The C-word

Val Thorens, March 2020

My second ski trip was as successful as the first, after a rocky time leading up to the holiday when two people had to drop out - one woman because her husband had a stroke, and another man because he had damaged his knee. Luckily we managed to find two replacements.

We went to the same ski area as for my first holiday this year so I was slightly familiar with the runs and could make my own way round on the last day. The winter had been warm and spring had definitely arrived, so there was some rain and much melting of snow (also some fresh falls), but enough at high level to keep us swishing with satisfaction down the slopes.

We were a large group - 14 lovely people with varying experience and competence. Most of the time we split up into groups of similar speed and skill. One day was pretty cloudy but visibility was variable and I went out; the next day visibility was nil and it snowed a lot so I didn't ski. I had a wander around the town, some people went bowling, others sat in bars or had coffees, some stayed at the chalet and played cards. On other days we skied in bright, hot sunshine, which made conditions a bit slushy at low altitudes and at the end of the day.

With this many people in the group it helps to have a volunteer who makes decisions about the route and navigates as we go along. The main leader was the chap who had the thankless task of booking the whole holiday (and dealing with the consequences of those two people dropping out), but one of the others took over one day for an area that he was familiar with, and I even led for half a day to make sure we went to an area I wanted to ski. My period of leading didn't go as planned because one of the key pistes I was hoping to ski was closed and required a significant wait for a cable car and a major detour.

On the last day we had one of those situations when nobody particularly wanted to be in charge. There was also thick cloud in the valleys, so we started off at high level with all 14 of us together, stopping frequently to make sure everyone had caught up and to have long discussions about where we should go next which mostly went: "I don't really mind," multiplied 14 times. At one crossroads a decision was eventually made to go one way, and I decided to split off from the main group and go the other way because I couldn't bear the slowness and indecision, and also because there were a few runs I really wanted to ski.

I know when I'm skiing on my own that I need to make the time for breaks, so I did have a morning stop for hot chocolate and a lunchtime stop for my cheese roll. But I couldn't overcome my tendency to go for just one more run, and my legs were tired, and the unpisted run was lumpy even though not steep, and I fell over onto my shoulder just as I did a few years ago. Not serious, and it will sort itself out eventually, but last time it took about nine months and in the meantime my left arm is a bit restricted in its upward movement..

While we were out there in France we were all following various aspects of reporting on the Coronavirus pandemic. One chap had a friend who arrived in an Italian ski resort just as they closed the whole country down - his party was flown back to the UK the next day. Our chalet hosts (young men aged 19 and 22) were theorising on what might happen next week - there were 13 people due to arrive on the day we left. There were no particular restrictions in place and restaurants and bars were open as normal. We congratulated ourselves on a successful holiday as we arrived back in the UK on Saturday, and then on Sunday the news came that all French ski resorts would be closed with immediate effect.

The group after us would already have arrived at the chalet, including one guest who had booked only the previous day, to be faced with no skiing at all. We were all OK though. I had already started on my list of jobs - laundry, cooking, arranging the team for badminton matches this week - when news came through that one of our party had woken on Sunday with a high temperature.

So throughout Sunday messages were flying round - about his condition, about our different employers and their policies, about the guidance from Public Health England and the NHS 111 phone line. Those who could were going to stay at home rather than go into work, but my work can't be done from home and all the guidance said that you only self-isolate if you or those you live with have symptoms, not if people you happen to have been on holiday with have symptoms.

Since then things have moved fast, to the point that the situation is quite different while I type the end of this post compared with when I started. On the plus side, his temperature returned to normal after 24 hours. On the minus side, the panic buying, social distancing, daily updates from the hospital management, local, regional and national policies that change from day to day, the closure of my regular groups (badminton, Buddhism and music) and the cancellation of all of my spring and summer holiday plans. My diary has gone from a joyful mess of evening engagements, weekend breaks and longer holidays to a blank page with 13½ hours a week at work and the rest at home, save for the occasional shop for fresh and perishable foods.

I'm sure I will find more to write about the C-word soon. But I'm fine and so are my friends and family as far as I am aware, and we are all doing the best we can in the circumstances.

Catching up

February 2020

Since my last post I've been off skiing for a week in France, and then come back to a punishing schedule of having to go to work for three days, two evenings of Buddhist activity, meeting up with Lola II for a day trip to Oxford, a replacement filling in a back tooth, and a weekend with sister D.

The skiing was with lovely friends and we all had a good time even though we lost out on one day because of bad weather. I travelled over on the Eurostar overnight ski train which means I had two nights of no sleep but a full eight days of skiing. The return trip coincided with Storm Ciara and trains back home from London were terribly disrupted. Instead of a straightforward 2 hours to Leamington it took more than 4 hours and the last leg was from Coventry on a bus, which I had to direct to the station because there was a closed road and a diversion, presumably due to fallen debris.

A recent casualty of the rain has been my front door, which has been performing its annual trick of swelling in the wet weather. It had got so bad before I went away that in order to secure the house I had to force it shut from the inside and then leave the house through the garage. I had a go at shaving it down when I got back but in the end gave in and called the trusty Ilf, who came round the same day and sorted it out. I'm seriously considering getting an alternative and less temperamental front door.

At work I'm finding it quite difficult to fit in everything that I'm required to do in under two days a week, and going away for a week makes it even more difficult. However, I have discovered that one of my Diabetes Dietitian colleagues has been asked to stand in for our Team Leader, which is a welcome development as she is pretty much doing that job anyway and is very competent and nice to work with. Advertising and appointing officially to the post has been delayed because the factors that led to the resignation of the previous two incumbents are still in place, but this may be changing over the next six months as three key members of staff are leaving. The other Diabetes Dietitian who has been off sick for about seven months shows no sign of returning to work, so we are still short of two people.

One of the extra jobs that we are all supposed to do is to supervise student Dietitians on their placements with us. Being part time and not based on the main site I have got away with not doing as much supervising as some others, but I found my name on a list of such people who were being asked to do a bit more. So I stepped up and volunteered to supervise a Peer Assisted Learning activity about biochemistry, i.e. the results of blood tests and how they impact on a Dietitian's role.

I had to go over to the main hospital where the four students were waiting. Their task was to find out all the reference ranges for lots of different factors - electrolytes, liver enzymes, blood components and much more - and then consider two ward-based case studies. The difficulty for me was that I hardly ever have to review biochemistry results except for those connected with diabetes, and the case studies were nothing to do with diabetes. So I'd already had to spend some time with one of the other Dietitians to go through the case studies and make sure I knew the answers myself. But it was fine, I'm one step ahead of them and they believe I know more than they do so that's all it takes.

What else? A big meeting at work that went quite well. A lovely day in Oxford with Lola II, even though the restaurant we wanted to have lunch at was closed and the film we wanted to see was sold out. The weekend with Sister D was good too, even though the weather was not. A proposed walk with the Buddhists coincided with Storm Dennis so nobody turned up except the regular team, and we swiftly retreated to a cafe out of the rain and wind. We held an impromptu team meeting and got quite a bit done in the hour we spent in the cafe.

I still don't feel like I've quite caught up with everything that needs to be done since being away for a week, but I need to remember that catching up with everything that needs to be done isn't always necessary. A surprising number of things can actually wait until I get round to them. All aboard the next week's rollercoaster!

Jolly holiday

Les Arcs 1800, March 2019

There has been a hiatus for the usual reason - I've been away. Skiing, as it happens, just once this year because my forward planning was slightly haphazard and also because of my other big upcoming trip, which I might have mentioned already but can't be bothered to check. If I haven't mentioned it you'll just have to wait.

Skiing was with a group of friends I hadn't been with before - they all knew each other while I knew just three from badminton club #2. The group has expanded and contracted - from what I can gather it started with a group of GPs, most of whom have now stopped coming, but grew with the addition of badminton players, relatives, neighbours, friends, and two people who happened to be staying in the same chalet one year and subsequently latched onto the group. This year we were thirteen, and took over a whole chalet in the resort of Les Arcs 1800.

The standard of skiing was variable, but we generally split into three groups - the fast group, the improvers and people who have got too old for the fast group, and the beginners. I started in the improvers group for the first day, where two of the three people I already knew were skiing. After that I joined the fast group and was by no means the slowest.

We were on a regime of half board at the chalet although the two chalet staff had two days off out of the six we stayed. They were not the best cooks, and the company policy seemed to call for an ambition for meals that they were really not capable of. They would have been better off producing vats of bolognaise or chilli rather than the gritty pea and spinach risotto or the dry fish in filo parcels. They did manage a splendid pea and bacon soup though, and their puddings weren't bad, although in the interest of weight management I declined the pudding most days, but not the cake that awaited us at four o'clock (on the days that the staff were there).

Joining the large group was rather overwhelming for me at first, but it improved once I got to know who was who, and I'd be happy to join them again next year. If they ask me.

I do stuff and stuff gets done

Trois Vallees, France, March 2018

I've been away and then very much over-committed in the evenings. Work is mildly annoying, skiing was great, badminton is similarly great, and meditation is OK (we've had a change of group leader and I'm having to get used to a different style). Ilf has varnished and painted a whole lot of stuff, plus he kindly switched my fridge door round and did a few other small jobs. He's due to be back again next week to finish the painting, after which there will be tiling. I have visited a tile shop and had a very entertaining conversation with one of the employees who I hope will be guiding my tile choices - now I have to measure the kitchen, which perhaps with hindsight I should have done before going to the shop.

That's all for now. Life is hectic.

February

Seville, November 2016

Another successful Gulloebl Film Festival has taken place chez Lola II and Mr M, with the usual high quality films and hospitality. My favourites this time: Grosse Point Blank (which was much more funny than I remember), and Best in Show (which was just as funny as I remember). My contribution was to drive mum and dad over to join in - the first time they have been to the house for quite a long time.

Meanwhile, the LRTP continues with Ilf varnishing stairs and kitchen doors and painting kitchen skirting, walls and ceiling. It all looks beautiful. I have, at last, felt able to just sit and read a book for an hour or two without the nagging feeling that I should be doing something. Of course there are still plenty of things I should be doing, but at least I can relax some of the time.

I have made an investment in buying a ski helmet and ski boots. The procedure for fitting the boots included measurements, a certain amount of trial and error, and experimenting with different manufacturers. Sadly the ones that fitted best were plain black and white rather than the blue and electric pink ones with furry lining. The inners were softened by heating and moulded to the shape of my feet. I've been wearing them around the house with rags tied around the bottom to protect my lovely floors, and the fit seems perfect. I'll be trying them out in the field next week on my second ski trip of the year.

The main thing bothering me at themoment is entirelymyown fault. In a distracted state I looked at my laptop keyboard and wasmildly dismayed at its filthycondition. So Iremoved the space bar and did a fair amount of cleaning witha small paint brush. Canyou see what has happened since then?

Ski Folgarida

It was a great holiday, run by the Ski Club of Great Britain. I discovered that this organisation originated from a time when keen Britons lived in ski resorts, and the Club linked them together so they could visit each others' resorts and ski together with local knowledge. Times have changed, but the focus is still on higher ability and more technical skiing (and snowboarding). I joined one of their holidays in 2014, and this was a similar one that also included three days instruction. On the other three days we were supposed to be guided by a Ski Club Leader, but he turned out to be an instructor too and so we got instructed on all six days, and often more by the Leader than by the official instructor.

The Italian resort Folgarida is a long way from Milan airport with more than three hours on the bus to the hotel, which was right on the piste but well away from the village, which meant they tried hard to put on entertainments in the evenings. One night there was a pianist/singer, another night we had a local cheese and meat tasting, but I missed much of the evening activity because after dinner I'd generally had enough and went to bed.

There were 14 of us including the Leader, and what an interesting group of people they were. A pilot, an economist at the Bank of England, a Forensic Psychologist, a BP executive, a retired owner of a children's nursery who had previously been a ballet dancer, a retired photographer, a BBC website editor, a couple of retired lawyers. Mealtime conversation was a great deal more stimulating than what I'm used to at work. I got on well with most, but not at all with two of them.

The skiing went well - I was initially put in the more advanced group, but I switched for the last two days because the numbers worked better and it got me away from one of the people I didn't get on with, which is when I discovered I didn't get on with the second one. Unlike the previous Ski Club holiday we weren't forced off piste all the time, but did a very little bit of off piste much more successfully than before. One of the highlights was a long quiet gently sloping run through the woods, another was the opportunity to have one's picture taken at the start of a World Cup downhill slope, and a third was an interesting local liqueur called 'Bombardino'.

As always I made a trip to a local supermarket where there was no interesting chocolate, so instead I bought some interesting pasta with a recipe for local dish 'pizzoccheri'. I also bought some of the delicious cheese and salami from the hotel cheese-and-meat tasting. The food in general was good, with a couple of oddities thrown in. We were given menus each evening to choose the following evening's dishes without much explanation, so one of my main meal choices turned out to be three very large (~250g) pieces of cheese, accompanied only by a teaspoon of honey and a teaspoon of mustard. The cheeses were very tasty, but not what I would have chosen for dinner had I known. On another night the 'grilled cheese with caramelised onion' turned out to be just that - a small browned onion on a plate next to two slices of cheese that were slightly melted. Luckily I hadn't chosen that option.

At the end of the week my skiing ability was rated exactly the same as it had been four years ago, which surprised me because I feel a great deal more competent now than I did then. Then another 13-hour journey to get home, where I have been feeling a little sad at the lack of interesting people and their stories, but happy that I have another ski trip planned for six weeks' time.

Skiing again

Not much of a view, March 2017

I've been on holiday and had the most wonderful time skiing in France. Each year I seem to enjoy skiing more, and this year I felt as though my technique had improved as well, which made it even more satisfying.

I wasn't going to ski this year what with the expense of the LTRP and all, but I booked a week off work anyway because annual leave must be taken or it's lost. Then the friends I went skiing with last year told me that they were going again and it happened to be the same week that I'd already booked as leave. So I didn't take much persuading.

Five of us travelled by train, one flew in. Four of the five who travelled by train did the travelling by day and staying in hotels overnight, but I thought I'd save the extra day of annual leave and took the overnight Eurostar both ways. Eurostar no longer run the proper sleeper trains, so it was ten hours sitting up in a chair, but a minute before departure I still had an empty seat next to me.

Unfortunately as we pulled out of St Pancras two mothers turned up, each with a child aged about three or four, and we all moved around to accommodate them. One child was drearily moaning (apparently she had a tummy ache) and the other was literally screaming (no idea why). I hoped that each would be tired out due to these exertions, and they did both sleep, but one of them woke up much too early and conversed with her mother in piercing tones which her mother did nothing to suppress. I didn't sleep much on that journey. I didn't sleep much on the way back either, and that time there were no children and I had nobody next to me, so I have to conclude that I'm just not particularly good at sleeping on trains.

No idea

Despite the sleep deprivation I managed nearly a full day of skiing on arrival, went to bed relatively early and was none the worse for it. The weather was quite sunny for a day and a half, and then it started to snow. Friends at a nearby resort fared worse when an avalanche closed all lifts and pistes for a whole day, but we skied on through heavy snow, low cloud and on one occasion wind stronger than I have ever experienced. One of the party commented very accurately that when we were inside the cloud it was like skiing inside a ping pong ball. I found it quite amusing to be unable to tell where the slope in front of me went; others were not so entertained. We headed back to the apartment a bit earlier that day. The last couple of days were rather hot and sunny, so we finished with long days of good skiing.

The apartment was in the same complex as last year but a bit smaller, so we were all sharing rooms. In the evenings we went out to eat a couple of times, or stayed in and watched a film. Lunches were either in piste restaurants or late lunch back at the apartment on the days when we came back early. I did a lot of lovely reading, and even lovelier lot of skiing. It was a great holiday which put me in quite a tetchy mood going back to work on Monday, and then through the course of Tuesday I developed a cold, perhaps derived from someone on the train or at work.

So now while snuffling and coughing and generally feeling full of cold I'm pondering how to do even more skiing next year. In the meantime I've restarted the ebay campaign with the next batch of historical postal ephemera, but this will never raise enough to fund snow-related activity! Also I've tried and failed to consider suitable lighting in the new kitchen, and played badminton and meditated as usual, albeit accompanied by much coughing and nose-blowing (not so much during the meditation). What I ought to do today is to research kitchen lighting, but it's not an attractive option.

Ski France and Home News

Moûtiers, April 2016

It's been a busy fortnight for me, so nothing unusual there. There was my second ski holiday of 2016, followed by a week containing (as well as work) one badminton club night, two badminton matches (we lost both) and an introduction to Buddhism and meditation. I'm behind with everything, not just this blog.

Before Easter I managed to finish the dress I've been making for sister D, and posted it off to her. That dress pattern has been very good value - three dresses made and possibly one more to come! I also managed to negotiate a 9% discount on a new ski jacket and trousers, which were still jolly expensive but fit perfectly, unlike my previous ski clothing which was low price/low quality and bought for a larger version of me.

The ski holiday was with friends who had arranged all transport and accommodation independently in order to maximise the time available for skiing. On a normal package you fly out and arrive in the resort on day 1, head back on day 8 and have six days skiing in between.  What we did was travel by train overnight to arrive in the resort and ski on day 1, and head back on day 8 after a morning's skiing. So eight days skiing in total.

The travelling wasn't bad - Eurostar to Paris, then local sleeper train to Moûtiers, then local bus to Méribel, and the same in reverse for the way back. We had some time to kill in Paris on the way out and in Moûtiers on the way back, so there was a tiny bit of French sightseeing as well. Ski conditions were variable - one gloriously sunny day, one day when everything shut down at lunchtime because of wind, one day when clouds were a bit low and visibility came and went quite suddenly, the other days a combination of sun, cloud, wind and rain. But we skied every day and it was fine.

I only fell over properly once, but unfortunately I did something nasty to my left shoulder which is still rather painful. If it had been my right shoulder I could have avoided playing in those two lost badminton matches - thankfully we are being demoted next season so maybe we'll manage to win a match or two next year.

The introduction to Buddhism and meditation was very interesting, and the first of four weekly sessions. Nothing revelatory to announce here yet, but I'll keep you posted because I think I'll have something to say by the end. At the weekend I journeyed south to help mum clear out some of the accumulated detritus of a lifetime, which is ultimately necessary but rather dispiriting, and which I am starting to regret slightly. Anyway, it's in a box not in the bin so there is time to retrieve the situation. Maybe my gay abandon has resulted from the clearing out of 15 years worth of accumulated detritus from the garage at Lola Towers in preparation for remedial work. Still not finished and more trips required to the tip.

The Lola Towers Renovation Project (LTRP) continues apace with yet another workman coming round to look at some small jobs - very small in comparison with the garage, but if completed then they will add materially to my personal happiness (at least as much as learning to meditate, if not more). The only down side is that about half of the small jobs need input from me in terms of locating and buying things. It's not enough to tell the workman that I want this or that light fitting replaced, I've actually got to choose what I want it replaced with. Not easy for a non-shopper like me.

The workman - let's follow a theme to its fullest extent and call him Ilf - seems like a nice chap, enthusiastic and very talkative, and he certainly describes himself as the kind of workman I want. He's actually coming back to get started tomorrow, so either he's very keen and sees the potential goldmine that the LTRP represents, or he's not very good and hasn't got any other work at the moment. We'll soon find out, and you will be among the first to know about it.

I have also reached the point where my expanding waistline can no longer be ignored, and I have designed and instituted a set of Diet Rules for the next 5 weeks. These are designed to disrupt the bad habits I have acquired and embed a new set of habits that I hope will become the new normal. You may imagine the type of situation I am trying to prevent if I let on that one of the rules is 'No more than 100g of dark chocolate a week'. I'm not prepared to reveal the level of weekly chocolate that previously prevailed.

Ski Bulgaria

Borovets ski resort

My first ski holiday of 2016 - how lucky am I - has been in Borovets, Bulgaria. Not a destination I've visited before, in fact I had no idea where this former Eastern bloc country was located. Even after a week there I had done very little cultural tourism, and when I asked my companion J whether she could think of any significant Bulgarians, the best she could come up with was Uncle Bulgaria, the Womble. Not strictly a native Bulgarian, as we are pretty sure that a) he's from Wimbledon, and b) he isn't real.

Having looked at the map, I now know that Bulgaria's neighbours to the south are Greece and Turkey, west are Macedonia and Serbia, with Romania to the north and the Black Sea to the east. Our flights, unusually, were at the end of the day, so we were offered a short tour of Sofia on our last day, and were guided around some of the more significant churches in that city. Even the guide couldn't think of any Bulgarians we might have heard of, except a footballer who really doesn't count.

The journey to the resort was spoiled only by too much snow. The coach driver reached the resort, but then declared that he couldn't safely continue without fitting the snow chains. This took quite a long time, during which a faction in the coach comprising young lads who'd had a good deal too much to drink proceeded to offend the various parents of young children with their inappropriate language and behaviour, and were eventually asked to make their own way onwards by taxi to avoid any further scenes.

It took another hour for the coach to proceed at a snail's pace to the hotel, which would have taken about 20 minutes walk if I'd known the way. I travelled separately from my companion J who was flying from Gatwick rather than Birmingham, and there'd been quite a lengthy booking process to try and manage this non-standard arrangement. I'd been led to believe there were no twin rooms left so we might have to share a double, but on arrival we actually had a room each, which was an enormous bonus given the amount of time I spent in my room, coughing.

Day 1 - the snow from the night before had mostly melted, but there was still enough to be getting on with. The package pricing meant that after renting skis and boots and buying the lift pass, taking six days of lessons was effectively free, so despite both of us being fully able to ski competently, we were placed in a group with five others of a similar standard under the tutelage of Yav. Yav was much more interested in the progress of two young Dutch women than two middle-aged Brits, so we stuck with him for a couple of hours but then broke away to do our own thing, especially when the group settled down to have an enormous lunch. We didn't want much more than a sandwich for lunch, the ingredients of which we shamelessly stole from the hotel breakfast buffet.

The hotel was quite smart and included a swimming pool, sauna, steam room and 'relax zone'. I'm pretty sure that this was where I picked up the germ that is still bothering me, and caused me to ski really badly on day 2, and then spend the whole of day 3 in bed, alternately shivering and sweating. I know it was bad when I didn't feel like eating anything, despite that delicious hotel buffet.

On day 4 I felt well enough to get back out on the slopes, but it was cold, windy, raining in the resort and snowing at the top of the mountain. J and I went right to the top in the gondola at the start of the day, but decided it wasn't going to be much fun and came back down again - me to return to bed, and J to do some investigation of the resort.

Days 5 and 6 were better - the weather was sunny with a very light dusting of snow on top of sheet ice. Skiing wasn't straightforward but at least we managed a few hours each day, followed by horse riding (J), shopping (me) and a pleasant forest walk (both). My shopping trip resulted in some mystery Bulgarian salami which has turned out to be absolutely delicious, several bars of Romanian chocolate, and a little ceramic tile decorated with a lizard, which makes me smile whenever I see it.

We met many different nationalities and heard some interesting stories, including from the portly English chap dressed as Superman who was part of a stag party. He told us that the groom was back in the hotel, having broken his hip falling over while out in the resort the previous night. Not to be beaten, another group who overheard this story told us that one of their number had broken his ankle falling out of his bunk bed in the hotel. This conversation all started when we were asked for some painkillers from a man who'd hurt his knee before his holiday even started when he went for some practice at a ski slope at home.

The two of us escaped unscathed apart from my ongoing cough, and my return trip was entirely uneventful, which is how I like it. Apart from not enough snow and my illness, it was a fine holiday, and on reflection I have to say the absolute highlight was the wonderful soup served in the hotel each evening (two different kinds every day), along with the menu of fifteen different flavours of hot chocolate. I only discovered the hot chocolate menu towards the end of the trip, and only managed to sample one - dark chocolate and coffee flavour - which was very fine indeed.

Photo credits: in this post they're all J's pictures. My photos are trapped on my camera since my laptop stopped recognising the memory card. I have ordered a gadget that should allow me to transfer them, but it hasn't arrived yet. There are a couple of photos on my phone, but hey, I haven't got round to dealing with them yet. You'll probably get a random skiing photo in some future post.

Sports Headband with built-in speakers

Harrogate, July 2015

My mobile contract is with EE, and not long ago they notified all their customers about a free offer of a 'Power Bar'. This turned out to be about the size and heft of two of those large torch batteries, with two sockets on one end and a short cable. The idea is that you charge it up by connecting the cable between a USB port (e.g. computer) and one of the Power Bar sockets, and then if your mobile phone runs out of juice when you're out and about, you turn the cable round and charge the phone from the Power Bar. The other part of the offer was that if you were in town and your Power Bar wasn't charged up, you could take it into an EE shop and simply swap it for one that was. All for free. It seemed too good to be true.

So I went and got one, and even used it once, and then it wouldn't hold its charge any more. So I popped into an EE shop and tried to swap it for a new one, but they told me that the scheme was on hold because of a problem with overheating. True, the gadget did get very hot when it was working. They expected to be able to re-start the scheme once the problem had been fixed.

It clearly wasn't fixable, because the next thing was that the Power Bars were being recalled, and what's more they were prepared to give us all a £20 credit to spend on EE accessories online if we brought our Power Bars back to the shop and handed them in. So that's what I did next, not knowing what I would do with the £20. Back home I browsed the online shop, and was thinking about getting a better cover for my phone when I saw the Sports Headband with built-in speakers for your mobile device. And then I saw a Sports Headband with wireless bluetooth capability as well as built-in speakers for your mobile device, so I could listen to music on my phone while it's in my pocket rather than trailing a wire through my clothing.

I dithered somewhat about which option to go for before deciding on the wireless bluetooth one, and only after I'd placed the order did I remember that my iPod doesn't have bluetooth, so I'd only be able to listen to media via my phone, which has only a fraction of the music and books that are on my iPod. Never mind, it's only for my running a couple of times a week, although because of all the badminton I haven't done any running for a while.

On Tuesday I spent a hour at the Snowdome to remind myself how to ski. It was the perfect opportunity to road test the headband, and it worked a treat - except for the fact that the Snowdome wireless connection wasn't reliable enough to stream music from the Internet so I had to rely on either my downloaded tracks or use some of my data package. But it was still good, and the skiing went very well too. When I got home I managed to buy travel insurance and some Bulgarian currency, so now I'm all set and looking forward to the forthcoming ski trip.

Post holiday lull

Wasdale, Lake District, December 2015

Since returning from the Lake District, I have been assiduously anointing my knee with miraculous liniment, which I picked up on a skiing holiday. Either it's working or the knee injury wasn't very bad (although it felt pretty bad at the time), because I'm descending stairs very successfully again, playing badminton and even running. So that's good news.

It also means that I'm back to thinking about another ski trip. I was describing my plans to one of the other Lake District holidaymakers, who commented that she had annual leave from work that she didn't know what to do with, so perhaps we could go skiing together? That sounded like a good idea, but unfortunately her knee is playing up now, so we'll see how things go. Being over 50 is no joke.

The disadvantage of the skiing plan is that the only practical week I can take off work coincides with the Fourth Annual Lola II and Mr M Film Festival. The schedule of films has been announced, so I have lined them all up in my DVD rental list and will watch them anyway.

I have been neglecting my blog duties, and although I've been doing a lot of things, absolutely none of them is interesting enough to feature here except that Lola II and Mr M visited last weekend, so there were some fun and games. We had a massage each, went out for delicious food, and on Sunday we created some new Chinema trailers for the film festival. Poor Lola II (and to a lesser extent, Mr M) suffered terribly in my cold house, but they have planted the seed of an idea that I will explore further for my planned new kitchen - underfloor heating.

Ski Italy

Courmayeur, February 2015

No time for much blogging, I'm still keeping busy but thought I'd just jot down a brief report for those who care what I've been up to. I've been skiing, in Courmayeur in Italy, and it was good. There were a couple of overcast days at the start when it snowed, then a couple of perfectly sunny days, and some that were in between.

Because I'm keen and showed up for the first minibus transfer before the lifts even opened, I met a group of seven Scots staying at my hotel who were happy to have me skiing with them, and equally happy when I peeled off to do my own thing. My own thing was not spending a lot of time having breaks, having small lunches, carrying on skiing for as long as I could manage, then back to the hotel for a shower before settling down for the long, long wait until dinner was served. Last year, when Mr A and I went to Austria, the hotel dished up dinner at six - perfect. This hotel didn't start the dinner service until half past seven, by which time I had been trying to find any sort of distraction for two hours or more in order to prevent me from eating my own shoes.

I got to know the guests at neighbouring tables at dinner as well as my Scottish adopted ski family. It wasn't too bad at all being a solo skier, and I had company when I wanted it, but most of the time I didn't. As well as 6 to 7 hours skiing a day I read five books while I was there... bliss. No injuries, but I don't think my technique improved, unlike the last time when I had three days of instruction included in the package. It did, however, cost half as much this time compared with that trip.

Back home - laundry, badminton, work and more. I should have a relatively quiet weekend, so maybe I'll have time to write about my annual review and the latest very low carb group meeting. Off to a badminton match now - ciao!

Future holidays

King's Lynn, August 2014

Every so often, I spend a week over the New Year holiday period with a group of friends at a large property somewhere in the UK (although one year we were in Ireland) - I have reported on this before (three times over the lifetime of this and the previous blog). Most of the previous holidays were arranged and booked by one particular couple. This year, during a weekend I spent meeting up with some of said friends including the couple who usually make the arrangements, I nobly volunteered Lola II to arrange another of the New Year shindigs.

Somehow it has turned out that the bulk of the work so far has fallen to me instead of Lola II. This is probably only fair, since she didn't have any say in the volunteering process. So off I went, getting people to commit to joining in, finding properties to house 21 people, discovering that the level of enthusiasm meant that we needed a bigger place, collating preferences for four different properties, and at last I hope we have reached a consensus on a suitable house for us. Now my fingers are crossed that it is still available, although we do have a backup option.

That took up quite a bit of time and headspace this week, alongside the usual badminton and work. So my outstanding jobs that are far less attractive (buying holiday insurance, breakdown cover, changing utility supplier, and - worst of all - clearing moss and mud off the hall roof and gutter) have been neglected, as they are likely to continue to be neglected until I have no choice but to knuckle down. The holiday insurance will probably be first, given that the date of the holiday is set and not far off now.

And on that very subject, I took myself off to the Snowdome to put in an hour's practice, so that my first turns on Italian snow are made with some confidence. It had to be at a weekend, so I thought I'd get in early on Sunday morning hoping to start before the main rush of the day, but no such luck, it was teeming. Quite a few were in groups being taught, so they weren't getting in the way too much, but no full speed zipping down the slope. It was still worth it, even though just for an hour on a tiny slope full of beginners. I came home buzzing with excitement and anticipation for my holiday, which is as it should be.

This holiday activity inspired me to consider what other plans I might make for the coming year, and I have two or three more ideas. One slight difficulty is that the lumbering hulk of bureaucracy that is the NHS manages annual leave for its staff through an electronic interface which deals in hours - in the current year, my allocation was around 273 hours, which includes Bank Holidays. I cannot assume next year will be the same because a) you get a different allocation when you work part time compared with full time, pro rata (last year I worked 6 months on 27 hours a week, and 6 months full time) and b) I have now completed 5 years service with the NHS, which entitles me to a few more days, and I can't remember exactly how many.

So now I have to a) find out how many hours I should get next year b) find out how many of these are taken up by Bank Holidays c) convert the remaining hours to days and thus determine what I can plan for. My current thinking is that it shouldn't make any difference about the part-time vs full-time working, because although my leave hours are reduced because of part time working, I will also need to take fewer hours as annual leave. It's complicated, but it's rather delightful to be considering some lovely trips over the next 12 months at this darkest, coldest time of year.

Half a century

Block C, Bletchley Park

I can't believe it's a week since I last wrote something. Maybe time is passing more quickly, or more likely, there's much less that I feel like sharing publicly.

I have reached my half century without serious setbacks, and I feel most thankful. I enjoy what I do most days, and have been taking a bit more care to pursue activities that are both mentally and physically satisfying. Watching films and reading books as well as working, learning, writing and listening to music fulfil the intellectual criteria, and I've continued to play badminton twice a week even through the recent heatwave, when drinking more than a litre of water over two hours is often not enough.

Then there's the running. I completed my challenge of learning to run, and wrote about doing two Parkruns, so I knew I could run for 5 km. Looking back, I wrote at the time that I wouldn't rule out doing more, and in the last couple of weeks I've been out running on my own and did another Parkrun, and faster than before. It's incomprehensible. I still don't really like running, but I'm still doing it, even when it means getting up early at the weekend. If you'd told me even six months ago that I'd be running for the joy of it, I would have laughed in your face. I'll let you know when I've worked out what's going on.

Just to add to all of this, I decided not to let a whole summer go by without skiing, so I took myself off to the Snowdome to have a bit of a practice, thinking that it would be pretty quiet on a midweek day in July. It wasn't that busy, but still a few groups learning to ski. I found I hadn't got as rusty as I expected, and that an hour on the slope was enough to get me back in the swing of things. Time to book the next holiday?

Mr A has got a contract job, which is very good news, but as with all things relating to Mr A, it is stressful. There is a major deadline imminent, and no doubt some other deadlines to follow, which always puts the pressure on. He has, however, been getting some very good results in his latest Open University module. No particular news to report from Lola II and Mr M, who continue to get up to mischief at every opportunity. No news from the pub next door, and our house is still shabby but functional. The garden is even more overgrown than before, which is to be expected since I haven't been out there except to pick some mint and unblock a drain after a thunderstorm.

We still have no working doorbell, and our (landline) telephone system relies on four handsets with rechargeable batteries, of which three seem to have stopped recharging. The batteries seem to be custom models soldered into the handsets, making replacement complicated. Note to those who telephone the house - if you leave a message we can play it back on the base station and then hunt down a handset that works, or phone back using a mobile. There is very little chance of us actually finding a working handset in time to answer your call. Or if we do, the handset will probably fail within a minute, cutting you off. And our mobile phones will probably not be in the same room as us...

Other recent events: a trip oop north to a barbeque with H&B, which was lovely. The mid-season falconry centre barbeque, which was pretty good considering most people there communicate better with birds than with strangers (I don't necessarily exclude myself from that description). A trip back to Bletchley Park, which has developed enormously since my last visit back in 2008. Re-reading that post, I learned a lot more detail on that visit about the actual decryption methods, presumably because I was part of a small academic group. This time the information was much more general: how the place was run, who was there, how it felt to be one of the workers rather than the exceptional genius of Turing, Welchman and the rest. The entry fee allows repeat visits for a year, and although I was there for about five hours I didn't see all that I wanted, so I'm planning to go back next week before my holiday ends.

Mr A and I have also visited our southern friends who have bought a nearby area of forest, and are working to restore it to its original state by gradually getting rid of the planted softwoods and allowing native woodland to regenerate. They are also having fun camping there, and have started to create a mountain bike track and an obstacle course as well as hosting the annual 'Run Forest Run' (which, for those who have not seen the Tom Hanks film, is a rather amusing reference to Forrest Gump).

That's it. I've got stuff to do, packing for my birthday treat: a weekend at the Cambridge Folk Festival, where I have previously spent my 30th and 40th birthdays (and possibly also my 20th, although it's too far back for me to have recorded that attendance). Here's to the next half century!

At last

Les Deux Alpes, March 2014

I hope it's worth the wait, but just imagine my situation, each day knowing that there is no blog post waiting to be published. I have sinned, it's been a long month since my last confession. There has been a lot going on. I don't think there's ever been such a long gap between posts.

The last time I wrote was the week before my holiday. I went to the Snowdome to practise (what a good idea that was), dad went into hospital for his back operation, I went to work, badminton, the usual. Then it was off to France skiing for a week, home again and a lot of important admin stuff to catch up with, dad out of hospital, back to work, a Diabetes UK meeting. Last weekend was even more hectic: a friend over from Germany for a brief stay in order to sign paperwork so he could sell his house, and... The Hen Weekend.

Holiday

The holiday was great. It was a good group, almost everyone was congenial, and my biggest problems were a) the people who didn't look like their names, and b) breaking away to spend time on my own without appearing anti-social. In the end, I had to explain and apologise to the people who didn't look like their names because I kept calling them by the different names that I had conjured out of nowhere. I just resigned myself to appearing anti-social.

A vast amount of snow fell on our arrival day/night, which is heaven for experienced and skilful skiers. Since the instructor was an experienced and skilful skier, she took the group up where the snow was deep on our very first morning, when everyone was just getting the hang of skiing again after a long break. We were not experienced or skilful, and it was carnage. But nobody was hurt, and the rest of the week was fabulous. I am in two minds about repeating this type of holiday; I think on the whole I would prefer a less organised group and private lessons instead.

Work

The Structured Education sessions have been interesting. I missed week 2 because of skiing, which was a shame because it was the big one from the Dietetic point of view - focus on carb counting, weighing and measuring food. Week 3 involved talking about alcohol and eating out, and the nurses covered exercise. I am looking forward to when I start to lead sessions, which looks as though it won't be until June. Otherwise, consultations remain much the same, and I still find it fascinating to listen to people's stories about their lives, whether positive or negative. And the Diabetes department has already arranged its Christmas party.

Diabetes UK is dominating my thoughts at the moment, as I'm preparing my 30-minute talk for the weekend and attending another of their weird local meetings. My name is on the programme for Saturday's Diabetes Awareness Day, and at the meeting still nobody greets me with any glimmer of recognition. I did gain some understanding of the physiology of weight gain due to injecting insulin peripherally rather than having it released by the pancreas, so that was good. I left before the raffle. I really think I might not go to any more meetings.

Hens

Lola II decided to have a relatively low key hen weekend with just two of her friends and me. I was in charge of entertainments, although we agreed the basic agenda between us. Lola II put in some specific requests: Yorkshire puddings; a steamed chocolate and apricot pudding; sleeping in a tent; no veils, strippers or other tacky accoutrements of the vile and tasteless hen parties. With no time for blogging, I spent my weekday evenings making stew and puddings and cooking veg as well as preparing a guided tour of the delights of Leamington Spa based on the Discovering Britain website. Mr A put up the tent, which was christened the Hen House.

It went very well - we walked the walk, talked the talk, placed a bet on the Grand National, watched one of the worst movies I have ever seen (this was a mistake - it was well reviewed and featured quality actors like Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave), ate stew and Yorkshire puddings and chocolate and apricot pudding, Lola II slept in the Hen House, and we went kayaking on the river. The highlight for me was none of these things - it was the revelation that Lola II needs reading glasses! After more than forty years, at last she can experience the interminable nuisance of not being able to see properly. I'm not gloating - I will definitely need bifocals at my next visit to the optician, and I'm thinking of getting reading glasses myself for when I wear contact lenses.

In other news...

The 'Couch to 5k' running programme continues to go well, despite interruption from skiing. I've completed Week 4 and am about to start Week 5 of 9; I have progressed from 60 seconds to 90 seconds to 3 minutes and now to 5 minutes 'running' at a time. I run on the circular path around the park, and this week there were a couple of women chatting and walking in front of me - as an indication of the speed I have achieved, I completely failed to catch up with them. I am concentrating on stamina and technique, I tell myself, I can work on speed later.

Lastly, you should know that the only reason I'm managing to produce this post is because I went to badminton (club #2) and the hall was locked up with nobody there. My loss is your gain on this occasion. I have a journal article to write after the weekend, so there may be another lengthy pause after this...

News of Lola II and Mr M

Groombridge  Place, June 2013

When things are going well, when there is no catastrophe to report, when all trots along in a routine and mundane manner, I am happy. But I am also at a loss to find anything to write about. There is no scandal, nothing to complain about, no disturbing incident with a patient at work, or a colleague. So you lose out, because I have nothing to write about me and Mr A and Lola Towers.

Although it is not true that nothing exciting has happened. Lola II and Mr M staged their second annual Film Festival, with eight films over the course of one weekend (Mr A and I attended four and it was excellent), and shortly afterwards announced that they are getting married. So that's nice. I am surprisingly enthusiastic about the event, although I think that it is a very thin veneer of enthusiasm that may be eroded surprisingly easily. I am going to host a very modest hen party and Lola II has promised that she will try not to tax my endurance by becoming a wedding bore.

This is one of the remaining weddings in my life that I must attend - the others are those of The Boy and my nephews and niece, but I hope they all wait until they are as old as Lola II and Mr M because then if I am still alive I will not be allowed to go because of chronic infirmity or serious eccentricity. They will all be glad that ancient Aunt Lola isn't coming because "she would embarrass everyone by lying down in the aisle to look at the ceiling, or singing lewd songs loudly at inappropriate times." I am looking forward to a time when I am able to be freely eccentric, because let's face it, there isn't much fun to be had when you can't play badminton any more.

Talking of badminton, I mentioned my difficulty with seeing patients in the consultants' clinics to some of the new club. One member used to be a GP before she retired, and she came up with a splendid idea which I shall try out. It involves coming up with a few questions on a piece of paper that the patient can answer while waiting, and this ought to help make my dietetic consultation more appropriate and potentially shorter. Now I just have to think of the right questions.

To finish this brief report, Mr A has written a blog post for a skibike website, reporting on our recent holiday. I have to warn you that it contains explicit images of Mr A's bare legs, so perhaps not suitable for the faint-hearted.

Ski/bike holiday

Ellmau, January 2014

I'm guessing that one or two of you are interested in our holiday - it was fun, I gradually remembered how to ski with the help of one lesson on the second day, the weather was horrible on the first day but improved after that, Mr A absolutely loved his snow bike.

Ellmau, 2014

We went to Ellmau, in Austria. The resort is sadly lacking in snow, and it appears this is generally the case across Europe at the moment. In the olden days skiing would have been impossible, but thanks to snow generating technology the pistes were fine. Down in the town and anywhere off-piste, there was nothing, which meant a bit of ski removal and walking to the lift stations at the bottom.

This was the seventh ski holiday that Mr A and I have undertaken, and all have been very different.

Macugnaga, 2004

The first was to Macugnaga in Italy, a very small resort, but perfect for first-timers. Mr A hadn't skied before and I hadn't skied since university, so we had some lessons before going out and joined group lessons when we were there. This also meant we made friends with another family and could do a bit of socialising in the evenings. The highlight of this trip was the evening meal at a mountain restaurant, which we reached with our skis on by hanging on to a rope trailing from the back of a skidoo. There were two skidoo drivers; mine went at a terrifying speed and traumatised all his passengers, while the other one was beautifully sedate and its passengers were bemused as we staggered into the restaurant.

Soll, 2005

Next time we went to Söll in Austria, taking The Boy and his girlfriend with us. They had snowboard lessons and we improved further in our ski lessons, although Mr A was already starting to have trouble with his knees. The third trip was very interesting - we went to Ruka in Finland, not noted for its downhill skiing. It certainly had nothing to match the Alps or the Tirol, but we were self-catering with four other friends in a cosy log cabin with a sauna and had a jolly good time.

Ruka, 2006

The fourth trip was to Champoluc in Italy, where the hotel was adjacent to a piste and only yards from the main ski lift station. This was a huge benefit - no need for ski buses or long walks to get started in the morning or to get back to the hotel in the evening. Mr A had invested in some highly expensive personalised ski boots, but it was becoming clear that even these didn't provide sufficient relief, and this was when he had his first go at snowboarding. This holiday was particularly memorable because at the end of the penultimate day, we went for a walk and I fell over and broke my leg.

Champoluc, 2007

Mr A decided to abandon skis and try snowboarding for the next holiday, which was in Meribel, France. I thought I'd try it as well, and blogged about it twice. This was the least successful holiday in terms of snow-based activity, but we were in a chalet with nice people and went to a comedy gig.

Galtür, 2011

Then there was a gap of three years before our next trip, to Galtür in Austria with our friends J+C, which I also blogged about. This one was notable for the food, and because I finally abandoned my attempts to learn to snowboard and returned thankfully to the skis. Mr A also decided that his arthritic knees couldn't cope with the stress of snowboarding either, despite the more comfortable boots.

So, how did Ellmau compare? The hotel was quite a long way from the town up a steep hill, which would have been bad for après ski activity had we been able to stay awake later than 8 p.m. As it was, there was a piste nearby so we didn't have to rely on the infrequent ski buses, and on the few occasions that we walked up the hill, it just felt like an extension to the exercise we were getting anyway through the day. I had a great time on the slopes once I'd remembered how to ski; Mr A had the time of his life as soon as he got on his bike. We had chosen Ellmau purely because of the presence of snowbikes for rental, and now Hans the snowbike man is one of Mr A's best friends.

Apparently, there are two types of snowbikes: both have ski runners instead of wheels, but with one type you stand on pegs in your ordinary boots, and the other type, which is what was available here, you have short skis on your feet and sit down to ride. This meant Mr A still had to wear his incredibly uncomfortable ski boots, but there was hardly any strain on his knees, and for the first time he could actually get some speed up and do some work. The disadvantage to this was that he is still wearing motorbike gear rather than ski gear, and he described it as "spending the day in your own personal sauna." His jacket and trousers now need some serious deodorising, as well as the rucksack he stored them in.

I didn't quite manage to leave work behind, in as much as I occasionally pondered the enormous challenge that such a holiday would be if you had Type 1 Diabetes. You'd have to test loads, have snacks constantly on hand in case of hypoglycaemia, all the food is unfamiliar so estimating carbohydrate would be difficult, and all that exercise would affect your sensitivity to insulin so you might have to reduce the amount you inject by a proportion you can only guess at. And in the evening, you don't actually know what dinner will be. Without an insulin pump you'd either have to give yourself an injection per course as the food arrived (up to four injections), or take a guess at the start, count as you go along and correct at the end (two injections), or wait until the end (one injection but you'd have to endure post-meal high blood glucose).

Anyway, I've still got a week to play with before having to go back to work, and I've spent a whole day on unpleasant tasks like house insurance and self-assessment for income tax. Tomorrow I'm off to spend some family time; we'll see if there's enough time for blogging too.