Hair today

Krakow Botanical Gardens, July 2016

It's been a long time since I sat down to write, and I was wondering why. I'm pretty sure it's because of an HBO television series called 'The Newsroom', which I started renting from LoveFilm because it is written by Aaron Sorkin, who also wrote the best TV I have ever watched ('The West Wing'). The Newsroom is not as good as The West Wing, but it is a very close second, and I bought the DVDs and have been rewatching the first series before even going on to series 2. Each episode is about 45 minutes, which I would otherwise spend noodling on the laptop, hence the lack of blogging. I could be watching an episode now, that's the sacrifice I'm making.

Recent activity: weeks ago I visited Lola II and Mr M for a weekend, my colleague left work and we had a night out to celebrate and commiserate, I had a large percentage of my hair cut off, I had a long meeting with the builder who's going to manage my kitchen renovation, there was an election, and I went to work and badminton and meditation in the usual way. We also did some meditation in the park as our contribution to Buddhist Action Month. BAM! "Don't just do something, sit there!"

While I was visiting Lola II and Mr M we went to a performance of 'Roller Diner' in London's Soho, and it was rather good, although it took a while for me to get comfortable with the style of it. I haven't been to the theatre for quite a long time, and our seats were right at the front so not much distance between me and the actors. Despite my assertion that being called 'Roller Diner' meant that there was bound to be roller skating in it, there wasn't. I didn't mind being wrong on this occasion, because there was plenty to keep me interested. Based on this experience I wouldn't mind going to the theatre again.

We also went to a Street Food event at Alexandra Palace and then a lovely long walk on Sunday, and it was the Bank Holiday weekend so I even had Monday to get more done at home. There's still so much to do, although I'm gradually moving the old downstairs office upstairs, and emptying the kitchen into the old downstairs office and getting rid of whatever I don't use through Freegle, Nextdoor.com, Facebook Marketplace, eBay and the 'Household Waste Recycling Centre' (aka the local tip). Talking of eBay, the big philatelic project is nearing its conclusion with a total net profit of more than £250 as of today. I've finished selling the main postal mechanisation literature, and the very last bit is stamp booklets which is something new to me.

Then there was that general election as well. International politics at the moment feels like a particularly violent roller coaster ride with no option to get off. Just keep riding, and endure what's in store over the next political horizon - will it be a gentle bend or a vertical drop? I don't think there is the same sense of imminent catastrophe as there was at the height of the Cold War, just a sick feeling that our society is becoming ever more divisive and those holding political power have very little in common with either my way of thinking or of those who would disagree with me. Political thinking has never felt more like a gambling habit. I do often wonder how it will end.

Shopping, touring and parking

Borough Market, May 2016

Sometimes I don't have much to say, but at the moment I'm almost driven to the keyboard to let off a bit of steam. Actually, the pressure has dissipated a bit because I've told most of the hairiest stuff to Lola II and Mr M on the phone already, but writing it down can help too.

While you've been enjoying the niceties of diabetes technologies, activities at Lola Towers continue unabated. I think I am actually unable to lessen the quantity of stuff going on because I'd rather have too much than too little to do. Accepting that this is true may help me to stop moaning about how busy I am.

I have had a bit of a shopping spree - online, of course. With some actual camping coming up, and also with the prospect of being without a kitchen for a while over the summer, I decided to get a move on and decide on what sort of camping stove to get, followed by actually buying it. So that's one thing crossed off the enormous 'To Do' list.

The building where I work is fairly relaxed but the hospital as a whole is trying very hard to make sure that quality standards of all sorts are maintained, and the latest standard to be addressed has been the one about uniform: bare below the elbow and hair above the collar. The Dietetic Manager sent an email round to highlight this, and I have had to accept that if I am caught transgressing now it will be rather more of an issue than before we were specifically told to abide by the rules.

Keeping hair tied back is fairly easy and I can manage fine without a wristwatch, but I do find that the wristband Fitbit pedometer has helped me to carry out a bit more activity and a few more steps every day, and I was reluctant to give that up. So I also rode the wave of rare shopping motivation to try and use up all the remaining TV-watching points on a Fitbit device that clips to clothing so I wouldn't have to wear it on my wrist. Unfortunately after I'd ordered the TV-watching vouchers it turned out I couldn't use them to buy this gadget, but I bought it anyway with real money. Within a week I had gone and put it in the washing machine. [It has a surprisingly effective rubbery jacket, so it survived unscathed!]

Local elections came and went - constituency boundary changes meant I had to choose a new candidate to vote for, and I am glad that the incumbent Green Party candidate was elected - small patches of Green and Lib Dem yellow appear among the sea of blue in this county. I am dreading the General Election. Each time there are more hateful personalities and policies among the distorted propaganda, political bickering and biased media, and less integrity, honesty, generosity and truthfulness. It has become a choice between wasting a protest vote, or tactical voting for the least detestable party that stands a chance of ousting the most detestable. Sometimes democracy is a burden.

Lola II and I went to Shrewsbury for her 'birthday' weekend this year. It is rather a nice city, with river, hills, interesting independent shops and many many coffee shops and churches. I bought a rug! It was a bit of a surprise but maybe this shopping thing I seem to have acquired is seasonal. There was a rug shop in the market, and we had a bit of a think about how to manage a rug purchase when we were spending the day wandering about and staying in a B&B, but the vendor agreed to deliver it to the B&B. The rug is red and black and very striking. I like it.

Other things we did in Shrewsbury - a rather interesting guided walk looking at buildings all round town from medieval to modern times. Particularly interesting was the half-timbered building faced with brick to fit in with the style of the newer Regency buildings around it. We were also shown a modern frieze on a building, including a small plaque containing two faces, and asked who they were. Lola II guessed one as the Queen, and rather flippantly I said the other looked like Michael Heseltine. My guess turned out to be right, and the other face was Margaret Thatcher - the frieze was a reference to the introduction of the Poll Tax. We ended Saturday with a local theatre company performing 'Anything Goes' which was a delight.

On Sunday Lola II and I did a lot of walking and talking and had a Japanese lunch, which made me happy. And during the weekend my ebay sales record was broken by a postcode promotion leaflet much like all the others, except that it featured Sherlock Holmes on the front. It was clearly Sherlock fans rather than the more sober philatelic collectors who bumped the successful bid up to a frankly ridiculous £16. I was even more delighted because I happened to have two of the same leaflet, but the person whose offer of £15 was outbid must have come to his or her senses, because they failed to take up my Second Chance offer at that price.

The only other recent event of note was on a Friday when, most unusually, all my clinic slots were full and I was expecting seven people in the morning. Out of the front door as usual in the morning I was confronted with a car parked right in front of the garage, completely preventing me from getting the car out.

The road was resurfaced a few days ago so all the road markings were missing, and this might have contributed to the situation. No matter why, the question was, what do I do? A few neighbours were out and about but none knew whose car it was, so I phoned the police non-emergency number for advice. A friendly woman took the details and asked if I had knocked on any neighbours' doors. I caught the hint and asked if it would be worth my while - could she perhaps give me the address that the car was registered to? No, she couldn't tell me the address, but yes, it would be worth my while to try a few doors. Meanwhile, she would pass my case to 'Despatching' who would send someone over when they had the chance.

I really didn't fancy knocking on doors at 8 o'clock in the morning, so I waited. At work, my colleagues had started to contact the patients who were booked in - unfortunately a couple turned up anyway because they hadn't checked their phones. An hour later I phoned the police again to see if I should just cancel the whole morning's clinic, and got the distinct impression that nothing was going to happen very quickly. Another hour later I did get a phone call, and this time the policeman told me which house the car owner lived in, but there was nobody at home, so I put a note through the door. At this point I tried contacting the council parking enforcement department, who also said they would send someone round although we agreed that there was very little that could be done.

After a further hour (now it was after 11 o'clock) the police controller called me back to see if anything had changed. I didn't see how any policeman could help me unless they could track down a mobile number for one of the occupants of the house, and it didn't seem like that was something they were going to do. She said she'd send someone round anyway because they might be able to move the car, which would have been really interesting to watch.

At 12.15 p.m. there was a ring at the door - the neighbour had returned from a very unimportant trip into town and was distraught at the trouble she'd caused. She hadn't noticed the garage, she was busy telling the kids off when she'd parked - it was hard to be angry at a genuine mistake and she acknowledged how it had really messed up my day. We did agree that it was unlikely that she'd do it again.

More progress

Tusmore Estate, April 2017

Nothing special to report for the last few weeks, although I've been having a good time. We had a family gathering on mum+dad's 60th wedding anniversary, which in true family style was celebrated by nothing special at all other than all of us being there. I have done a few of the jobs on my list that have been waiting for quite a long time, including meeting the new landlord of the Pub Next Door, buying house insurance, and putting up the last curtain in the new office/spare bedroom space which can be drawn across to separate the two 'rooms'.

The upstairs space is now structurally finished, but furniture needs to be brought upstairs which will need the help of some burly individuals who can help me move a filing cabinet, desks (one from downstairs to upstairs and the other in the opposite direction) and a bookcase. That will, I think, complete the office move, except for deciding what to do about the noticeboard.

More on the LTRP front - I now have working drawings to give the kitchen suppliers and builders, and I have sought alternative quotes. The alternative builder has so far not responded at all, and the alternative kitchen supplier was very scathing about my washing up preferences! She did however come up with the useful suggestion that my next step might be to settle on the appearance of the floor. I am going to have a vinyl option called Karndean, and I drove to the main Karndean showroom in Evesham, which was well worth the trip. I came away with three different samples large enough to make a choice at home, and the confidence that any one of them would do nicely.

Oh yes, I have been to see H+B in the North West along with Lola II, Mr M and Sister D, and we all made ourselves thoroughly at home over lunch. We were hoping to do a bit of walking in the afternoon, but the weather put a stop to that. I took the opportunity of visiting our Postal Mechanisation guru on the way home, since he also lives in the North West. He was very kind and welcoming even though it was Good Friday, which is just as well because we spent nearly five hours (FIVE HOURS) going through another three boxes of material that mum had unearthed. I got home at 2 a.m.

However, I had to agree with Lola II, Mr M and Sister D that I was spending too much time on this stupid ebay project. Although I find it mildly enjoyable, the time spent for meagre financial return is simply not worth it, and I have plenty of other more enjoyable occupations that I have no time for. So the plan was that I would go through the new stuff with the PM guru but would ask him to dispose of anything of value, and throw away everything else. This is what I did, so now I am only going to finish auctioning the material I already had. There is one box remaining, so it will still take a month or two.

I spent a day at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre doing meditation, listening to lectures, talking to all sorts of people and then watching a kind of ritual that is the closest buddhists seem to get to formal 'worship'. The thought most prominent in my mind was 'I can't imagine ever joining in with that', but who knows? They are a thoughtful and sincere group of people and I have a lot more in common with them than with any of my work colleagues and many of my friends.

Over the Easter break, as well as the northern excursion I did another ten mile walk with the Meetup group I joined for the New Year walk. The walk leader this time set a rather fast pace, and by the end my legs were aching and I'd also managed to acquire an impressive blister on my little toe. If I sign up for another long walk I'll have to watch out for who's leading, but in fact I'll probably stick to the five mile options in future. The picture at the head of the blog was taken on the route, but the estate is privately owned so we didn't go in and I don't exactly know what the buildings are.

Lastly, badminton news: Club #2 held an end-of-season tournament (they don't play over the summer) and I won the top lady prize. While you may think this indicates my advanced badminton skillz, you should consider the alternative explanation, which is that I have chosen to play in a club containing players who are significantly older and significantly less fit than I am. But I was runner up for the past two years, so it's still rather nice to win something.

North Oxfordshire, April 2017

An awful lot to do

Krakow Botanical Gardens, July 2016

It's a familiar complaint, and we hear it all the time from friends, family and colleagues. Not enough time, they say, not enough hours in the day. I silently think very uncharitable thoughts, usually along the lines of "well if you watched less television..." which I have no doubt are utterly unfair. Because although I often comment on how much I have to do, this week I have experienced the perfect storm. Of course it is of my own making so I am not encouraging expressions of sympathy; I just need to get a grip.

Badminton - my regular two nights a week is augmented to three this week with a match on Friday.

eBay - this is the one that is hoovering up all the hours in the day, even though I am now only putting things up for auction three days a week. It's taking all the pictures, weighing things for postage pricing and concocting the item description that take so much time, and I would chuck it all in but people continue to buy this junk. It's strangely enjoyable when a bid appears.

Routine commitments - dentist, car service, a meeting with the finance man, blood donation, laundry, ironing, meditation, food shopping, cooking, eating, washing up.

LTRP - looking good and progressing well, but requires me to do research and think about what I want and make decisions. What is looming over me at the moment is that I have an invoice to pay and I just want to check it against the original estimate, and I know where all the documents are but just haven't got round to it. A Round Tuit is what I need to get. I haven't even started thinking about the curtain that I need.

Tent - this has been a major preoccupation because some camping is definitely going to take place in July and September and for goodness sake it's time I had my own tent. My original research uncovered two tents at vastly different prices, and it took a while to decide I would have the more expensive one, at which point I found that I'd been looking at a very out of date website. I found another supplier but they told me the tent I wanted was last year's model and no longer available, but pointed me in the direction of a different one. Meanwhile I found the original tent on ebay and dithered for some time about putting my faith in an unknown ebay supplier. I decided not to and I think I know which one I will buy, just as soon as I can phone the supplier to check that there is not some fatal flaw with this choice as well.

Media - being away for a week skiing meant a total break from podcasts and radio programmes, although I managed a bit of book reading. Coming back I wasn't prepared to skip any of my regular listens, and it has taken me a month to catch up; a month in which I have read nothing in print except a copy of 'Dietetics Today'. I've just managed to start a new audio book, but it's the strange American narrator reading Pride and Prejudice. An hour in, and actually he's not doing a bad job.

Whisky Tasting With Food - I haven't got time for a full account of this wondrous event. Mr M and Lola II brought a selection from Mr M's range of whiskies on tour to Leamington, and three new candidates experienced the joy. I'm lucky enough to have attended two before this one, and from a standing start at my first event when I took the position of not really liking whisky, I have come to love it. Lola II and Mr M have hosted more than ten of these events, and Lola II said this one was the best so far.

Music group - these happen once a month. I went to the first one of the new year, which was in February, then missed one because of skiing. The next is coming up and I couldn't bear to go without having played a note in two months, so I'm trying to put in a bit of practice every day. The main problem with this is that one of the saxophone pieces is 'Copacabana' by Barry Manilow, and it has an extremely catchy bass line which has lodged in my brain and refuses to leave. Now I've planted it in your brain too (I'm talking to you, Lola II).

Alongside all of this stuff is the paid job, and I found out today that our Senior Diabetes Specialist Dietitian Team Leader is leaving, which is a great shame. I was aware that she was considering this move and she even asked me if I'd be interested in her role, but aside from the higher pay band there's nothing in the team leader position that is the least bit attractive. And I'd have to work harder and care more, and I'm very reluctant to do those things, and there's all this other stuff that is sucking up all my time...

I'm not sure what I will do about having too much to do and not enough time, because even if I gave up some of the optional things that I enjoy I doubt that I'd do more of the necessary things that I don't enjoy. So I suppose I've let off a bit of steam here, and everything will continue as before.

More from Krakow, July 2016

Tedious parking issues

Krakow Botanic Garden, July 2016

I'm still spending many spare minutes engaged in eBay trading, and my Canadian buyer is still keeping the boat afloat. Meanwhile other members of the family are busying themselves with other aspects of dad's collected material, with limited success. The past weekend contained a trip to The North West, where the weather was cold but the welcome was warm. Part of the reason behind the trip was to stay with old friends I hadn't seen for more than five years, but on the way there and back I offered to assist with the further clearing and emptying of goods currently stored in basement rooms. Just the threat of my presence was enough to prompt the requisite activity - I hardly had to do anything, and even acquired a certain proportion of said goods, some of which I have passed on to Ilf.

Yes, Ilf has paid another visit, and the upstairs spare room is looking even better with its final coat of paint. Next it will need curtains, a bedside table, the clothes rail that returned with me from The North West, and I'm thinking of sanding and painting a wooden chair that is currently in the garage looking very sad. That will complete the bedroom half of the spare room; I haven't thought too much about the office half yet. I made the follow up trip to the kitchen design shop to talk through some changes, and the plan is nearly finished. I'm still feeling good about the progress of the LTRP.

At work the talk has been of parking for a very long time, and is becoming extremely tedious. The Trust has two hospital sites; the one where I don't work (Hospital A) has insufficient parking for both staff and patients, leading to much stress. When I used to do a clinic there, patients occasionally phoned the reception desk from the car park, and more than once it was to say they were not coming to their appointment simply because there was nowhere to park. The hospital where I do work (Hospital B) has plenty of parking space.

Parking passes used to be allocated to staff at Hospital A on some arcane basis that probably had a lot to do with historical precedent and seniority. When I worked there, I used to park on a nearby housing estate that is 20 minutes' walk away from the hospital site. Since I stopped working there, the housing estate has introduced residents-only parking, so staff would park in the Tesco car park, which is 25 minutes away. Tesco is now limiting its free parking to exclude such visitors, and I really don't know what staff do any more.

It was decided that a fairer system needed to be introduced, so all staff are being invited to re-apply for parking passes which will be awarded on the basis of need, taking account of the requirements of the job role and public transport options. These are not free passes, but they cost less than the daily parking charges that patients pay. They used to be charged at different rates depending on pay grade and hours worked, so part-timers and those on low pay grades paid less. The new system is a flat rate for all from part-time cleaner to Chief Executive.

Throughout the extended period of time when details were slowly being made available to staff, it was never made clear whether these changes would apply at Hospital B, where there is no parking problem. The main grouse in my department was the unfairness of changing from proportional pricing to a flat rate, but parking raises such high emotion that barely a day went by without someone complaining afresh about the unfairness, which usually set someone else off, sometimes on an unrelated course, usually about the changes to the retirement pension entitlement. Parking, pensions, more parking - most lunchtimes descended into dissatisfied whingeing.

At last the day came when we could finally apply for a new pass under the new, 'fairer' guidelines. My goodness, the complaining escalated to unimaginable heights when it was discovered that anyone living nearer than two miles from Hospital B was going to be denied a parking pass on principle. Emails were fired off like cannonades - secure bicycle parking was going to be needed, husbands were going to set up lift sharing services, people couldn't be expected to walk all that way at their age, and what if it snowed? I felt like saying that I would love to work within walking distance of my home and not have to pay for parking or petrol at all.

Things calmed down when one member of staff was informed that there had been a mistake, and the two mile limit was supposed to apply to Hospital A only, given that parking capacity at Hospital B was adequate for all who wanted passes. But the price increase would still apply at Hospital B. And this is where we stand at present, and I hope they will all stop moaning about it soon.

In other news, my aspidistra is flowering!

Progress

Krakow Botanical Gardens, July 2016

The upstairs spare room is starting to become properly habitable. I've cleaned and polished the floor and installed a bed, and I'm using the table in front of a window for my ebay photographic activity. That, by the way, is going extraordinarily well, and I continue to laugh out loud whenever I am notified that someone has bought another bit of useless junk for £1.99. Two of my esteemed customers are even located so close that I have actually hand-delivered their purchases. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they are buying because otherwise the hours I spend on photography and online listing would be a pointless waste of effort, but really, I feel sorry for their families. At some point they will have to do what I'm doing, unless they have the grim determination to build a bonfire.

I'm also starting to repopulate the loft. I don't want to fill it right up again, but it's nice to be able to store a few things in a moderately accessible way. The next task will be to get the spare room painted, and then convert it to half office, half bedroom. With just one exterior wall and two radiators it's a lot warmer than my bedroom which has three out of four exterior walls and only one small radiator, so I may decide to move in for the winter. I've spent a comfortable night in there as an experiment, but it will need curtains before it's any use in summer.

I haven't written about patients for a while. They continue to propose marriage - another one last week. Most aren't in the marrying mood and tend to be fairly recalcitrant when it comes to making dietary changes. I enjoy the teaching most, where people turn up knowing very little except what they've read in the press or heard from a doctor or nurse with no real knowledge of diet. They usually go away knowing a lot more, whether it has been a one-to-one consultation or a Type 1 or Type 2 group education session.

I would love to give a blow by blow description of some of the consultations that I'm involved with. I think I'm getting better at working with the usual range of 'reasons' people give for not doing what they have told me they intend to do. The one the continually irks me is when we embark upon the 'weight loss' conversation, and the first response is about not being able to exercise - arthritis, or fibromyalgia, or a bad back, or anything really. Exercise is hopeless for weight loss, but the resistance to weight loss by actually eating less is immense. I have a poster on the wall which says, for example, that 178 kcal or just three custard cream biscuits is the calorie equivalent of 37 minutes brisk walking. The calories in a single pint of lager are the equivalent of 53 minutes of brisk walking.

The DESMOND programme for people with Type 2 Diabetes has a nice script for introducing the weight loss session.

- What causes our weight to change? [food and activity]

- What happens to your weight if the amount of calories you get from food is the same as the number of calories that you burn off through activity? [it stays the same]

- If our weight starts to go up, what do you think has changed? [eating more and/or doing less activity]

- What would need to happen for someone to lose weight? [eat less and/or do more activity]

- What about people who are less mobile, and whose activity may be limited? What else can they do if they want to change their weight? [ha ha, got you there, you have no choice but to say 'eat less']

I know I shouldn't, but I get a small thrill if I manage to get someone to admit that losing weight is still possible even if they cannot run a marathon or play squash. Or walk to the car. I shouldn't feel that way because while we all know in our heart of hearts that eating less will allow us to lose weight, it's incredibly difficult to achieve. It's supposed to be my job to help, and I continue to try, but I do think that those who succeed tend to do it in spite of me rather than because of my input.

Anyway, back to the LTRP - I spent a happy day in Birmingham looking for household goods, and while I didn't buy anything spectacular I did make a few decisions on what might happen next, and I've since bought lampshades. The prospective builder and the airing cupboard carpenter have visited, and the people from the kitchen shop also got back to me with details of an alternative builder. I will have to address my naming conventions soon, as I am reaching the end of the vowel supply with only Ulf and Ylf to go. I may repurpose the name Elf, because I'm not planning to use the original man any more. I'm not going to ask Olf the Builder to quote for the kitchen build either. Ilf the Handyman, however, is a permanent fixture; I intend to keep him for as long as he can wield a screwdriver.

I also went to another Barn Dance with badminton friends who are very enthusiastic about Barn Dances. I feel satisfied that I have given it a good try, but I don't really like it. We had a discussion about the next badminton social event, and reached the conclusion that it needs to be indoors, not food-based, including physical activity but not so noisy that we can't hear each other speak. It was pointed out that what we were describing sounds a lot like badminton.

Featuring Lola Towers

M. Jeffs, January 2017

A badminton-playing friend's husband is interested in Leamington's history. I met him at the club's Christmas do, and remember only that since retiring he seems to have had a go at a million different things - joining the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England, sketching and writing - he was asked to write a history of an organisation (can't remember which but it was one I'd heard of). As a member of the local History Group he was interested to find out that Lola Towers is a house with an history, having been the original home of the pub which is now next door.

He was very keen to come and see the house, so I invited him at the weekend and in return he gave me a wonderful drawing that he'd made of the house as it might have been when it was a pub. I showed him the bits and pieces that I've amassed - a couple of extracts from Ordnance Survey maps, the Indenture of 1867, and he even braved a trip down to the cellar to see where the barrels were rolled down. Subsequently he wrote me a note saying that there was an urban myth of a tunnel between the old and the new pubs - but there's no sign of any such thing, and I can't imagine why one would exist.

He also lent me a book on the Pubs of Royal Leamington Spa. It is most illuminating about the early history of Lola Towers:

"The first reference point that we have for the Cricketers Arms is in 1854 when the licensing justices issued a new licence to Joshua Fardon (thus suggesting that its history predates 1854) ... the first directory listing we have is in 1860 ... the site of the original Cricketers Arms was actually at the rear of the current pub ... In June 1889, Mr Humphries from Messrs Field and Son applied for the temporary transfer of the licence ... from Mrs. Eliza Mills to Mr. Whitacre ... He stated that Mrs. Mills had not been successful in carrying on the business and that it was proposed to close the present house and to adapt some adjacent and larger premises ... In September 1889 Mr. Humphries applied on behalf of Samuel Whitacre to transfer the six-day licence of the Cricketers Arms in Victoria Street, to new premises, adjacent to the old, and situated on the corner of Victoria Street and Archery Road. In reply to Alderman Wackrill, Mr Humphries said that the old premises would be demolished. The application was granted."

Clearly no demolition took place, and Lola Towers continues to flourish, especially as I have engaged Ilf once more for the ongoing LTRP. He has put my bathroom cabinets back up (straighter than they were before, hooray!), reconstructed the floor of the loft and plugged the gaps in the insulation, taken down all extraneous fitments in the spare room (old lights, blinds, screws etc.) and has started painting it white. It's taking several coats to cover the strong colours of the walls. But even the great Ilf is struggling to find a replacement toilet seat because it seems to be a completely non-standard variety.

I have also been to see the kitchen shop belonging to the lady I met on my first Meetup walking event, and spent an hour and a half with her son who is the main salesman, and previously was a chef. [See how confident I have become - two projects running simultaneously!] I got exactly what I needed - a full explanation and comparison between different types of cupboards, worktops and appliances, and recommendations for suitable places to go for other stuff like lighting and flooring. At last it feels like I have taken a step forward, even though I still need a builder. I'll be going back to the kitchen showroom in a couple of weeks to see what he comes up with based on my preliminary preferences.

I even had the audacity to consider a third simultaneous project, and contacted a carpenter about the reconstruction of the airing cupboard. He replied saying he was on holiday, and I've heard nothing more since then. I hardly dare to chase this one up, especially as I am still immersed in the ebay path to immense wealth - another buyer has emerged to snap up some more obscure post-office-related ephemera. I think we've made more than a tenner now; not long before we can all retire on the proceeds.

Several new beginnings

Walking in the Cotswolds, January 2017

The New Year has started in the most terrific way, at least after the noise from the pub died down so I could get to sleep. Incidental news - Smurf has announced on Facebook that he's stepped down from running the pub, so I need to get over there and find out who my neighbour is now, and what's going on.

Anyway, I started the year proper with a parkrun, but forgot my barcode. This means that my run isn't logged against my name in the big parkrun database and I have to do an extra run to get to my Big Numbers (you can have a special T-shirt when you've done 50). I thought I would be a bit peeved, but it didn't matter. I just felt happy to be out there. Even though it was pouring with rain all the way round.

Starting the day with a parkrun generally means I don't do much for the rest of the day, and this was certainly true for New Years Day. However, I had finally joined Meetup, which is a website that allows people to create groups around particular interests and activities and then recruit others to join them. I joined the 'Out and About in Warwickshire' group and signed up to a long walk in the Cotswolds that took place on Monday. It was bright and sunny and even a little bit warm out of the wind, and the walk was wonderful and all the other people I talked to were lovely. Really lovely. Someone saw me just grinning with pleasure, and commented that the endorphins were very evident.

The highly unexpected bonus of all this unusual socialising was that one of the people I met turned out to own a kitchen design business. This kitchen project has been weighing me down a bit, being a lot more difficult than I was expecting, so the prospect of actually finding someone prepared to help was such a relief. I need to get along to her shop.

During the Christmas/New Year lull (Twixtmas) I finally got to grips with starting to list dad's collection of ephemera on ebay. It's very time-consuming - each listing has to have at least one photo, I need to check for similar items previously listed and/or sold so I can get an idea of how much to charge (I've mostly been putting on fixed price listings) and then work out postage. Even the description is tricky when I don't really know why anyone would want a manufacturer's leaflet about a Third Generation Coding Desk or a Philatelic Presentation Pack Assembler in the first place, let alone a poster exhorting you to use the postcode or celebrating 350 years of the Royal Mail in 1985. So I took a load of photos and got a load of listings ready in draft, all the while thinking "what's the point", and who'd have thought it, someone went and bought one. And now another two (same buyer)! So I'm carrying on and watching the pence flood in (we have made just over a fiver so far).

I did this, then I did that

Krakow Botanical Gardens, July 2016

This is getting more like a diary than a blog - a succession of things that seem to fill my life sufficiently so that I am rarely bored and mostly have too much on my plate. Literally and metaphorically. The weight loss plan is not going brilliantly, despite me having completely stopped buying bars of chocolate. Bother.

Topic 1: Health - physical and metaphysical

I have had an ultrasound of my shoulder which identified some inflammation and degenerative changes typical in a person of my age. This was followed by a consultation with a specialist physiotherapist who diagnosed slow onset frozen shoulder. He offered a steroid injection to address the pain temporarily, which I declined because the pain doesn't bother me that much. I just feel resentful that my body is finally rebelling and giving me some trouble, just to remind me that I'm not as young as I was. With time, the shoulder should get better, but I doubt that I'll get any less grumpy about being as old as I am. This is as good as it gets.

On the other hand, I have started looking forward to the meditation and Buddhism group. I started with a four-session introductory course in April, then carried on attending over the summer, and now they are holding another introductory course and it feels very much like school when the new kids arrive and you're in the second year and not the youngest and littlest any more. I can very nearly remember everyone's name, although if they sling in a multi-syllable Sanskrit name I forget it in less than 2 hours. I spent one of my days off with the Buddhists I know of old, and pumped them mercilessly for information, and am still processing the results to decide whether to just stick with the meditation and mindfulness practice or to dip my toe further into the metaphorical Buddhist pond.

Topic 2: Food and drink

I have already mentioned the chocolate reduction plan, and I think I have reached the stage of acceptance in the continuum of despair-anger-denial-acceptance that I was once taught follows a trauma. Back when I was taught about this, the examples used were having your car stolen and sight loss, but it seems to apply to no end of situations including, it seems, breaking a serious chocolate habit.

I have continued my tour of Leamington Lunches on my days off - there are more restaurants than I have days off in a year, but I'm trying to pick those who charge less than £10 for lunch. There are still plenty to go. This Tuesday's was Cuban - I had a stew involving peppers, sweet potato and chickpeas and some amazing yellow bread that appeared to have been fried.

Other eating and drinking highlights in the recent past included a night out with work colleagues starting with drinks at Pub Next Door and progressing to a very fine Turkish/Eastern Mediterranean restaurant in town. It was such a success that those present immediately formed a Dining Club and set a date for the next outing. There was also my second Whisky Tasting evening with Mr M's whisky collection and matched food. I am very lucky to have been invited on two separate occasions, and there may even be a Whisky Tasting On Tour event in Leamington at some point. I discovered that I am starting to like whisky. It's always worth persisting with these things.

On the same trip to London there were two more food-related experiences. The first was the local international grocer where this time I picked two random tins of spinach-based and aubergine-based slop (I've already tried the spinach-based one topped with an egg - yum). The second was a Japanese restaurant in Notting Hill, where five of us ate until we burst for only £15 a head. Delicious and good value.

Topic 3: Housing and the LTRP

Not much progress to report on the LTRP, although the architect has now surveyed and drawn up plans of the ground floor in anticipation of our next meeting, in which we will define the alterations. These are primarily to allow more light into the kitchen and replace the stairs, but also to extend the kitchen a little to provide a utility/boot room. Olf the builder who worked on the garage finally came round to accept payment (I had to chase several times!) and he may be able to lead on the kitchen works whenever that time may come.

I'm still gradually emptying the loft (books and motorbike parts in the last fortnight) so that Ilf the handyman can sort out the electric lights in the upstairs rooms. In the meantime Mr M and Lola II stole Ilf and he decorated large parts of their house. Now that I've been to see it, the work done looks absolutely lovely. Ilf then came round and gave me a bunch of flowers to thank me for referring the job to him.

Topic 4: Financial matters

• I researched and bought car insurance A WEEK BEFORE IT WAS DUE. I am so proud of this.
• I bought fancy carbon fibre walking poles for my holiday A MONTH IN ADVANCE. [Can you see a theme developing?]
• I joined a team of four Young People and we won a tenner each on the pub quiz, with a score of 76 out of 80. I probably contributed no more than 4 answers out of 76, but I like to think that without my 4 we would have come second.
• The posh butcher in town sharpened three of my knives for free. Unfortunately they only gave me two of them back, but produced the third when I went back to enquire. Still, I now have three sharp knives, which is lovely.
• I have listed quite a few random items on ebay, one of which has sold! I am not optimistic about any of the others. So after postage and commission I am £1.43 in profit. Now I'm ready to start on the postal mechanisation material. Hang on to your hats for literally pennies of profit.
• With the help of Mr M I have switched my current account and opened another three accounts including transfers between them in order to maximise interest rates. Now every time I am faced with paying for something I have to think for five minutes about which card to use depending on whether I qualify for cashback or Clubcard points or a foot massage or puppies/kittens. However, not only is this a great problem to have, I am about to spend a whole load of money on my kitchen, so maybe it won't be a problem for long.

Topic 5: Work

I have had my first abysmal failure with a patient whom I will not see again (nor would the patient want to see me). Much reflection and 'what could I have done differently' but it's someone who's been within the service for years and years and nobody else has done much better. Apart from that, I have delivered three DESMOND courses for Type 2 patients in the last month and am looking forward to not delivering any more until December. I do enjoy it though, seeing how much people learn.

In which very little indeed happens

Pharmacy museum, Krakow

A bonus early blog post today, because I know the weekend's going to be full of stuff so I'd better do this now. However, there is nothing of any particular note to report, just the usual saxophone and clarinet choir on the first Saturday of the month, more slogging in the garden to tame the wisteria, meditation on Tuesdays, Thursday night badminton starting again after the summer, and what is turning into a near-regular Wednesday night pub quiz. And the Great British Bake Off for a few more weeks.

There's been a bit of excitement with postal services - I've agreed to make Lola II another dress and the fabric failed to arrive for ages despite much chasing. I ordered a hard case and a stand for the new baritone saxophone, and there were some difficulties with delivering both of those as well. Luckily I've got helpful neighbours who will accept stupidly large packages, although I had to haul one of the neighbours out in his slippers to move his car from in front of my garage - yes, the car is still going into the garage and I haven't stopped being just a little bit excited every time.

Slightly more interesting were the visit from the architect to draw up plans for the house preparatory to designing the new kitchen, and a Barn Dance. I can't remember having been to a Barn Dance before, but I was almost too tired to enjoy it. It was in a marquee in a field with a fish and chip supper included, and six of us Stripped the Willow and Gay Gordoned along with the natives of Old Milverton until a very late hour.

I've finally started the big Ebay project, which is intended to monetise dad's eclectic collection of postal mechanisation ephemera. Contrarily, I have started with some other random items from the loft so that I get the hang of how it all works and get into the groove of putting things up for auction on a pretty regular basis. It's a project that will probably run for a year at least, so you can expect occasional updates.

At work I have had a slight disagreement with a colleague about what exactly my priorities should be - I was asked to cover a clinic for a colleague at very short notice, which meant I wasn't available for the regular clinic also taking place. The benefit of this contretemps is that there's a chance that my priorities will be assigned formally at last, rather than me having to make my own choices based on nothing more than what I think is the right thing to do.

It's not entirely surprising that my blog audience is not growing given this poor quality of content, although strangely the day after I wrote this my blog audience did indeed increase by one individual - welcome to medusarog! And today there may be another - Parkrun Simon! I like to name check each known reader - I think everyone's had a mention now. If you're reading and I don't know about you (or have forgotten), I'd be delighted to say hello. Welcome to the place where, really, nothing much happens at all, and join the few regular readers in my small circle of family and friends.

Pharmacy museum, Krakow