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.

Oriental poppy, acrylic and Indian ink

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.