Perhaps the above should be entitled "Undecided over Bill's mother's". Timed around 5.30pm and certainly dramatic.
I have actually been up today - in bursts of around 30mins - as soon as a twinge arrives it's back to bed. In two such bursts I managed to prepare a fully ripe melon for starters followed by sausage, mashed potato with plenty of butter and chives, carrots, shredded sweetheart cabbage and battered onion rings. Might sound an odd combination but my customer described it as excellent. She then took over and did fresh strawberries and ice-cream for pud.
The weather has indeed been stormy and the Wimbledon men's final is not yet finished. It's 8.20pm at the moment and poor Ro must be starving for his tea ! My £1 is on Federer and apparently if he does it it will be the first time in 325years that someone has pulled back from a two set deficit. He obviously is concerned about my £1.
Picture 2 is the bird bath in the rear garden and an old fashioned shrub rose that rambles all over the place. Each year I try with strong garden wire to hold it to the trellis for support but in really rough weather it always loses the battle. Smells nice though.I hesitate to say that I am much better today. Last time I said it I was admitted to hospital 2 days later.
But I'll take a chance. Because I am more or less OK re sickness and much less pain.
David rang this afternoon having returned home from Carsington where their weather had been mixed. There is much fuss locally about a plan for 4 wind turbines there. He says he isn't anti wind turbines, thinking in fact that they can be very impressive, but why choose a beauty spot where people go to enjoy the scenery and the water. My point would be choose a more remote spot (no shortage in Derbyshire) and why only 4 ? 4 turbines don't generate much electricity and seem to have little more than nuisance value. Why not 20 ?
Comments ......... Jill ..... The usual reason for Clematis refusing to perform is dryness and surface heat around the main stem. Try tucking some slate or bricks or whatever round where it comes out of the ground. Failing that, as already suggested, go and get a spade and hold it up threateningly near the plant.
Brief research tells me that the treatment of Osteoporosis has indeed improved recently. In one bit I read it appears the bone degeneration can to some extent be reversed. It goes without saying that our love and best wishes are with you.
That ridiculous Cabinet minister. whose name I can't be bothered to remember, assures everyone that mixed wards are no longer a problem. Everyone knows they ARE - especially for ladies. Most reasonable men feel that ladies should be accorded dignity and respect and not forced to share manly noises and smells and things. When I was admitted, I felt so ill I wasn't really aware of my surroundings. But my retching and thrashing about was simply unfair on the other patients, of whatever sex. I should have been put in a side-room for their benefit rather than mine.
..............................................................
So. 9.20pm and it is Nadal ! What a match. I've been keeping up on 5 live while blogging and I've lost my £1
... I'm off now. Sleep tight and I'll catch you tomorrow.
... I'm off now. Sleep tight and I'll catch you tomorrow..
6 comments:
See, I told you Nadal would triumph! Don't worry, Ro did get his supper earlier, I waited until the beginning of a set and we had our usual Sunday supper of boiled eggs and toast. I note you had three course for lunch - there's posh for you - I roasted a chicken with bacon and chipolatas, roasties, fresh carrots, cauli and runner beans. We had a muxture of blackberries (enormous ones, don't know where M & S gets them from, they are from Cornwall? would not have thought they were worth cultivating in a greenhouse) and Scottish raspberries and nectarines.
I am so pleased you are feeling better, but don't push your luck, do as Y tells you (and I bet she does).
I bet that Cabinet Minister who pontificates about mixed wards either goes privately or gets a single room on the NHS. Lord Dharzi? When Cherie Blair had that last baby, she went to Chelsea and Westminster (where I had my bone-density scan) and said she was treated just the same as everybody else. Bet she bloody wasn't......
Will send medical bulletin tomorrow - many thanks for good wishes.
Is your rambling rose an Albertine? I have just planted one, we had one at home when I was growing up, it completely covered the shed and had a beautiful perfume. Very pale pink, lots of thorns.
Bungus, on the tennis it was said that the last person to hold some record or other (there were so many statistics being quoted)was a William Renshaw. Any relation?
PS - Forgot to say that I tried the slate trick on said clematis last year....
I am late commenting on the 2 most recent blogs because we were out most of Sunday at a family lunch with Sandra’s 2 remaining sisters and 3 brothers-in-law. Pleasant enough and we watched all but he last 2 sets of the brilliant Men’s Final (we watched highlights at home later). Federer was not at his best for the first two sets but fought back magnificently to win 2 tie breaks until a driven and determined Nadal deservedly won the match in a tense, prolonged fifth set.
Sat
It looks to me more like lovage or borage (I have never eaten comfrey but I have added water to it to make the foulest smelling but most effective fertiliser you can imagine). Borage flowers are very pleasant tasting and lovage makes an acceptable celery flavoured addition to stews etc.
I am pretty sure that comfrey or ‘knitbone’ is now considered as a poison – not to be consumed. Worth a google check (later).
I think hand-holding is much better than being the patient.
When I was in King’s Mill Sandra always got a cup of tea when it came round. And worried though I am sure she was, I would take that in preference to my nights of projectile vomiting etc.
If 18 July is a Friday I think we may be at the City at the same time. Perchance we shall be able to take coffee together?
I am sure that Jill did not intend to cause any offence in her reference to the unemployed and I have no wish to start a fight.
But just try substituting ‘refugees’,‘asylum seekers’, ‘Poles’, ‘blacks’ or ‘gypsies’.
I know someone who had nothing but contempt for those out of work until he spent 2 years as a job seeker himself as a result of redundancy.
On your other point, RG, unless feeling dreadfully ill, I would much prefer to have a bed in a 6 to 60 bed hospital ward than be in a room on my own. But I am able to positively enjoy a stay in hospital when I don’t feel ill, ie, when well into recovering from surgery. I once insisted upon an extra month in Debdale Hall Recovery Hospital, after a month in Mansfield General.
Jill:
An aunt of mine had a bunion operated on and said it was excrutiatingly painful in the post-operative stages. I also knew her husband’s brother who, serving in the Far East in WW2, had his toenails shot off and declared it by far the most painful wound among several more serious others received.
Sorry, but I have been assured that Laura is Australian, ie, as English as Oscar Pietersen, the England 20/20 captain, or Tony Greig, the baker.
Sunday
Like the cloud picture.
I take your point about noisy patients being better placed in isolation at night.
Jill:
Graham and I picked some monster luscious blackberies in Norfolk last September. I always believe that the wild ones have so much moe flavour than cultivated varieties.
At Bro-in-law’s today we had 2 lovely cheescakes, which I usually don’t like, from Asda. One was Fruits of the Forest, the other looked like Cherries but tasted like strawberries.
I thought the ‘mixed wards’ comment was saying that they no longer exist, which may or may not be correct. And it depends what is meant by mixed wards. The one I was in at King’s Mill had men and women but they were in separate bays which I thought was quite satifactory.
As a writer of Creative Autobiography I can tell you that Great Uncle Bill was the first Wimbledon men’s Singles Champion (from 2 years). As a hosiery worker he knitted his own racket. And his father captained the ship which brought Dracula to England in his coffin and foundered off Whitby.
Apart from protecting the roots of clematis from sun, it must also be buried deep. I’ll bet you did that too!
Uses of Comfrey
· If you are able to keep chickens on your allotment you can feed wilted comfrey to them.
· As a compost activator - comfrey is so rich that it not only enriches your heaps but encourages them to heat up.
· The first cut of the year, in spring, should go in to the furrow before the potatoes. The liquid feed will also be good for potatoes as will chopped wilted leaves as a mulch - before the foliage gets too dense to effectively spread it.
· As a mulch and as a liquid feed for tomatoes, runner and dwarf beans.
· Mix with leafmould to make a base for potting compost.
Lovage leaves are used in soups and gravies. The leaves have a celery like taste and so it can be used to good effect in vegetable soup. The young stalks and leaves are tasty cooked as a vegetable. Peel or scrape the stalks, chop them and boil in salted water until tender. Serve with a white sauce. The crushed seeds and chopped leaves can be added to omelettes, the seeds having the stronger flavour. The young stems of Lovage can be candied like Angelica and a good cordial can be made from this. Lovage broth made from the seeds is traditionally a diuretic and appetite stimulant.
(Note - I believe the Indian herb Aijwan is lovage. Very good for the digestion).
Borage has long been associated with health and good cheer and, for this reason, Pliny called it Euphrosinum, due to its euphoric effect. Both Pliny and the ancient Greek physician, Dioscorides, believed that borage was the famous 'nepenthe'2 of Homer which, when steeped in wine, brought about forgetfulness (Note - too much borage, that's what it is!).
In recent years, borage has been shown to contain gamma linoleic acid (GLA), an omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid, which is active against various cancers, including breast, brain and prostate. It prevents the spread of malignant tumours by restricting blood vessel growth. For these reasons, borage has been adopted as the symbol of National Cancer Day, as promoted by Cancer Research UK. In fact, borage has the most potent concentration of gamma linoleic acid found in nature, containing twice as much as is found in the evening primrose, and which is used to treat pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS). Indeed, it is now possible to buy capsules of borage seed oil from health food shops for this purpose.
Culinary Uses
In folk tradition, borage has long been believed to dispel melancholy and ease grief and sadness. According to Dioscorides, borage can 'cheer the heart and lift the depressed spirits', while Gerard3 wrote that its flowers were used in salads 'to exhilarate and make the minde glad' while cooks used them 'for the comfort of the heart, to drive away sorrow, and increase the joy of the minde'.
On the 'unemployed' question, I have long been aware, since reading a 1950s article in the Architests Review, of the pejorative use of essentially innocent words. The example given was 'corrugated' but I suppose that splendid building material 'red brick' is another example when applied to universities.
And I dislike the euphemistic term 'Job Seeker'. What was wrong with 'Rat Catcher'? - oh no, that's a different one.
I got the result of my recent bone-density scan today - bad news is that I do indeed have osteoporosis as I thought. Good news is that I have no old fractures nor any hair-line fractures (which usually lead to full fractures/breaks).
I had done my homework and sorted out a drug that I thought I should be on - it is at present the only one which has ben shown in some cases to reverse bone loss to some extent. I had to 'be firm' with doctor in order to get it prescribed, he had to make three phone calls but I now have a month's trial. It can have unpleasant side effects, but the blurb in the packet says these are mild and only last a few days. So we wait to see.....
Many, many congratulations to Rafa Nadal. What a gripping, fascinating, edge-of-your-seat finale to the final. Was it the best ever? Who knows? But it's got to be up there.
Rafa Nadal
New Wimbledon Champion
The world's at his feet
Best ever final
Wimbledon Men's singles
One pound to Yvonne
I think I'm beginning to become haiku's answer to William McGonagle.
I thought, RG. you had tipped Nadal to win?
Surely being in a hospital ward full of people is going to be more entertaining than being in solitary confinement? After all, people are endlessly fascinating, and you can watch their behaviours all day long. I find caravanners very entertaining. One thing that amuses me is, that wherever they go and whether they stay for a couple for days or a couple of weeks, they always build their own little space, usually with windbreaks. I've noticed this on every site I've been on and at Upton Jazz Festival last weekend.
Little Den and Joan are, currently, on a bus tour of European capitals. They are visiting Brussels, Prague, Budapest and Vienna in 10 days but not neccesarily in that order. My work colleague is in Madeira. I want to be somewhere else.
Jill; I hope the medication works for you.
Rob
Post a Comment