole which you stuck in the ground and it had metal arms which fitted onto it and you hung fat balls and other feeding material onto hooks on these arms. It's didn't last too long, probably because of the weather conditions and it was difficult to keep upright and so it got removed. Earlier this year we bought a new one. I think it came from Amazon. A good deal more durable, and it had a set of feeders to put peanuts and other food into and place on the arms, similar to the old one. This was a success up to a point, until we had some strong winds and it began to lean at a somewhat precarious angle. I removed it completely a couple of weeks ago as I had to mow the lawn as it was quite difficult to do properly with this thing in the way. We decided we wanted to reinstate it at some point but the problem was keeping it from falling over and so finding some form of solution which would make this possible. We had visited a Wyevale garden centre in Bicester some while ago and saw a device which you screwed into the ground and then put the upright pole of your bird feeding station into this screw-device which was designed to keep the pole in an upright position and hopefully prevent the thing falling over or at least getting pushed over at an angle. Last week we went to the Wyevale branch in Woburn Sands with the intention of finding this item but without success. We eventually found something in Frost's, also in Woburn Sands, a four-pronged thing which you fixed to the upright pole and the four prongs acted as sort of legs for the pole and allowing the pole to be far more secure. We purchased this thing and it is now fixed to our bird feeding station, and with new feeders as well as footballs and other items which birds seem to love. We re-sited it a good deal further from the house and not too close to the neighbour's shed roof as we don't want a repeat of the squirrels jumping onto it as we have had in the past.

It's taken a while to get birds to come back to feeding from the feeding station. I think it may just be that they need to trust that they won't be eaten by either cats or our little Yorkshire terrier, Alfie. He does have a dislike of any cats who tend to congregate (if that's the best way to describe two cats.) on the roof of the shed and saunter along the fence. He can't reach them, which they are fully aware of, but it gives him something to amuse himself, chasing up the garden barking madly and they peer at him with a look of disdain down their noses. The last time we had a feeding station set up we also had a couple of squirrels who came and did their party pieces by leaping from next door's shed onto the thing, managing to avoid being impaled on the spike-thing on the top of the feeder.

I recently purchased a tripod for my Canon digital camera. Again, from Amazon. Quite good value I thought for £35. I have set this up in the kitchen and, along with the zoom lens, trained it on the bird feeder with the hope of catching some good shots of some birds on the bird feeder. It's taken a day or two before we got a regular visit from one or more blue tits to the feeder. With the camera set up and focussed on the feeder and me sitting in the lounge and watching for any birds that visit, I have to then get to the camera before the birds fly away and attempt to get some reasonable shots without frightening the birds away in my attempts to get to the camera. Not an easy task.

Snap General Election and Other Matters

So, Teresa May has called a snap General Election for 8th June. I'm not sure how I feel about this. If it's to get her the 'mandate' she needs to allow her to get the authority regarding Brexit (I do so hate this word.) then I suppose I can see the reasoning, but I think the British public must be heartily sick of votes of one kind or another. I still think the politicians who set up the E.U. Referendum in June last year, those who framed the legislation which allowed it, should be ashamed of themselves, for not making the size of the majority, either for or against, large enough before a decision was made for remaining in the E.U., or leaving it. The fact that the majority to leave was far too small, barely I% to leave, was far too small for  Brexit to go ahead. There should have been a second referendum on the subject. Also, most people who voted probably had not the slightest idea what the E.U. was. I blame politicians for this, not making it clear what the benefits of our membership were or, on the opposite side, what the de-benefits were (if, indeed, there is such a term. But you get my idea. Or, at least, I hope you do.)

Well, enough of politics. I'm just glad that the General Election will be over in around 7 weeks. At least we don't have to have it going on relentlessly the way the American electoral system works. 

It's been fairly sunny for the past few days, but even so, it's not all that warm. There was a slight frosting on the car windscreen this morning. We're continuing to walk to the Academy each morning and we're still taking Alfie with us. He seems to be getting a good deal better at walking on his lead. I think just taking him regularly is improving his behaviour.

Yesterday morning I cut the grass. I did it really early, taking advantage of the fact that it was sunny. If you don't cut it regularly the machine won't do it's job properly. I don't think it's really up to cutting very long grass. Infact, it's really designed for a really nice manicured lawn, made of decent turf. Our bit of grass (I still refuse to term it 'lawn' as it doesn't in the last resemble a 'lawn.') It's all uneven humps and bumps. We saw some really nice turf the other day when we visited Frost's garden centre in Worburn Sands, when we went for a coffee and really nice scones and cream in their restaurant. Carol's last outing of the Easter holiday.

Swimming, Shopping and Eating

I haven't posted anything for the past few days, as you will have noticed if you are a regular reader of my blog. Well, there isn't a great deal for me to write about. I know I can write about the most trivial of things, which actually makes a blog interesting, because life is made up of the most mundane of things. It's not actually the big things that are so interesting, it's the minor incidents, those things that we all recognise, that makes a blog interesting. It's what they say about drama, 'life with the boring bits taken out.' Unlike a soap opera on television, 'life with the boring bits put back.' In the future people will be looking at such things as blogs, diary entries, journals and so on, when they are researching material to attempt to understand how we lived in the early 21st Century. Attempting to understand why we spend so much of our time looking at social media, texting endlessly on mobile devices, working out how we managed our lives, so a blog like this is likely to be used in that research. One wonders how it will be preserved, how will digital material, most of it archived on computers, hard drives and serves. Will it actually survive? Unlike all those documents which were written on such material as vellum, parchment and paper, stored in the archives of countries, great estates etc etc. which have survived for hundreds of years.

Well, we are continuing to go swimming at Nuffield at Kent's Hill. It's a nice place as there's little noise, no loud music and no noisy children (no under 16's allowed.) Also, there is a sauna, spa (Jacuzzi) and steam room as well as a far deeper swimming pool which is better for me to swim in. You get a towel when you arrive, which means you always get one which is dry, although we take our own towels. We have also now bought our own pad locks, which have combination locks, so no having to have a key on a wristband, you just have to remember the combination lock, and, because mine is red it's far easier to find when you return to the changing room as you can see it clearly. I had to remember the number of my locker when I swam at the other gym, D.W. which could be a problem as you couldn't get your clothes out if you couldn't open your locker.

We went shopping at Morrison's on Saturday morning. We like to chop and change where we shop for our groceries. Usually we go to Sainsbury's in Witan Gate in Milton Keynes. It's not too big as supermarkets go. If you compare it to Asda near the stadium, it's about the right size, or there again the big Tesco at Kingston. Those two supermarkets sell a wide range of non-food items, which include clothing, which takes up a fair amount of space at Asda and Tesco, as well as stationary, newspapers and magazines, homewares, besides the general groceries that you'd expect to find in a supermarket. It means when they are so big, that you can spend forever walking up and down the aisles. You can become totally distracted by all the non-food items. When we go to Sainsbury's we do tend to spend a lot of time browsing, particularly the clothing. Also, we have our repeat prescriptions made up in the pharmacy in Sainsbury's. The staff in there know us well. You just have to ring up and they take the repeat prescription order which is sent through to the doctor's surgery at Ashfield Medical Centre and the doctor signs the prescription (which is electronic, which saves on paperwork) and they send it back to the pharmacy and they make up the prescription. This takes around a week and we just have to go into Sainsbury's to pick up the medication. The pharmacy in Sainsbury's was recently taken over by Lloyd's. I'm not sure why, because it was always, up until then, a Sainsbury's pharmacy. Something to do with being taken over as part of being a monopoly or something, and giving it to Lloyd's makes it less of a monopoly of ownership or something. No, it doesn't make sense to me either, as there are a few other Lloyd's chemists around Milton Keynes already.

As I have mentioned already, we decided to go to Morrison's to do our weekly shop last Saturday. We like their meat and cheese, infact, most of their range of such things as meat, cheese, pies and particularly fruit and veg. In Milton Keynes we're spoilt for choice when it comes to grocery shopping. There's not only Morrison's and Sainsbury's, who both have two supermarkets in the Milton Keynes area, but Tesco at Kingston (as well as at Bletchley and Wolverton, as well as the smaller convenience stores dotted around the city at such places as Oldbrook. Then we have Waitrose at Oakgrove, as well as the cheaper end of the market with Lidl (having a store near Tesco in Oldbrook, as well as Aldi, with stores at Bradwell Common and a newer store at Westcroft, we we occasionally use.

When we arrived at Morrison's Carol suggested we go into the café and have something to eat. As she's diabetic, sometimes she needs to eat something to prevent her blood sugar level dropping too far.  Having got a trolley for our shopping, we needed to put it in one of the lockable cupboards they have so that nobody can run off with your shopping without paying. It took some while to work out how the locks worked on the doors. It needs a £1 coin in the slot inside which releases the key which you then use to lock the door with the trolley inside. On arriving at the café we then found that there was a long queue at the counter. It wasn't moving, or if it was, it was incredibly slow. I suggested we just wait a while as it would soon move. It didn't, after five minutes. The staff in the café were either incredibly  disorganised or the café was understaffed. As it was a Saturday, would you not think the management of the café would have put on more staff to deal with the amount of customers? Or else the girl on the till had no idea how to cope with the pressure of numbers. Or something else. Whatever it was, we didn't find out, as we left to get on with our shopping. At that rate Morrison's will have lost a great deal of custom.

On Sunday morning we went to Nuffield at Kent's Hill. It was reasonably empty, but there's always someone or other who insists on hogging most of the pool for themselves, forgetting that they take up some much of the space as they swim up and down. The last time we went the steam room wasn't working properly. For some reason it wasn't making a great deal of steam which meant it wasn't as efficient as it might have been. But on Sunday it was back up to temperature. Certainly good for my back and shoulder injury. Still manage to swim around 15-20 lengths of the pool. But I must remember to take and use my G.T.N. spray before I get in the pool to prevent having an angina attack.

From Nuffield, we decided we needed something to eat, so we went to Frost's Garden Centre at Woburn Sands. We haven't been for a while, and were struck by the improvements that have been going on there. The restaurant has had a complete revamp. They've always had a good restaurant with a great selection of food, not just snacks, but the lunch menu looked good. I had a toasted sandwich with bacon and cheese and Carol had a baked potato and tuna and we both had lattes. Good and hot and a treat after our time at Nuffield.

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.