Old Year's Night

 I am writing again today because it is customary to wish everybody a Happy New Year and to look back at the year of blogging.

I wish all my readers of the new blog a sincere thank you for following me here and especially to those who have carried on leaving me comments who are JayCee, Meike, Simone, John, Bonnie and Yael, Jenn and Pip, Jennifer, and Ranee (who is just catching up with posts). I just remembered Bob and The Hatts visited too  Dave has been around and I am hoping he will come back soon and a new face came yesterday called Tink and Ilona who stays in touch via email.    I appreciate all the comments that you leave me and I wish you a very happy New Year. 

The year saw me busy with completing the Masters degree between January and June with classes and workshops carrying on and then from July to September writing up my dissertation and attending supervision with my professor.  That is all now finished, Masters degree awarded, certificate received, and moving onwards,  and I have started a new chapter in my life.  Following the end of the course the legacy is that I am feeling positive and confident, independent more than ever,  and looking forward to 2026.  

I gave blogging a break for a few months as I described in my first post of this blog and will not go further into it again except to say the break did me good and I am pleased to be back writing. 

In early October, after the time I handed in the dissertation,  I suffered a mystery illness which was identified as a virus and I am pleased to say that in spite of all the fears and puzzles that it presented to me and the doctors I am now feeling well again. 

In September, just before the virus, I booked a holiday for next year which is a tour of Azerbaijan.  This is the first time I have ever booked a holiday so far in advance and during the illness I came close twice to cancelling it.  I also had two difficult calls with my travel insurer trying to be honest and explaining things to them, including touching on my refusal to take statins which had nothing to do with the illness, and then being slammed with a £100 extra on my premiun.

On the back of booking the Azerbaijan trip I commenced an exercise regime to get fitter for the holiday which I have now been doing for three months and starting to feel the benefits.  During the virus I was still able to exercise.

In September I resigned from the Adult Education Learning Group committee as I no longer felt that I wanted to be part of this group researching speakers.  This was one of the changes I made on completion of my university course and a direct result of the way I feel now about continuing my life in a different direction.  I am hoping that 2026 will make this clearer. 

Midway through November I started to feel better and now I think I am through the bad times of the illness.   I have upped the exercises and they have now become a part of my life. 

I still go to the cinema regularly, massage once a month,  and meet the girl friends for lunch.

Nothing has really changed in my year and I wouldn't say it has been a bad year for me,  it has been challenging in many ways, but interesting for me and I have enjoyed my life as I live it and resigned myself to the Labour government that we are lumbered with.  There is no quick way out of it. 

I started attending the Women's Institute in November on a three month taster programme and will probably join in January.  It keeps me going in terms of having to make an effort to comb my hair and dress up to go out at least once a month if nothing else. 

I had a six months relationship from January to July with a man 20 years younger than me and that bucked me up no end and I enjoyed every minute of it, even the day he decided that he was going to up and leave in the middle of a coffee and "start a new life" leaving me,  and the man on the next table,  bemused and amused respectively. 

I heard from him over  Christmas as readers will know so no more to be said today on that.  I am unlikely to be doing very much with him this year but the odd coffee and conversation now and again I will not object to.  He is a fine person and I have no quarrels with him.  What is past is past.  He made me feel human again and that new relationships are not just for the young. 

So that is just about it.  If I think of anything else in the meantime I will add it as an edit. 

Have a great Old Year's Night.  I will be in bed usual time and for tomorrow I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Daily events

I stayed in all day yesterday.  By that I mean I didn't go anywhere in the car so didn't get a paper. I lived without it and today is here again.  

I spent an hour in the garden and completely filled the brown bin which was already almost full because it wasn't collected on the last collection day before Christmas.  I am doing a bramble clearance in the border which hasn't been done since Covid lockdowns when I used it as my outdoor activity at that time.  I am slowly but surely getting right the way along the border by the wall and once I get to the end I will go back to the beginning and give it a second go.  It is a bit like painting the Forth Road Bridge, once you finish you start all over again. 

I then did another hour on the jigsaw

Late afternoon I went outside to do my exercises dressed in hat and coat and gloves and then spent a further half hour outside just before dusk.

The late afternoon around about dusk is one of my favourite times of the day and I like to be outside at that time enjoying the sunset and the fresh air.  

Whilst watching television, below,  I started a new kind of floor exercise which hopefully will enable me to sit back on my heels, the ability for which I have lost.  With quadricep exercises I should be able to achieve this in about six months or sooner if lucky.  I also improved upon the getting down and getting up and achieved a slightly more "finished"  version of this procedure.   My legs are getting stronger.   I was able to do these exercises whilst watching the following Netflix documentary on Jodi Hildebrandt.  Read on.  

In the evening I watched on Netflix the story of Jodi Hildebrandt the LDS evil child molestor who was at all times in total denial about what she was, what she had done wrong, and announced that she will carry on doing in prison,  a fraud, an abuser of the young and adults, out to make money and just plain evil religious controller.  I agree with the prosecution and all concerned in the police operation that she will do it all again if she is let out and we heard her saying that in prison she intends to continue to preach the voice of the Lord and continue her work.  I hope she is put in isolation as the danger that she is and given a taste of her own medicine that she used to dole out to children tied up and locked in rooms alone. 

I then watched again the story of the Red Army Faction (RAF), the Stasi, and the high profile assasinations after re-unification of Germany.  I have in fact seen this before but could not remember it so clearly and believe that I probably did not concentrate on reading the subtitles last time - the whole series is in German.  I remember the assassination of the Deutsche Bank head but not so much that of Rohwedder, the head of Treuhandanstadt which was a state department responsible for the re-privatision of the state owned companies of the GDR.  It was always believed and claimed that the RAF (Red Army Faction) were responsible for these assassinations but it now believed that the Stasi were more likely to have been responsible.  The Stasi felt betrayed by the re-unification of Germany and they had the expertise by way of military and expert staff to carry out these assassinations that the RAF never had.   It is very interesting viewing for me and I have one further episode to watch tonight.

Today is very bright and frosty and I look forward to the day ahead of me.  

Health and puzzles

This is the jigsaw,  Flower Market in Amsterdam, which is on the go at the moment.  I have now finished all the flower section and top greenery sections.  It is a 1000 piece and is a great one to do.  Just tricky enough to be a challenge but not so tricky to be frustrating.  The houses await and they are all very similar so another challenging part of the whole. 

Yesterday I went out for some vitamin
C based foods and came back with tomato juice from which I can get most of my daily needs plus green peppers, high in C.  I am not fond of citrus fruits.  I have half an apple a day.   I realised that my extra dry skin is possibly due to not enough C vitamin.  I read that this can quickly be rectified within weeks if not days so here goes. 

I think the latter part of 2025 has been about health and fitness and I will carry this on now as fortunately the exercise has become part of my daily routine and the diet has improved a lot since October and the mystery illness.  Daily life, tongue, hands, nails,  feet, skin, visible things, did not feature in the doctors visits just blood tests and they were supposed to hold the secrets to my health, good or bad.  The verdict each time was "nothing abnormal found".  I am glad medicine advanced to include the blood tests but I wish that the advances had not thrown everything else out with the bathwater.  

I see that the latest breakthrough in cancer cure is a drug given to dogs to kill parasites.  I hope this is the cancer breakthrough we have been waiting for.

It is a shame that in all the blood tests one is frequently called in for vitamins are not part of the normal process of testing and one practically has to beg for vitamin tests apart from B12 which is in the normal blood test.

I did my exercises yesterday, cleaned the oven which necessitated getting down on the floor and up again and this time for the task in the flesh so to speak rather than in exercise conditions.  I found the hard floor not nearly so pleasant as the carpet for this but I did at least manage to get down and then up although it is as yet not done with swan like ease or elegance.

The sun is shining, I have had my tomato juice so the day awaits.  I have done Wordle, Codeword and More Wordle.  

Payments and Love

Another day closer to Britain getting back to its normal.  It does feel like a Sunday which is something at least.  I don't know whether it will be like a Sunday for my brother though, probably not so I will find myself here all day.  It is a grey day but not so cold as it has been so heating in the house has returned to normal and no heat in the bedroom.  I used an electric oil filled radiator for two nights when the temperature dropped below freezing. It was Christmas after all.

I heard from the "date" man on Christmas Day when he wanted a chat on the phone.  I carried on with texting him during the day but no chat.  I didn't feel in the mood for it.  I needed to think a bit about him contacting me before doing anything.  Yesterday he got in touch again and we talked a real conversation talk on the phone, as opposed to texting.  I had already decided in the summer that I would forget about the day he walked off and if I ever saw him again I would act as if nothing had happened.  Much better than having a row and, after all, he did give me a good six months of seeing him and plenty of poetry material which I needed at the time.  One of the poems in my dissertation was about the fateful day when he walked off.   

Anyway it was good to talk yesterday and we just carried on where we left off and I put his behaviour in the summer down to a kind of mid-life crisis that he is and was going through.  He said yesterday that he doesn't know who he is anymore which is sort of quite sad and I think it is an indicator of the crisis he is going through which we probably all come up against at some time in our lives.  In that he is 20 years younger than me it is not surprising that he has not faced this before.  He said it was his first Christmas completely alone and he had "got through it".  Being one who has had 7 Christmases alone I was inclined to say something a bit cynical but refrained and talked to him about how I cope by actually not thinking it is Christmas as far as I am concerned and just leaving it to those who have families.   

We agreed that we would meet up soon and that sounded fine to me and he is considering returning to some of the classes we used to go to (I still go but he dropped out) and I told him that is good because he is missed by everybody.  I hope he carries that through as he is fun to be with when he is around.   I am starting to wonder what 2026 has in store for me. 

Talking of dissertation, I found my Masters certificate in the garage yesterday.  Clearly the postman had been and as the envelope was marked "do not bend" he had been unable to put it through the door so kindly laid it flat in my garage.  I now have the proof of the two years I spent studying.  I am currently a bit in denial about it all and clearing out a lot of the stuff (books) I accumulated during those two years by giving them away and wanting nothing to do with them.  Strange kind of reaction but some of the books I can't even bear to touch.  I have been earnestly saving up too and having completely no-spend-months, other than essentials, in order to fill the gap in my savings caused by my university fees and to accumulate something towards paying for my holiday next year.  It is coming along but I have just paid my tax bill and there is always something to pay out. 

Eat well

 Hi, it is that time of year when it is difficult to know what day of the week it is.  I can confirm that it is Saturday and the date is 27th December.   

I enjoyed yesterday because I had human contact when Sue came round and we enjoyed a glass of sherry and a chat.  Much as I was happy on my own on Christmas Day (I didn't post that day deliberately because I didn't want to fret that I had no mates) I did relish her visit and sitting by the fire with some normality with another human in the room to have conversation with.  Sue used to live in this house but moved to the barn next door some years back.  I didn't buy the house off her because she had sold to an airline pilot who used to commute to Heathrow and did long-haul and worked three days a week which was enough to earn a good living.  He was actually hardly ever here and had a girlfriend who was probably here on her own a lot of the time.  Then he got a new girlfriend and she didn't want to live here because he had lived here with another girl so they moved and sold it and I was the buyer.  In between time the house stood empty.  It stood empty for two years because nobody wanted it until I arrived one Sunday afternoon with Peter who knew it was for sale and we looked at it from the outside (empty) and then arranged a viewing. I fell in love with the peaceful garden.    I  secretly viewed it three times and then made an offer which was accepted.  It will be a hard house to sell and I was mad to buy it however such is life and I am probably stuck with it.  My mother, had she been alive when I bought it, would have told me not to.  It is claylump, a non-standard material although common around here, and as far as mortgage companies go they don't like lending on them.  It is listed and 16th century.  I have spent nothing on it, apart from endless maintenance, and the interior is as it was when I moved in including all the carpets that the airline pilot left, Sue's kitchen that is 40 years old put in by her father, and the curtains the airline pilot brought back from India.   The only thing I changed in the house was the stairs by getting my builder to replace the uneven steps,  which incidentally revealed themselves to be made from a mixture of orange boxes and wood offcuts when we removed the carpet covering them, with an even set of steps in a kind of pine which I painted in bright colours.  Sue admired them yesterday because she hadn't noticed the paint before although I am sure she has seen them.  She and her husband brought up their family here and they did the restoration and then restored the barn that they moved into.  I like Sue, she is independent and doesn't care that I am the only person in the road who still speaks to her.  This is due to her trying for planning permission to build a house in her yard last year.  The people all got very stroppy about this and now she and her husband are excluded from everything in the village with a great deal of hostility.  Odd how people can be especially when hunting in packs.  I have managed to  remain friends with all of them and Sue and people accept it but their minds are not for turning and they continue to ignore her.  Sue is not bothered by any of this.  Her husband continues in his garden and doing his own thing.  She had left him yesterday watching Norwich City on the tv when she came to see me.  Norwich have now managed to string together three home wins under the new manager so there is some hope that they may escape the drop.  It is a strange world how humans are with each other I find.  I have no difficulty in remaining friends with everyone here and Sue and I think it rather funny and the people she has known for years and years suddenly not talking to her because she wanted to build a house.  She knows that I also objected to her house building plan but even there we are able to remain friends about it.  I did not send in any objection to the Planning Authority however and those that did find their letters, of course, all published on the local authority website.   The cake is very nice and moist as usual and as good as my mother used to make.  She is off to Tenerife in a couple of weeks time to get some sun.   She was in a bad road accident near here a couple of years ago when a local woman went straight over a crossroad and knocked Sue into a ditch. She was airlifted to hospital.   She lived but the result is she now has a bad back.  I suggested massage and exercise.  We went through what I am doing and I directed her to You Tube.  The doctor has put her on a physio waiting list but they take months before you see anyone.  I am surprised at the attitude of some to massage, Sue didn't seem keen,  and I suppose I am just the freaky one who swears by it for health.  Not that it has done a great deal for me in that I still need to exercise to get up off the ground and I still find illness can creep in like in October but taking care not to drink alcohol (I don't count a glass of sherry - a drink to be sociable I will still do) and not to miss out on greens must help.  The state of the nation's health has deteriorated so much and the consumption of vegetables is about a third of what it was when we were growing up in the '50s.  I mean you never see a Master Chef cutting into a cabbage do you?  Eat your greens.   

Knives Out

It is very frosty this morning which isn't surprising after the cold day yesterday with the biting easterly wind.  In spite of that I was still able to do my exercises outside because the sun was surprisingly warm and with a little bit of shelter from the wind and the warmth of doing the exercises all was well.

In the afternoon of Christmas Day I participated in the WEA (Workers Educational Association) 2 hour session on line via Zoom.  This live event was hosted by a lady in Bedfordshire and 28 people participated.  She had been advised that over 100 people had registered.  28 was a good number and it was probably a blessing that not all 100 people had turned up.  I suppose as it was a free event some registered not knowing whether they would actually be able to participate or not.  

I wasn't sure what to expect but it turned out to be a look at the 12 days of Christmas from a historic cookery point of view, the lady being a cookery tutor for the WEA. Mrs Beeton's recipes from the 1930s were referred to quite a bit which struck a chord with me because my mother often cooked from Mrs Beeton recipes and I still refer to Mrs Beeton occasionally as I have my mum's old copy. 

The tutor was quite fun and pitched it at the right, chatty level and we communicated with her and each other via the chat facility rather than calling out.  Of the 28 in attendance several I think must have been very shy because only 8 of us had our cameras turned on.  

That took up two hours between 3 and 5 and at the end I went to prepare my steak for my tea.  That went well and I then watched the first two episodes of Knives Out with Daniel Craig which I remember seeing before quite a long time ago.  I watched the third episode a few nights ago.  I watched Goodbye June with Tim Spall and Helen Mirren and Kate Winslet, with Winslet in her first directing role.  She directed and was in it.   I turned off before the end as it was not particularly to my liking and had many flaws which irritated me.  They may not be an irritation to others so I won't go into it.  I don't wish to be torn apart here.

I started my latest jigsaw in the early afternoon and got hooked on that and it will keep me occupied for about an hour a day (I limit myself) for a week or two.  It is the Amsterdam Flower Market scene and a  Ravensburger,  naturally,  a good find in the charity shop last week.  

I also did some further de-cluttering and cleared an item out of my kitchen that needed to go into the rubbish.    

All in all a good day and useful things achieved.  I also did the floor exercises in the evening which cannot be done outside.  I am improving the look of me getting up off the floor.  I am now concentrating on getting DOWN to the floor without holding on to anything.  Much more difficult than I thought. 

All in all a good day.   

Today I will light the fire early as Sue is coming round with the Christmas cake and we are having a glass of sherry.  

Christmas Eve

When you are spending Christmas Day on your own and you have to tell people when they ask you it reminded me of the reaction some people have to a death - they don't know what to say to you!  I know now why my mother used to fib about what she was doing over Christmas.  It happens over and over again, that people just expect you to "be doing something over Christmas".  Well I am not.  I am sure there must be many of us who "are not" and are perfectly happy with the situation.   I also will not be giving any presents nor receiving any.  And that is ok too.  My brothers don't exchange presents and announced this to me some years ago so I stopped too and that is just about it for me as far as presents ever went after Mum died and later my ex left.  

Now the only things I do are neighbourly and concern the people who live around me and who help each other during the year.  My neighbour Sue is coming round on Boxing Day with a Christmas cake that she has baked for me and we are having sherry together.  We arranged this the other day.  My neighbour David is cat sitting for some friends in Suffolk so he has been round and had a chat and now disappeared until next week.  (David also looks after my cats when I go away). 

Chris and John across the road have been round and on the phone because they are worried about me being alone on Christmas Day but are now reassured that I will be ok following a further phone call from Chris yesterday.  The are going to the next village to be with their daughter.   John muttered that he would rather be home than in a house with 10 people and a lot of noise.  He is 86. 

So now that I have convinced everybody I will be ok we can all relax!

Yesterday felt more like Christmas Eve than today does.  I have put the bin out and the binmen's Christmas Box so that is the job done for today. Hopefully I will see the postman to give him his. 

 I didn't get out for any milk yesterday so am still heading for porridge with water for the next few days unless I get into a supermarket today.  I only drink Soya milk and it is not so easy to get in the villages.  Yesterday I got to the bakery and got rolls and mince pies but abandoned Waitrose visit because I could see that the roads were jammed and the car park jammed so carried on round the roundabout and came home.  So I didn't get a paper either.

Last night I tried  again with The Great Flood  but still could not get into it at all and a woman carrying a child too heavy for her through a flood up a block of flats and turning down help from a man who offered to carry him for her does not make good viewing panting away (even in Korean with subtitles).  It was unpleasant and went on for too long with the huffing and puffing in the water and all the stairs going up and all I wanted to shout was for God's sake give the child to the man.  Then she appeared to be having to give the child up for some experiment (it is a scifi movie) and next I see her back in a flooded flat about to, yes you guessed it, pick him up again, and I was totally lost and done for.  I turned over.

I then went to bed and started one of the books that I picked up from the charity shop yesterday when I went to the bakery.

This morning is bright and good for a day of exercises, relaxation, more exercises and who knows, I might even get into Waitrose.  My friend Christine is ringing me tonight for some normality after a day at the 'hospice'  where her husband is on end of life and in a home  (hospital full and hospice full so he has been shipped out to a home which is being paid for by NHS under scheme where if NHS can't care for you then they have to pay to put you in a home) where the staff are good but the facilities terrible and she has whats app'd me to say can she ring me tonight for some normality.  Christine is also childless and lovely and on her own, apart from the hospice visits which have been going on for weeks while husband has morphine pumped into him.

That's it for now.  

Things

 Yesterday I went to see The Housemaid which I basically enjoyed and it made a good afternoon out at the cinema.    If you want to read more about what I thought see my answer to Meike's comment on yesterday's post.  

I arrived an hour early at the cinema as I usually do so that I can have a leisurely coffee, read the papers and do some writing.  I am usually an hour and half early in fact because my trains only run hourly so my timing for film starts tends to be on the earlier-than-I-need-to-be side of things.  This suits me fine and I am always happy to sit people watching in the café if I have finished whatever I am doing.   

It was a lovely day out although I did not enjoy the drive back from the station in the dark.  I reset my headlamps when I got home as I believe they were not set to light up far enough in front of me.  I set them up using the house wall to shine them on as my guide and hopefully next time I am out in the dark I will be able to see further up the road on dip.   I avoid night driving as much as possible but in winter it is obviously not that easy to avoid when coming out of the cinema just before dark at around 4pm and then driving  the last section of my journey at around 5pm!

I did all my exercises yesterday before I went to the cinema, outside,  and for some reason felt very wide awake when I got home again and after lighting the fire I went straight into the floor exercise of getting up unaided.  I have to feel in the mood for this and for some reason when I walked into the house last night I felt very much up for it.  I know that if I fell there would be a lot of calming to do first before tackling standing up and all the videos stress this, the importance of gathering yourself, calming and breathing before anything else.  It would certainly not be so easy in a "fall" situation because I know from falling in the past there is a lot of shock involved above everything else. 

Today will be a quiet day and if I can stir myself later I will go out for a paper.  If I didn't shop between now and Christmas Day it wouldn't really matter although I would probably end up making my porridge with water for a couple of days as I am almost out of milk.  I have a choice of a lamb chop or a steak for  my Christmas  Dinner and I have signed up for something on Zoom in the afternoon.  I really don't know what it is but seems to be non-religious.  I was invited by the WEA who I have done many courses with to join in and as it is free I thought "why not?" and registered.  I have the code and password and it is a live event.  Well it will make a change for Christmas Day for me.  I like the experience of the day on my own, it has been like this for eight years now and each year I enjoy myself with different meals that I have chosen and having radio or tv or just nothing days.  For the past two years I have had assignments to write for university and that is something I will not miss this year.  It is a very free feeling to have.  

(You may recall that I mentioned that the Thai lady had invited me for Christmas lunch.  Well as there are no trains here on Christmas Day it was always going to be difficult for me and so I had decided to say thank you, but no.  As it turned out she told me last week that her daughters have arranged a surprise for her and are taking her out so it all changed anyway), 

Monday

 It is a lovely day here and I will be going out to enjoy myself by taking a train ride to Norwich and then walk to the cinema to see The Housemaid.  I can't wait.  The trailer to this film is amazing.  Psychological thriller, dark comedy maybe.  I hope the film does not disappoint.    My hairdresser has recommended the book to me but suggested that as I have not already read it I should see the film first.   I have a feeling that after seeing the film I will not want to read the book.  I saw last week that the book has already entered the station bookstall in Smiths. 

The trains are running, the sky is blue and the sun is shining and the temperature is set to be 11C.  

I am going to leave it at that as I don't wish to fall into the habit of letting the blog take up too much of my time.

Bye for now and have a lovely day in your neck of the woods, enjoy the sunshine. 

Catch Up

 

Today is the shortest day and it has come around very quickly.  It won't be long before we are into January and we start to notice the days drawing out a bit.  None of this is so important to me now that I don't go out to work but it is more of something that I just quietly notice.

I am a good sleeper and have a routine which has also changed since I stopped working.  I have become more of a night person and less of a morning person.  I go to bed a bit later than before a work day and I can, of course, get up at bit later.   

My usual getting up time is now between 7.30 am and 8.30 am.   I sleep through until about 5am and then turn over, breathe slowly and go back to sleep for a further two hours.

Routine is vital for good sleep and health and if on a rare occasion that I get up before 7am I will spend the time relaxing and reading.

My Samsung phone health app tells me when I was on screen and for how many hours, i.e. using my smart phone,  and I find this is a good guide for saying to myself, "hey, stop and do something else".    

My time at the moment is spent on exercise and mobility as I mentioned a few days ago and I am spending time with leg and arm exercises to assist me in getting up from the floor unaided.  My oldest brother who is 82 is joining me in this and doing the same at his house.  I have guided him to the videos to watch on You Tube which illustrate the muscle strength that is needed and the techniques involved in getting up from the floor. He rang me yesterday to discuss progress. 

I am pleased to say that I am now doing it with some ease although I would suggest that it is still not necessarily a pretty sight.  I have to work on the aesthetics of rising from the floor from all fours and looking more elegant in the process. 

I watched a programme on Netflix last night regarding pole dancing as a form of exercise and it is certainly a very good way to build core, leg and arm strength.   I did not feel particularly in tune with the crying and female empowerment aspect of the participants and teachers but simply on an exercise level I could see that it cannot be faulted.  Many of the exercises reminded me of the rope exercises we did in the  school gymanisium in the 1960s.  Strip Down, Rise Up, is the name of it on Netflix if you wish to see it. 

I later watched Fargo, the Coen Bros movie, streaming on Netflix at the moment.  It is a brilliant film of very dark humour and drama.  I am surprised I have not seen it before.   It is one of the best movies I have seen in a while and I highly recommend it if you like this kind of humour.   It is all in the timing and delivery.

Today is a fairly normal Sunday and my youngest brother has telephoned me to say come over this afternoon which is what I will do.  I haven't seen him or his wife for a few weeks.   

Christmas does not feature very much in my life nor that of my family.  It was always a low key affair when we were children.  Farm life is busy at all times of the year but especially apparent at Christmas for those with livestock and sugar beet haulage.  It was one day off from haulage and no days off from livestock.  I loved growing up on a farm and the Christmas dinner was always much fun then it would be outside for milking at 3pm to start before it got dark.  Milking would finish in the dark. My father would invariable be working on something in the workshop on a lorry even on Christmas Day.   I wrote a poem about farm life and the day my father died when I was on my recent Creative Writing course and drew attention to  the cows still having to be milked although we started a little bit later that day and the cows were getting very disgruntled at having to wait.   My poems about family farm life were always popular and the reaction of both professor and students illustrated very well what a different world farming is and a complete mystery to those not born into that world.  It is very sad that the Labour government hold it in such contempt. 

Mollywood

 Yesterday's Bollywood movie was actually Mollywood (Malayalan studios as opposed to Bombay (Mumbai) studios) but still the vibrant, musical, dancing and mayhem of Bollywood.  The movie was Bah Bah Ba and pretty much chaos in terms of plot following for me but I still enjoyed it very much.  It was basically about revenge by the poor of the rich.  It was labelled a comedy and there were certainly funny lines and odd Indian humour but did not have me laughing out loud although the Indian audience did laugh out loud. Some may have been lost in translation of course because I was relying on the English sub-titles. 

The screening was practically full in a screen holding about 50 people and I was the only non-Indian face.  I got quite a few "looks" and "double takes" from the audience as they passed my seat at the front as everybody walked passed me as they came in and Indian audiences are always late arrivers and at the interval there was again plenty of people staring at me and giving backward glances.  

The film only came out in Britain yesterday but I noted that reviews in the Indian press have not been good.   But then nobody in the press liked War 2 which I loved a few months back and went to see twice because I enjoyed the music and dance sequences so much.  (It wasn't about war at all in the conventional meaning of the word in case you are jumping to conclusions that I liked a war film because I don't and didn't). 

 

Massage

 Yesterday was my deep tissue Thai massage and it was very good and my whole health,  for want of a better description, feels better for it.  I go primarily for circulation improvement because this was something that bugged my mother in her later life and whilst I don't know that I have it I started taking this massage step some years back to give myself some chance of better health than she had in later life.  

I discovered the benefits of good massage some 25 years ago in Morocco when I was persuaded by my Moroccan friend who I was travelling with at the time to take a massage with a young girl who was just starting out on her career and had few clients.  I shrugged and went along and was immediately hooked.  I had had a shoulder ache for the whole of my adult life since learning to type and thought it was something I had to live with and unavoidable as a typist until that first massage which cured it.  It was as if a miracle had occurred.  I was so blown away by it that I went back to the girl a second time in that one week.  We were unable to communicate verbally because she only spoke Arabic and I spoke only English and I had not indicated any aches or pains to her.  

Over time I have discovered that a good masseur does not need to be told where problems exist, they will find them.   

A few years after the Moroccan massage I visited a Sports Clinic in the Republic of North Macedonia when I had my first knee problems.   A coach driver  seeing me limping had recommended a clinic run by his friend in a back street of Skopje and I missed a day of abc (another bloody church as the tour saying went) to visit the clinic one afternoon.  I had been on an NHS waiting list for physio for months and had never been told what my knee problem was.  Walking into the clinic the man pointed to my knee and a chart on the wall and said "ligament" before I even had my jeans off.  He spoke little or no English but managed to communicate to me that the injury would heal in six months but he would give me massage anyway.  (He was right, it did heal itself in six months).   I paid him in Euros and ended up having a full body massage, strictly professional, and good value for money.  He was running a small sports clinic and I had seen a client wearing a football kit coming out before me so felt safe enough.  

I am wondering if I will find a massage in Azerbaijan to add to my list.

Today I am off to see a Bollywood movie.  

WI Lunch

I went to the Women's Institute Christmas lunch yesterday and a good time was had by all.  I had opted for the traditional turkey dinner followed by a chocolate swiss roll which was a bit like chocolate Artic Roll.  Everything was perfect and the portions were not stupidly large and I noticed when the plates were collected they were all empty and there was little, if any, wastage.  Service was excellent and the kitchen staff of three plus two waitresses and the proprietor came out at the end of the meal and we gave them a vote of thanks for the splendid meal and a round of applause.

We were split on two tables of 30 each and this was still a large group even without all members attending.  I know very few people as I am the newbie trying out the W.I. but had been kindly invited to their annual lunch.   They are a very friendly crowd of women of mixed ages and I was soon chatting to the ladies around me.  When I arrived one table was almost full so I boldly started the second table on my own knowing that I would soon be joined by others.  This was a good way of having people come to me rather than me having to fit into those who were already seated with their friends.  It turned out to be a good idea on my part.  The first table were the drinkers and extremely, noisy and my table were mostly the non-drinkers and although quite rowdy but not being stupidly so.  

I arrived at 12.00 and left at 3pm leaving many still there.  3 hours was quite enough for me.   I have my third meeting in January which is my final one before having to make the decision of whether to join or not.  I am glad to have had this introduction to the group and expect to join up with them and become a regular.  It is nothing like I imagined it to be and much, much larger membership than I had originally envisaged.   There are pros and cons as with everything but on balance I think a meeting once a month will suit me fine to get me out of the house and talking to people. 

The venue was perfect with lots of airy space and nice surroundings.  I did not feel overwhelmed, airless or cramped.  The place perfectly seated all of us.  And the car park is massive.  Always a bonus. 

Today I am going for a deep tissue Thai massage.  The weather is dull and wet but not cold.  I will leave early and go for coffee and a read of the papers in the café nearby beforehand.  

Sheringham

 As I was saying to Dave a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to go to the sea before the end of the year.  It is my only visit this year.  

Yesterday I went to Sheringham.  I just got up and decided I might as well go out.  I stuffed some lunch in a sandwich bag, chipolatas and bread, and a bottle of my tap water, into my backpack and went off for the train after breakfast.  

The connection at Norwich was six minutes or one hour.  I told the guard I wasn't too bothered if I missed the connection because I was not in a hurry.  As it was I made the connection easily, out of one train and straight into the Sheringham train on the opposite platform. 

When I  got on the train a friend whats app'd me and I replied to her query adding that I was on a train.  She then proceeded to ring me on a voice call.  Most odd.  Would you do that?  I wouldn't unless it was something urgent.   So I joined everybody else on the train it seemed and talked to her on the phone.  I let her do most of the talking as she wanted to off-load some stuff on me about her family.  I made appropriate noises mostly.  She had already been through it all with me before anyway and families are families, you sometimes have to ignore the bad bits and not let it get to you. 

It is quite a scenic ride of one hour up to the coast from Norwich, via Wroxham and North Walsham and Cromer, and the farming is a bit different and the land is lighter so I enjoy looking out of the train and taking it all in.  (We have heavy and light land in Norfolk and I live in the heavy land of South Norfolk).  

I arrived in Sheringham at 11.45 and went straight for a coffee in a café just outside the station.  The coffee was very good although the proprietor was not friendly which was a bit sad.   

I then walked down the high street towards the sea and first stop was an ironmongers, a good traditional sell-everything ironmongers,  and bought some panel pins, small nails, which I have wanted for ages but as the ironmongers around here have all closed I was wondering how I would get them.  Problem solved. 

I then walked onwards to the sea.  The sea was calm

with hardly a ripple. 

It was a bit of a grey day but not cold.   Some drizzle but not unpleasant. 

After a while gazing at the sea I went back up the High Street and called into a shop selling all sorts of clothing and shoes and I bought a hat, some slippers and some hiking socks.  The proprietor was a nice, friendly Indian man who chatted and then said he had a flat for sale if I was interested.   He said call in anytime and follow it up if I want to.  So I nearly bought a hat, slippers, socks and an apartment.   He knocked spots off the first man in the café who was morose and unfriendly.

 I had two hours mooching around Sheringham and taking in the sea air and a train ride and was home by 4pm.  Not bad for a £9.95 day out. 

Here is a photo of Wroxham from the train window. 

Wroxham for those who don't know is at the heart of the Norfolk Broads.  The train goes along the back of the town passed the bits you don't normally see if you visit the town by car.  Old boats and things on the water and in the nettles.  Wroxham is on the River Bure and at the centre of the Broads. 

Today I have the W.I. Christmas Lunch.  

 

Governments

 When you're not allowed to fly the Union Jack but you can fly the Palestian flag bad things will happen. Something is wrong in Britain.   Weak, left wing, governments lead to anti-semitism.  Weak, woke, who do not listen to the obvious nor understand it nor respect the strong and continue to ignore all signs of the rise of the bad will result in events that happened on Bondi Beach.  It will happen here and here and here wherever there are IS cells and governments ignore them at our peril. Wake up.

Jobless, Madness, British Forever? No, Gone

 Britain is finished.  If you are one of those who believe that all we need are state workers who work in health, teaching and civil service you are very very stupid.  I once read a comment by a blogger who called these people the backbone of Britain.  The backbone of Britain are the workers who produce and generate the profits to drive the economy and to provide the wealth of the country.  

The Labour Party are set to destroy Britain as we know it, we are already well on the road to this.

Rayner will be returning to government and to the Cabinet and her aim is to be prime minister.  Rayner is behind the employment legislation which has at the moment been sidelined that was to give employment rights of compensation and unfair dismissal rights to those having only 1 day working.  (But the bill continues through Parliament).  I suspect the plan that Starmer has is for Rayner to be PM.   Her Chancellor will be Miliband.   And while the rest of the world is waking up to the stupidity of the climate change madness Britain will have a Chancellor who is a net zero fanatic who will never admit otherwise and never ever back down on net zero however evident it is he is selling us down the river.  We will end up with nothing to give anyway, no money because the benefits will have no source of funding.  I wonder what Britain will look like when everything has gone.  It won't be like a hot country with tumbleweed, it will be cold and miserable. 

Wise people are now seeing they can get more in benefits than they get in work.  Well actually many thousands have seen this for years and it has just been getting better and better and now the two child cap has gone it is a bit more icing on the cake with the marzipan.   Why do three jobs when it can all be passed to you in a benefit payment straight to your bank?

Finished. 

I see that Streeting is having second thoughts about the Puberty Blockers trial. 

I see that Starmer is not having second thoughts about sending the Russian held assets to Ukraine.  How will we feel when Ukraine is free and the rest of the world is at war?   He says the freedom of Ukraine is what matters.   I note that the EU are having second thoughts about the release of the funds that are not theirs but belong to Russia.  

Recovery from Labour always takes decades.   I don't think we will ever recover from this one. We are still living in Blair's Britain and the stupidity of ECHR. From that I don't think  we will ever come back.

 The names of those who support Rayner make interesting reading. I leave you to check out those for yourself but they are not familar to our lips.

Those who may not support Rayner amongst the Labour backbenchers are trying  an  Andy Burnham coup by setting up a by-election which may come off if Mr Gwynne, Denton and Gorton,  resigns, the one who made remarks that he hoped an OAP die before the next elections (as is the wish of Rayner incidentally and all Labour MPs),   however Mr Gwynne says he has no intention of resigning his seat, I mean why would he on a £90,000 salary?  

Pathway to Conversion

 220 children diagnosed with gender incongruence will be given the drugs.  The Health Secretary said he was satisfied with the project and establishing evidence is the best way to proceed.  Study leader Professor Emily Simonoff said that there is no lower age limit for children who can join the trial.  She said it is not considered legal or ethical to aribitrarily exclude an individual from research on the basis of age.  She said that the main risks are a decrease in bone mineral density and there are theoretical risks to fertility and sexual development and brain development but said these are not established.  The trial has been allocated £10.7M and is known as PATHWAYS which stands for Puberty Suppression And Transitional Healthcare with Adaptive Youth Services.  220 under 16s will take drugs for 2 years, half will start immediately and the rest will wait a year and their health will then be compared. 

Is this Nazi Germany 1942?  

I leave you to check the location and what year it is if you don't already know. 

The textile project

Yesterday I went back to the Creative Arts session to contribute some more to the textile project we are undertaking with the Norwich School of Art (now called a university but I never have got used to calling it that).  The squares are now finished, I contributed 3 embroidered squares, and these will be sewn together by the textile helpers,  along with all the other squares,  and presented back to us in due course for display.  This project has now been running for 11 years so there are many finished blankets throughout the eastern area.  I was briefly interviewed to say a few words about my squares, as were two other ladies, and these interviews are I understand to be archived in the project achive.  I have already explained a little about the project in a previous post and how it is  following in the footsteps of Lorina Bulwer the Great Yarmouth asylum ward girl who pleaded to be let out by sewing her words on a blanket in the late 1800s and which now look like a contemporary piece of artwork in the style of Tracey Emin.  

It was a super afternoon with a big turn out and some who had not been to the first session coming along to contribute their squares and words.   I kept mine simple with the emphasis on the importance of communication, talking to one another, and listening and smiles which were the things that I first noticed when I joined the group three years ago when I was an infrequent visitor at the time but always made to feel welcome.  I now go to the meetings each month.  When we start again in January we are having three sessions of singing.  You may recall that I enjoyed the singing group a lot and also got to writing lyrics for a song which was later recorded and I was acknowledged on the recording.  

We only meet once a month but I also see some of the group at other things I go to in my community where there is a lot of overlap of personnel and friendships. 

Today it is a very grey December day after the sunshine of yesterday and I think I will be staying at home. 

Change

Why is Hitler vilified more than Stalin?  Stalin starved to death between 5 and 7 million people, mostly farmers.  Some put the figure at 10 million.   Hitler exterminated approximately 6 million Jews.  Ideology and intent of Hitler to exterminate Jews, an identifiable ideology for observers at the time even without social media to spread the word?   If Stalin had come out and said he was going to get rid of the farmers that he hated then would that have been an identifiable ideology?  If it was known that Stalin closed the curtains on his train so his family couldn't see the starving (he really did this) would  that make a difference to how he is remembered?   And then there was Pol Pot who eliminated 3 million in Cambodia through starvation, murder and torture.   And Ho Chi Minh, numbers dead not finalised or agreed even decades later.  

People say on Holocaust Day in January each year "this must never be forgotten".   Of course it shouldn't but it will be.  I know that is a controversial thing to say because I see each year on blogs people being adamant that it will never be forgotten.  I shake my head at their naivity.  The Nazi hunters will all be dead. Mengele, the Angel of Death, will be forgotten and people will stare at those who expect others to remember.   As the years go by it becomes more and more a memory for only the older generation.  If you talk to young people today there is a kind of a blank face. They've heard of it, like it is remembering something they hear old people talking about and then someone amongst them will mutter something about the Middle East.    

Blogs give a lot away about distorted memories people have even of our generation.  For instance many bloggers wouldn't want to know that Kennedy probably made a lot of mistakes over Vietnam and would prefer to erase anything bad about him.   They would be happy to have mistakes of Trump or Johnson highlighted but not those of Starmer or Biden.  Johnson was a very weak PM as was Cameron, Theresa May was the worst PM ever and a liar from beginning to end who attended church each Sunday and prayed for forgiveness I assume. 

When all my generation are dead Hitler and Stalin will be confined to the history books along with Waterloo, the Spanish Armada, the Armenian Genocide, Nelson, the Balkans Wars of the 1990s,  the Srebrenica Genocide and many many more. 

I was listening to Rear Admiral Chris Perry yesterday.  He is now retired.  He was asked to report to the Government on defence strategies but was unable to get any of his recommendations past the civil servants who are the conduit to the PM.  They didn't approve of what he said.  So he has joined Reform.  If Reform were to win the election and form a Reform government they would not be able to change anything unless they change the role and force of the civil servants formal advice to government. 

The Wreck of Britain

 I see that Trump says European leaders are weak.   How right he is.  Weak, spineless, often very stupid - current example of this Starmer is saying he will give the British frozen Russian assets to Ukraine - has he never heard or understood the words "intimidation" and "Putin" and "it will come back to bite him"  (only for him read us) and perhaps he should follow Macron and not do this. Macron is more cautious. Even the Belgian bank where the assets are held are reluctant to take any part in release to Ukraine.

No army to save us any more, adverts in the cinema every day calling for Army recruits,  empty words, no respect for soldiers so why would any boy want to join up to represent his country only to be threatened with jail 40 years later for doing what he was expected to do and then be called a criminal, put before courts, treated like a dog.  

Why would anybody want to come to Britain to live?  Because we are the soft touch welfare state where the welfare state comes before the working people.  

Why will nobody comment on this post?  Because it is not the acceptable thing to say.  

Blue Moon

 I went to see Blue Moon yesterday not really knowing what to expect.  It is the story of Larry Hart, lyricist who worked with Richard Rodgers of Rodgers and Hammerstein before Hammerstein came along.  Doesn't sound very exciting does it?  However, do not be put off.  This film is in my top 5 of the year, in a year albeit that hasn't produced much in the way of good movies.

Before Hammerstein Rodgers used to work with Hart and produced a big chunk of his best Broadway musicals with Hart.  Then Hart became unreliable through alcohol, not turning up on time, and basically a drunk.  Rodgers was a man of order and routine and got to the end of his tether with Hart and in steps Hammerstein and the rest is, as they say, history. 

Ethan Hawke plays Hart and absolutely nails it.  I loved the script, the balance of pathos and bathos, Hawke's delivery just right and then in walks Andrew Scott as Richard Rodgers, what could there be not to like!  

The film captures 1940s Broadway just as I imagine it.   The film is all set in a bar on the opening night of Oklahoma!   Hart is the has-been drowning his sorrows having left the show early because he couldn't bear to watch it to the end.   

Hart dies a not-so-old drunk and alone.  It is poignantly sad.  Director Richard Linklater does it well and I see from just flashing up his name via Google that he has worked with Ethan Hawke several times before.  He knew the right man for the job.  

Ethan Hawke deserves an Oscar for this part.

Exercises in mind and body

Things that transcend politics. 

Basic humanity. List some things under that heading for yourself.  

There are fine people on both sides. 

Differences yes, total division, no.   (I was listening to a Democrat comedian today and he was saying that total division between Democrats and Republicans is wrong.  He mostly blamed Democrats for their attitude to Republicans like not speaking to them,  not wanting to share the same Thanksgiving table, not wanting to live in a neighbourhood of Republicans and told a story of a Democrat woman who moved to a Republican neighbourhood and found the Republicans were so helpful and nice she changed her views when they cleared the snow and helped her.  She couldn't believe it, she found they were normal individuals who were kind and warm and just like anybody else.  Surprise surprise, just like my post yesterday, here I am a real person just like anybody else indoors.   I wrote a poem along these lines about Britain in my dissertation collection.  The poem is called the Wreck of Britain where I put in a line about a farmer helping you with your car when you went off the road in the snow at 3am.   I have lent my collection to a friend and will see what her reaction is. 

I am currently using  You Tube to teach myself to get up from the floor.  It is quite scary when you realise that you have almost lost the ability to do it.  I can manage getting up off the floor if I have a chair or piece of furniture I can crawl to.  I have recently made sure that there is such a piece of furniture available in each room.  I am now trying to reach a level where I can get up if helpful leverage points are unavailable, like for instance if I was walking across a moor and fell and there was nobody around and nothing to grab on to. 

The ability to leap up off the ground disappears slowly and suddenly without knowing it you've lost it. 

I am gradually getting fitter, realising that old age needs me to be fitter in order to keep going both mentally and physically.  They feed into one another.   I watched a video today about life after 80 being much worse than life after 70 (and that is bad enough).  The two things that are most harmful to the 80 year old plus person is giving up walking and stress.  Stress is extremely harmful to health and our bodies don't cope with it very well, recovery being slower than when we were younger.  Loneliness and isolation is very bad for old people, they start to worry and things get out of proportion and then physical health goes down, recovery in all things like minor colds and viruses takes twice as long.  Giving up on things like walking, going outside, meeting people, are all detrimental to health.  I saw this happen to my mother.  I don't know whether I will succeed but I am certainly going to give it all I can.  I do have to push myself already so God knows what I will be like at 80, if I get there.  It is all very well to take each day as it comes but I now realise that the physical exercises I am doing do mean that I am looking beyond that to the days ahead and I think I am serious enough about it not to give them up. 

Edit:  I have now achieved getting up without a piece of furniture being available.   I have to practice it every other day.  All the other exercises I do daily. 

Footie news

 I just finished a Christmas jigsaw so photographed it for you.  I have others to do, some Christmassy and some not I think.  I have been collecting jigsaws for a few weeks as the charity shops tend to bring out a large selection around Christmas time.  

Norwich managed to be ahead twice in the Watford game and yet still lose in the end.  Sargent ended his personal goal drought and scored though.  But things are still looking grim for Norwich.  

Arsenal managed to lose as well (to Villa)  and Villa and Man City and Chelsea are snapping at their heels.   

England have a tough group in the World Cup with Croatia, Ghana and Panama.  The BBC may not have to bother to go to the Cup after the Group Stage and save themselves even more money.  The rest of us will find alternative channels to watch the games that we like, England or no England. Who wanted to watch them on the BBC anyway?  Not me for sure.   I note they are liking to get a dig in about Trump and never miss a trick.  Loosen up Beeb, stop being so stupidly fussy and convinced that everything and everybody is a leftie from dawn 'til dusk, day in day out,  relax we might like you more and buy a licence, not vegan bastards,  football or no football, curry sauce, human beings, chips,  mounjaro  takers whose feet won't work properly after a year on it, beware but it may wear off, which I call kilimanjaro, no fear surrounds some of us who dare not to be the leftie and own up to it, nor the woke, and not the vegetarian.  For tea tonight I will have a steak which will last me three meals cut into three strips, cauliflower and white sauce, gravy and beans, no baby brocolli, no baby whatevers, just vegetables with a proper name as they come from the field, a killer whale in the garden, a flag on the gate, a lump of wood on the fire, a petrol guzzler in the garage and a real live person in the house.  

Nothing New

 Terrible times in the world are nothing new.   Looking back historically we know that there were always wars, revolutions, rivalries between leaders,  killings measured in millions,  bows and arrows, artillery,  field hospitals with amputations when medicine was scant and not invented until Marie Curie helped with xrays,   and lies were prevalent between defence teams and leaders and the lowly people.  In fact the only thing that is different is that weapons have become more sophisticated and knowledge of what is happening, whether accurate or fake, is spread via the internet to the smart phone in your hand to read as you go about your daily business.  Add into that global warming madness that world climates can be changed and millions of our money spent by hypocrites flying to meetings between idiots discussing our future you have the only difference between the old days and now. 

If you look back at Kennedy and MacNamara and Vietnam and study Ho Chi Minh and communism back in that time of chucking out the French and Ho Chi Minh thinking like all communists do, and we have them in government here too, that the farmers are the first to go, as did Stalin, as do Starmer and Reeves, you get some perspective. The origins of the Vietnam war and the US and the horrors of mis-information that was given to the people of the United States at the time beggar belief.  Thankfully Wilson did one thing right and refused to get Britain involved.  For as much as I hated the Wilson government I will never forget that Wilson kept us out of Vietnam.  If only Blair had done the same with Iraq and Afghanistan we would not have so many lives ruined and lost in our military.  

No, nothing has changed except for the internet and the spread of information.  

Living without

 Thank you for reading the blog.  The daily log is up to over 100 page views.  

Today I went for the first Thai massage that I have had since August.  It was the longest gap for a while.  This was caused by the Thai lady flying backwards and forwards to Thailand because her mother was very ill and then sadly passing away.  The Thai lady's daughter then had her baby in Norwich three days after mum arrived home for the second time from Thailand and so she stopped working to help her daughter with her new baby.  I saw mum today and although only a teenager she is taking to motherhood like a duck to water and all is well so mum can go back to work.     

The Thai lady is lovely to me and regularly talks to me via Whats App  because she is concerned that I live alone.  Today she invited me to spend Christmas with her and her family.  That was so kind and genuine.  I am going for a two hour massage just before Christmas and then we will discuss further.  

Like the Indian doctor taking my hand this gesture of friendship was most welcome and something in this day and age that people do not always have time for.    Neighbours here bring me cake, they bring my bin in, they talk to me.  But the outstretching of professionals to reach me with  warmth and friendship is something beyond the call of duty.   I pay for the massage, I go to the NHS for medical help. Sometimes the medical help is a doctor staring at the computer while I sit next to him/her longing for some eye contact.   Some give the bare minimum and some, like the Thai lady and the Indian doctor, give a little bit more.    Genuine concern and caring is visible when it happens and does so much that is invisible and counts a million times over and above someone just ticking boxes and calling 'next'.   I have lots of friends, things I do,  and yet I can still be very lonely. Today made up for all the bad things, the busy and the acidic. 

Fat changes

 Would you alter your insides and the mechanics of your body by artificial means if you didn't have to? I suppose it is a bit like me and statins, a constant no to the doctors.  My diet can be changed to help me get leaner and fitter, not a pill between my lips or a stab injection in my stomach,  slowing down digestion, blocking enzymes and mother nature.   How is it that so many people have bought into mounjaro?   In the very recent past it was said that over the counter fat busting pills were dangerous.  What makes the latest addition to the fat market different?  Saying they were developed for Type 2 diabetics maybe gives them some kudos that others never had.   Best reaction to mounjaro is to buy Eli Lilley shares.  If so many people are buying it Eli Lilley making money and profits is the only certainty. 

Holidays and insurance etc.

 I am going to the hygienist this afternoon which is an appointment that I should have had in October but was cancelled by me because I didn't feel well an hour before I was due to leave the house and it turned out to be the first day of the illness that was to last at least 5 weeks.  In fact whilst I was talking to the dental receptionist on the phone the illness came full on and I had to hastily curtail the call.  The dentists were very obliging about it and later gave me a new appointment and no charge for the missed one even though I was unable to give the required 24 hour cancellation notice.  The illness just came on unannounced and out of the blue. 

Although not required to do so I have changed a number of things since the start of the illness and am now eating more healthily.  Readers will know that the doctors could not identify any reason or name for the illness although I had plenty of ideas of my own from Google.  No dietary guidance was given by the doctors. 

I had already started daily exercise before I was ill and that has continued and I am adding a variety of exercises to address areas of weaknesses that I have like legs and how to get up off the floor if I fall etc.  Everything is done in the home and no need for a gym or equipment, the house is able to provide anything I need.  The main point of the exercises is to keep me moving and I started them back in September because of booking the holiday for next year. Booking a holiday so far ahead is something I have never done before.  During the illness I came close to cancelling on two occasions with my hand hovering over the phone.  

I want to be sure I can still walk by the time the holiday comes.  That is the theory at least.  I am aware that the exercises help with blood pressure and metabolism in general so it should be a win win situation.   When I was in Albania I was extremely unfit which later turned out to be the Vitamin D deficiency which was causing me to have the vitamin D rolling walk and no energy.   The deficiency also caused head sweats that I have never experienced before and hope never to experience again.  The whole of my head and hair would be wet on waking up in the morning and the pillow soaked.  

During the past month I have had a couple of calls with the travel insurance company and tried to keep everything in the open with them.  I was treated like something of a criminal on one occasion when I had a call back from the company following up a recording they had listened to of me explaining to an Indian call centre that I had been to the doctors and had not been diagnosed with anything and that I had also declined to take statins (unrelated to the illness but the doctors were trying again to get me to take them. They never miss an opportunity).   The girl who rang me was very abrasive about this call and cross-examined me about the statins.  All I was doing was trying to be open and honest.  There have been two cases locally where travellers have been ill abroad and found that the insurance they had would not cover them because they had omitted to tell of some doctors visits so I thought I would be honest.  Oh well.