We all have these.

 

Chrisxx

No power panics

It seems there has been panic buying in Spain and Portugal where they have had a major power failure. Supermarket shelves are already emptied of bottled water and tinned food, all the fresh went within two days. A Terrorist attack hasn't been ruled out, but experts are saying it could be due to extremes in temperature fluctuation, knocking out the grid. However the power failure is now back on, but it was off for a day, so no need for panic buying of water and food.

At one time when I was living in Essex, we had a very, very heavy snow fall. Schools were closed and so I was home. My daughter had come home from University for the weekend and was unable to return, because the trains were having difficulties too. We could see 2ft long icicles from the roofs on the houses opposite us, a really awesome sight!

We decided to have a walk down the supermarket, when we got there what a sight. There was two men on the doorway stopping people going in, it was so crowded! We joined the queue, and was let in as people came out. We were shocked to see empty shelves, no bread, no cereals, no water, no flour, no cat litter!! (I had made a path through the snow for mine to the small garden)

We'd come for a bottle of Crofts Original Sherry, as we used to have a small glass in late afternoons. We queued for nearly an hour to pay and chatted to others in the queue too. We didn't need any foodstuffs. I was brought up in a home, that had gone through WW2 so I never had a food shortage, because I always had extras in my food cupboards 'incase!'

How ridiculous that snow can make people panic buy.. a bit like when there was the covid epidemic and there was the panic about a shortage of toilet paper!! Did you run out? We didn't, but I did laugh about the fact that I had an outside toilet when I was little, and paper was news paper on a meat hook behind the door!

I have read a lot of books about situations when the world has suffered a major power outage and people are left with a world stopped, because no technology.. so we always keep a good  back up of dried foods and bottled water. And as we buy in bulk to save money and we have the space, we buy large quantities of toilet paper! So guess we'd be ok!

What about you are you prepared?

Chrisxx

Prayers at the end of that day!

Saturday my husband and I had a horrible and frightening experience. We decided to visit the garden centre about 4 miles from us.. who knows we might see a plant I needed??  No way, I don't need any more plants. Gardeners are like book readers, you buy plants and books because you do, no needs, just loves!

We always drive along in silence, enjoying the green country side, usually the radio turned down low.

All town roads in Wales are 20mph. but as we leave our town the speed changes first to 70mph as we go round the roundabout and under the M4, then it drops to 50mph.

Suddenly we were aware of a car on collision course with us, I screamed and Dh swerved the car to the road side; miraculously the car was able to swerve behind the car he was trying to over take and we drove to the layby and little way ahead, and stopped, as we were both very badly shaken. It was very frightening. 

We got what we needed from the garden centre and drove home, saying thankful prayers all the way. If we were drinkers we'd have had a brandy, it was certainly needed. But I couldn't wait for a cup of hot tea and I had 2 paracetamol, as they are suggested to tamp down jangling nerves and all I could think of was, if the worst had happened at least we were together and what a blessing we didn't have Nell with us! Daft or what?

Chrisxx

What a to do!

Have you experienced a problem with getting your regular prescribed tablets recently here in the UK? Someone I know wasn't able to get her thyroxin, a drug vital to life, this month. I was able to get mine, however another prescribed drug was unavailable and the pharmacist said, he'd ask my Surgery to prescribed another one, which had the same effect, just a different name. They are for an over active bladder.

I left it with him, then I learnt they couldn't get the newly prescribed one either.

So I went into the Medical Centre to talk to the receptionist that deals with the prescriptions.. and she said leave it with me I'll sort it out with the Drs and pharmacist. That was last Tuesday.

But then last Thursday at 5:45 pm  I had a phone call from the Medical Centre to tell me they had been unable to source any suitable  tablets and their inhouse pharmacist suggested, that I phone the Urology dept at the hospital to get them to prescribe a drug!!

What??? I was to phone the hospital to ask a consultant to write a prescription of a drug he'd know?? What rubbish!!

In less than 10 mins I had researched the drug and phoned the  my regular pharmacy to give them names of several others with the same effect.  And they informed me not only did they have several suitable ones I could have, but they had  had a delivery and had my original tabs were here, I just had to get my Dr to write another script.

I managed to get through to the surgery just before 6:00 pm, when they closed and today I've collected  my tablets! What  a to-do.. why are there shortages? Is it Brexit. or  is it the Ukrainian war or blooming Trump?? 

No, it will be as Karl Marx said..'The root of everything is money!'

I am writing a letter to the Medical Centre Practice Manager, to inform him of my concerns and the worry his staff caused me. 

Chrisxx

Are these the most beautiful?

These are suggested to be the twelve most beautiful sentences ever written.. Do you agree, do you have one you think is more beautiful?

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"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite." - Stephen Ch bosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde

"The best way to predict the future is to create it." - Peter Drucker.

It was the best of times  the worst of times. Charles Dickens.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. George Orwell, Animal Farm.

In the end is my beginning. T S  Elliot. East Cocker.

The Woods are Lovely Dark and Deep. Robert Frost.  Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.

I am no bird and no net ensnares me. Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Franklin D Roosevelt. Inaugural Address.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.  Jane Austin, Pride and Prejudice.

To be yourself in a world that is trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Chrisxx

Why??

 A few weeks ago, someone I know with members of their family, all arranged a weekend here in Porthcawl, to celebrate a birthday. They all had booked caravans at Trecco to enjoy the facilities there and hopefully some sunshine.  Horribly their long weekend ended abruptly, when they received a message from home, to say a fifteen year old in the family had ended her life. Why?  Its suggested it was to do with social media. 

A group of parents, whose children had also taken their lives have grouped together and visited America to meet with other parents, who are also grieving the death of their young children. To support each other and lobby for better controls of certain sites.

They all want changes in social media to make an age limit on certain sites. We watch on line films and stream programmes, where they ask are you under or over 18 and we just click 'over,' without even thinking. So the argument for stronger checks on certain sites seem very necessary to me and most other people too. I don't even know of these sites, I've never seen them. In fact where sometimes I have had a pop up of something I don't like, I quickly cancel it it, because I believe once you have seen something you can't 'unsee' it.

Twenty years ago a close friend of mine daughter killed herself, because her boy friend had done the same a few weeks earlier.. (nothing to do with social media) And I remember talking about the awful way it had happened with my own daughter, and she saying 'what did she think her mum would do that weekend without her'  It was such an awful happening, we couldn't understand it wasn't just that weekend, but for ever. My friend moved away, because she couldn't cope with the way people avoided her, crossing the road to avoid her. I tried to explain it was because they didn't know what to say to say.  What do you say? I used to say, 'I don't know what to say, but I can listen.'

There seems to be a generation of the young, who are being influenced by un truths.. you can't convince me that all those entries and posts on social media of them having a 'wonderful' time is all true. And it seems, there are sites telling you how to end your life?? And sites with challenges to do certain things that could end your life. 

What a sad way our so called educated society has evolved, what has happened? Parents, schools, lack of faith, life what is wrong? What is the answer, what do you think?

Chrisxx

65 Plus years ago!

 We had a real back in time yesterday morning.  Somebody on FB was asking if anyone knew where they could get seed potatoes, as all the garden centres had sold out. As it happened we had some left over and we'd asked our gardener friends and no one wanted them. So I got in touch with them and..... it was someone who lived in number 1 in the street where I was brought up in number 6!  It was her sister who I was friends with, as we were the same age. But I knew Gill as well.

So it was such a delight to meet with Gill and her partner, and chatting about people we both knew. In fact I knew more about the people, who used to live there than she did, and she has lived in Porthcawl all her life, while I had moved away!

It was a real lovely time. I used to go to her house to watch the tele as we didn't have one till much later in the fifties. She reminded me that  it was to our house her Dad came to use the phone, when her mum was in work, because he felt really ill. The Dr was phoned and he came and in fact her dad was having a heart attack. He recovered that time and died much later. I had her in awe because I remembered our phone number was 3168! How did I do that?  It was a real pleasant morning, we chatted about gardening and they said they loved our garden. . 

And also at our U3a gardening group meeting on Tuesday afternoon, there was a demo of planting a hanging basket, which was then raffled, no charge tickets and I won!! I might not have it as a hanging basket, because we haven't a suitable wall on which to hang it, we're thinking about it.

So some very pleasant gardening days without the actual gardening!

Chrisxx

Women??

 J K Rowlings was shouted down when she stuck her head above the parapet a few years ago and said ..'A woman is a person with a uterus.'  Several of the cast of her Harry Potter films strongly disagreed with her and the ties of their friendship were severed.

Now a high court has ruled that the definition of a woman is decided by biological sex at birth. Trans people have taken to the streets to protest. They want to be treated as women. To use female toilets, female changing rooms and to be treated as women. Do I think that's ok? I'm not sure. While I was in the London Orthopedic hospital for my last op on my arm, I was in a mixed sex ward, I didn't even notice there were men there.  I was too busy trying to get better!

I can see the problem in sports, trans women seem to have an advantage, being more muscular and so stronger. There were rows in the last Olympics with a trans boxer and the women didn't want to fight him/her/?

But woman are not in favour of trans people being in women's prisons because there have been attacks and rapes.  Its not an easy subject and being of an older generation, I'll admit it is beyond my comprehension. 

When I was doing my nursing training, I did three months in the Maternity unit. I'd only just started as new junior nurse, when I was asked to be with a young mum, who had just given birth. I was to watch her and just be with her because her baby had been born with a deformity. The genital area was out side the body, the skin had not closed over it, so the sex was not able to be truly determined, until blood tests had been done. The midwives were afraid the mother would deliberately drop her baby. So sad and I stayed there with her till her husband had arrived and a Nurse and Dr.. this was 1962.

I feel sad  for these people who insist they are in the wrong bodies, as a Christian and a Bible believer, I believe a woman is a woman and a man is a man.. so does this mean I'm prejudicial, non woke or just old fashioned?

Chrisxx

Is it fair?

 This wasn't my planned blog post, but the breaking news of the Pope's death, made anything I planned seem redundant.

Head of the Catholic Church who people revere as God's voice on Earth.. not something I believe. Looking at him on Easter Sunday being driven around in his popemobile he appeared content, playing the role of the Head of the Catholic church.

Its said that he was very 'for'  the poor people, as all church leaders of any religion say they are. None look like they've ever had to budget for a meal, or clothes or where they live to me.  A friend remarked to me 'I wonder if he had to wait for a Dr's appointment or a hospital bed?' It all seems supercilious to me, smiling and waving to the common people from his custom made Pope-mobile. But if it is true, it's said that he did modernise certain aspects of the catholic church to modern day thinking.

And our UK news is Prince Andrew accompanying the King and Queen Camila to their Easter Church service.. what were some people objecting to? That he'd been involved with a pedophile, and why did he pay millions of pounds to someone,  when there was the suggestion of a court case against him? So a reason for him to not accompany his own family to church? No,  people were objecting to him expecting to be treated as a Royal.

Harry is wanting police protection and thinks he should have it, as he is a Royal. Never mind he informed everyone, he was stepping down from his role as a working royal. Yet more news to fill our newspapers. And does anyone know of an MP living from week to week trying to stretch their money to pay their energy bills and food.

It all seems a bit cockeyed to me; news of the rich to inform the rest of us of their circumstances. We, Dh and I, are the section of society with pensions from our work. I get fed up of people, I've met thinking I have it easy. My teaching job wasn't easy, I taught in some rough areas with not just 'difficult' children, their parents weren't easy either. But I turned up every day and rarely took time off.

So what am I saying, life isn't easy or fair, but you just have to get on with it. Only the rich get preferential treatment,  the rest of us take our turn and wait. If I were younger I'd happily stand on a road side with the crowds protesting to Trump's visit here in UK and I certainly wouldn't agree to him speaking in the Houses of Commons. 

I have paid for private health care in the past, when I was in awful pain with my foot. I used the money I had earned and saved, nobody gave me it and I didn't take the place of a NHS patient, it was all in a private hospital. And blow down me if my name didn't came up 8 months later on the NHS list and I saw the same Consultant and had the same treatment!

Somedays it just gets to me, the whole unfairness of it all.

What do you think?

Chrisxx

Our Easter Day.

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday... we read Mark's Gospel about the Resurrection and had boiled blue eggs for breakfast with home made sour dough bread, toasted. 

 

Sorry no pics of our breakfast I didn't think about taking a photo, only tucking to my eggs and that bread! 

It seems you have certain chickens to have blue eggs, a bit like white chickens laying white eggs. We used to have chickens in our small back garden when I was little, a hang over from the war. I never thought about them, but often had a boiled egg for tea. 

The sunshine was glorious and the temperature got up to 18C 

We had the traditional dinner too, Welsh lamb, bought locally so had been reared on the Mumbles Salt Marshes.. it was delicious with mint sauce, the mint grown in a pot, so very fresh. All followed by Rhubarb from the garden, and made with a crumble topping and I had Evaporated milk, Dh had custard.

And after that we sat and relaxed.

I remembered my 2001 Easter in Israel with my church friends. It was cold and wet there some days, but we didn't mind. We were there to walk where Jesus had walked. On the afternoon when we went to the garden of the Tomb, it was dry and warm and we had a Communion service there, nothing ostentatious, just a simple Bread and Wine, I still have the little individual wooden cup we were given. Some amazing memories but my best one was us when we were staying in a kubutz.. We walked out into the desert which was pitch dark and sang.. 'Be still for the presence of the Lord'

Chrisxx