Category: Comment

Thank You !


How do you express your gratitude?

How to express gratitude ?

A simple question, but requiring varying degrees of response and application.

If someone holds a door open for you, or steps aside to let you pass, then a simple “Thanks” or “Thank You” is enough.

I’m of a generation that was taught to be polite. So much so, that if I am not extended the same degree of politeness in return it makes me angry.

If I hold a door or step aside for someone and they don’t acknowledge the act, I will say “Thank You” for them. Loudly !!

For larger acts of kindness or helpfulness I will show my gratitude by sending flowers and / or gifts.

And finally, where gifts or flowers don’t seem appropriate then I resort to my standby, a good meal at a nice restaurant.

Worries For The Future ?


What are you most worried about for the future?

My life pendulum has swung well past the midpoint of my life. So, most of my worries are for my kids and grandkids.

What does the future hold for them ?

The biggest concerns are the lunatics that have taken charge of their personal asylums.

First and foremost, there is Russia with Putin at the controls. He has to be insane. His actions and his total lack of humanity surely indicate insanity. I mean, does he ever hear the words coming out of his mouth, stop and think, “That doesn’t sound right, doesn’t make sense”. Single handedly he has put us right back to the days of the “cold war”.

Next, there is China with Xi Jinping at the controls. Did China protest with the rest of the world when Putin started his war with the Ukraine. No, they stood on the sidelines waiting to see how it would all pan out. Also, I believe, waiting to see what the worlds reaction would be. China has it’s own “Ukraine” in the shape of Taiwan.

So that’s two major powers who would push us to the brink of a 3rd world war.

And then we have North Korea, under the control of another lunatic, Kim Jong Un. He heads a country, home to some of the most oppressed people in the world. His posturing presents a real threat to world peace. And, for just a moment, the US installed their own lunatic, Donald Trump, in the White House. The world was forced to stand by while those two loose cannons traded tit for tat, insults like children in the school yard.

In my view, the world has never been a more dangerous place. There are so many smaller countries that could be the fuse for a bigger conflict.

And then there is Gaia, Mother Earth, our home world. The home that we have systematically trashed. Slowly, we are waking up to the enormity of what we have done. Global Warming, plastics in our oceans, toxic waste in our rivers.

Is it too late to fix our planet ? I don’t know.

What I do know is that our legacy for our children and grandchildren is a monumental challenge of global proportions.

And that is what worries me about the future. I won’t be here to see it, but I hope our offspring are successful.

Daily Habits ?


What are your daily habits?

It didn’t take me long to identify my daily habits.

I have found that I eat every day. Not just once but multiple times per day.

Is this a habit or an addiction ?

Sometimes, depending how busy I am, I’ll eat just the once, usually in the evening. Habit ?

But, often, I will eat two and three times per day. Sometimes, while preparing dinner, I will make a sandwich, even though dinner will be ready in 30 minutes or so. Addiction ?

Boiled Eggs


Which food, when you eat it, instantly transports you to childhood?

Believe it or not, the humble boiled egg, is the one food that truly transports me back.

When we were kids, there were chickens and geese in our backyard. My dad used to feed them on commercially available feeds, but Mum used to give them all the veggie scraps from the kitchen. Stuff like potato and carrot peelings, trimmings from home grown leeks and the leaves from cabbages and cauliflower.

It’s hard to describe the flavour. The yolk always had a rich taste. Something that your typical supermarket factory produced eggs fails to match. As soon as you crack the shell, lift the lid. You can tell the egg is not going to meet expectations. The colour of the yolk is a dead give away. My childhood eggs all had a rich golden yolk. Today’s supermarket offering tends to be a pale yellow.

Obviously, the birds diet has a lot to do with how the eggs look and taste.

When was the last time that childhood memory was triggered ?

We were on our way down to Central France and had stopped at a B&B. They had chooks roaming around their orchard. The eggs served for breakfast, supplied by those hens, were simply delicious.

Time Spent, Not Wasted


How do you waste the most time every day?

My wife and I have a daily routine. Every morning, we “Wordle” while having our first cuppa of the day, accompanied by toasted tea cakes or toasted muffins.

We are a little competitive, each of us gloating over who has the longest winning streak.

Once we have finished wordling, my wife will move on to reading her latest Kindle based book. I, in contrast, will complete my daily Soduku, Codeword, and Crossword puzzles. Just recently, I have also added Quordle to my daily routine.

Only once I have completed my word puzzles do I join my wife and immerse myself in my latest fiction choice.

Of course, this all gets booted into touch by the demands of family and friends.

Somewhere in there, we manage to find time to garden, travel and socialise.

But here’s the conundrum, being retired means that we have plenty of spare time. At the same time, due to our advanced age, we have less and less time left.

So, we get to choose how we spend our time. None of it is wasted, just spent. Wisely, or otherwise.

Scottish Power Not So SmartMeter


A couple of years ago I submitted to the wave of advertising singing the praises of SmartMeters. I contacted our energy company and a smart meter was duly installed. One of the primary reasons for me agreeing to the smart meter installation was to mitigate the sheer mountain of stuff that I had to move whenever Scottish Power wanted a meter reading. Invariably their rep would turn up while we were eating. Our house is one of six , of this style, on this development. However, it is the only one that has its garage attached to the end of the house. The utility meters are situated on that end wall, which means that the meters are inside the garage. A big thank you to the builders for that decision.

So meter installed and I can now read my energy usage via an app on my phone. Around December of 2021 the smart meter ceased recording my gas usage. Scottish Power continued taking my payments but started sending me messages similar to the one below …

We’re unable to communicate with your meter at the moment. To help us provide you with an accurate bill, please read your meter and submit the reading at http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/my-account/meter-readings/authenticate?ca=81401146019 Need help to read your meter? Visit http://www.scottishpower.co.uk/read-your-meter

Earlier this year, due to another request for a meter reading, I caved in and moved my junk to gain access to the meters. Did the electric reading no bother. However the gas meter display was blank. Obviously I was not surprised since they had not been able to take the readings since the previous December. This being August. A phone call was required.

After being on hold for a very long time I eventually got to speak to a rep. She gave me instructions on how to wake up my meter and take the reading. Of course, I took this opportunity to raise the issue of my less than smart meter and its inability to take the gas readings.

I asked why they, Scottish Power, knowing my meter wasn’t passing on my energy usage data, hadn’t sent someone out to fix it ???

Then she dropped the bomb …… I wasn’t alone !!!

Apparently, many of us who jumped on the SmartMeter bandwagon were literally in the same boat. We had the Gen 1 meters and they had a software bug. Those who had delayed getting the SmartMeter typically had the Gen 2 meter and were not experiencing issues.

Don’t worry she said, because a fix is going to be rolled out. Everyone will be back up working by the end of October. Well, you guessed it. October came and then became a fast receding memory. No Fix.

Nothings changed. Well actually that isn’t entirely true. My SmartMeter no longer records the electricity usage. So now, no gas readings, no electricity readings. Unless I move my junk and take a manual reading. Bloody marvellous.

So, Scottish Power continue to inform me that my SmartMeter isn’t working, continue to request manual readings and continue to do nothing about fixing my meter.

Biggest slap in the face is that they continue to advertise the merits of having a smart meter installed.

And worst of all, due to the current energy crisis, I am trapped as their customer.

No energy companies are taking on new customers.

Taking The Edge Off


Merry Christmas to you all. And I truly mean that. I hope you have managed to have a great time, and that you have managed to stay healthy, despite Covids best efforts and those of the other seasonal diseases that tend to crop up at this time of the year.

Over past years Gerry and / or I have managed to contract one of the various bugs doing the rounds during the Christmas period. Being sick really does take the edge off things especially when it means not seeing the grandkids opening their presents.

However, an unexpected benefit of the precautions taken, during the Covid pandemic ,seemed to be a reduction in the number of these seasonal infections. Sadly, now that many of the precautions have been relaxed there are many bugs doing the rounds. And, of course, Gerry has gone down with the dreaded lurgy, yet again. I say yet again, as this must be the third bug she has contracted this year.

Usually we are scanning around for the culprit, hunting down patient zero, searching for the one that passed on their germs. However, this year there are several candidates.

On the Friday before Christmas we were visited by a friend who said her husband was suffering with something. On the Saturday, Christmas Eve and our 45th Wedding Anniversary, we were visited by our daughter Angie and her husband Jon. He was suffering with a sore throat, croaking well.

That brings us to Christmas Day itself. Our granddaughter Keeley was hosting us this year, and of course nobody wanted to call it off, but, Keeley and her eldest, were both suffering with their own lurgy variant. And we didn’t see her youngest as he was in bed all day doing battle with his own lurgy. Although we had a good time and the food was yummy, the day was a little subdued. The edge had definitely been taken off.

Obviously, the odds were not in our favour and Gerry started with a tickly, then sore, throat late on Monday, Boxing Day. And there we have it, multiple folks at which to point the finger of blame.

Our concern is, as always, that anytime Gerry contracts one of these coughy cold/flu things, it invariably travels down onto her chest and evolves into a chest infection. Earlier this year she had two such episodes resulting in three prescriptions of antibiotics.

This morning, wanting to get a jump on things, I started the marathon task of trying to get an appointment to see / speak to a doctor. To stand a chance of getting an appointment, you have to start calling Crookhorn Surgery at 08:00. I started calling on the dot, with the following results ……

75 Calls = Number of attempted calls when the line was engaged.
This is only possible when using a modern phone, hitting redial immediately the system drops the call. I can’t imagine what folks do that are still reliant on landline phones and those that aren’t au fait with modern technology.

7 Calls = Number of calls picked up by the automated system, where I had to listen, excitedly, to a message which informed me that they were busy and to call back later. At which point the call is cut leading to huge disappointment.

At 08:13, after some 82 redials, I managed to break through to join a queue where I was informed, regularly, that my wait time was one minute. After some time I actually spoke to a human. The net result, after just under 10 minutes, was that we had been triaged and informed that we would receive a call from a doctor by 13:00.

This is better than last time where we attempted to get through, and, after 40 minutes were informed that there were no more appointments that day and that we would have to call back the following morning.

The good news from this, is that we had received the call from the GP, who duly prescribed the antibiotics. At 10:21 I received a text from the pharmacy to say that the script was ready for collection. By 11:30 Gerry had taken her initial dose.

Obviously, this is an improvement over our previous experience. But it does not reflect well on the NHS. Covid regularly gets the blame for whatever ails the NHS. All I can say is that prior to 2019 we were able to get appointments fairly easily, that we actually got to see a doctor on almost every occasion. Since 2019, trying to phone for an appointment is a chore, which rarely results in a face to face appointment.

Today my wife was called by a doctor who prescribed antibiotics over the phone. He didn’t see my wife, didn’t take her temperature, didn’t listen to her chest / lungs. This is not the NHS service that we are used to. But it seems that we are going to have to accept this as the new norm.

Makes No Sense While In Lockdown


Why would you lock the country down, during a pandemic, but then allow a subset of the nation to gather in large crowds ?

To allow people to gather in large numbers, under the guise of protest, in numbers denied to the general populace, makes no sense at all.

BBC News – Coronavirus: Protests should be allowed during lockdown, say 60 MPs and peers https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56466291

These 60 politicians have their heads firmly stuck where the sun don’t shine.

We have seen, time and time again, that those that gather in protest, don’t social distance, many don’t wear masks, and many are there to cause mischief requiring intervention by the police, who are then put at risk.

If the government listens to these idiots they are asking for trouble.