Monthly Archives: January 2011

Trying to keep up standards

I called on Gill’s mum this afternoon. Andy is feeling rather better, and looking forward to coming to our local cottage hospital as soon as there is a bed for him.  He has been home for the day several times, which has really cheered him and Gill.  I’m going to visit him tomorrow.  Gill’s mum is delightful.  She loves to chat and there is never a silent moment.  She is happy for it to be a conversation rather than a monologue and she’s always interesting, but there is certainly never an awkward pause.

Dilly went for a scan today, which has established that all is well with the baby.  She and Al were surprised at the equipment, which is more impressive even than it was five years ago.  Well, than three years ago, when Weeza was expecting Zerlina.  Al said that the detail was amazing, the doctor could zoom in on every heart valve, everything.

Tonight, I was looking for something to do with leftover chicken.  I ended up with a spaghetti, chicken and spinach number.  Nigel Slater said it was plenty for four, so I halved the recipe …  and ended up with enough for four.  It’s apparent what we’ll be having for lunch tomorrow.  It’s pretty well the Turkey Tetrazzini that, if you’re my age, you might remember from the 60s, but with a few alterations.  The spinach, for a start.

You were so sweet about the little hen, though I’m sure some of you also thought – ‘but it’s only a chicken and these people aren’t even vegetarians’ – and indeed, as I said, we ate chicken tonight.  But it’s different with a pet.  Anyway, the Sage brought her home and has buried her.  We really are going to have to get a cockerel this year I think, she was one of the youngest, the cock having been killed by a dog two and a half years ago.  It’ll put the cock pheasant’s beak out of joint, but we can’t help that.  We’ve had these chickens over twenty years and we don’t want them gradually dying of old age with no young ones to replace them.

None of these are twenty years old, obviously.  I mean, we first got our little flock that long ago.  Did I tell the story, I wonder?  I’d better look back.  Because if not, I’ve got a whole day with no need to think of a theme.

*checks*  Oh.  I did.  Here you go.  It’s a long time ago, I could probably have got away with writing it all again.  April 2006

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An even better date to come in ten months’ time.  Won’t we bloggers rejoice?

The vets became fond of Dotty in the short time she was there.  A trusting little hen, and Angela the vet thinks it was her breathing rather than her heart that gave out.  It was a stressful experience for her, after all.  She was in some pain from her foot, we couldn’t have left it.  Angela said that her assistant cried when Dotty died, which I found quite upsetting.

I’ve been to a three-hour long training session on Safeguarding this afternoon.  The number of these that I’ve been to over the years, and heard about the same tragic, though rare, occurrences when a child is treated so badly that its death results in an official enquiry and new rules or guidelines.  But, however rarely, it still can happen again.  Still, it was a very good lesson of its sort and I’m better informed (although, as ever, none the wiser).

That’s been about it today, I don’t think I’ve anything else to tell you.

I arrived home to find an answerphone message cancelling a meeting this afternoon that no one had told me was on.  Just as well, I’d not have felt able to give apologies so would not have done the training, and then would have been quite miffed at its cancellation.  I’ve become completely hopeless again, I’ve turned down a social engagement because of a school one next week, and the next one isn’t until next month.  Well, there’s the Car Club Christmas dinner next week, but I hardly know the people who go, I only go because the Sage is.

It’s not, of course, that I can’t arrange anything for fun, I’m not that busy, just that other things take priority. I notice it once in a while and take myself in hand, but sometimes it’s too much effort.  Must be that January feeling.

Oh, and the other news item is that the Sage is having his annual 24 hours blood pressure monitoring.  He whirrs and bleeps every 15 minutes.  He’s offered to sleep in the spare room, but I’d rather sleep with him, even whirring and bleeping.

Sad news

Sorry, folks, to be the bearer of bad news, but the little bantam didn’t come round after the operation.  Thanks for your good wishes, the Sage is very touched that you care.

Pullet and see

The Sage was worried.  One of his favourite chickens had a problem.

I should mention that he has thirty chickens.  Every one of them he has known since egghood.  Some of them, he delivered.

You see, a chick in the shell has a little sticky-out bit on its beak called an egg-tooth, but sometimes the eggshell is a bit too hard or dry and the tooth wears away before the chick has broken through the shell. It is very tricky, being midwife to a bird, because it is very likely that you will crack through the wrong part of the egg and damage the unhatched chick.  What you do, you put the egg in water, and the end that is on top when it bobs up is where the air-sac is.  You can, very carefully, scratch away with a scalpel and ease through that part without damaging the main part of the egg, and so, continuing to be terribly careful, remove fragments of shell until the chick is able to help itself.  The Sage has this delicacy of fingerwork and the patience needed to do this midwifery successfully.

Anyway, back to Bantam Chicken, Female, 2 Years Old, as she is registered at the local vet, the Very Wets.  She had been limping for a few days, and finally the Sage managed to persuade her to be picked up, and he found that one toe had been bleeding and the end of it was angled wrongly.  It looked as if she’d caught it in some netting, whether wire or plastic, and it had been partly cut through and the bone broken.  The Sage was terribly upset and, trustingly, brought her to me for a cure.  I took one look, it was well past my abilities.  I phoned the vet.

The Sage put her in a box, which had contained trays of eggs from Happy Hens of Hoxne, and she went to sleep until we took her out at the vet’s.  It was one of the principal vets we saw, impressively, and she cleaned the toe and said that she was afraid it needed to be amputated.  We knew that, we’d thought maybe she’d just whip it off with sharp clippers (chickens aren’t big on feeling pain), but no.  Bantam Chicken Female, or Dotty for short, will have to have an anaesthetic.  “It’ll be done tomorrow morning,” said Angela, “you can leave her here overnight or bring her back in the morning.”

I spared the Sage from looking overanxious and took on that rôle myself.  “Will she be operated on first thing?” I asked.  “I wouldn’t want her to have to wait, with other animals around, she’d be frightened.”  The operation won’t be done before 11 o’clock.  Dotty (which is actually short for Dot and Carry One) is asleep in her box in the porch right now.  The Sage will take her in tomorrow and pace the floor until he knows that she has survived the operation, and then she will have the run of the greenhouse for a few days until she has healed.

What I liked, neither the receptionist nor the vet acted as if we were making too much fuss at all.  Because we weren’t.  And even if we were, she’s worth it.

Last night, Z couldn’t get to sleep at all…

I was in bed well before midnight, too.  Very boring.  I read, I played games.  Scored 122 in one move on iPhone Scrabble, but I can’t remember either of the words involved.  I finally fell asleep some time after 4.15 and was woken three hours or so later by Radio 4 playing Boney M, which was annoying.  I hate it when Radio 4 plays music in the morning, I like to wake up to the droning of voices.  It was the early service, but my good friend Sybil had kindly said she’d do my sidesman duties, as I’d be going to the 11 o’clock service, so I went back to sleep for another hour.  It’s a funny thing, that however much I can’t sleep at night, I always can when it would be a reasonable hour to get up.  I have, at least, resolutely not had a daytime nap today, in the hope of being thoroughly exhausted tonight.

When I woke the second time, I heard Zerlina talking in her bedroom.  Her father went to fetch her and I heard her cheerfully piping voice chatting to him about the rocking horse in his and Weeza’s room.  I did poached eggs for breakfast, two of them new-laid this morning.  The Sage went out to fetch the eggs from the nest boxes.  It was a crisply frosty morning, but the sun shone and it was a beautiful day.  Much more invigorating than the dreary rain we had on Friday.

Weeza and co left mid-morning, so that Zerlina could have her lunch and her nap at home and they’d get some weekend stuff done, and Wink left after lunch.  She was going to call on her step-son and his wife on her way home, north of London.  She hasn’t phoned yet to say she’s safely home, but we’re expecting a call in the next half-hour.  Interestingly, she has also, indignantly, decided to boycott The Archers from now on.  She didn’t know I’d said the same thing as she rarely has a chance to read the blog any more – she spends the day largely at the computer at work, so has given up her home Broadband as she doesn’t really want to look at a screen in the evening too.  She says she’s been listening for 45 years, but this has done it for her – why, she asked dramatically, does one ‘celebrate’ 60 years of a programme by killing off the most delightful character?  Why kill anyone?

Mind you, I was thinking of 45 years ago.  A teenager in the mid-sixties.  The Swinging Sixties.  “I know,” thought Wink. “I’ll start listening to a radio soap on the Home Service.”  We were rarely cutting edge, Wink and me.

Land of Poo

I’ve had a really busy evening.  It’s only 11 o’clock and I’m tired out.  I had the bright idea of feeding the children at 5.30, with nibbles and wine for us, and then we having dinner at 7.30 when Zerlina was in bed. A good idea, but it needed a lot of rushing about.  It had all gone so well during the day too, because I’d got everything prepared, it was just a matter of putting things in the oven at the right times and keeping an eye on them.

And it did work.  Everyone started to arrive at 5, and in due course we opened Christmas presents, the children ate (I’d gone for easy options, sausages and baked beans, ice cream and cake) and I served the smoked salmon and little cheesy numbers.  Soon after 7, Zerlina asked to go to bed.  I know, it’s true though, Weeza has a child who knows when she’s tired, rather than getting irritable but denying it, and asks for her bed.  Dinner was on the table at exactly 7.30, by which time Squiffany and Pugsley were sitting together in an armchair watching a Nanny McPhee DVD on my computer (the DVD player is on the blink, I’ll have to replace it).  But I’d been scurrying about in frenzied fashion getting it all ready by then.

Wink brought some splendid cheeses with her from her local deli, and Ro and I, in particular, tried each of them and compared notes.  One of them was splendidly smelly.  Unfortunately, Wink couldn’t remember its name.  There was a ripe local (to her) camembert (Phil described it as “suppurating,” and indeed it was oozing over the cheeseboard), a semi-soft goat’s cheese, a Cheddar from Cheddar and a couple of others.  I am not sure how I’m going to finish them while they’re still at their best, the Sage won’t eat much of them.  She also brought a magnum bottle of Crozes Hermitage, which she’d won in a raffle, it having been donated by the local wine merchants.  It was on its way, past its best, but still a fine wine.

Everyone has gone to bed now except the Sage and me.  Ro and Dora went back to Norwich, but all the same, it’s not often that six people sleep in this house now.

You have to have seen the film to ‘get’ the title of the post, but it could relate to the cheese too.

Baby mama

I had my first baby when I was 20.  Physically, this was a very good age.  Emotionally, I was too young.  I’d thought I was not, but it certainly tested my patience, which failed the test and I spent quite a lot of Weeza’s first few months in tears, as did she.  Fortunately, the Sage could also be called the Rock.  He looked after us both and I gradually improved.

Nothing daunted, Al was born exactly two years later, their birthdays are two days apart.  This was a different story.  I had got into the swing of things by then, Weeza was an adorable toddler – she was such a dear little girl – and, although we’d just bought a fairly huge house (anyone who has visited here might think this house is not small.  It’s so much smaller than our last house, I call this a cottage), I did have a cleaner a couple of mornings a week by then and everything went swimmingly.

Physically, I bounced right back in no time.  Apart from being rather thin – within the acceptable BMI range, but only just – I was extremely healthy and had loads of energy.  In fact, I probably had more energy at that time than I ever had before or since.  I wonder what I was doing right.  My only small problem, because of being so slim, was a tendency to low blood pressure or blood sugar or some such, and if I stood up quickly I sometimes had to sit down again before I fell down, and sometimes I lay flat on the floor to save myself from fainting.

Just as an aside, I don’t know how these ‘size zero’ women live.  I weighed more than 7 1/2 stone and had a tendency to faint, and I was a size 10, which would be an American 6.  Much smaller and I’d have been ill.  I had an extremely healthy diet.

Anyway, after a year or two I put on a few pounds and continued to be fit, healthy and have plenty of energy.  Ro was born when I was 30.  I sailed through pregnancy and birth, but was very surprised to find that having a small baby was far more tiring than last time round.  We’d intended, as there was quite a large gap, to have a fourth child, but changed our minds within weeks.  Like Rog’s holiday of a lifetime, never again.  We were too old.

Both Weeza and Dilly were in their thirties when their babies were born.  I don’t think they bounced back with as much energy as I did physically, although I’m sure they were a lot more prepared emotionally than I was at the age of twenty.  All three of us were in stable married relationships with supportive partners and families, which must have helped vastly.

Obviously, I’m not going to come to a conclusion here, it depends on so many things.  Being mother to a small child really does take it out of you though, I wonder if one can really prepare for it as we simply don’t know what it’s like until it happens.  I can tell you, though, being a grandparent is pure pleasure.  Worth having children for, I promise you.

Pearly queens

I met the mother of a schoolfriend of Ro’s at the donor clinic this afternoon.  Almost the first thing she said, when we’d said hello, was “I’m going to be a Nanny!”  Her son Chris married a year or eighteen months ago and he and his wife are expecting their first baby.  I’ve promised to tell Ro, and passed on good wishes from us all – I expect Ro will be a bit startled.  Chris is a year older than he is, but even so, Ro isn’t thinking of starting a family any time soon.

Mind you, I’ve a feeling that the next generation after my children’s may be having their babies earlier.  For one thing, I think that all these women who have left it until their mid-thirties to forties before starting a family, and some of them finding it no easy matter, will want, perversely, their grandchildren to be born before they themselves are ancient, and will encourage their children to start families.  It could go the other way, of course, with girls all freezing eggs so that they can have their children late but without the problems of later conception, but I suspect that, when it comes to it, most people instinctively prefer the natural approach.

Anyway, the news of the day is that Wink has arrived, bearing Epiphany gifts.  It being Twelfth Night (twelve days after Christmas, Christmas Day doesn’t count), I left the tree.  The family is coming over on Saturday and, as I’m not superstitious, I’d leave the decorations until then, as we’ll be opening presents then, but my mother would be cross.  The one time our tree was left, because we were all too ill with Hong Kong flu, was New Year 1970, and my father died later the same month, enough to make anyone superstitious.  I still don’t believe the bad luck, but I do believe in the wrath of my mother, so I shall compromise.  I’ll take the decorations down tonight and leave the tree, and on Saturday hang chocolate coins from it for the children.  Unless I get fed up in the meantime and haul it out, a girl can always change her mind, of course.

Tomorrow, Wink and I will probably go out for lunch.  We haven’t decided where yet.  The county is our oyster.

Z plans to drink a litre of water (a pint and three-quarters, darlings)

I’d reassured myself that my own (left, that is – the Sage owns my right one) hip was fine, by standing on my right leg and drawing my foot up – when it touched my bottom and I felt no pain (apart from kicking myself in the butt), I stopped worrying.  Until last night, when I remembered that tests my knee, not my hip.  So, I’ve just done the hip test.

Well, the good news is that it made me notice the cobweb on the ceiling, which I have now removed.  The less than good news is that I reckon I will be getting a new left hip in a few years.  Do excuse me while the cyber-air turns blue for a few minutes.  Having had one done, I know that the operation isn’t the problem, it’s the years in the meantime while it deteriorates enough to be operated on.  And last year was so lovely, I appreciated every little thing that I was able to do again, and the thought of gradual decline is a really unhappy one.

Having said that, it isn’t stopping me doing anything yet, I wear heels, I walk fast, I can put my legs pretty well anywhere I want to.  Still, I’ll start to save for my 65th birthday or so.  Maybe earlier.

Though, there is other good news.  It seems that my knees are fine.

Anyway, I’ll continue to focus on good news.  Winkie is arriving tomorrow, and all the family will be here for Saturday evening.  I have thought of a genuine reason why buying an iPad would be a fine idea (will hang on for the new improved one in the spring, however) and it isn’t even self-centred – that is, the Sage would love it for eBay.  Not having to fiddle around with a laptop’s control pad or a mouse would be a joy to him.  Even he can manage my phone effortlessly, and my friend John said that he was surprised how easy it was to use.  He especially loved the pinch movement to zoom in and out.

Irritations did happen today, I confess.  I went on a Safeguarding training thingy in November, where I and the Safeguarding (I keep writing Sageguarding!) governor asked about accredited training, and were met with blank stare and told that was it.  Now I’ve had an email to suggest she and I go on a half-day course next Tuesday, which will cost the school £60 for each of us.  I can, other governor can’t.  Well, I can, but I’ll have to tell the music teacher I can’t go to her lessons, which disappoints both of us.  I think that’s enough about being irritated, I’ve got over the rest…well, I wasn’t exactly dismayed about that, it’s just that I’m thoroughly disorganised and even I would have got that right, and I’m not paid for competence.

Tomorrow – well, as I said, Wink will arrive, sometime in the afternoon.  In the early afternoon, I’ll go to the blood donor clinic.  Indeed, darlings, to give rather than to receive, because ’tis better, unless unavoidable.  I shall remember not to drink wine at lunchtime, but to have lots of water instead.

Evening edition

You’ll all be terribly pleased to hear (because you’ve been worrying all day, thank you darlings) that my balance is fine and my ears are better. I was dizzy because the blockage has shifted, but now it’s gone.  I don’t know where, I’m not going to think about that too much.

It was quite a long afternoon, but John and I had a very jolly time, having a good old heart-to-heart over lunch and then playing with iPads for a good hour and a half.  He did a bit of his other shopping, but he’s not very quick getting about so we didn’t do much else.

The Sage spent the afternoon doing an odd job (odd in the odd-job sense, not in any other) and now lights work that didn’t, so I have absolutely nothing – nothing, I promise – to grumble about.  He’s being totally adorable, I’ll have to drop a kind word sometime in the next few days … ooh, I hear the coffee grinder!  He doesn’t even like coffee, so learning to make it as I like it is kindness indeed.

Um…that’s about it today.  I don’t think I’ll keep up this twice-daily thing any longer.  It takes it out of a woman.

The Times crossword is going well.  Half done by ten o’clock this morning (That is, in a few minutes, it took me until 9.30 to prise my eyes open reliably, and longer to get dressed and have breakfast).  Better get back to it.