Boxing Day and Beyond. . .

 Thursday. 8 a.m. I went to the Christmas Day service at SCF yesterday morning. It was an hour and there wasn't any tea or coffee as we usually have after our services, so I came straight home afterwards. 

I had my Christmas Dinner at around 5.15. I had purchased all the bits that made it up from Sainsbury's which included a chicken breast (which turned out to have stuffing inside when I began to carve it.) Brussels sprouts, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, stuffing and bacon. I had bought a ready-made Christmas Pudding, but I decided to have it another day (probably this evening.

Later, I watched the new Wallace and Gromit film, 'Vengeance Most Fowl.' I'm a fan of the work of Aardman Animation, so this was something of a treat. I know it takes years to make an animation film, and probably more work goes into this type of stop-frame animation. It was so inventive and imaginative and hilarious. According to the over-night ratings, it got over 9 million viewers.

Friday. 1.40 p.m. It's been foggy and overcast for the past couple of days. Just typical December weather, I suppose.

Another trip to Sainsbury's this morning. The travelator was not working on the trip up to the store. They seem to have endless problems with this technology, but I can walk up the travelator, which is odd when it doesn't move, but the down one was working.

There seems to be a lot of Christmas stuff left over. Perhaps they should sell off mince pies and Christmas puds at half price, or even less.

All the tenants at Dexter House, including myself, have had letters from the maintenance contractors, Mears, today. Reading down the list of things they are going to do, caught my attention. It reads 'Slip and trip hazard free pathways from external doors to the scooter stores, from the fire exits of the scheme to external gates, and from the scooter stores to the external gates.' Which means, if I am right, but don't hold your breath, they are actually going to do the work, which has been held up for at least 3–4 years! SOMEONE in the hierarchy within Milton Keynes Council, has decided to act on this work, or at least, signed the piece of paper which means that, at last, the work can be done and the electric scooters, which are stored at the moment, in common spaces, for example, the corridors, and were deemed a fire hazard by a fire officer years ago. I have been watching the brilliant sitcom 'Yes, Minister' on BBC iPlayer. This business of the scooter stores seems very much like a storyline straight out of this series. 

Well the work begins on 6th January, so I will report on here how things progress, but don't hold your breath.

Saturday. 9.45 a.m. It's yet another gloomy and overcast day here in Milton Keynes. I see from BBC Breakfast, that vast swaithes of Britain is covered in thick fog, but this area seems to have escaped. There are problems with visability as airports and flights have either been delayed or cancelled. Drivers have been told to be careful on the roads, and, in particular, because visability if poor.

I went to the prayer meeting at SCF this afternoon. A lot of the people who are in the Thursday morning group were there.

Sunday. 7.35 a.m. I've been out with Alfie. There's a bit of fog hanging around although it's thin and is likely to disperse as the day progresses.

Monday. 9.35 a.m. A bit of a misty, rather than a foggy day. Overcast and murky is the best way to describe it.

I found that I was running low with some of my medication, so I decided it would be advisable to put in a repeat prescription. I went on the on-line pharmacy I use, Pharmacy2U or whatever it's called. When you can order, then those medications which you have signed up to a 'clear', but those they say you can't have yet are screened out, being 'greyed out.' As most of my repeat medications were 'clear', I clicked to order. I thought to myself, 'ok, that's done!' and they will arrived in a few days time through the post. But a few days ago, over the Christmas period, I got a text message from my surgery to tell me I had ordered too early. Which bothered me, because, by this time I had finished the Bisoprolol tablets I take, which I think are to control my heart rate and, hopefully, prevent me having a further heart attack. This morning, rather than ringing the surgery, because I knew it would likely take me about 45 minutes for them to respond, hence causing stress, it was far simpler to drive to Central Milton Keynes Medical Centre and get the medication ordered, which I did. I was concerned that they might not be open, due to the Christmas and New Year holidays. But I needn't have worried, as they were open, and I spoke to a receptionist, who did the order on her computer and I will hopefully receive the medication in a couple of days, maybe a bit longer than usual due to New Year getting in the way.

A Mad World, My Masters!

 Tuesday. 10.45 a.m. I had a visit from the gentleman from Mears about my bathroom. I would appear that I can't have a bath, unfortunately, as it would mean some structural alterations to the flat (ie: removing the airing cupboard. What use does it really have? Somewhere to store towels and bedding and not much else. )I can have a shower unit. I don't mind, so long as it's arranged, so I can actually stand under it. But I would love to be able to have a soak in a bath, but no hope. I may hear in either two weeks or as long as SIX MONTHS whether the work is going ahead. Someone in the Council has to make the decision whether the work has to go ahead. Why? Everyone else in this unit is having new bathrooms and kitchens, more because the old ones are well past their best. Some bureaucrat who sits in an office, pushing paper over a desk. Just there to make themself look important and just slowing down the decisions, a bit like Sir Humphrey Appleby in the sitcom 'Yes, Minister' but more likely some underling who would do the job. 

I was really unwell overnight. Really hot, painful joints and so on. I was wondering, as you would if it was covid, so I reluctantly did a test. I hate doing it, as poking swabs in my throat and nose is really unpleasant. I waited the obligatory 30 minutes for the result and only one red line showed up, so a negative result. But I was still feeling awful, so I did a second one yesterday evening. Another negative test. Then, when I was eating my evening meal, I had to be sick. Not nice. 

Wednesday. 8.40 a.m. I'm still feeling queasy. Still have aching joints, but it seems to be clearing up. I'm not going anywhere today. I will just stay in the flat, I think.

The stairs up to my flat are painted. I should actually be far more precise and say the bannisters and not the actual treads. They've been sanded and have the first white undercoat. 

Thursday. 7.00a.m. I'm not feeling as bad as I did yesterday morning, but I still have aching joints. I'll just have to let this thing run it's course.

I took Alfie to The Groom Room in Bletchley for his haircut. It's was going to take a good deal longer than it usually does, around an hour. As usual, when I went to collect him at around 4.45, he was just looking amazing. It's great to see his face properly as his eyes were lost behind a rather untidy fringe if you could call it that. And he smells better! And they managed to clean his teeth, which is a job I could never even attempt.

I had to wait for around 20 minutes before I could take Alfie into The Groom Room. It was surprisingly busy, which must say quite a bit about the quality of their work. People won't use a business, such as dog grooming, if the service is poor. The staff really seem to enjoy their work and the dogs they groom are well looked after. Alfie seems to love going there, and I think treats his grooming sessions as if he's being pampered and cared for, which I suppose in some ways he is.

Sunday. 2.20 a.m. Well, here I am, sitting and writing this. Just not getting back to sleep.

I have taken the confounded Canon printer back to Argos and got a refund and put it towards another printer, this time an HP model, paying around an extra £15. I have spent most of yesterday setting it up and I had most of it done within around an hour of unboxing it. It now prints from my iPad and iPhone and I have yet to sort out the MacBook, but I think I have that sorted. It's so much easier to set up than the Canon and I honestly think it's a better machine. A few differences, for example, the paper goes into the machine at the rear, but it really makes no difference.

I didn't go to church this morning as the fluey 'thing' is still hanging about. My leg muscles still ache, and my throat is dry, which is making my voice sound very odd. Actually be quite good for doing villain type voices, which I might try on the microphone if I can get it set up. 

I have managed to print some pages using the new HP printer. Success at last! I'm so glad that, after more than a week, I have got to 'mission accomplished.' All that annoyance with the Canon printer wasn't actually for nothing and it looks as if I have a far better printer as a result.

Bored Silly With Brexit?

I don't try to discuss politics on this blog. But Brexit seems to be taking up so much time and energy and column inches in the press and endless arguments from both sides on television that I thought I'd throw my few pennyworth into the ring. The whole thing is crazy, particularly the fact that no-one has any idea how to break the stalemate that has happened in the House of Commons. It's a bit like a really poorly-written episode of the  BBC sitcom 'Yes, Minister.' Except none of the episodes were poorly written.  Even Sir Humphrey Appleby, brilliantly portrayed by Nigel Hawthorne, would have been stumped for words. The following dialogue from this series, written in the early 1980's. It seems that times (and much else) hasn't changed, regarding our thoughts on the subject of the E.U.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Minister, Britain has had the same foreign policy objective for at least the last 500 years: to create a disunited Europe. In that cause we have fought with the Dutch against the Spanish, with the Germans against the French, with the French and Italians against the Germans, and with the French against the Germans and Italians. Divide and rule, you see. Why should we change now when it's worked so well?
Jim Hacker: That's all ancient history, surely.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Yes, and current policy. We had to break the whole thing up, so we had to get inside. We tried to break it up from the outside, but that didn't work. Now that we're inside, we can make a complete pig's breakfast of the whole thing: set the Germans against the French, the French against the Italians, the Italians against the Dutch. The Foreign Office is terribly pleased, it's just like old times.
Jim Hacker: But if that's true, why is the Foreign Office pushing for higher membership?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: I'd have thought that was obvious. The more members an organisation has, the more arguments it can stir up. The more futile and impotent it becomes.
Jim Hacker: What appalling cynicism.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: We call it diplomacy, Minister.

Virtually every time I turn on the television news, amongst all the other gloom and doom, we have to hear about stupid politicians who can't agree with anything unless it's what they want to agree with. I feel sorry for Teresa May. Whatever she does is bound to be wrong, not form the point of view of the opposition parties, but when it's her own MPs it must be very discouraging. We don't hear anything fresh from Jeremy Corbyn who is only interested in the possibility of their  being a General Election and the slim chance of him becoming prime minister. He just rants, but we never seem to hear anything positive which might possibly sort out the sorry mess. Well, at least the various factions and parties are 'sort of' meeting to discuss possible solutions, but why couldn't they join forces earlier? The best thing to do when Brexit pops it's ugly head over the parapet when I turn on the news is to either turn over to another channel or just turn the television set off.

In general there seemed a certain sort of apathy about the E.U. before the In/Out referendum. Most people were more interested in celebrities, reality television, sports personalities and any inanity you can mention, rather than the goings-on of a load of bureaucrats in the middle of Europe or even whether we were to 'remain' or 'leave' the juggernaut of the European Community. This could be said of the first referendum in 1975. Looking back, I don't have any memories of it, or even whether I even voted at the time. I don't know whether I was really that interested in it at the time. It didn't even come over my horizon. Who can blame me? Would I have been interested in the goings-on of a load of faceless pen-pushers in an office just off Whitehall? I doubt it. 

Let's be honest, we were taken into the 'Common Market' as it was referred to in the early 1970's by Edward Heath, the then-Prime Minister, without consulting the country and then we had a referendum  in 1975 when a Labour government came to power. I don't remember voting one way or the other at that time, but the result was that we remained in the bloc. (I don't know precisely when they changed it to the E.E.C. (European Economic Community) or then to E.C. (European Community), which, admittedly rolls off the tongue so much easier. From what I've been reading about the referendum in the 1970's, there was a certain amount of apathy amongst the public. I think generally people have no real interest in the E.U. and when it came to the 2016 'in/out' referendum the same could be said again. In general most people aren't interested in something which is distant from their everyday lives. It's run behind closed door, or so it seems. If you see footage on television of the E.U. buildings they look faceless and the same can be said about those that run it, the bureaucrats and the like. Did anyone really and truly think the British people were going to take to being told what to do by a bunch of faceless bureaucrats based hundreds of miles away in a bland, faceless building? Having rules and regulations foisted on us by Brussels or wherever the E.U. is based? I think not. Most of those 'laws' over-ride those made by the Whitehall parliament. Then there's the fact that we're an island. How many times have we been invaded? Once by the Romans and unsuccessfully by Napoleon and the Nazis didn't bother, basically because they knew they wouldn't wind if they'd attempted to invade.

The E.U. doesn't want us to leave. Well, who can blame them? They get a hefty payment from us. How many Billions per year? And they want us to pay something like £39 billion as part of the 'Divorce settlement'? Nobody mentioned anything about this sort of payment during the Referendum campaign. Oh, we were told that we gave them something like £35 million a week, or was it month? And that could have gone to spend on keeping the N.H.S. going. Or payment for new hospitals, schools, mending roads and the infra structure in general. Who came up with that figure? Once we've gone there's going to be a huge hole in the E.U. budget. In other words the United Kingdom seems to have kept the whole thing going with our payments. With the Euro in meltdown, what with the Greek economy needing fixing, and then the Portuguese and the Italian, all expecting to get handouts to pay their debts, without our money coming in to prop things up, no wonder they expect us to pay a hefty price.