Saturday 29 May 2010

This is the very last mention I am going to make of my recent unexpected stay in hospital and the only reason for the mention is that Keith has pointed out I forgot to tell you something. I'm beginning to wonder whose blog this is!

Anyway, I forgot to list, under all his other wondrous activities, this..........

........an almost empty laundry basket.

And this......... a completely empty ironing basket!  Yes the little paragon even did all the washing and ironing as well.  Heh heh I don't know how long it is since I've seen the bottom of this basket.

What about a Golden Pinney Award ?  He can even have a red carpet to parade on - as long as he hoovers it himself!!

It looks as though my Blogger Dashboard has been hi-jacked again, this time by someone calling themselves euroangel graffitti.   They're a pest aren't they?

Just a short entry!

Friday 28th May - She's Back!

Well first of all many thanks to all you lovely lot who cared about me while I've been in hospital.  I hadn't planned on going in, it just sort of happened a week ago yesterday.  I had spent the previous 2 nights having shivering fits and then found I couldn't stand up.  Quite scary but, I hope, sorted now.  I just have to keep taking the tablets and breathing the puffers.

But if I thought Keith might waste away from me not being there to do the housewifely things, I soon thought again.  He first of all came to visit boastng about what he made for his lunch that day

For the uninitiated, we call this Toad in the Hole;  the very best Lincolnshire sausages cooked in Yorkshire Pudding.  Would this be Fusion Food?

And here's how it looked on the plate...............

I know this was just dished up with some new potatoes and a tin of peas and gravy made with gravy granules - but let's not be snobby about this plate of food;  I would have killed for it!!!!  I wonder what happened to the rest of it?

Nothing daunted, when he visited next day THIS is what he'd made:

Which became THIS

Then THIS

AND FINALLY................

Cottage pie topped off with a thick layer of cheddar cheese.

And he didn't stop there!  Oh no!   He arrived one afternoon carrying a beautiful Victoria Sponge cake with buttercream and strawberry jam, the like of which many a W.I. lady would wish they had made.   Have an ogle at this it's all that's left after we all had a bit).  I've seen neater but I've not had tastier.

  

He even brought some picnic plates!

No secrets in hospital are there?  Everybody and his wife and dog wants to know your date of birth.  Apparently it's supposed to be some guard against getting the wrong patient.  Well let me just  tell you, all you get on your wristband these days is your name, NHS number, date of birth and barcode.  So if there's all the required information there already  what's in the barcode?  Eh, Eh?

Another thing you have to announce to the world is whether or not you've 'had your bowels opened' today, which is nurse-speak for 'have you been to the toilet?', 'have you done a number 2?'.  Thankfully, you don't have to provide evidence.

And all the health and safety they have to think about these days.  No flowers on the ward any more.  Oh no, someone might be allergic or have hay fever.  Patients can't read the newspaper because the paper  boy can't go on the ward now for fear his filthy cargo might import some MRSA or something.  You can have mucky old visitors as long as they clean their hands with those squirty things outside the ward door.  THEIR HANDS indeed, as if that's the muckiest thing about them.  Strictly speaking Keith shouldn't have shared that cake out but as some of the nurses had a bit as well that would cancel out any ill-effects.  It must have been more by luck than design that we were all OK

And they are prevented by law from restraining anybody, even if it's for their own good like, presumably. stopping them falling out of bed.

I think I'm sorriest about the flowers.  Everywhere is so drab without flowers.

Wednesday 19 May

I am incensed - don't worry, this will be very short and not at all sweet!

I heard on the news yesterday that a Pakistani man had been jailed for plotting terrorist activities here in England.  Now I don't mind Pakistanis at all as long as they speak our language and work for their living and pose no threat to us, their benefactors.  Let's be clear about that .  But I do take umbrage when the judge refuses to deport the bloke back to Pakistan "in case he gets tortured".

Know what?  I don't care!

 

Monday 17 May 2010 Busy Weekend

Something is preying on my mind.  We've turned into a regular pair of little Fagins - WE ARE SHOPLIFTERS

Yesterday when we got home from the garden centre (of which more later) we found that they hadn't charged us for these little outdoor stone doorstops.  I just wanted them so the conservatory doors don't get caught by the wind.  one's a stone with a frog on and the other has a bird.  I was all for going back and fessing up but Keith said "No, they missed it."  Well he's right, they did, but all the same..........I wonder what they would have said if we'd gone back?  Shall I ring them up?

On Saturday we made the first of our 'show' visits for this year.  This was Alford Food Fair.  I have to say I was a bit disappointed that it was so small - only about a dozen stalls including the ice cream van!  However Alford itself was a pretty little place and it was a lovely day so we went walkabout a bit.

This is actually a photo of what appeared to be a delightful thatched cottage but as someone had plonked those revolting brown gates in front of it you can't see that much.  I took the photo of it though because it was down what I always see in my mind's eye when I think of "leafy English country lane".  Uber-privat property I guess!

And how about this:  a closed down and shuttered up thatched village pub.  The sign tells you that if you have 5,000 quid to spare as a bond you could have this place and run it rent free including overheads (whatever they are).  Sounds like a bargain to me.


From Alford, where we only stayed a couple of hours, we went to the nearest east coast town, Mablethorpe, only about 10 miles away.  Some of you may remember me rambling on about Cleethorpes....Well Mablethorpe is even worse!  It has moved to the top of my list of "Most Boring Seaside Towns".  Its greatest claim to fame seems to be its featuring in a DH Lawrence novel "Sons and Lovers"

Mablethorpe is the destination for the Morel family's first holiday in the D. H. Lawrence novel, Sons and Lovers, published in 1913. "At last they got an answer from Mablethorpe, a cottage such as they wished for thirty shillings a week. There was immense jubilation. Paul was wild with joy for his mother's sake. She would have a real holiday now. He and she sat at evening picturing what it would be like. Annie came in, and Leonard, and Alice, and Kitty. There was wild rejoicing and anticipation. Paul told Miriam. She seemed to brood with joy over it. But the Morel's house rang with excitement."

I wish I hadn't given the book away now, quite fancy re-reading it.

Even the fish and chips was a disappointment:  cardboard chips and tasteless fish.  I should have known really when the only dish that specified the type of fish was "Plaice and chips".  Neither cod nor haddock were named so I suppose we just got whatever passed for "fish and chips" that day.  You expect better at the seaside.

All that said, Mablethorpe is sort of quaint:

This is about the closest we get to a beach house in this country - a beach hut.  You-re not allowed to sleep there but they're great for eating your picnic in a howling gale.  There's even a sink in there for doing the washing up!  And an electric point so you don't need a thermos!

 And, if you can't stand the bracing sea breezes any more, open the back door of your 'beach house' to a beautiful view - on a nice day - of the putting green.  You might like to note it was in danger of becoming a not quite so nice day!








Do either of these pictures shriek "English Seaside town"?

  Clues:  donkeys, winter coats on the beach, sad little figures not quite in the sea, absence of  sunbathers

Having slagged Mablethorpe off big-time I must say that, though it is a horrible place itself, it IS in a beautiful part of the country,  Specially if you want somewhere reasonably flat.  Its only nod at wobbly scenery is a very gently undulating landscape. The result of the flatness is that you can see for a very long way.  This made it the ideal county in WW2 for air bases.  Some of you in America may well have had members of your family based here in the war.  Some of the bases still exist as RAF stations.  Some don't but many are still in use as civilian airfields, or simply as green field sites.

Now then, absolutely finally, a teensy weensy RANT.  How many more  home delivery pizza, indian and Chinese food and fish and chip shop leaflets do I have to put up with?  So far today there have been 4 and we get them every single day of the week, even Sundays.  There's always a clutch of them in the local free newspaper.  Sometimes we get 3 or 4 in a week from the same place! 

Rant over.  Ta-ta.

xxx

Sunday 9th May 2010

First of all I want to thank you all so much for keeping my nephew, Kevin, in your thoughts and prayers.  He had his surgery last Thurday and although a tumour was removed from his spine it was found to be benign and so not cancerous.  Thank God eh?  I don't know how long he'll be in hospital but if I had just come that far I wouldn't much care!

I just left a comment on Marie's Oak Cottage blog about how I really hate chicken wings.  It set me thinking of other things I totally dislike.........

Chicken legs - nope, you never can tell when you might eat something horrid (bit of gristle or sinew or maybe some skin).  In fact when I come to think of it, the only bit I DO like is chicken breast with all bones and skin removed.  Then I'll do whatever you like with it, short of eating it raw - boil it, poach it, grill it, fry it, roast it, put it in a pie or a casserole or a curry.  Keith used to work at the chicken factory in town and said that no part of a chicken was wasted.  Someone, somewhere in the world will eat the bits we won't even look at, even the feet and the beak,   YEUK!!

 Blue - not as in blue and white china, that's lovely, nor a nice rich navy blue or royal blue.  but a brilliant sky blue like you see in the........sky.  I do actually like the sky to be that colour but let's leave it there in its rightful place.  Let's not paint the walls with it.  And let's not team it with yellow.

Whingers - which, for those whose first language is not "English" English, are people who are always moaning about something;  always complaining about things that don't matter in the great scheme of things.   Break a finger nail, forget something at the shops, get their hair wet,  miss the bus - the sky won't fall in!

Butterflies - yes, maybe it's me that's odd because most people adore them.  But honestly, I hate them, I'm terrified of them (and moths) and I would sooner stick pins in my eyes than stay in the same room as one of the vile, flappy creatures.  Can you believe that I can actually smell if a place has moths in it?  Truly, there is a 'mothy' smell.  I can't describe it any better.  It's not like anything, just a horrible, pungent pong.


Mess - I really don't like the place being a mess - and if my sis is reading this and DARES to laugh I may have to sue her!  I used to keep reasonably on top of it but since I've been mostly in my wheelchair I have to sit and watch things getting less than I would like them to be.  The ironing, for example, tends to pile up, not so much because I can't do it (though it does take me much longer than it normally would), but because I can't get the ironing board out of the cupboard and put it in the kitchen.  That being so, a small pile soon becomes a big pile.  How I would love to sometimes go outside and sweep the paths around the house.  It would be lovely to be able to buff up our wooden floors now and again;  or clean the glass shower cubicle properly;  or pull out the stove to clean under and behind it.  A thousand things that need to be done but I can't really tell anyone but you, dear readers.  I can't expect Keith to do any more than he already does and friends and family have enough of their own to see to.   WHOA - WHOA - THIS IS WHINGING!

xxxx