Happy 82nd birthday

We'd been planning for ages, covering all eventualities and managing food, drink, venue, helpers, invitations, music and slide show. At last the day came, dad in his finery (suit) and ready for all comers.

The weather was beautiful, which was lucky because it really helped to use the garden as well as the house. Sister D brought wine and all the food from the caterer, we had a helper who offered drinks round and did lots of washing up, Lola II brought chairs, laptop, and created the slides for the presentation, I brought soft drinks and we all brought glasses, cutlery, dishes and tablecloths. Tablecloths were a good idea - we ended up having to disguise the ironing board because we didn't have enough tables.

This was dad's 82nd birthday party, which took place on Sunday. I came down to London ahead of the event and spent Friday night and Saturday with Lola II and Mr M - as usual, the food was among the highlights of the trip. My first meal with them was some of the best ramen I have ever had, Lola II took me to her new fitness club where we did an 'Aquafit' session in the pool then jacuzzi and sauna. After a coffee we went to Richmond on the bus (note to self - never go to Richmond on the bus at midday on Saturday because it will take an hour instead of 20 minutes) and ate at an open air Bavarian restaurant facing the river - luckily the weather was perfect. Two excellent meals - and then the party.

All the guests arrived, lunch was delicious, everybody seemed to be enjoying themselves, dad gave an illustrated talk mostly about his early life, we all had tea and went home. There was enough food left over for us all to take away lunches for the rest of the week. I think it went better than any of us had hoped.

Happy birthday dad!

Weekend in Rugby

So I went to Rugby for a weekend to mooch about and get to know the town. I had a surprisingly good time - I wasn't expecting to enjoy myself quite as much as I did. I put some of the enjoyment down to the fact that I planned in advance more than usual, checking out places of interest, food emporia and even booked a ticket to the theatre. The weather was cold but mostly sunny, and even when it wasn't sunny it didn't rain much.

The Merchant's Inn

On Friday night I started with some basic orientation and wandered about the town centre for a bit. There were a few places I was looking for, and I ended up eating chilli with a half pint of Doom Bar in The Bank. I wasn't intending to do much more, but on the way back I passed The Merchants Inn, which is renowned for its beer, and it was early so I went in for a cheeky one. They have a vast range of beers, including more than one type of mild! So I had a half of Moorhen Mild, which was very tasty. That's a very fine pub indeed.

I went into a supermarket that a patient had mentioned - it is amazing. It stocks all manner of Eastern European food, mainly from Poland but also from Latvia, Lithuania and Romania, and seemingly no UK brands at all unless they are sourced from these countries (so for example I think I saw a Polish version of a Kitkat). There was half a wall of different sausages in the self-service chilled cabinets down one side, and then another half a wall of more sausages on the other side ready to get sliced for you. There were many, many unfamiliar products and several that I couldn't identify at all.

Best of all, for the first time since our trip to Lincolnshire, I found the frozen curd cheese desserts we first tasted there. Lola II and Mr M have been into every Polish shop and supermarket in London and failed to find any; we have now found our source. What's more, I found the same desserts in a second, similar shop in town, and I reckon if I'd bothered to go into any others they'd have been there too.

On Saturday I'd planned to go to the Visitor Centre, Art Gallery and Museum, which are all in the same building along with the town library. The Art Gallery wasn't bad, and along with its pictures it had quite an entertaining selection of papier mâché creatures. The Museum was just one room with stuff in cases as per any local museum, representing local industry. In Rugby this comprises engineering (various light and heavy engineering firms - Frank Whittle designed his first jet engine around here), telecommunications (including GEC), the railways, the cement works, and the game of Rugby including the manufacture of rugby balls.

As might be expected, the game of Rugby features heavily in the tourist attractions of the town, including the Webb Ellis Rugby Football Museum and in the tour of Rugby School. The museum caters for the enthusiast, and I've never been particularly interested in the game, so the couple of rooms of memorabilia held little interest. I watched the film of how a rugby ball is constructed by hand - or perhaps how it used to be constructed by hand, it's probably all done by machine nowadays.

The guided tour of the school was much more interesting. Rugby School was founded much earlier than I realised (in 1567) in order to provide a free education for local boys in what was then not much more than a hamlet. It moved to its present site in 1750, which at the time was on the edge of the growing town, but is now very central as the town has expanded. The architecture is beautiful, much of its decorative brickwork designed by William Butterfield, but adorned with ivy and wisteria in a very attractive manner. I went on a tour of the main school site, although there are many other buildings belonging to the school scattered about the town. We went into the chapel, an (empty) assembly room with 19th century graffiti on the walls, a couple of courtyards, and one of the older classrooms which was a peculiar mixture of ancient books in bookcases, a blackboard, a jury-rigged data projector, a whiteboard, modern tables and a stained glass window featuring 18th and 19th century headmasters.

Obviously there is much emphasis on that cheating footballer William Webb Ellis who is supposed to have picked up the ball and run with it in 1823. In fact, he is probably unrelated to the development of the game, the attribution being made by another pupil long after both had left the school. Anyway, other notable alumni include Thomas Hughes (author of Tom Brown's Schooldays), Rupert Brooke, Neville Chamberlain, Lewis Carroll and Salman Rushdie. I'm thinking of reading Tom Brown's Schooldays again, although the tour guide's opinion is that the first part of the book is pretty uninteresting.

The weather was cold enough that I was now looking for a warming lunch. I'd had a cooked breakfast in a generic cafe, but a late lunch was planned at a well-regarded vegetarian restaurant called Summersault. I had a big bowl of cauliflower and fennel soup with a delicious bread roll that had a seam of real olives inside it.

I'd done a whole lot of walking around by now, so nipped back to the hotel to change before going to the theatre to see 'The Diary of Anne Frank'. I thought I'd have a nap, but realised I'd better set an alarm, which woke me in good time to get ready. The trouble was that I didn't get up straight away, so woke with a start 20 minutes before the performance was due to start. I got there just in time, and the performance was very good, especially of the young actor playing Anne, but I knew the story wasn't going to end well. If I'd delayed my visit by a week or two I could have had a less depressing experience with 'Hairspray'.

Sunday started with an impressive vegetarian breakfast at Bacco Lounge. What I'd planned for the day was to follow the 'Path of Fame', a walking tour through the town featuring a whole lot of brass plaques set in the pavement to celebrate rugby players over the years. In the Visitor Centre they updated me with the news that all the plaques had been removed, but I could have a booklet with the route in it if I wanted. In fact this was fine, because I wasn't particularly interested in the sportsmen but the booklet had interesting information about the town. It pointed out features of buildings and I saw a few nice sculptures and public art and a couple of little parks.

I tried to do a bit of shopping over the weekend, but my poor shopping skills meant I managed only food and socks. Back at the Eastern European supermarket I treated myself to a stock of curd cheese ice creams as well as a pack of ready-made pierogi, sausage, smoked cheese and pickled herrings. I tried shopping for household goods but made little progress. So it was time to come home.

The weekend was pretty good, and certainly more fun than I had expected. I put it down to planning ahead, while acknowledging also that it was very fortunate that most of the time it didn't rain.

I start to find out how much I don't know

Sissinghurst, June 2012

It is a nightmare. I Have No Time At All. This evening (the second one I have spent at home since last Thursday) I have managed to contact a friend whom we will be visiting next week, ordered some Euros for that visit, and 'helped' Mr A sort out parking at the airport by generally answering either "I don't know" or "I can't remember" whenever he asked me a question. The only answer I got right was "Terminal 5". I have about 20 emails that need attention, I need to help dad upgrade his computer, most of my savings accounts and utilities are now uneconomical and need switching, and I'm nearly a week behind with blog reading, let alone writing.

I am crazy tired, and it is my own fault. I continue to try and play badminton twice a week for two hours, and this eliminates two evenings from the week. I am challenged by simple tasks like arranging a service and MOT for the car, because I need to drive the car to work, so will have to arrange everything in a city I don't know at all, at a garage that allows me to drop the car off and pick it up without impinging on the working day. The job makes me late home quite a lot, although this ought to change in April when the schedule of clinics will change, and I will have my own clinics with my name on and everything.

Work is interesting and stressful and difficult but full of promise. I have been keeping a list of 'things to write about on the blog' that I thought I would get round to, but (see paragraphs above) I may as well summarise now because that's as much as I can manage.

Things I have learned about diabetes: all about different sorts of insulins, rules for days when you are sick if you use an insulin pump, how to manage exercise and alcohol if you take insulin, how to manage someone who has just been diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes and keeps bursting into tears, what carbohydrate counting really involves.

Things I have been taught that are not about diabetes: how to use at least four different computer systems, how to apply for study leave, where to find at least 100 policies and procedures, what the Very Low Calorie Diet is for, how to wash my hands and not contaminate food.

I would like to write much more about most of these things, except for handwashing and food safety.

One of the most annoying things at the moment is needing to remember at least five different combinations of user names and passwords. I am told that all of the passwords have to be changed regularly, and don't allow you to just change a number e.g. password01 to password02. This policy does not improve security; all it does is force you to write your user names and passwords down. As long as I can remember the password that gets me access to the document with my passwords in it, I should be OK.

All the most annoying things so far involve administrative systems. The induction process has been shocking. My scheduled day for induction is two months after starting my nine month contract, and seems to be a series of presentations about the Values and Vision of the Trust - the mandatory training I was expecting will be at a future date that I won't be told about until induction day. Just as I think I've done everything administrative that needs to be done, I find out about more - I have to email evidence of mandatory training to a random email address. Food Safety and CPR training is arranged by someone who works in Catering. I have to complete a document for my Personal Development Review that I didn't know about on a date I haven't been notified about. I have to book any annual leave at least six weeks in advance, using a form I haven't been given yet, without knowing how many days I'm entitled to. Today I found out that a filing cabinet drawer in the main office contains copies of referral letters for me - nobody had thought to mention it before. And don't get me started about Tracking... I may muster the strength to write about Tracking another time. And clinic procedures: what to do if a patient doesn't attend, or changes their appointment, or does attend, or I am asked to see them by someone else, or I want them to be seen by someone else.

There are some very good aspects of this job, though. Professional development seems to be built into the job, rather than an expensive luxury available only to the lucky few who have to pay for it themselves. This means that I am already booked onto a postgraduate module about diabetes taking place over four days at the university, and there seems to be little resistance to other opportunities that come my way. I have already learned a great deal about diabetes, and have reached the uncomfortable stage of being much more aware of how much I don't know, but I do occasionally have flashes of insight allowing me to feel good about some of the things I do know.

There is so much to write about work that it has almost squeezed out any mention of the fun that has been happening at weekends. Lola II and Mr M staged a film festival, and Lola II and I went to Liverpool for the weekend, and there was much hilarity at both these events. I would love to write blog posts full of amusing anecdotes and illustrated by YouTube clips and photos, but perhaps Lola II will volunteer to document these occasions on my behalf. She is pretty busy most of the time as well.

Catching up

Detail at the top of a column, Melk, October 2012

I have been back from our New Year holiday for more than a week, and have nearly caught up with blog posts waiting to be read, not helped by Stan Madeley who has started up again and has been posting loads of his letters that didn't get replies and so didn't get into his book, 'Second Class Male'. OK, plug over. Podcasts - well, I'm not sure I'll ever catch up, although when I start driving for 10 hours a week there may be some chance.

On Saturday morning I thought I would make a brief list of the few things I really must do this weekend. When I reached the bottom of the page I realised that it would be a busy time. Factors affecting work to be done during the weekend: parental computing woes; last weekend spent constructing a large bookcase and consequent rearrangement of crap in room; unexpected death of 'new' freezer. The last has prompted interesting meal choices - we are eating large amounts of thawed veg, yesterday was fish pie made with all the fish previously frozen (including fish fingers), today and tomorrow will contain vast amounts of meat, with leftovers providing all meals for the next week. Cereal for breakfast is forbidden; let them eat bacon. Not that we're complaining about that one.

Freezer death combined with my disorganisation over the past few months means that at present, neither Mr A nor I can find the receipt for the dead freezer, nor for the washing machine that we also bought recently. We suspect that they are hiding somewhere together, as it is unlikely that we would have thrown them out. Bank card statements will be of little use because both were bought with vouchers redeemed from TV-watching points. On the positive side, roast beef sandwiches for lunch were delicious.

There is little more to say about work that hasn't already been said. We were two Dietitians down last week but we had three nearly-qualified students helping out, and it wasn't too bad. I have just under two more weeks to go before the new job, when I imagine there will be much more to report. My last clinic: only four patients attended, of whom one was entirely fine, which made me feel like I should keep him talking because the journey to and from the hospital plus the pain of parking and then sitting in the waiting area takes a disproportionate amount of time and effort compared with the five minutes of a consultation.

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I wrote the above at the weekend, intending to publish before the week started. But I had a badminton match on Sunday and things were delayed and you know how it is. It's only Tuesday, but there have already been developments. The bad news is that Stan Madeley has given up his blog, through lack of readership. The good news is that the freezer has returned to its operational state, simply by pushing the plug back in. It must have been dislodged slightly by Mr A, whose bike equipment is kept in the cupboard where the electrical socket is. So the additional life-enhancing exercise of Mr A cycling a bit over the past few days has been negated by the enhanced saturated fat-filled intake of meat products. We lost out on some frozen veg and bread, but I think we've managed to consume everything else.

Work and play

Norfolk, July 2011

I seriously cannot wait until I retire, when I will have time and energy by the bucketload and everything will be delightful and sunny and the house will be in perfect condition because we will have sorted it out beautifully. This will obviously not happen, because life is not like that. But I would like to have more time, and I would like to attend to the shortcomings of our 'home-making', and the two are clearly connected, along with our disinclination to spend our limited leisure hours on structural improvements.

In the work arena, the grown-ups in our office (senior Dietitians) were both away on Friday, which meant that when the call came to see a patient in the private hospital, one of the kids had to stand in. So off I went to the fancy shmancy 'ward', which comprised carpeted corridors and bedrooms rather than hard floors and beds separated by curtains. Obviously I will say nothing whatsoever about the patient and the treatment, but I feel slightly embarrassed that for such a large amount of money, the patient received dietetic treatment from a Dietitian with nearly seven whole months' experience.

This has been my first brush with the interesting relationship between private healthcare and the NHS. You certainly get better accommodation by paying for it, but is that all? I suspect that nursing care is also more attentive, but clearly therapy is absolutely no better than NHS, and you get the same doctors with the same time pressures and no better treatments to offer for the money. Investigations may be done without waiting quite so long for your turn on the CT scanner, and you might get your treatment more quickly. But it will be the same treatment, and if there's an emergency you'll be shipped into the NHS Emergency Department quicker than you can say "Find me a trolley and call me a porter".

Outside work, Lola II and Mr M have been visiting, and we had a very successful day on Saturday. Lola II has been converted to the One True Way of the Charity Shop, and found another skirt and pair of trousers, this time in an even smaller size than before. I now have a car charger for my phone, so no more telephone boxes for me on long journeys. Lola II has lost so much weight that even her feet have shrunk, so we ended up buying her shoes from the childrens' department of Clarks, where she had her feet measured in the old-fashioned way where you can choose shoes according to both length and width. The advantage is that shoes are not quite as expensive as in the adult department; the disadvantage is children's shoes tend to be flat rather than with heels.

Then we all went off to the Red Lion in Hunningham to watch a film on the huge inflatable screen followed by camping in the adjacent field, which was all lovely, despite the usual early wake-up call from a nearby small child who doesn't understand that it isn't necessary to shout at 6 a.m. in a campsite. I discovered several things about breakfast in Leamington - the cafe I'd been told about is definitely there, but closed for two weeks in August, and Sainsbury's doesn't have a cafe, just a Starbucks. But we have a 'Frankie and Benny' outlet, and it turns out that they do breakfasts, so that's where we went.

Mr A was away at a wedding (I don't do weddings) so after Lola II and Mr M had departed I had some wonderful free time, which I used in cooking for next weekend's family gathering, going to the cinema, reading books, listening to podcasts, and working in the garden. Each time I tidy up about a quarter of the area, but the other three quarters seem to gain on me quicker than I can deal with them. Sadly no badminton tonight because of the bank holiday, and it's back to normal and to work tomorrow.

Olympic torch relay

Can you see the Torch?

It's proving impossible to find enough time nowadays to blog as often as I'd like. Last weekend, instead of sitting inside mucking about on the computer like I usually do, we decided it was time to do something constructive around the house. Then there is the shopping and laundry and cooking and cleaning and washing up that I can't do during the week any more, and the Olympic torch went through Leamington town centre last Sunday. While I'm not particularly interested in the Olympic torch relay itself, I do like to see what's going on, so we walked into town. All the activities advertised in the Pump Room Gardens had packed up and gone except for a few lone stalls, but there were lots of people lining the torch route.

There it is!

What then happened went roughly like this:

• policemen
• motorbikes
• motorbikes
• big bus advertising something red that I couldn't quite see
• motorbikes
• a green bus advertising Lloyds TSB bank
• an open top bus with some dancers on top and someone saying something into a microphone that I couldn't hear
• a bus with blacked-out windows driven by a grumpy looking driver
• motorbikes
• a bus advertising Coca-Cola with some more dancers on top and another inaudible microphone
• motorbikes
• more motorbikes
• some healthy-looking runners in grey outfits
• some cyclists
• someone on pogo stick legs who could bounce really high (I want some of those)
• motorbikes
• a big truck that turned out to be holding the BBC Torchcam
• Olympic flame
• runners in grey outfits
• motorbikes
• cyclists in costumes getting caught up in the dispersing crowds.

The whole spectacle took about 15 minutes to go past, with the actual torch occupying about 15 seconds, of which I managed a brief glimpse. Verdict: underwhelming. Unless you are particularly keen on police motorcycles. Or jumping stilts (£160. I just looked them up).

News from the garden: Mr A replaced one of the posts holding up the veranda while I tried to combat the annual patio weeds and deal with all the other overgrown plants. Sad to say, our ceanothus is a shadow of its former self following the frost damage, and although it had some new leaves and a few flowers, it isn't looking too good at the moment. The wisteria, on the other hand, is making a bid to take over the whole end bed - next year the whole garden, then the world, I imagine. I attempted to teach it some manners last weekend, and we'll see who is the winner. This weekend it is just too wet for gardening, and I need to get some admin done.

Before and after

 Mr A has also demonstrated some unashamed size prejudice with his birdwatching activity. He so much prefers our sparrows, robins and blackbirds compared to the magpies and pigeons that he has cut down the struts holding up the roof of our bird table to prevent the larger birds getting at the food. We are now frequently entertained by the double-decker effect of a small bird scoffing away on the table while a larger bird struts up and down on the roof looking over the edge but not managing to get in. He can't stop them picking up the seed that spills onto the grass below, so they aren't totally excluded.

I will try not to leave such a long pause between posts in future, but I can't promise anything. This full time job situation is so inconvenient sometimes...

Weekends

Crane, Norfolk, July 2011

The May Day Bank Holiday weekend started after work on Friday with a drive to Southampton, checking into an ancient, run-down (but clean) hotel, and almost immediately driving to a gig to see Alabama 3.

Mr A and I arrived at the venue a little late, and when we reached the door into the main room I wondered if we would ever get inside. There was a wall of people, but somehow we squeezed in and found a small space towards the back. The gig had started but I don't think we were very late. We each had just enough room to stand, and of course the tallest man in the room was in front of me - when he started jigging about it was time to beat a retreat in case he reversed into me and caused a nosebleed. Standing at the back was not much better - it was a frequently used through-route and we were constantly having to let people pass. Which was annoying. As were the group of people who seemed to have come for a good chat rather than to listen to the music. So all in all it would have been better had we arrived a little bit earlier.

It was nice to go out in the evening like 'ordinary' people do - it's been a long time since we've treated ourselves to this kind of event. The following day we visited Mr A's parents, and found his mother's dementia has reached the point where she struggles to put a sentence together. They are still managing to live together successfully at home, although I'm not sure how long that can last. Then on to Mr B and his wife and dog and a nice local walk from where we viewed the Isle of Wight and the Needles, and finally to friends J&C for a Chinese takeaway followed by pub (Mr A & J) or chat (me & C).

And back home on Sunday, with all of Monday to enjoy the Bank Holiday. As it counts as a weekend, I was in charge of the Catering Department, and I thought I would forsake Jamie Oliver for once and produce the Ultimate Lamb Biryani (from the Ultimate Recipe Book). The book said it would take 3 hours, but somehow I didn't take this seriously. I did little else that day, and it was a good lamb biryani, but not that good. The Great God Jamie clearly punishes those who forsake Him.

This weekend has been mainly spent in mundane tasks: yesterday contained laundry, a large amount of washing up, food shopping, cooking and then we watched an excellent film that I can wholeheartedly recommend: 'The Guard'. Today I have mostly been trying to renew/upgrade the contracts I have for mobile phone, landline and broadband, which I find fairly difficult and quite tedious. I finally completed the process of negotiation for the mobile contract, and a new touchscreen phone is on its way, my first foray into modern mobile communications. Along with the return to contact lenses, this was supposed to be a luxury that I allow myself as a result of having a job, but in fact the deal is no more expensive than my previous phone contract. The landline/broadband deal is still under negotiation.

Weekends are proving difficult for me. I work much harder in my current job than I have done in any previous jobs, with no down-time during the day other than a 30-minute lunch break. What with badminton on two nights a week, I'm very tempted to do nothing at all at the weekend other than a few easy household chores, food shopping and cooking, which I enjoy. But there are many other jobs that need doing - Mr A mowed the lawn, which was nice, but there is more to do in the garden and all sorts of repair and decoration that would make our house look a good deal better. I need to make a bit more effort during weekends at home.