Negative November

 This is the bit of the year that i hate when what little freedom i get is drying up , one last Jumble Sale next weekend i may well buy everything just for the sake of something to look at ...lol .. The whole world has gone xmas tat im afraid . Cherie your the only person for whom this is allowed , it is your reason for living ..lol                                                                                                                                                                     Meanwhile the mucking around with my tablets is proving fun although ive managed more than 4 hours of sleep several nights  , i even got an epic 6 hours a couple of times only to wake up to someone shouting me for his morning ablutions then spending the day with him griping that the house was a tip because their were two cups in the sink .AAARRRGGHHH Its back to the winter chores of endless condensation and mould cleaning everyday .  I also keep bursting into tears for weird random reasons , yesterday i ached so much that i burst into tears because i havent had a bath in years , it would be so amazing to just sink into the heat , we have a perfectly usable disabled wet room but heigh ho , i then remembered we couldnt afford to have a bath in the house due to the water meter , plus a bath goes cold very rapidly in a unheated bathroom.  Then i got up this morning and im weepy again because he asked me what i wanted for xmas and all i could think of was somebody to cook for me and just do a days chores which got me ...Bloody silly cow                                                                                                                                           Two weeks and i change my  medication again ...i can see this is going to be a fun xmas 

Never

 Yesterday i ventured into the depths of Lincoln , just needed a bit of bulk stuff and to get the things  missing from the fortnightly Morrisons order.  Well thats me not going back this year it was dreadful , every shop packed with coughing christmas heads , very few masks in sight , certainlly not a bit of social distancing anywhere , Covid must be over. hand sanitiser is a thing of the past its all either empty or hidden away in the depths somewhere. Theyve revamped B&N so theres now no frozen section just an aisle of tins and booze and a couple of chilled freezers , i did at least find some large yellow sticker pizzas for a £1 so that will keep the menfolk happy , theyre not in the shape of a xmas tree maybe thats why they are cheap ? It got to the stage i was ready to just chuck my basket and walk out, the shop had ground to a halt with just two tills . They have signs everywhere asking for staff , but theyre known for being a dreadful employer locally so im not surprised , Now the freezer shop has gone i cant see a reason to go back again .                                                                                                                                               Managed to get round Lidl and get a trolley full of bottled water that should last well into January and a few bits like a couple of packs of cooking bacon that can be split down for the freezer .     

  Its got to be bad when Farmfoods is a little haven of sanity on its own little carpark amid all the student housing , its huge and it wasnt busy at all . Other half however had given me a whole list of crap foodstuffs he required , Chinese Ribs , turkey Kievs , spicy god knows what and greasy god knows what basically it has filled the freezer with stuff i cant eat . Though it will cheer son up i managed to get apple juice which for some reason there appears to be a local famine of . Sometimes i think that the huge freezer contains only oven chips and frozen veg for me...lol

Then the purpose of the visit to Morrisons , they to have undergone a revamp , now Morrisons has always been where your mum and granny shopped , you park dad in the cafe  with a cup of tea and do your shopping . Other half had his heart set on his annual morrisons xmas dinner with a mug of tea its been advertised everywhere . the cafe looked curiously empty but there was a big queue , so i parked himself and joined it , i thought there was something odd when there was nothing i could drink, just overpriced bottled water, the drinks machines had gone all they had was overpriced slushies milkshakes and fresh orange.  They had now got a Barista bar just beyond the till with a huge queue again, with loads of baffled pensioners  and a very irate girl doing the serving ...errr most pensioners want a cup of tea or a coffee not a god knows what in a cup with half a cup of nasty coffee under it .  I finally got to the till to order his xmas dinner and shes doing the whole i cant understand you youre wearing a mask and the steam is coming out of my ears by now .  Sorry we havent got any of the xmas menu ...ffs  would we like half a breakfast because they have run out of most things . I just turned around and walked away , to get a right royal rollicking from himself who thought it was all my fault .  So i parked him back in the car and had to go do my last bit of shopping that was missed off the order this weekend , i didnt get any of my meat or veg this week .  They have installed a whole row of little kiosks selling hot food , none of which i would be interested in.  The meat section has shrunk but i got what i needed and some packs of yellow sticker mince . Got to the tills and theyd been revamped as well its nearly all self service now there were just 2 real tills with a girl trying to force you to use them , those of us queuing were blocking the aisles so she was a tad stressed , having a basket i was a prime target , but i had all yellow sticker items so no point even trying the self serve it just doesnt get it .  I do think the world is trying to do away with us oldies   

Busy

 Lifes always throwing you curveballs , daughter has been a tad poorly with Covid somewhat baffled as shes classed as vulnerable as shes currently on chemo , doesnt go out and works from home , suspected it was a gift from grandson who has had man flu for a few days but didnt test positive, but hed been here with us and we are all fine.  Shes over the worst of it but still seems pretty grim , she only has 80% lung function on a good day so it may be a while , good old 111 wanted her to go to hospital  but she wasnt having it and got her mate whos a nurse practioner to pop round in her hazmat gear and have a listen to her chest . She couldnt have the jabs because of her autoimmune problems . So she did say well at least thats my immunity now boosted up . I was doing nursy from home online nagging her to stay upright and keep walking a bit if you can , loads of fluids and gargle with that infamous concoction of Lemsip and whisky. Kids even adult ones are always a worry .  On the other end of Covid OH keeps getting emails from the doctor to book his booster , but on ringing theres no spaces , it would seem the third jab is being rationed out to GPS in this area , they get a llimited delivery  or nothing so even they have no idea whats going on .

Ordinary Days

 So its been a busy week , lots of hospital with himself including yet another transfusion day when i drop him at the door and then pop to Tescos , but for a change i got a phone call to say he was going to be 5 hours . So what do you do, theres not the money for fuel to go home then come back to pick him up . So i trawled around the out of town shops in uphill Lincoln for something to do , it was wonderful to not be constantly clock watching or having the scowling presence tapping his foot at how long ive been in a shop . Did i spend loads ? Well i visited the barnardos toy shop and was horrified to see they had 4 grubby barbies in a bag for £20 , they could at least have cleaned them and brushed their hair for that price .   Tons of stuff but for the most part for a couple of quid more you could have bought new .  Giant Tesco for a tiddle and cat food , its increasingly hard to find the cheap and nasty own brand tins that old cat likes but did manage to get 3 packs it was all they had . I did kill a fair bit of time wandering round in the dry looking at xmas jumpers and sparkly frocks . Then on to The Lincolnshire Hospice Shop , sadly nothing i could afford in there plus it was all fat bird on a cruise type garments . For a giggle i even visited the Sue Ryder Temple in a huge retail unit , noxiously expensive but it does do some fairly decent furniture , among which they had a glorious 1930s bedroom suite veneered birdseye maple all curves made me wish i had a bigger house and a much bigger budget lol £150 . But the one plus on my day was good old B&N they were having a garden centre sale to make load for a lorry load of xmas trees , so i blew my budget on sad looking plants , christmas roses already sprouting , loads of grey untidy pinks at 10p each , all stuff that can overwinter and be planted in the spring . which i managed to smuggle home without him noticing ..When I finally picked him up , his grumpiness knew no bounds . So what have you being doing all day? Reading my book on the industrial estate . Hed given me £3 for dinner so its a good job he didnt hear my rattling stomach after all id sooner buy plants 

Dr Google

 Now im sure youre aware that we struggle with our GPs or rather our lack of GPs , suddenly they have turned into efficient GPs they have dragged themselves up to the level of normal GPs because they are undergoing a care standards inspection at the moment . Its announced on the Surgery website asking for comments from patients , shant bother i should imagine theres some interesting stories for them already . Anyway its not the fault of the actual Drs its the company that owns the practice , its only interest is farming money out of the patients . Before Covid there were obvious problems , during Covid it has been appalling . Our GPs are very honest with you if you can actually get to see them they admit that all they can do is work to the latest directive sent by the company . 6 thousand patients 4 doctors so they have reached the maximum patients at which point they opened another surgery round the corner same set up so they can milk another 6000 patients .  Anyway we can get some very dodgy locums at times but i actually talked to a sentient one the other day , not much of a conversation as she pointed out shes allocated 2 minutes per call , my annual blood tests are appalling, i promptly pointed out that i need B12 injections to function otherwise i cant think and keep falling over and my other medications dont work properly , but they stopped testing for this about 4 years ago so therefore i was cured because they lost my notes . She actually agreed to do further blood tests whoopee . Got a call back a few days later my B12  and vitamin D are through the floor pick the tablets up at the desk . retest in a couple of months . But the biggest giggle they also sent me another version of my regular medication , this is what i was put on by the hospital but it costs 12p to much so they stopped it and gave me the cheaper version and ive struggled ever since . Im sure this is all just because of the care standards investigation being ongoing ...but i can hope this is a longer term improvement  

Political Friday

 Lets have a giggle at the latest sea of shit our Glorious Leader has created . Not content with COP97 or whatever it was ,being the biggest show of hypocrites on tour ever .  How many private planes?  How many huge motorcades . Ocean liner hotels moored on the Clyde , beggars belief really doesnt it . All the little people getting fines for putting a crisp bag in the wrong bin , meanwhile the carbon footprint of these privileged idiots blackens the world . The Boris spokesman , pointing out his plane used eco fuel and they were paying a carbon offset for using it , bugger the offset does it make it better that they will plant a sapling in Scotland so his laziness could jet home for a dinner and jolly with his mates . He couldnt keep his eyes open and appeared pissed at one stage . If they all payed an offset for this fiasco Wee Jimmy Sturgen will be ruling the Great Northern Forest in a few years . im seriously thinking of running round on my travels with a bag of conkers and acorns and sycamore keys doing my own offset everywhere i go .

Then we get to the real elephant in the room , corruption .  A minor player in the Tory scheme of look over there has been caught with his hand in the till . Half a million of money for services rendered in his pocket , blatantly bribes taken for services rendered to a corporation he was a lobbyist for . then Boris decides to do away with the standards committee that caught him and replace them with a bunch of his mates, forces all his party to vote yes for this spiffing idea and then it went very viral and the smell of burning tyres on this  u turn created its own disaster . I think the fact that the MP involved was getting a mere 30 day suspension from Parliament  over the matter is more disgusting . He has now however fallen on his sword and resigned , causing a by election . 

Now if i look into my crystal ball , i wouldnt be surprised if Glorious Leader decides to chuck a General Election into the equation , his ego being what it is . His logic could be that he is up before the ethics committee , he has been dodging them for months over his gold plated decorating scandal , At most hes looking at a 30 day suspension , which means he could spend xmas in the Caribbean. The likely hood that his local party would deselect him is virtually nil  . So back in the New Year with an even bigger majority , business as usual .  I do think that Ego is the one thing that will bring him down in the end .  Though didnt we once execute a king and turn Puritan  over corruption , or has that part of History been cancelled in schools?

Winter Anyone

 Well its a look out the window day today , pelting with rain and a fine gale blowing , hung a couple of loads of towels out just because it softens them up nicely and i cant abide fabric softener plus its another one of those things you can live without if you have to.  On the subject of washing im still managing to line dry everything due to the howling gales it then needs a night in the airing cupboard folded and done . Fighting heating wars with himself , hes cold all the time because hes awaiting his next iron infusions , he just wont move about at all unless he has to , plus he insists in being in shorts for 90% of the year . he hasnt realised that ive turned down the thermostat to 10 degrees so the heating doesnt actually click on , i may get away with this for months if im careful.  Hes also getting at me for nipping to the loo in Sainsburys and coming out with a jumper and a pair of pyjamas from the sale rail , unusual to spot stuff in a big size , thats a gripe for another day .  Plus our plague visit to the jumble sales last week went quite well , 3 items of clothing , one to wear one needs altering and a third for the amazing fabric , a huge bag of craft stuff, includes Ehrman tapestry canvas , cross stitch kits loads of tapestry wool ,loads of canvas , basically a bag of happy . I got 3 rather nice 50s cookbooks theyre sat airing in the window . Daughter however is taking up the ugly ornament challenge , i was in the lead but she spent a whole 50p on a big lump of brownstone ware that resembles a huge policemans whistle , she gifted it to me and i havent had the heart to tell her its studio pottery and has a bit of value to it...lol  i will get round to adding a photo if it ever gets light .  So thats a week of happy , now the visitor season appears to be over . Just have to make it through to spring and gardening time

Shitstorm

 So in our latest bloody good idea  we have the jolly good wheeze of shoving all the overflow shit into the rivers and seas , this does have to happen from time to time in the event of severe flooding . but water companies will no longer have to be fined for it happening . So of course they will do it more and more for  profits.  Well if most of the public can see this then why the curious parliamentary blindness ? Could it possibly be the large donations made to a certain party ?  Then joy of joy we are importing human excrement from the netherlands to spray as fertilizer , well being a country dweller i can tell you that most anything is better than the chicken shit sprayed by Dyson farms , it makes your eyes sting your lungs burn and is like no other sprayed shit for lingering it can be smelt for miles . currently they spray it before they plant winter cover crops, they then spray with weed killer in the Spring then plant endless maize for bio fuel the maize leeches all the nutrients from the soil but its very profitable .  Yet another cracking green policy from our Leaders .  They do say that anything over one side of an A4 sheet is all Boris will read , but our Glorious Leader reader managed to read the Brexit stuff he signed didnt he?

Well

 This is exciting day two of lash with rain then blinding sunshine , global warming of course . Though back in the day they just called it autumn storm season . Still pleasantly warm , so no heating yet its just reached the crawl under the duvet at 3am wake up dripping with sweat and have to hang your limbs out of the duvet for the spiders to get you time of year . Still not going further than the doctors and its village full of tourists , though ive pencilled in Saturday for a jumble sale or two and picking up grandson for the school holidays . masked gloved and in my rain coat with a fetching aroma of sanitizer of course . Now we are the proud possessors of the latest variant which has some daft greek name but i think its fairer to just call it the Skegness variant because thats where its centered on ...ho hum here we go again .

Meanwhile in my daft thoughts on our poxy government , have you wondered why all the media is harping on about getting your xmas food early ? People dont seem to realise that we may have major difficulties come January when we go full on customs at our boarders and you just know that with our thousand year dispute with the French theyre going to enjoy this no end .  Meanwhile im just glad that Boris cant play a fiddle while we burn . At least with him just doing painting by numbers in the sunshine we have nobody quoting greek at the French just for fun .

Errrm A letter from Saj

 So Sajid  has sent other half a letter , pages of it because hes a clinically vulnerable . Incase your wondering Saj is our latest Health Minister . The replacement for Fondling Hancock , who isnt a hard act to follow . It would seem that any form of shielding has been abolished and you wont be asked to do it again . Now its all down to you !  Bless hes not to go near anyone whos not had the vaccine , all family and friends should take a lateral flow test before visiting him , all visitors must wear a mask and he musnt go into crowded spaces and social distance at all times .  OK fair enough . 

Then we get a whole lecture on mental health , we apparently have a lets talk loneliness web site , theres also Hub of Hope for serious matters you tap in your postcode and then you need to download an app. Your local council may be able to help ?  not ours . theres a whole list of online stuff .  But not everyone has online access and when youve got mental health problems its  government by iphone yet again . The biggest giggle is that you must ask your Consultant at your next regular appointment about having your booster jab , who the hell is managing to get a regular appointment with a Consultant unless you pay ?

There will also be no priority access to online grocery deliveries .

So from an our family perspective how does this work out . Well other half only has contact with the unvaccinated . Vaccination is wonderful but with an auto immune condition and the chance of seeing a doctor to discuss this nonexistant errrrr.  Son has had severe mental health problems the last year his ocd and agrophobia have worsened to the point of life limiting he has been out 3 times in 2 years and its a struggle to get him to even go into the garden , he needs help there is none in this area .  i always wear a mask when going anywhere and gloves despite the comments and will continue to do so . As for the priority access to anything well we never saw any of it because my partner was missed off the list much as my mother was .  So we went out once a fortnight for groceries and medication and other halfs endless hospital trips on top , stalked by the neighbour with a notebook and the threat of the police .

Meanwhile the Covid rates go ever up, the death rates are still quite high but its just the elderly and disabled so it doesnt matter unless they are your elderly and disabled ! Most of the dying have been vaccinated . So here in Plague Island the government motto seems to be carry on regardless , then jump on a plane and spread it everywhere ...Thanks Saj 

Mumsie

 So lets talk about Mummy Dearest , im sure some of you remember her , now at 86 shes been locked up for 18 months in her bungalow getting fouler and fouler , she was missed off the vulnerable list and it has been a nightmare , if an elderly neighbour hadnt adopted her , she quite frankly would have been found when the pile of post was half way up the door , but shes just as stubborn as ever and hasnt run out of booze yet , though shes run out of friends as she tells me everybody is dead or been put in a care home .  Now before Covid she was awaiting cataract surgery and her eyesight has got to the stage where she cant even read the labels on her bottles , shes reduced to wiltshire farm foods or Parsley Box . Now she is due next week to go into hospital to have a cataract removed , but only if shes had her Covid booster and her flu jab , but she couldnt get them anywhere in her area theyre not doing them yet . Well she got a bit annoyed at this having rung her shut up shop GPs umpteen times and being told she must book online , in fact she got so annoyed she jumped in a taxi and went to the surgery . This in it self should have warned them , but she managed to get into the building when a delivery bloke was leaving and once she was in she wasnt leaving ..lol ..now she may appear a tiny little old lady who they can bully , but once shes on rant theres no stopping her .  So in no uncertain terms she told them she wasnt planning on dying just to oblige them ,  they could sort out her vaccine appointments now , at which point the receptionist started on the whole you need to book online , mother called her a fuckwit , im fairly sure she picked that phrase up from me and pointed out she lived alone saw nobody and is classed as blind how was she supposed to book these soddin appointments . The practice manager had to be called out to give her the whole you will need to leave because you are abusing the staff . She refused to leave and they said they would ring the police . Well she quite liked the idea of that because she hasnt seen them since she went into isolation but she also pointed out that she was going to the local press next stop . So in the end they sat her down in an office and gave her a cup of tea . They booked her vaccine appointments  30 miles away so now she can have her operation , then they asked her why she hadnt got a fall monitor which set her off on another rant because they may be free but they charge you to come and see whats going on if its set off . They eventually managed to get her back in the taxi by telling her that someone from the council would be coming to do a care assessment ....god help them ...lol  And the reason i know all this my cousin was hiding in the waiting room hoping she didnt spot him 

Mental Health

 Does anyone else think we have got to that perfect storm situation , everyday theres something else piled on to people by the bunch of incompetents in government , lets take £20 a week off struggling folk then tell them in the next breath that their fuel costs are going up £140 .  Fuel , if you have to drive to work youre adding hours to your day looking for it . Telling people to work more hours while the low paid get to keep a mere 63p of every hour worked . Im glad we are old and  decrepit, but for the kids generation its just knock after knock , everywhere they look , no light on the horizon .  Mental Health is getting hammered into the ground , best you will get is a packet of pills from your email to the GP , nobodies going to even ask whats the matter its just accepted that everybody's depressed . Latest one is interest rates the younger generation have no idea where this is leading, those of us who are older remember the interest spiral back in the day , where the repossessions were on every street.

So lets remember its women who suck it up and get on with it mainly ,but its men who end up hanging from trees because they dont ever like to admit theyre broken inside . So hug your bloke remind him your there and the problems are yours as well . Be there for your other half because you never know the life and soul off the party has often had enough 

Dont Panic

 Despite what the press are blathering on about we are not yet starving in the UK , some random grocery items are hard to find and shopping on friday and saturday empty shelves will feature on your trip .  Please support your local foodbank , mainly because our benefit system is a shambles , latest scandal which they are trying to shut down in the media ,is those who have reached pensionable age and the state hasnt started to pay them their pension , it seems there have been thousands of people left in this mess , why is nobody surprised ? did not enough people die due to Covid ?   Then theres the fun with fuel , hasnt affected us much we are rural and our fuel station seems to just have four vehicles in the queue , unless its the night before his delivery and he posts on facebook he has fuel then they come from miles away . I gather its pretty chaotic in the towns . Other half hasnt grasped as i have that we are reliant on oil heating which is delivered by the same drivers that theire is a shortage of , so that could be pretty interesting if the weather changes .  Reminds me of the Join the Fuel Club conversations we had during Covid  when they set it up , i had a whole conversation with some middle class prick from the council , who couldnt understand that we couldnt afford to pay £80 a month for our heating oil all year round and that the money we dont spend on fuel in a summer goes towards building up food for the winter months . Poverty blindness is real and thriving in Rural Lincolnshire . I sometimes wonder what extra they think the disabled are getting money wise . I know we get £27 pound PIP . I know i get £67 for being a carer , then my partner gets single person rate ESA  and they take  £30 a week ofF him for me claiming carers , i consider us lucky to get this and it means we are a little better off than some but it doesnt go far . Apparently theyre going to send us all on government zoom courses on how to manage our budgets better . Cant wait i suppose it may show me where were going wrong , you know in choosing eating instead of heating . I see the press have took up the people will have to make hard choices about heating and eating this winter , idiots some of us have been doing it for years the disabled in particular , we have been lucky in getting a couple of mild winters so it hasnt killed to many .   Anyway im off outside to fit a big motorbike chain and lock to our fuel oil tank , i can already see that theyre going to be targeted by the usual thieves this winter. 

Daft Ideas

 I know i do some daft things , but i snuck out for an hour on Sunday morning to the local car boot its just in the next village and if you get there before 8 theres just a nice amount of people pottering about . Himself had finally nodded off after nuking him with industrial painkillers so i figured he could be left . Anyway id pottered round the whole thing and bought nada , i was looking for cooking apples but they are like gold this year . Stopped to talk to one of the old guys whos always there and he says dont you like dolls?   And with that whips out a whole box full of Barbie type creatures £3 so i have a polite root among them and then he says thats the price for the box , so guess what they came home with me . I thought i could clean them up and brush their hair and charity them if nothing else , theres 30 dolls most are salvageable, the clothes have gone to the wash and im going to be brushing hair for a week . Then i started looking online . Have you seen the prices of teen dolls new ? scary.  Then i asked a mate who works with loads of local charities about where they could be donated . Same problem as usual , unless they are new and sealed in a box the big charities dont take toys , most just bin them . So i just have to find one of the small church or animal charities willing to take them , shouldnt be a problem theres a good few locally . If not i may bundle them up and sell them on facebook then give the money to foodbank . Anyway the point is this just gives me something to do thats different from endless medical matters . Plus the look of horror from himself and son when im sat humming to myself brushing dollys hair and wet wiping Snow Whites crotch is worth every penny ...lol 

   

Hoarders

 Its been a bitch of a week . Himself  decided we should go to Skegness for the day , i really dont like going unless its the middle of winter , to me its just a chore and the fact i have to lift that crippling buggy out of the car . Blinding sunshine , gorgeous day but  it wasnt for me . Hoards of crazed old grannies running you down on their buggies , fag in hand and chihuahua balanced in the basket on the front . Everywhere its like a bad Benidorm , so he scooted up one street and down the other , i get a whole rant about why im not going in the shops , but i see little point in going in places that sell nothing i would want . I made an effort to go in Yorkshire Trading because they had an end of season garden sale , got a fly screen for next year and a couple of new bird feeders , that was it .  Then he decides hes off to treat me to a Burger King , had to laugh its shut down , in fact it was the only empty property we saw .  I just wanted a cuppa by this stage but no chance he decides he wants Mc Donalds takeout ..UURRGGHHH

So by the time i got home , i wwas knackered from running after him on his buggy , then spent the night up being sick from the soddin tiny mcDonalds or lifting his shitting buggy not sure which . But it got better the next night his nose popped about 9pm and it wouldnt stop so rang for the ambulance they said it would be at least 2 hours but it came in 40 minutes , there was much umming and arring about taking him in but they decided to cart him off yet again . He spent 2 hours holding court in the back of an ambulance outside casualty then they found out why i had insisted they take him , he collapsed yet again . I still had to fetch him at 6am they have no beds and they decided to not top up his fluids this time just to see what will happen . They are once again reporting the GPs for failing to monitor him despite repeated requests from 3 consultants and casualty . But it still means that im left here on my own , with his collapse risk high and no means of moving him if he does blackout , plus a possible 2 hour wait for an ambulance . 

Beggers belief 

Winter is Coming

 So as we head into Autumn , we are greated with media stuffed full of your going to starve or your going to freeze . Good choices ?  Yes its annoying having to shop around to get what you want or waiting for the lucky dip that is your supermarket home delivery . But theres still plenty of food out there at the moment , its a tad disquieting to visit Farmfoods for your teabag multipack and a winters worth of wash powder amd find theres folks going full on doomsday apocalypse shopper but if you have a large family whats the alternatives , i think if your kids have left the nest its very easy to forget just how much teenagers eat if youve two or three its nightmare levels of consumption . Realistically making sure you have a couple of gallons of cooking oil and two or three sacks of spuds on stock isnt a bad idea also enough pasta for a small army and dont forget vacuum packed rice is near bloody immortal . I admit to having pack ratted a good few chicken UN ration packs , pre cooked and just chuck in with what ever sauce you can devise . Daughter came the other day and she couldnt find sugar to make jam . Im not jam making this year unless the urge takes me , the younger generation can learn ...lol  I think what im trying to say is that the older generation are less panicked by what goes on around us , we have the knowledge to make do and adapt and get by that we need to pass on to the younger generation so they dont become so stressed by our idiot media ...............Oh and on the no heat front , dont forget to buy half a dozen hot water bottles , fingerless gloves for everyone , lots of wooly slipper boots and rechargeable lighting or wind up torches ...ffs no candles , get your inner boy scout on , because winter is coming 

Waddling Along

 Im still here !!! but when you both end up with a nasty stomach bug at the same time in a house with only one loo its fun , plus you have to care for your other half while wanting to crawl into a ball and die yourself . Of course , i then manage to pick up a nasty skin infection on top , which had to be home doctored and sort of ran me into the ground . But dont worry about us Mr BH has a telephone appointment with our latest GP today 7 days after it was requested !!  even better our new GP is the strange bloke with a dicky bow and the name with no vowels we had a few years ago .  He repeatedly screamed at My OH that he was an alcoholic and needed to admit it at which point he found out that his patient could be just as loud back at him . it ended up in a complaint being lodged . But saying that it has taken 10 years for them to find that my OH actually has a genetic condition that mimics alcoholism so ho hum life goes on . i  think i may hide down the garden .

On the garden front im officially way behind , most of the fruit went to waste , still tons of raspberries coming ready . Apples dire , tiny and full of worm . But the fact that nobody seems to have apples at the gates this year means its just a bad apple year .  Grandson dug the potatoes this weekend and they have been a pleasant surprise , ive mountains of them , celery is doing well . leeks are small but thriving among the weeds , my pumpkins all shrivelled and vanished during the sunshine which is somewhat baffling , cabbages look good in their cage so not too bad a year veg wise . The hedgehogs im feeding seem to be doing a good pest control job . The just grow what we like ethos does seem to have worked quite well though im going to miss my winter squashes for soups and stews . Must get my seeds ordered soon ..lol

Bimbling On

 Ive had a good week , disabled fishing Thursday so a day of peace until i spotted a £10 TV unit on facebook in the next village . quick pop down to collect and then one of those jobs you wish you never started .  The old Tv unit didnt want to move and i had to move so much stuff to get it out and then get my whinging slave to help me lift it out , it hadnt been moved in years it was so heavy and dated from the days of huge TVs . Why is their a plague this year of spiders that are a dot of a body with thin legs you can barely see ? they seem to make webs everywhere in no time as fast as you hoover them theres 10 more . So we eventually got the new one in its higher and smaller which is what i was after plus its nice boring pine instead of a grey and glass monstrosity. i also with no witnesses threw all the old game consoles into the dustbin , the kids just abandoned them here for Mr BH to try and fix which never happened . saved the toughened glass shelves from the unit for shed glass repair . The screws went into the screw jar and im afraid the wood is compressed chipboard so will have to go to the new bonfire pile . waste not , want not and all that . It took till bedtime for Mr BH to notice what id done , his first question was what i had done with all the consoles?  I told him they were in the box behind the unit , the empty box he cant get to . You even have to be crafty throwing stuff out these days since he got the security cameras put up , so that he can watch us when hes out on his phone . Joy ..Today hes going to a car show with useful son and daughter and grandson are hopefully coming to help fill the bin some more .   

Tedium Tuesday

 Im informed we have to venture to civilisation tomorrow , just because i need some cheap roof felt for my garden swing and another project im working on . Nobody delivers within my price range , either that or theres none of the cheap stuff available , not that theres many places to try in lincoln . Im currently in the dog house for using his Dremmel to do the hard skin on my feet , im feeling a bit rebellious due to the arival of this odd three wheeled scooter that has arrived its not a trike exactly thank god ,he did have to sell his big trike when he got bad , im not sure how hes going to ride it but his minions are all egging him on . Im merely the tea lady whos opinions count for nothing . 

 Last week i had my first daughter day out for 18 months , we thought we would risk our lives with a trip out to Boston on market day . Well Boston is now practically a ghost town the center has been decimated with closures over the Covid period , the charity shops seem to be thriving however , though theres about half the amount there was . The market is just hanging on , most of the stalls that have been there for years seem to have gone . However the second hand auction looks to be thriving, didnt get into the scrum i dont do crowds these days . I was dragged into the British Heart Foundation , i wouldnt normally bother its so overpriced , however they now have a £1 shop upstairs that is better than the overpriced downstairs , i came away with a couple of studio pottery bits , something ive not bought for years . I managed to resist all the pyrex .  Its strange pyrex is sought of in the USA but you can still pick good vintage bits up here for next to nothing . Ive developed an online interest in watching locker buyers in the States and their online auctions . The prices stun me . Its the postal prices here that kill the trade with the US and Canada . Wish me luck  tomorrow im planning on springing a few charity shops on him 

Why

 So lets talk about the shocking shit show that is Afghanistan ...where to begin ? im sick of finding that people that i think of as online friends are ranting on that we cant take more refugees , we should look after our own first , yes we should but they dont want to look after anybody so whats new . Maybe a few of the vast number of MPs of all parties who own rental properties and second homes could find a bit of space? Mr Blair being one of the worst offenders . They forget thats there is a whole wedge of the population who have served in Afghanistan at some point in the last 20 years, they dont forget their debts to the Afghans who helped them survive out there .  I dont care whos fault this war is bloody politicians are just into wars for the vast profits they make for the people who slip them a backhander , maybe somebody should compile a list of who has been paid by armaments companies or worked for them before they became MPs?  Then we have the MP for Israel , whos parents came here from Uganda , she hasnt a ounce of empathy for any member of the human race . The Taliban may make a credible government eventually , there is that heavy religious cult element  but among them is a younger generation who like decent trainers and the latest AK47 ,they haven t all been holed up in a cave for 20 years , theres a lot  of internet savvy younger folks .  When you think we have spent 20 years and many lives interfering in a country that is famous for beating the Russians and now us and the USA , just because of its vast mineral wealth alone they will have to drag themselves onto the world stage with some resemblance of democracy. They have what everyone wants , they want trainers and AK47s so time will tell .