Saturday, February 17, 2024

 Saturday 17th February.

Tired…out last night till LATE - 11.30!!  

Went to The Royal Festival Hall with U3A group…Stravinsky & some other Spanish stuff - one being a world premier. To watch it was exciting, also at times sounded like a group of kids had grabbed a load of instruments and just having fun! Won’t be looking out for it again…


But, even if traffic was lousy & we only just got there in time, I LOVE the journey in the coach in & out of the city 😍.


Veg Nest


Moving rapidly..border done and dusted, £20 quids worth of bark chipping…then used the empty bags to collect some from a heap in the carpark :) 


 

More grass lifted from the weed matting - how dare it grown TOP of the matrix !!  

More used of weed killer this season, the whole plan is to make it easier!!

 


Today, compost & farmyard manure bought from Top Pots…


 


So, one plot prepped & radish sown & covered…manure laid where Suzie’s Christmas Brussels are going in πŸ˜‡…and more free chipping bagged up.


Thursday, February 01, 2024

Veg Nest update!

 So...we begin the second decade...tidying up!!!

moving "salad tent" across to 't other sidebut it's in a temporary spot right now :)
some timber for edging a new onion bed ( over old sweetcorn plot...cant be bothered after the wildlife ate them all last season 🀬)




Border now all dug out...Sadly no more pipes :(



Cuppa....




And we have a plan :))

    







Tuesday, January 09, 2024

Back again...3 years since last post!!!

So, how has our life been since November 2020? 

Well, we survived a pandemic !!! 

I'm going to direct anybody who reads this to my Facebook  page to catch up on most of our life, the walking, the holidays, the Veg Nest, family et al...it's all there.

I wrote this in me last post...

"So, as this second lockdown comes to an end, a vaccine is in sight, what of our future?  

Me...going to walk from Westminster to Tower Hill eating and drinking it all back in again...Pepys, Boswell & Johnson, Shardlake...πŸš‚πŸΊπŸ±

Suzie, dancing. Lots and lots and lots of dancing!!πŸ’ƒπŸ’ƒπŸ’ƒ

Mother, tea, sandwiches and bingo with her friends, before its too late.  She's 93 next month"

Did we?

Yes, and, no...our life has changed, we've grown older. Mother hit 96 at Christmas !!


No more Bingo, she stopped going to the coffee mornings ( can't be bothered!). She heads off to Bucks Blind Club with Nigel. They lost Pat from their trio in the Autumn :(

Suzie dances, lots of dances and is thoroughly enjoying herself xxxx 

I walked...and walked...then lost the urge. I enjoy the wandering I do - its focused, public transport led, mainly, but the urge to just walk anywhere, any time,  disappeared  - had a period of depression, then poof, gone! But, I enjoyed it whilst it was there...Wandered from Charing Cross to Liverpool St on Saturday, nice pint (#beeroclock) in The Punch Tavern on the way...


 I will share on here future wanders. 

The Veg Nest!

is going okay...and it's probably the reason I am going to write on here more again. Been sharing on Facebook, but time to stop. 

But, I do LIKE sharing, or chatting into the ether as such. So, one will bore anyone who can be bothered to find me here with my mutterings and musings πŸ˜‡




Cheers...






Sunday, November 22, 2020

Been away from here again...

I used to enjoy my blog posts...

Looking back it was a form of boring the guys in The Naafi orThe  Malcolm Club ( long gone institutions), sharing without the need to actually chat in person to somebody!! Then your mates just looked at you and said 'aye', on here anybody who could be arsed just scroll past the crap and look at the pics!!

Pretty same on Facebook, which has taken over from this little blog...( here FACEBOOK ) πŸ˜€

I pretty religiously put up logs of my walking, follow loads of strange people in wierd and wonderful groups, such as lost shopping trolleys, The Dull Club, Steps we love, park benches, weather around the world right now...football obviously! Pared down the crap over the years, it works for me..

Then there's Twitter! Been a trifle stressed time on there!!  

Politically I'm disctinctly Centre Left, and right now its hard to really come out and say "I'll Vote For Him/Her"..but that's bye the bye, Twitter has gone from a fairly relaxed chatty newsy place to a something resembling The Spanish Inquisition, complete with Heritcal Burnings!!  Again, I've just spent time paring down who, and what I follow...There seems to be none of that middle ground, eg if you have a tendancy to Boris, you must be a raving Trumpite as well, and if you think Biden is right, you're a raving Corbynista, of which I'm neither...I suppose being of the Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan generation of Labour, well, bring their kind back.

I do find it hard to socialise.

In The RAF it was easy, walk into a Naafi anywhere in the world and you already had a connection, something to chat about, a commonality of cause, be you an airframe fitter or (as I was) a "blanket stacker"...logistics, supply etc... Now, Ive been here for heading towards 20 years(!!!) and I see people I know, but with a couple of exceptions, still haven't a clue as to their job, profession, history etc...in our local Club, there's always the same group in there when I go in, who've been that same group long before me and know each other intimately, I'm always the outsider, and I admit I sit by myself and tend to only add the occasional comment to the conversations - often because its a very parochial and insular conversation !!  Right now Social Distancing suits me!!

The other half of this blog, Suzie, has had a much harder time of it than me. Made redundant just before lockdown, actually on her way to an interview when they pulled the plug as such. A couple of interviews since, always pleasant reviews, but no job. Now no dole, only available for 6 months, so we are relying on my pensions...which I spend at a rapid rate.πŸ˜“. 

We've spent more time enclosed together in our little nest than ever - I resented the intrusion for a while - missed my solitary life of seeing Suzie off to work, breakfast, walk, or domestics, or visit Mother, then home after a pint at the above club, sit in big chair, sport on TV nap, prepare evening tea, welcome home the worker...bed!! But we've worked it out - I get up early, she gets up late  :)


Mother has spent nigh on 2/3rds of a year stuck in her little flat, no social life at all - at least we've been out shopping, holiday in Norfolk, gone to pubs etc..she's had nowt, with the odd exception of me twice a week, a visit from Janice for a week or so, odd phone cll from Grandchildren and her friends, who have been the worst at this!!

A rare lunch out...keeping her safe

So, as this second lockdown comes to an end, a vaccine is in sight, what of our future?  

Me...going to walk from Westminster to Tower Hill eating and drinking it all back in again...Pepys, Boswell & Johnson, Shardlake...πŸš‚πŸΊπŸ±

Suzie, dancing. Lots and lots and lots of dancing!!πŸ’ƒπŸ’ƒπŸ’ƒ

Mother, tea, sandwiches and bingo with her friends, before its too late.  She's 93 next moth.



Hightlight of past 8 months...Suzie's birthday feast :)


Sunday, March 22, 2020

Dystopia 2020


This lady is my Mum...

She is 92, lives alone and generally gets on with life.
She has vascular dementia, poor mobility (trundles along with a three wheeled walker ) and her eyes are rubbish, macular disease means her focus is pretty naff.

Today is Mother's Day, and like loads of other sons and daughters we had plans...which have been blown away!!

Here is my personal dilemma...

She can't do the normal simple domestic things in life, wash her clothes, change her bed, shop...which hasn't been a problem, because I've been able to be her hands and legs and eyes and help her with all this and keep her life as normal as possible...

Now...
all advice is to keep away!!  

How can I?  

All her contact with her friends has gone, she doesn't see anyone around her, she has difficulty ( in fact she has given up) changing channels on her TV remote.

I have to go at least once a week to do her chores, take her food.

I broke my ankle 2 years ago and we used the wonderful TESCO delivery service - we have ONE booked next Sunday with ASDA, that's it, none available at all after that, so I have to shop for her, (all this effort by supermarkets for an elderly hour is great, but she can't get there and wouldn't be able to see or carry the shopping when she does)...

...do I knock at her door, drop the shopping and run!!  

Guilt

So as it stands, I will be the only person she will see...so if she does catch COVID-19 it'll be down to me.  

I'm trying to be as anti-social as possible...not even hugging my wife.  We sort of decided that Suzie would be the shopper for us all to keep another layer of distance between Mother and this virus...but GUILT - how can I allow any possible guilt to move away from me and lay upon her?

Help 

I live a distance of around an hour away from my mother - I stress about who I go to for help and advice - Drs and everyone concerned with the care sector are going to be overwhelmed and in all honesty, at the moment Mother is fine, AS LONG AS I CAN KEEP changing her bed, wash her clothes and make sure she has food.


What do I do? Continue to stew in this pot of despair? 
It won't help her, or me, or us, if I get depressed and end up being no help at all !

There is one lady who has offered to help, but we come back to that issue of guilt...can I let her become part of that chain?

So...

TodayI am going over and cooking her a Mother's Day meal of her favourite fish, (Pan Fired Sea Bass with a garlic and lemon sauce, baby potatoes and broad beans...).

I will keep away - the 2 metre social distancing, no hugs or kisses, we have our sanitiser gel, and I will open windows...

and then I will go over once a week, shop, wash and change her bed, and keep her sane!!

And I won't be the only son/daughter/carer who has these issues...

RANT...

I'm doing this and then look at the pictures of all those selfish idiots at the seaside, shopping markets...

STOP IT FFS

Thursday, January 03, 2019

Welcome 2019...

63 this year, same age as Dad was when he had his stroke...

One is supposed to look forward in life, learn from the past and use that to move on in . positive manner...well, learning from 2018 I mustn't
 a) walk in a jaunty manner...
b) think about life too much, it changes all too rapidly πŸ˜ͺ


Last post was quite optimistic...going to post my fishing and walking 'adventures', then it changed...

Weymouth is known to me in far better detail than I'd ever wish it be!! 

BUT

Daughter is healthier, grandchildren are safer...

SO, lets reset and 'go again'...

Welcome 2019...bring it on :)






Saturday, July 07, 2018

Sunny Saturday...



After a lapse of a ‘few’ years, one has rejoined this club...doesn’t the pic look evil!!  ( passport one).  

It’s just tooooo hot to get started, and there’s a football match on today, which, I’m not getting all gung ho about...always expect the worst since 1996πŸ˜₯. But, I will get the kit out and start putting it in order, one will need hooks, weights and floats at the least...