Earlyish start for a trip along to a local private hospital for an NHS-funded MRI scan. Delightful though it is to have it done in pleasant and civilised surroundings rather than at the health factory on the other side of town, one wonders about the economics. The experience wasn't too bad, since it was only my knee that needed scanning, but I don't expect to enjoy having to run my head through the tunnel, should that ever become necessary! The procedure took about 25 rather noisy minutes, but I got to choose what to listen to through headphones. I went for Radio 3, which was doing a sort of Desert Island Discs with crime novelist Ian Rankin. One of his choices was the Barbirolli/Du Pré recording of the Elgar cello concerto. Lovely. My mind wandered during the selection from the Diabelli variations, however.
Back home, I got a call from the opticians to say that my new glasses were ready, so we went and got them. I think they may need adjustment to accommodate my big head (kindly refrain...), but I think the lenses are better than the last lot, giving a wider field in the distance bit. They bloody ought to, given what they cost.
Still, on returning home, I found a cheque in settlement of my claim against a firm that sold me unnecessary credit card insurance. It doesn't quite pay for the new glasses, but, as they say, every little helps.
Further increase to the Smith fortunes. In an email from the local crime reporters who also cover trading standards matters there was a product recall note for tumble driers like wot we have got, which evidently present a fire risk. I have registered ours, and we'll see what Hotpoint come up with. I've always been scrupulous about cleaning the filter after each use, but noticed that the filter wasn't seating properly in its well. With the help of a torch, I soon found out why: the well contained several handfuls of fluff, dust and bits of paper hanky. The well is too narrow to get a hand or a hoover nozzle far enough into it, so much improvisation was needed. I got as much out as I could by hand. A hand-weeding hoe got some more of of it out. An improvised cardboard extension to the narrow hoover nozzle saw to the rest, and a double-sided adhesive pad applied to the handle of a radiator paint brush let me recover the 3p!
Class yesterday was quite fun. I did a few more acrylic resist/Indian ink things, and might even get one framed. We'll see when I call on Mr Framer on Monday.
Friday 27 November 2015
Friday 20 November 2015
This & that...
After years of making little use of the NHS and none of Benenden, things are changing. I think I'm getting some value out of the exercises prescribed by the Benenden physio, but am still waiting to hear from the NHS a month after the GP put me on the waiting list for physiotherapy. Next time I saw the GP, she wrote off for an MRI scan. So, a week today, I'm to schlepp my knee along to the nearby private hospital which it evidently pays the NHS to use rather than its own resources. Next amusement will be a trip to see some professor at the eye clinic in the county town. Regular sight test next week, since my present lenses are getting rather scratched. In any case, I'm unimpressed by the varifocal lenses, which have too narrow a correction area in the top layer. So, one way and another, I seem to be getting my money's worth (though the new specs will no doubt cost the earth). What really hacks me off is that I have to pay over £30 a month in dental care cover, and still have to pay for any spare parts. Oh well, we aren't exactly on our uppers, but I wonder how people on low incomes manage.
On Tuesday we took a trip to Brighton, where Barbara treated us to lunch in a nearby hostelry once I'd replaced a number of light bulbs. Her place is full of flush ceiling lights with GU-10 halogen bulbs that don't seem to last five minutes. (We had them in a fitting in the kitchen when we moved to Forges-l'Evêque, and soon ripped it out. Quite apart from the constant need to satisfy the brute's ravenous appetite for bulbs, the proximity of hot light bulbs to the scalp was not pleasant.)
Over five months after the fire upstairs from Barbara's place, the lift is still not in action, so she is understandably withholding the service charges. While we were there, a couple of blokes were cheerfully putting up scaffolding round the building despite the rain, so perhaps something will happen soon. The drive thither and thence was not much fun in the rain and heavy traffic.
Talking of traffic, the garden is well frequented this morning: we've seen robins, blue and coal tits, blackbirds and a wren. Martyn saw a goldfinch the other day. Wonder if it was the one for the possession of which someone was convicted and sentenced at a nearby Magistrates' Court on Wednesday?
I suppose we'll have to think soon about Christmas presents, but I have no intention of going to any large shopping venues in the current climate. This has perhaps less to do with the terrorist threat than with my ability to do the necessary leg work. Still, the Christmas cards are printed and the envelopes prepared (a count of the latter reveals the need to print more of the former, however). All we now have to do is write them and spend a week's pension on postage.
Still waiting to hear from VW about the fix to the car. It now seems that some will just need a software update, while others will need new injectors. What either or both will do to fuel economy and driving qualities is not yet known. I can't imagine the car would attract a private buyer or a decent trade-in price except from VW, with whom I'm not sure I want to do business again. Meanwhile, it chunters happily along, but it's now well past the age and mileage at which I usually change.
I approached yesterday's art class project with little enthusiasm. Miss had asked us to bring a drawing that we could tackle using the resist technique, which involves doing your painting, covering the lot with Indian ink, leaving it to dry and then washing the ink off. She'd told us to do the painting in gouache, so I dug out my supplies, which had lain untouched in my bits box for fully ten years. Not surprising, then, that most of them had dried solid. (Must check on my similarly neglected water colours.) I managed to scrounge enough from Miss to slap together a little vignette, but when I brushed on the ink (also scrounged from fellow students), it lifted off a lot of the zinc white body colour, leaving a rather washed-out image. Results not unpleasing, nevertheless. With 20 minutes to spare at the end of the class, I bashed out a second one in acrylics, which resisted the ink completely. Humbly submitted for gentle readers' perusal.
On Tuesday we took a trip to Brighton, where Barbara treated us to lunch in a nearby hostelry once I'd replaced a number of light bulbs. Her place is full of flush ceiling lights with GU-10 halogen bulbs that don't seem to last five minutes. (We had them in a fitting in the kitchen when we moved to Forges-l'Evêque, and soon ripped it out. Quite apart from the constant need to satisfy the brute's ravenous appetite for bulbs, the proximity of hot light bulbs to the scalp was not pleasant.)
Over five months after the fire upstairs from Barbara's place, the lift is still not in action, so she is understandably withholding the service charges. While we were there, a couple of blokes were cheerfully putting up scaffolding round the building despite the rain, so perhaps something will happen soon. The drive thither and thence was not much fun in the rain and heavy traffic.
Talking of traffic, the garden is well frequented this morning: we've seen robins, blue and coal tits, blackbirds and a wren. Martyn saw a goldfinch the other day. Wonder if it was the one for the possession of which someone was convicted and sentenced at a nearby Magistrates' Court on Wednesday?
I suppose we'll have to think soon about Christmas presents, but I have no intention of going to any large shopping venues in the current climate. This has perhaps less to do with the terrorist threat than with my ability to do the necessary leg work. Still, the Christmas cards are printed and the envelopes prepared (a count of the latter reveals the need to print more of the former, however). All we now have to do is write them and spend a week's pension on postage.
Still waiting to hear from VW about the fix to the car. It now seems that some will just need a software update, while others will need new injectors. What either or both will do to fuel economy and driving qualities is not yet known. I can't imagine the car would attract a private buyer or a decent trade-in price except from VW, with whom I'm not sure I want to do business again. Meanwhile, it chunters happily along, but it's now well past the age and mileage at which I usually change.
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| Oriental poppy, acrylic and Indian ink |
Saturday 7 November 2015
November again already yet
It's the time of year when we can't do a lot in the garden except look through rain-streaked windows at what remains in flower. We still have flowers on quite a few roses, although the foliage has largely succumbed to black spot. Must Try Harder next year. Hypericums are flowering well, as are the good old penstemons - except for one which mysteriously turned its toes up in the summer. A number of over-wintered fuchsias are still flowering, but will soon be cut down by the frosts. A little neapolitan cyclamen that I liberated from Jane's garden before she moved (at her invitation, I emphasise) is flowering steadily. The red stems of the dogwoods are now completely denuded of leaves, and the foliage of the iris sibiricas has, I suppose, a certain autumnal charm. The consummately boring viburnum tinus is putting up a few blossoms, doubtless in an attempt to divert me from my plan to grub it out. We have a good crop of berries on a pyracantha at the top of the garden. The blackbirds obviously haven't noticed - I watched from my study window years ago back at Smith Towers as they stripped a neighbour's pyracantha of berries over the space of just a few days.
The survivor of a pair of dining chairs is in the back of the car
awaiting my next trip to the tip. I bought them nearly ten years ago from a
charity shop, and re-upholstered them at a class. They were very comfortable, as I'd webbed and sprung each with no fewer than nine springs. The underpinnings of the upholstery had held up well (even though I resisted my teacher's suggestion that I star-lash them, ie tie the springs down not only fore and aft and side to side, but across the two diagonals as well). As it turns out, that would have been a waste of effort: the frames were of very brittle, splintery wood, and the last straw for each chair came when a castor sheared off. The cover on the survivor had got very grubby meanwhile, and the joints between the seat and the back had given, despite my efforts to fix them before upholstering: they were drilled and dowelled, rather than mortice and tenon: the cheap mass-production approach.
Alas, my upholstering days are over, I think: the old hands were
already protesting even back then at some of the quite strenuous tasks involved. If I could find more of the little spade-back chairs I might have a crack at restoring them. They are altogether more solid, though they too are getting grubby. I shall have a go at them with the steamer and see if I can get a year or two more out of them.
Of other ancient chairs on the premises, the Orkney chair has acquired a new purpose. With a few added cushions, it's about the right height for one of my three-times-a-day physiotherapy exercises. It's a fine piece of work, made out of oak from wrecked ships, with straw base and back. It came from Orkney to the neighbouring island of Great Britain, as they say up there, about a century ago when a relative of ours married an Orcadian. An occasional visitor with replacement knee joints makes a beeline for it every time she visits.
I still await news from VW, and presume they are still developing a fix for the scandalous 'defeat device', a software trick to sense when the car's emissions were being tested so as to give an unrepresentatively low reading. I had been planning to change cars, but will have for the time being to sit on my hands rather than suffer the likely collapse in its resale value. I have in the meantime signalled an interest in joining in one of the class actions. With eleven million owners - including many litigious Americans and their regulators - no doubt entertaining similar thoughts, I wouldn't care to be a VW shareholder in the short term.
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| Chair, 2007 |
Alas, my upholstering days are over, I think: the old hands were
 |
| Chair, 2005 |
Of other ancient chairs on the premises, the Orkney chair has acquired a new purpose. With a few added cushions, it's about the right height for one of my three-times-a-day physiotherapy exercises. It's a fine piece of work, made out of oak from wrecked ships, with straw base and back. It came from Orkney to the neighbouring island of Great Britain, as they say up there, about a century ago when a relative of ours married an Orcadian. An occasional visitor with replacement knee joints makes a beeline for it every time she visits.
I still await news from VW, and presume they are still developing a fix for the scandalous 'defeat device', a software trick to sense when the car's emissions were being tested so as to give an unrepresentatively low reading. I had been planning to change cars, but will have for the time being to sit on my hands rather than suffer the likely collapse in its resale value. I have in the meantime signalled an interest in joining in one of the class actions. With eleven million owners - including many litigious Americans and their regulators - no doubt entertaining similar thoughts, I wouldn't care to be a VW shareholder in the short term.
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