A special birthday card from my sister…

…a pic of me taken a few (quite a few) years ago.

The only ‘special’ thing I did on my birthday yesterday was finished off bagging up garden waste in the morning - 6 sacks of it, then after lunch filled up the back of my car with them and a couple of old printers and took them down the tip in Newquay. Then I went on to Morrison’s and bought a few bits. The quality and variety of stuff in Morrison’s I think is much better than in Tesco, and I probably would shop there if it wasn’t so crowded in the summer months with all the tourists.

Today I have been singing this a lot…

Nick Clegg talking on tv news last night tried to distance himself from the current politicians expenses situation by saying the Liberal Democrats have been campaigning for a new politics, for a clean up of politics…………..does he mean something like the leaflets they distributed in Cornwall referring to a Mebyon Kernow candidate as a "greasy-haired twat". You should try cleaning up your own party first Clegg, and spend less time on trying to mimic the boy Cameron.

I feel good as I’ve at last finished something, that is updating on my holiday. In previous years I’ve started writing a journal but never finished any, about halfway through they deteriorate into short notes to be expanded upon later and of course I never get round to doing that. Of course this year has probably been less to write about than previous years, certainly no long walks just the short one on last Friday, and then I did condense a few days down into one catch-up update. Now I have to keep sorting through the photos and upload more to Flickr where the set already has 60 photos, which is only 2 less than the finished set for last year….well, I say finished but I never really finished going through all the photos. There will always be things I need to go back to, I could probably stop taking photos for the next year and concentrate on all those I’ve already taken but not sorted.

Anyway, it’s nearly time for me to shoot off to Newquay hospital for my appointment in the podiatry department.

This is for anyone in Cornwall who are undecided on voting in the European Parliamentary Election…

Friday and my last day in the Lake District, and there were several things I’d wanted to do but hadn’t got round to due to weather and health. The weather restricted photography to a certain extent, and I was hoping to go to Buttermere to take some shots but thought it fairly pointless driving all that way in wet weather, and it was the same for a few other places. As for health reasons this was simply my decreasing ability to do much walking, and although the recent leg ulcer had cleared up the legs soon start to ache after a fair bit of walking, and the feet are also painful at times in particular the big toe on each foot. I did put on my walking shoes for the first time this year when I went around Brantwood Gardens, but after walking around the first part (Northern Gardens) my feet were not feeling good, in particular the left foot where the big toe was hurting, so I changed back into my other shoes which are one of just a few pairs which are comfortable.

So, back to today and I wanted to do a short walk so decided to go to Grizedale Forest Park which is one of the places I wanted to visit, in fact in previous years I’ve done many walks in Grizedale. The day was looking fairly good, although it started with a little rain this cleared up soon and it was dry and sunny by the time I reached the visitor centre in the middle of Grizedale. Last year it was quite chaotic at the visitor centre, as they are going through a redevelopment with new buildings and redeveloping the old visitor complex. This year they had completed a lot of the work and it’s looking pretty good, the new shop and café are open and I like the café…( Read more... )

As usual it started wet but began to clear up late morning so I drove out to Coniston, intending to park in Coniston and have a quick wander and go to the post office, but couldn’t find a parking place anywhere so I headed down the Eastern side of the lake to Brantwood which was my final destination anyway. I always enjoy my visits to Brantwood which was the home of John Ruskin, the house is beautiful…( Read more... )

The intention was to update daily but as usual I’ve failed in carrying out those intentions. A number of problems with the laptop and internet - mainly the slowness of the latter, as in taking 26 minutes to upload one photo! Also initially a lot of time was taken up with downloading updates etc., some of which took up to 5 hours to download and install. When it comes to the laptop this Vista operating system is something I find so hard to get on with, I’ve had problems with losing all the data while transferring photos from the memory cards, also I have a 8GB flash which I’m copying all the photos to as an archive, then I move all the photos from the memory card to the laptop where I have my working folders, but I’ve also lost the data on the flash drive. A couple of days ago I was transferring from the memory card and suddenly got a message saying Windows couldn’t find the files, although all the images were there on the screen in front of me. I went back and was told the card was empty! I then went to the flash drive and got the same message there - the drive was empty, and it looked like I’d lost all the previous images! I ejected the memory card and the flash drive, restarted the computer, then plugged them in again - all the data was there on the card and flash drive. Another problem I get is when typing on this word processor, which is the Works WP as I use at home, after typing a few words it would suddenly jump to another location on the page and carry on there, so I have to select the words I’ve just typed and move them back to where they should be - I am getting so frustrated with this!

Thursday 14 May. The forecast was for rain today and sadly the forecast was right. I decided to go to Hawkshead and have a look around the shops there - I can spend hours in the bookshop, and the clothing shops are worth a look around including of course the Hawkshead store which can also be found in many towns across the country now. Stewardsons is a good outdoor clothing shop, prices are quite good and I did buy a nice jacket there, which has a nice soft outer layer which is water repellent, also wind proof and lightweight. It’s something I wanted which is somewhere between the light ‘crinkly’ type waterproof jacket and a large padded waterproof coat. After lunch I went to the church and churchyard which has some lovely views across the landscape. Didn’t take many photos today and none are particularly interesting.

Friday 15 May. Another very wet day. Went to Ambleside for lunch and a look around the shops, bought a pair of shoes in Pavers which has a good selection at good prices. Only took a couple of photos, one was through the rain covered windscreen of my car!

Saturday May 16. As usual on a Saturday in the Lakes spent the day in Bowness, again a wet day although some dry periods, and one where I was caught in a torrential downpour and had to run for shelter along with everyone else. I did take a few shots of the lake but again nothing very interesting.

Sunday May 17. Another day in Bowness and much of it spent watching the runners come through in the Windermere marathon, which starts at the head of the lake at Brathay and the course goes all the way around the lake (Windermere is 11.24 miles long). Took quite a few photos which I will get round to sorting sometime. In the afternoon got caught in another torrential downpour…( Read more... )

Up fairly early this morning after a good nights sleep, the weather forecast was “sunny” and so I decided to take a longish trip over to Muncaster Castle which had been recommended to me by one of my flickr friends skittzitilby. When I arrived at Muncaster Castle the weather was still quite good, sunny but with a few clouds. On the walk towards the castle there are some beautiful rhododendrons and azaleas so I got a few good shots of those...( Read more... )

Another lovely day with blue skies and sun. I didn’t want to go anywhere where I would do too much walking today as the legs (left in particular) I felt needed a rest, and as it was a nice day I thought a steamer trip on Windermere and a ride on the Lakeside & Haverthwaite railway would be nice. So I walked down to the steamer piers and bought a ticket for the steamer and railway and joined the line for the next cruise to Lakeside, which was a rather long queue as it started along the pier and ended up outside the pier entrance on the pavement - just hoping we would all get on, although the two larger steamers (Swan and Teal) take around 500 passengers, and the smaller and older steamer (Tern) takes around 300 I think. On this trip it was the Teal so plenty of room for the passengers. The main deck is under cover with windows each side, and has a refreshment bar. The lower deck has a licensed bar, but I went up to the top deck which is under cover with open sides and has an area at the front which is completely open with seating for about 30+ people. I sat in this area as it’s a great spot to get some shots of the lake and shores. ( Read more... )

The weather was nice today, clear blue skies most of the day. I drove to Grasmere which is quite usual on my first Monday in the Lakes, and the place was packed, no space in the first car park so had to go to the one behind the garden centre. When I left the car park I made for the Wordsworth Garden behind the church, firstly to check on my slate in the path and then to go for a wander around this lovely peaceful garden. There are some nice views from here across to the fells and a lovely scene of the river and bridge. I walked around the graveyard and visited the Wordsworth graves, then went into the church and took a pic of Wordsworth’s memorial.

I had a wander around the shops and then had lunch in the Miller Howe Café of quiche, jacket potato and salad, and a cappuccino. I had paid for 3 hours parking and after looking in a couple more shops I headed back to the car park as time was nearly up, and anyway I was feeling pretty tired again and my left leg was not holding up too well.

I drove back to Bowness, had a bit of a rest and later went out for a wander around Bowness and ended up in the Village Inn for my evening meal which was Cumberland sausage, mash, onion gravy and vegetables - and it was nice! Later I went back down to the lake to get some sunset shots, although the clear sky didn’t really create the best sunset shot.

Back in the apartment I was having problems on the laptop, I had problems trying to send an email in the morning and I decided this was another Microsoft thing - every problem I get seems to trace back to Vista or in this case Internet Explorer. I’d written the email offline, copied the text and pasted into Gmail, but when I pasted IE crashed. I tried this a few times but got the same every time, so earlier I had downloaded Google’s new Chrome browser - it says this only takes seconds but in all it was well over an hour! When I pasted the text using that browser it was okay. Then Windows had downloaded a couple of updates and installed them, but there were a couple more it was telling me were important and did I want too download and install them, so I said yes and that took about 5 hours! I probably can’t blame Windows for all that as my mobile broadband is not very fast, in fact it’s slower than I remember it on dial-up at times.

Another problem I’m having is with processing my images, as although last year I didn’t have any problems with compatibility between Vista and PSP (at least not that I remember), this year there seems to be all manner of problems, when I try to open an image in PSP from the preview window Vista can’t even seem to find the file - so how come it found the file to open in the preview window? I have to open the files from PSP once I’ve found the one I want by using preview in Vista.

I left Knutsford just after 11am yesterday, stopped at Lancaster services for lunch where they also have a restaurant over the motorway like Knutsford. Soon after I left Lancaster it started to rain, and as I passed the Welcome to Cumbria sign it was really torrential rain - yes, we’re getting near the lakes! When I reached Windermere the rain had stopped and the sun was trying to break through. I parked up, wandered up to the Cumbrian Cottages office and picked up the keys - great timing as it was exactly 3pm, although I wasn’t the only one to time it right! On the way back to the car I popped into the Co-Op to pick up a few things like milk, bread etc., looked at the diet Coke which was £1.99 for a 2litre bottle, so quite pleased I had packed a couple of bottles from Cornwall which cost me about half that price - the normal price is £1.45 but I got 2 for £2 on offer. I’ve noticed in previous years the price up here is much higher.

Once I got back to the car it took me just a few minutes to drive down to Bowness and up the road to my apartment - it’s my 3rd year in this one so I know exactly where to come. I backed up into my parking places which is under cover at the front of the building, and right next to the entrance, so once I get inside it’s just a flight of stairs up to the first floor where my apartment is - had to do that 3 times though as I pack so much! ( Read more... )

Day 2 starts after my overnight stay at Knutsford Travelodge. I was up at 7am, although not intending to leave till 11am. Went up to the restaurant on the bridge over the motorway at 8am for breakfast, it was a bit quiet at first with just 3 other tables occupied but by the time I left at 8.45 it was over half full, and the motorway was pretty busy - I had a table where I could watch the traffic, quite frightening when you see how some of the moron drivers behave!

Back in my room I switched the laptop on and when I connected to the internet my new anti-virus wanted to download updates which seemed to take ages, then Windows installed new updates and wanted to restart. The restart didn't work, it just froze at boot-up. I sorted that but when I got it restarted I had an error on the mobile broadband and couldn't get a connection, so I unplugged it and restarted again, plugged it back in and this time got a connection. A lot of time wasted as by now it was after 10am - so I'm not going to get done all I intended.

I must say I'm pleased with the usage cost so far, as when I bought the mobile device it came with £15 top-up already and so far I've used less than £1 of that.

Better make a move soon, and hope I'll get a good connection in Bowness.

I'm sitting in my room in the Travelodge at Knutsford services on my way to the Lake District for my usual two weeks holiday. This year I've got a mobile broadband set up on my laptop, Vodafone Pay As You Go. I bought it about a week ago and due to the mobile reception not being good where I live had to drive out to one of the few good spots within about 15 miles of home, where I managed to set it up although it wasn't easy to see what I was doing in the car, too much light and all I could really see was my reflection! I've got a good connection here so managed to finish off some essentials like security. I'm hoping the connection will be good where I am staying, the coverage map on Vodafone site doesn't suggest it's the best there, but there is good coverage at the bottom end of Windermere at Lakeside and Fell Foot Park so I can go down there and do any online stuff. I will try to update on my holiday daily if I get connection where I'm staying.

So far the journey up has gone quite well, at least the first bit did and I was making good time till I hit Birmingham and from there to Knutsford it was a slow crawl or standstill most of the time.

In the morning it shouldn't take too long to get to Windermere, in fact I probably won't leave till between 11am and noon as I can't get the key till 3pm. Right now I think I need some rest, so I guess it's time for bed!

It’s nearly 4 weeks since I injured my leg and it’s not been a very pleasant time, with continual pain in the leg where it’s become ulcerated. I finished the two weeks course of double antibiotics and that didn’t clear up the problem, so last week went back to see the doctor and got another course of antibiotics, this time for a week and that course ended this morning. I also got some strong prescription painkillers which have helped with the pain. This last course of antibiotics does seem to have had some effect, the wound is healing quite well and the last couple of days the pain has been very minor, so it looks like things will be back to normal (what’s normal!) soon. I went to the surgery for a blood test Monday, this was to see if the antibiotics had affected my warfarin medication, and I had to phone back later for the results. The blood test I had a couple of weeks ago for the first course of antibiotics was okay, but his time when I phoned the doctor was a bit concerned as my INR levels were low so I had to up the dose of rat poison (warfarin) and have to go for another blood test next Monday.

I have been feeling much better since Sunday, which was when the pain started to decrease. I still need to rest a lot, keeping the legs elevated, but I’m desperate to get out and enjoy the current good weather. It’s over a month since I’ve been to Eden or Heligan, or anywhere else for pleasure. I was thinking of going to Eden Monday after the blood test, but I decided to pop down to the retail parks outside Truro as there were a few things I needed, but I didn’t stay long as I was feeling pretty weak still.

With having to rest so much a lot of things have had to remain undone and so a lot has piled up. I need to give the place a good clean and the garden is looking a right mess - or at least it was but I managed to get out yesterday for a half hour and prune the hydrangea in my front garden which still had all the dead flower heads from last year. I do usually do this in spring but this year it’s later than usual. This afternoon I managed about an hour and a half in the garden, broken up with a couple of rest periods. I had to cut the grass on the front lawns, and also made a start on the lawn at the side of my home but that proved too much for me and I had to come indoors and have a rest. While resting I checked my BP and it was fairly high, although my pulse was below normal. It’s probably nothing to worry about.

Next day….Thursday….I was hoping to finish this yesterday evening but was feeling really awful, so went to bed. Maybe I did too much yesterday, anyway so far today I’ve not felt too bad, but I’ve taken things pretty easy all day. The leg is still healing although I’m a bit worried there may be some permanent damage, just have to give it a bit more time and see what happens.

I had to go for an eye screening just over 2 weeks ago and I knew there was a problem with the left eye as it’s been clouding up a bit, I was a bit worried it might be another cataract, but the technician thought it may be a problem with the lens they put in after taking out the cataract last time, a problem I had with the right eye which was corrected with laser surgery and I may have to have that on the left eye now.

I’m off on holiday to the Lake District in 2 weeks so I have a lot of stuff to sort out for that, and a lot of other things to do, including writing a load of emails. I’ll have to try and do some more in the garden but I think I may leave that till next week when I may be able to cope better.

My photography has been pushed aside over the past 4 weeks, what with not getting out anywhere and not feeling much like doing anything anyway. I’ve not been active on Flickr, only uploaded one photo this month and that was nearly 3 weeks ago. There are a few groups where I enter competitions but haven’t been able to do that, apart from the Weekly group which is special for me as I’ve been in the group since the week it started in July 2005 - nearly 4 years ago. I’ve got plenty of photos I’ve taken in the past few months, or even years, to sort through and so I can upload some of them till I get out taking pics again.

I really must try and update this journal more often, I’ve always got things on my mind I want to write about but never seem to get around to it. This is another health type update as I’ve got leg problems again - well, I’ve got continual leg problems but much of the time it’s controlled. In January I last had a major problem with the left leg and had to go on a course of antibiotics to clear up the infection. This time it’s the right leg and the problem is self-inflicted this time. Last Friday (March 27) I had my new printer delivered, which I’d ordered after a while of trying to decide which to get and at the best price (£48 compared to £79 elsewhere). Anyway, I put the box on the floor just inside my front room and the next time I walked into the front room I knocked my right leg on the box, which resulted in a large area of skin coming off and inevitably the area became ulcerated over the weekend - this is due to diabetic/circulation complications, and is very painful.

On Monday I phoned the surgery to try and see a doctor but was told I couldn’t as all the appointments were filled and they had 2 doctors off sick, so I had to phone back Tuesday morning and got an appointment. The doctor was one I hadn’t seen before, but she was very thorough in examining the leg and checking on my other medical situations like the artificial valve in my heart, and on my medication like the Warfarin which can be affected by other medications, and I think this was because she put me on a 2 weeks course of antibiotics and prescribed 2 different antibiotics to be taken together - something the pharmacist queried and said I should check with the doctor that’s what she intended and it was. Because the antibiotic ‘cocktail’ is such I have to go to the surgery on Monday for a blood test for my INR. I hope the appointment is on time as I also have an eye screening on Monday.

I always find it difficult taking these antibiotics on time, as one type which I’ve had before, big blue capsules, has to be taken on an empty stomach (at least 3 hours after meals) and an hour before meals, and I have to take them 4 times a day. The other antibiotics have to be taken the same. I’ve worked out a schedule which will be okay all the time I keep to it, and I’ve got to do this for 2 weeks!

The past week I’ve been pretty inactive, haven’t posted any photos to Flickr or made many comments, which is not normal for me. I’ve had to spend a lot of time resting with my legs elevated and I can’t do that where my computer is - not the space! I haven’t really felt like doing much anyway, feeling a bit odd which may be the antibiotics or maybe just because I am odd!!! I had a look at my Gmail yesterday and found 89 new emails - none of them spam!

Think it’s time I had another quick rest and then I have to go do the weekly shopping.

I think this is a great idea…

…the same treatment for her husband too!

Happy New Year to my LJ friends, hope 2009 is good for you.

So, I was sitting here late Monday evening doing something on my computer when I noticed it was getting rather cold. Checked the radiator and they were fairly cold, so checked the boiler and the thing had gone out like it did a month ago. I went through the procedures and managed to get the boiler going again, but it only stayed lit for about 30 seconds. Checked the cooker and the pressure was very low. Went outside and just like a month ago one of the bottles had just run out and it had changed over to the new bottle. Maybe last time it wasn’t something stuck in the pipe, and maybe it was a problem with the regulator as had been suggested. It was too late to do anything that time of night so I went to bed - warmest place under the duvet! ( Read more... )

I think I’ll try to post a few times here today. I wanted to get so much done before Christmas, including posting an update here, but I really failed this year, just couldn’t get everything done - got loads of emails to write and other things to sort out which I should have done before Christmas.

So far Christmas Day has been rather quiet for me since I’m home alone. I got a nice big turkey joint which has been in the oven a while and is just about ready, got potatoes and parsnips roasting, sprouts and cauliflower simmering. Now I just have to make gravy and cheese sauce - better get on with that now!

There are times when I wish someone would cancel Christmas! I always seem to get in such a mess around this time of year, and this year it seems even more so. I’ve had so many things break down on me lately it’s becoming a joke, now apart from being late with everything as usual I have the problem with my printer where the black head packed up last month. I decided to leave it before getting a new one as the prices would probably be much lower after Christmas in the sales, although now it seems many things are going down in price now. The one concern I had was printing my Christmas cards which I like to do each year, and I decided that since the colour print head was okay I could print the photo and also print any text in blue or even another colour. After creating the images to be printed and text etc., I printed off a couple of cards but on close examination the images have not printed out okay - they are passable from a distance but when you look close there are lines across them. Now I’m left with 3 options - to just print them off and hope I will get the lot printed, to get a new printer now, or to just buy some Christmas cards. When I printed the cards off the text came out okay so I could still use the printer for letters - and I have loads of those to send at Christmas. I really can’t make up my mind but I’ve decided to pop into Truro today as I need a few other things and just have a look around at printers and cards then make a decision while I’m there.

This week has not started off very well. Yesterday (Monday) was a bad day, several things got on top of me and I was getting really up tight, then just felt like giving up on everything, ended up feeling pretty depressed. Today didn’t get any better. I set the central heating to come on at 5.30 this morning, and when I got up at 7am to take my meds everything seemed okay. I went back to bed for another hour and when I got up at 8am it didn’t seem as warm as it should be, I checked a radiator and it was almost cold - the central heating was off! Checked the boiler and there was no pilot light. I switched the electric supply to the central heating controls off (the CH is gas) and turned the controls down to off, then went through the process of trying to light the pilot light which is never too easy. At first I couldn’t get it lit, waited a few minutes then tried again and it lit. I then switched everything back on again and the boiler fire started up - but only for less than a minute when it went out again. I went through this 2 or 3 times in the next half hour and the same happened each time. I decided to wait a bit and try again and if it wouldn’t stay lit I would have to call the plumber. While waiting I noticed one of the two gas containers was empty - when one runs out of gas it automatically switches to the other full container. I had also filled up a large pan of water and was heating it on the gas cooker but I noticed the flame was not very high, the pressure was low and I realised that could be the problem as the boiler probably wouldn’t work if the pressure was low. I went back outside to the gas containers and checked the new one was turned on, and that it was full - which it was. By now I was thinking maybe the new container had a faulty valve, but there was nothing I could do to check that so I phoned up the park office and luckily the owner was there (it’s usually on answer phone) so I explained the problem and he came down to have a look. He thought it was unlikely the problem was the gas container valve and it could be something in my system, but said when his son who is the park manager came down in the evening they would get a new container and try that. So I had to go through the rest of the day without any gas for heating or cooking - lucky I have a microwave and electric kettle, and a small electric fan heater, although they are not very economical. Anyway, in the evening they came with a new gas container. We tried the old one again by putting on the gas on the cooker and it went out this time after about 10 seconds. Connected the new gas container and tried that and everything was back to normal with full pressure on the gas cooker. We then connected the ‘faulty’ gas container in place of the empty one so it could be replaced when the new one is delivered, but when it was hooked up we switched over that it to check again and this time it was working okay, full pressure. In the end we decided it was probably something in the connection that was blocking the gas, as the container looked as if it had been recently re-sprayed and there were bits of paint flakes coming off it. I then managed to get the central heating going again and so hopefully all is back to normal now - wouldn’t be the best of times to have no central heating as it’s a pretty cold night.
The boiler…

It has seen better days and really needs replacing with a small combi-boiler which would take up a tiny amount of space compared to this and it’s attached hot and cold water tanks. I think that will be a project for the spring, as it will be a big job and not a good one to undertake in cold weather.

Apart from all the messing about today I did manage to get a few things done, a little housework which I’ve been neglecting recently, also posted 4 charity letters - three were raffle tickets and one just a donation. Lots of them turn up at Christmas but I find I have to be pretty selective as if I gave to all of them I’d soon run out of money. These 4 were the main charities I support - British Heart Foundation, Diabetes UK, RNIB and the Red Cross. There are plenty others that go in the bin, a lot of them good causes but there has to be a limit.