OldTrilobite

Let down by a home-care agency. My 91 year old wife is gravely ill, not quite bedridden but in bed 90% of the time. The local NHS GP group are superb - a phone call or visit from a local nurse or even one of the doctors happens almost daily. But I need help in looking after her, especially in the evenings. I was given a list of NHS-approved care agencies. Warned off a couple of them by a friend whose mother is a professional carer. Contacted a recommended agency. Yes, they would sent their manageress to us to get details of our needs. That was fixed for last Monday. Phone call to postpone assessment until Wednesday, then again postpone until this morning at 10 am. Phone call at 9 am, and after a bit of discussion the manageress said that nobody would do evening care, so whole thing called off! We now have to hope that the local NHS health care GP surgery can come up with something.....

Thanks, xman. Good advice I'm sure. Martin.

Beautiful dry sunny morning in South Cambridgeshire, so decided to cut the grass in the back garden for the first time since last autumn (no, it's not a lawn; just grass). Ruddy Honda rotary mower kept playing up - stalling, hesitating, cutting well for a bit then died. Plug a bit oiled up, but little better even when I had cleaned it well. Maybe the petrol is lousy after spending the winter just sitting in the tank? I think I will send it to be overhauled 😟

Perhaps it makes them feel important? Another word that had disappeared is "disappeared". Now everything "goes missing". Even inamimate things that have no volition to go.

Last year, after some local flooding, the council sent us a pack of 5 FloodSax. We have found them very useful at times. When dry they are lightweight but have an enormous ability to absorb water. One can stack them like sandbags, then wet them to expand and seal a doorway, for example. We have used them mainly to absorb rainwater flooding into the kitchen under the back door - which they do very well. In theory one can re-use them, but wet FloodSax take months to dry out, their water retention is so strong. We are still drying out 3 of them last used months ago!

A house on our village high street has a deeply recessed doorway. At the start of the covid lockdown the owners set up a charity book exchange in the doorway. Folks would donate books, and if a book took your fancy you would take it and pop something into their cancer charity tin, which has raised over £1000 for cancer research. We are lucky to be a well-behaved community: lots of middle-class professionals, or academics commuting to the university. Hardly any crime and very little antisocial activity. It's upsetting that some retarded scum-bag has twice stolen the charity tin. Let's hope, like the Mikado, "let the punishment fit the crime". Maybe scum-bag will develop cancer...

Maybe the clue is that the wallet contained a student card; at that age so many are totally self-centred and thoughtless. You should have had at least a 'thanks' after going to so much trouble. OTOH: Years ago I found a purse left behind in the launderette. I handed it in at the local cop-shop. I was really embarrassed when the owner, getting my name and address from the police when she went hopefully to get her purse back, insisted on sending me a ten bob note in thanks. I really did not want any reward.

Senior Moments Another little gem from Shelley Klein's "Book of senior moments": Two elderly women are eating breakfast one morning when one of them notices something funny about her friend's ear. "Mildred, do you know that you've got a suppository in your left ear?" "Do I really? A suppository?" Mildred pulls it out and stares at it. "Ethel, I'm glad you saw this thing. Now I know where my hearing aid is."

My frail 91 year-old wife and I both need cheering up, so we have tried to give each other amusing books for Christmas. Whether she finds "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" funny or not I'm not sure, but one gem that she has given me is "The book of senior moments" by Shelly Klein. Here is an example: An elderly man in Australia phones his son in London: "I hate to ruin your day but I have to tell you that your mother and I have decided to separate. Forty years of misery is too much for anybody. We can't stand the sight of each other any longer. So call up your sister in New York" and he hangs up the phone. Out of his mind with worry the son calls his sister who explodes: "They simply cannot get a divorce; leave it to me". She calls her father immediately and screams at the old man: "You are not divorcing mum. Don't do a single thing until I get there. I'll call my brother now and we will both be there tomorrow." She hangs up. The old man put down the receiver and says to his wife: "OK, they are coming for Christmas and they are paying their own air fares."

Merry Christmas A father and his small son had been looking for Christmas presents. As they came down in the lift from the toys on the top floor, a woman in the lift turned and angrily slapped the man in his face. Bemused, he said to his son as they got out on the ground floor: "What a horrid woman. I have no idea why she slapped me." The little boy replied: "I hate her. She stood on my new red trainers. I'm glad I bit her in the bum."

A bunch of old friends met once a week in their favourite pub for a drink, a meal and a chat. Some of their wives came too. One evening a rather dapper 80-year-old turned up with a very attractive young woman. Later, in the gents toilet, some asked him: "How did you hook her? Did you tell her you were only 60?" "No, I told her I was 97 and very rich."

At Addenbrooke's Hospital, in Cambridge, the first hour costs £3.10. The charge for 2-4 hours is £9.10. My disabled wife has a blue badge, which is great (if one can find a space!). A few years ago her GP suspected a leg abcess and sent us to to Addenbrooke's for an ultrasound scan. Instead, A&E gave her an X-ray which of course was unable to spot a deep abcess. They then faffed about for so long in A&E that by the time she was released we had ovestayed the permitted 4 hours on her blue badge and we found a penalty charge slapped on our windscreen. The A&E department is always completely chaotic.

Shape-shifting We know that the immortal gods would sometimes shape-shift and come among us mortals in some guise or other. Sometimes to help (Athena with the Greeks at Troy) or to get up to mischief (Leda and the Swan). The Norse God Thor thought it would be fun to come among the Scandinavians in the guise of a handsome man and pick up some attractive woman. So he shape-shifted into a good looking athletic type, went to a singles bar and pretty soon hooked up with a willing young thing. They spent a night of passion, but at dawn his conscience troubled him and he decided to come clean and reveal who he really was. So he said to her: "I'm Thor." She lisped her reply: "Tho am I but I'm thatithfied."

Hey up A Yorkshire farmer went to the surgery of his local vet. "Can tha tak a look at me cat, noo?" "Is it a tom?" "Nay, I've got it wi' me, in't bag." My thanks to my North Yorks wife for getting my dialect right.

OMG At a Sunday School meeting one little child was asked: Where does God live? Oh, God lives in our bathroom. Why do you think that God lives in your bathroom? Every morning daddy bangs on the bathroom door and shouts: 'Oh My God, are you still in there.'

I also think that pavement parking should be banned. There is a lady in my village who has lost both legs below the knee. I occasionally see her in her electric buggy, going to the shops etc., usually using the pavement where other folk give way to her. Recently a car was parked partly on the narrow pavement near my house and the poor lady was grumbling that she could not get past it. She had to go out into the road, facing traffic that sometimes was going a bit too fast. She was quite scared.

An old story: A police car was parked in a lay-by across the road from a pub, near closing time. They watched a guy leaving, shouting good-night greetings to the others, then wandering about the car park trying his keys in several cars before he finally got into his own car. He turned on the lights, started the engine and drove into a flowerbed where he turned on the windscreen wipers and the hazard lights, while waving and shouting 'good-night' to others leaving the pub. He reversed out of the flowerbed and sat while continuing to turn the lights, wipers and four-way flashers on or off and calling 'good-night' to his friends, who quietly drove away. Eventually he was the last one in the car park. As he drove out, the policemen stopped him and made him blow into a breathalyser. It registered a small amount of alcohol, well within permitted limits. One policeman said: 'there seems to be something wrong with our breathalyser; you must come with us to the police station to give a sample of urine.' He replied: ' there is nothing wrong with your breathalyser. Tonight it was my turn to be the designated decoy and I have only had half a pint of beer.'

Just a reminder: October 21st is celebrated as Trafalgar Day, every year in the UK. So raise a glass of pusser's grog and toast the Immortal Memory 😀

Not quite so cold in Cambridgeshire, but at least it is dry. Unlike the storm during the night of Weds-Thursday. We came down on Thursday morning to find half the kitchen flooded. The wind had driven the rain under the back door and it took half the morning to mop up a total of 3 gallons of rainwater. It is still oozing out from under the kitchen dresser. ☹️

Caveat emptor

Thank, skomaz for that comment. I confess that I oversimplified the roofer's reply. What their actual quote for in detail is: "Prime with FG primer, supply and install new EPDM single ply to lead bay and hot air weld to the lead surface" I don't know if EPDM is comparable to the Goodyear roofing sheet that you mention. However, as my missus and I are both in our 90s it seems probable that almost any repair will outlast us! Thanks again for the wise comment. I hope for the best.

Health & Safety 😠 I had to have part of our roof re-slated about 20 years ago. It was done to good standards by a reputable firm of roofers, because we are in a conservation zone and the planning inspector was a real stickler. The work included putting lead flashing in a valley between two slopes. Now the flashing is leaking a bit and rainwater comes through the bathroom ceiling, so I got the same firm to come and fix it. "Oh, simple job, just put some rubberised sealant over the crack in the lead flashing; easy job" At one time two blokes with a ladder would have done it in half an hour. Now 'elf n safety' regulations require full scaffolding. A scaffolding subcontractor arrived unannounced yesterday and half-blocked our driveway. At least they gave me time to get the Fabia out and park it in a side road. The scaffolders have gone, but no word from the roofing company about when they will come and do the half-hour job. The cost of the obligatory subcontracted scaffolding must be adding hundreds to their bill. 🥵

Caught the two mice in the garage. Ordinary grey house-mice, very undesireable around cars. I first tried with a plastic non-lethal trap, but the little b*gger chewed through the plastic and escaped. So I borrowed my step-son's metal Longworth trap, that he had once used for some field studies. Caught a mouse that night, Caught the second mouse the following night. I turn them loose on the big compost heap in the village churchyard, to take their chances of living happily or becoming an owl's dinner. We have often had wild woodmice nesting among the junk in the garage. They are pretty, come out to eat some of the birdfood in the mornings and generally amuse us. I think they are harmless, but house mice chew insulation on car wiring and can do damage, I believe.

Why are fuel gauges not marked in litres? On my Fabia it is just marked 0, 1/2, and full. OK, I can look up the handbook, where it gives the tank capacity as 'about 45 litres' (including some reserve). How many ordinary owners, who just use the car to drive between home, office, factory or seaside, have ever studied the handbook carefully? Do they just cautiously put in 20 litres at a time, or a fixed sum of money? Skoda claims on the cover of its handbook: "Simply Clever". Well, wouldn't it be clever to mark the fuel gauge in litres? Grumpy old trilobite.

Damn well time that garage forecourts and supermarkets brought down the prices of petrol and diesel. Yes, much of the cost to the motorist is tax, but: 1. Brent oil is down to about $73. 2. The cost of kerosene for domestic central heating (Boilerjuice) is down to 56 - 58 p/litre, from about 110 p/l a year ago and the crazy peak of over 150 p/l in March 2022.