Week 48 - in the garden after the cold snap, Dave's Notebook

Garden Glimpses

 

Improved weather always stirs action. No time to waste. Dead bits everywhere, marginally improved after a tidy up. Not the time or place for a sit. Reduced facilities says it all. But I had a go. No garden birds.

It's Lent again. Two years since my pilates spat. Counter-intuitively I'm up for it. Not the self-denial - we're all at that. It's a celebration without the material excess of other times of the year. Celebration of rebirth, reflection and re-invention. Catherine Pepinster, Telegraph 13th Feb, wants to revive fishing and fasting, a tradition from our Catholic friends, largely lost since Henry VIII, of avoiding meat, especially on Fridays. It will help the fishing industry and improve our diet, for the moment. 

So to the fish shop this morning. Four in the shop at any one time. The queue is superb, both sides full of products we didn't come for but left with - including black pudding from Bolster Moor. Brindon's then for Yorkshire sausage and pork and stilton pies, scrummy. Denied myself a flagon of Farmer's. Then to the sit.

Reinvention sounds like a New Year resolution, with which we all struggle despite SMART targets. Yet the prospect of restrictions for most of the coming year gives us enough time to plan something. Even though we are forgetting everything and can't string a sentence together. I have already tried to simplify my chaotic computer with the intent of making sense of family history, enough to engage a printer. It certainly is not rocket science, but taxes the patience. It takes oodles of time. I need to set a deadline, but when? And don't get me started on SEO, key words and links. 

Dave's medical notebook

NHS reform - anyone else got deja vu? As long as the sacred cow wins votes it will never be out of the hands of politicians whatever they come up with. 

...........................

gp - no ear syringing, so I've been squirting olive oil in my ears this last 12 months for nothing. Given two private numbers for suction. Appointment within 24 hours - success with no hassle. Hearing restored and that strange bunged up head-feeling gone. I won't be troubling the gp again for this service.

.............................

Acre Mills eye clinic - yes, no more 2 hour waits and I even saw the consultant. Not quite medically okay, but a sensible plan to keep in touch with some light touch medication.

.............................

So, two major benefits of lockdown for yours truly.