A Half-Timbered Car!
The funny title is not mine, but it was said by Barry Humphries, when dressed as Dame Edna, he was walking through Stratford-on-Avon.
A Half-Timbered Car!
There aren’t many half-timbered houses around here, with one of the nearest in Walthamstow.
When we first moved to the Barbican, we had a green Morris Minor Traveller, just like this one.
There must be few of my generation, who’ve never owned or driven one of these cars.
Mothering Sunday At Carluccio’s
I got to Carluccio’s in Canary Wharf for a late breakfast.
There were obviously a few parties celebrating Mothering Sunday, but surprisingly, there were several singletons of both sexes. There certainly appeared to be more than usual, but then I was half-an-hour or so earlier.
You’d have thought that on this day, where mothers and their partners and children tend to celebrate, that dining alone wouldn’t have been so common.
I know that as a widower, who has lost his mother and contact with his two daughters-in-law, I am a bit short in the mother stakes. But my family has always been like that, with no woman having given birth on my father’s side with the coeliac gene, since 1820, that I can find.
Still those genes, when linked to my mother’s Huguenot ones gave me a strong survival instinct and I like to think an active and fertile mind.
Loading Crossrail Spoil At Limmo
I have been trying to get a picture of this for some time and finally did this morning from the Emirates Air-Line cable-car..
Loading Crossrail Spoil At Limmo
You could actually see the spoil pouring off the white conveyor into the ship. It’s obviously an easier way to get rid of all the spoil, than using an armada of trucks.
Flying Solo On The Cable-Car
As I often do on a Sunday, I went over the Emirates Air-Line cable-car and then took the Jubilee line to Canary Wharf to have some late breakfast at Carluccio’s.
I got a gondola to myself, as the pictures show.
I wonder how long it takes before the rubbish recycling underneath the line is moved to a less obvious location.
Is This A Handrail?
At Limehouse station on the DLR, I noticed these rails surrounding the platforms.
Is This A Handrail?
I was unsure as to their purpose. Especially, as there is a similar rail at floor level.
Are they there to just to protect the window, for decoration or are they a handrail that people can hang on to as the trains approach? I did hold it today, as the train came in, but then I have form in this area, as I reported here.
Rhinitis: A Tale Of Two Cities
It’s very strange bus over the last couple of days, my health has been very much a roller coaster. or should I say my rhinitis.
On Wednesday, it was particularly bad and I was getting through the usual small packet of paper hankies a day. I did have a swimming lesson and I suspect, I did give my nose a bit of a washout, but the running nose was very much the same as it normally is.
Thursday in Liverpool is was a bit better, but on Friday, despite it being a day, when God had decided, she would empty her bathwater, my tissue consumption was much reduced. We were also indoors for a lot of the day in a warm room. But was it dry?
Yesterday, as I came down from Liverpool on the train, it was fine, except that I could taste the softer Liverpool water running into my throat.
Today, though it has been awful and I’ve got through over a small packet of tissues on my walk around London this morning.
So which is the dominant factor controlling the rhinitis?
I think, I can throw in here, one other useful piece of information. I saw no improvement on my trips to Blackburn or Huddersfield.
As I do know that my health problems improved as a child, when we moved to Felixstowe and maintained the improvement at Liverpool University. So, perhaps being by the sea helped. After all, I sometimes notice, that when I go to the football at Ipswich, I do sometimes breathe better.
It could too have been the temperature and humidity in the hotel. I set the temperature to the nineteen, I aim for at home.
One thing though, that the pain in my teeth and around the old break in my left humerus, seems to increase with the rhinitis.
So if I can stop my nose running, I may get rid of some other symptoms.
As I’m going on a cruise in eight days time, perhaps this will help me solve the mystery.
At least though, I’m certain that what causes the rhinitis, caused it as a child and as it didn’t kill me then, it probably won’t now.
How To Put Down A Dog
Most of our dogs have lived a long life, with one basset and a couple of setters getting to past thirteen, which is not a bad age for a dog.
But one incident of the end of a dog’s life stands out. Charlotte, our English Setter, who is pictured here, was probably about fifteen and for several days, she’d hardly touched her food or ventured outside her bed in the kitchen. Our amazing horse vet, Philip, who’d passed through in his usual hurry, a couple of days before, had told us that she didn’t have long and to call him, when we thought the time was near. So that evening I’d called him about six and he said he was busy and would turn up later.
I was writing software and eventually Philip turned up just after midnight. He ascertained that Charlotte hadn’t probably more than a few hours and then did what he had to do.
Normally, Philip didn’t have time to stop, but I asked him if he’d like a drink, suggesting tea or something stronger.
He had probably had a bad day, so asked for the latter.
Between us we finished off the greater part of a bottle of Irish whiskey!
I would like to think, that when my time is up, that I could go in the same dignified way that Charlotte did, with the pain for those present helped in an appropriate manner, by either alcohol, coffee or cake!
Mother’s Day
As someone, who is widowed and doesn’t have a mother anymore, this is one of the days I wish didn’t happen. I actually don’t know my two daughter-in-laws and my grandchildren, which is particularly sad. But then you can’t cater for circumstances.
If I want to eat out with my other son today, then we’ll have difficulty finding somewhere decent.
I do hate these single-issue days. Surely, everybody should respect their mother and father all the year! And not just on one day of the year!
These days, were only invented to sell cards and flowers.
C always hated Mother’s Day, as it was some foreign invention. To her it was Mothering Sunday, which was often on a different day. But I can’t ever remember us celebrating any of Mother’s Day, Mothering Sunday or Father’s Day, except by the odd card. We did usually celebrate Valentine’s Day, as I remarked here.
Pyongyang Without The Dystopia
This quote comes from this article on the BBC web site about Canberra.
When C and I flew round Australia some years ago, we didn’t go to the city. I seem to remember some Aussie wag saying there’s nothing to see that would interest a tourist.
Equine Research Day at Leahurst
The purpose of my trip to Leahurst was to go a series of presentations, about the work of the equine work of the School of Veterinary Science at Liverpool University.
It was a comprehensive series of talks, ranging across the whole field of equine welfare research.
One of the biggest areas talked about was colic and how to prevent it. I was quite surprised at how much of the research was done using computers to analyse databases of incidences of colic and other collected and observed data. I always believed that analysis of events is a very powerful tool to getting to the bottom of problems and my software; Daisy, has been used in numerous applications, although it’s all stagnated a bit, due to my illness.
There was also a presentation on obesity in horses, which is just as serious for them, as it is for humans.
But in some ways the biggest surprise was all the work done on arthitis in horses and humans, which is being funded in part by Arthritis Research UK. The aim is to learn more about this disease and be able to diagnose it earlier in all animals.
I believe they are putting the presentations on the Internet and I will link to them, when they are available.
The Anonymous Widower 