dentist

A strange time . . .

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Last week was a bit strange. The public holiday on Monday for Easter didn’t help. I wasn’t working because the cafe does not open on public holidays. Although it was open on Good Friday, which I thought was odd. When the cafe is closed we have to take the time as either unpaid or Annual Leave. With three public holidays coming up in May, I thought taking the day unpaid would be better.

Tuesday was back to ‘normal’. Well, I say normal, for me it wasn’t a day people would normally expect. Two weeks previous there had been an ‘incident’ so to speak, that involved a friend and former colleague. I had been told something, and it came out in conversation with the chef. It was just an ‘off the cuff’ remark when we were talking about standards.

However, the chef related the incident back to the boss who then quizzed my friend. It apparently was most embarrassing and unrequired. This type of thing has happened before and I was not happy about it. The chef can be very irritating at times. When he is busy he can get angry and quite aggressive. There are times when he will be ‘chatty’ but then will suddenly go moody and not speak for hours.

I took the decision before I went in to be on the quiet side. I would speak when spoken to, but I would not start a conversation and any reply would be brief and to the point. It made for a strange day. We shall see what this week brings as I am minded to be in the same frame of mind.

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I managed the get my car washer pump fixed eventually. It has not worked since August last year. I tried to get it repaired when the car was serviced, but the garage was not able to get the part. He explained that his ‘supplier’ did not stock the part, but that if I got one online he would fit it. That was in September and I simply never got around to buying the said pump. Then Mrs H had a problem with one of the tyres on her Mini. She got it repaired and it seemed quite reasonable for the type of tyre.

I then checked if that garage was just a tyre fitter or if they did other repairs too. It seems they are classed as an ‘Auto-centre’ and are able to do most repairs. This place was only six miles from home, whereas the garage that did the service was over fifteen miles away. So that was settled and £125.00 later, I now have working washers again.

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Two events next week !! Birthday on Thursday and dentist on Friday. What a combination! I’m not saying what birthday it is but suffice it to say that I will be nearer to 70 than 60. And I’m beginning to feel it.

I was intending to quit the job at the end of April. It is quite physical working twelve hours over two days, but when I get my wage packet on Tuesday afternoon, it doesn’t seem as hard going. That is until ten-thirty the following Monday when the doubts start again. I do think that I will quit in April 2025 though, but then again … who knows?

Neglected . . .

/ Tony / 4 Comments

— Ask Italian

That’s my blog, not me. It’s been over a week since my last post, but there has not been much to write about. I renewed my Photocard Driving License, K*** got her 2nd jab and the eldest got the date for his 1st jab. We did actually go out for lunch again. We had been for a pizza at Ask Italian, a local restaurant, after the flower show the week before. That was an interesting part of the day but I did enjoy it. I was, and still am quite wary of being indoors at a restaurant, so when it was mentioned to go to Bar3 in Wetherby for lunch, all the irrational fears resurfaced again. I need not have worried though as everything was well managed and was as safe as possible.

— Bar3

We had the stairwell decorated at the beginning of the week. thankfully, I was working as I usually try and find fault with work(men) people. Ten years ago, I would have had no problems with doing it myself but K*** convinced me that I am too old to be hanging off ladders with various painting implements in my hand. In the end, I had to agree. I paid for it out of my lottery win, so you could say it didn’t cost anything!

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Did a bit of gardening over the week. I refitted my greenhouse with it’s new cover and moved my ‘pallet plant holder’ to a different place. I made some years ago to use as a herb garden, but never really got around to doing anything serious with it. So I moved it to the other side of the garden and it now looks quite effective with the herb seeds I’ve been trying to grow. I have put some bird-netting over my strawberries, but I don’t think it will work too well. I’m not going to waste server space by showing a picture, but suffice to say it’s not a work of art. I have every intention of making cage from the left over lats from when the conservatory was reroofed. I’ve even measured up and drawn a plan. Just got to get my finger out and actually make the thing.

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That’s about it. Next week will be a bit of a trial. Youngest is coming home to see the dentist. He will have to have a swab-test on Thursday and then his appointment is 8am on the following Friday. Fingers crossed it all goes according to plan. Because of his Autism, he would not cope with the procedure so he will have to have a general anaesthetic which is a worry. He knows he is going, and his lead carer will take him for the test and then bring him here, so there is a plan, just got to hope there are no hiccups.

It got better . . .

/ Tony / 2 Comments

On Tuesday, our youngest was due to have a dental procedure. Because of the way he could react, due to his Autism, this procedure had to take place under a general anaesthetic. He has had general’s before, so it’s not so much of a deal for him. However, COVID-19 has changed everything. My wife was taking him to the hospital, so she needed to have a C-19 swab test on Saturday. That was done in the morning. In the afternoon, she received a phone call saying that the test was ‘inconclusive’ and she have to have another on the Sunday. It’s a 25 mile round trip to the hospital, so it does take a little time out of the day. Of course after the test, she had to isolate, so was unable to work on the Sunday. Fortunately, the second test came back as negative.

Forward to Monday, and the youngest is due his swab. As he was still at his residential care home, his lead carer volunteered to take him for the test. This guy is a bit of a hero. It is nearly 50 miles from the care home, but was quite happy to take him, be with him when tested, before bringing him to us. thankfully, his test was also negative, so we were all geared up for Tuesday.

It was an early appointment, he had to be at the hospital for 9 o’clock. We got him there and my wife got him booked in. I went home to do some shopping, as it was thought he would be there all day. We found out later that the dentist only had the theatre for the morning.

At around 12 o’clock, I got a call from my wife, asking me to come and pick them up. It seems that the person who was due to go for surgery before my son, who also had some kind of special needs, was refusing to cooperate with the dental team. He should have been in theatre for around half past 9, but they just couldn’t get him to go. As the theatre was set-up for his needs, it couldn’t quickly be changed for my son, as the theatre slot was running out of time.

He has now got another appointment, but all the C-19 testing will have to be done again. Thankfully the youngest took it all in his stride. A few years ago, he would have had a complete melt-down at the plans being changed, but we were so proud of the way he reacted or didn’t react in fact.

It seems to have had no effect on him at all, and he was his usual self the following day. At the moment, his flat, at the care home is being redecorated, so he would have had to be with us for the week anyway. However, the job is going to take longer than expected, so two of his care team are taking him away to Centre-Parcs for a few days until the work is finished. He doesn’t know yet, and we are hoping that he will just accept it without any upset. We wait and see.

Less than a week has passed …..

/ Tony / Leave a comment

    So it has only been six days since post ‘500‘ and quite a bit has happened. One of my colleagues worked out the extra cost, for changing offices to £720.00 per year. In his email to the manager, he stated that this was the extra cost ‘….for each of us…‘ which is not quite accurate. For me, even if I worked at the City office every day my driving would be shortened by 70 miles a week. Working from home one day, would reduce it by another 30 miles per week. Taking it all into consideration, including a £15.00 per week parking cost, by extra cost would be £132.00 pa or £3.30 pw. I think I can manage that.

    What annoys me a lot, is the assumption that we all ‘have a problem’ with this new working practice. There are at least two of us that just seem to want to get on with it. It’s not as if we have any choice! We just have to make the best of it. Change affects people differently. At the end of the day, we will still have a job. We may be put out a little, but in the current economic climate in Britain, having a paid job is something to be thankful for. Of course, the Trades Union is involved at a high level, but we also have a local convenor in our office and his views (right or wrong) seem to be getting some attention. I tend not to take any notice of this person, as I think that his attitude sometimes shows that he is still living in the 1970’s.

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    Another problem cropped up with R*** on Friday. We live on the outskirts of Leeds. Our doctors, however is in Tadcaster. This means we receive our health care from North Yorkshire, and although it calls itself the National Health Service, effectively it is a localised service. So the problem is that R*** needs specialist dental care, because of his condition. Many dentists are very wary of treating people with special needs and Autism can be very scary if you are not fully aware of the issues autistic people face. He had to visit the Community Dental Practice on Friday. They examined him, and found his teeth to be doing okay, but then they dropped the bombshell. They told us, that because of recent changes by Government, they were no longer ‘allowed’ to treat him in Leeds as it was out of the catchment area. We would have to find another specialised dentist in North Yorkshire. It seems that there is one in Selby or York. This will have a serious effect with transport on his days at college and will mean whenever he has a dental appointment he would have to miss a day. We are not happy to say the least.

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    On a lighter note, the mini keyboard for tablet came. It is a lot smaller than I anticipated, and I’m yet to get it to actually work. The accompanying manual seems to have been converted/translated from the original Japanese and some of the words and phrases do not make much sense. Still I suppose you get what you pay for, as I found out with the cheap 32gb SD memory card, I bought. That does not work at all with the tablet. So ‘cheap and cheerful’ does not always pay off in the long run.

Another late one …..zzzzzzzzzzzz

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Another late night, last night. Or to be accurate, early morning !!! Eldest lad was up for his drama rehearsal and with R*** still on respite until Friday, Mrs H was up for going out to the pub again. We got back in around 23:45, had a coffee and a drink, then Mrs H went to bed. I stayed up with S**** for a bit longer before crawling up to bed at 01:45. Did not seem to be in bed for long !!

Dentist today. It will probably be just a check and clean, but you never can tell. My appointment is at 12:20, so lunch will have to be a late one today. I have some spare time.

I need to have a look at R***’s laptop tonight. His drive is separated in to two partitions, both the same size. However, he does not separate data from program files (he doesn’t really need to), so one of the partitions, named ‘D’ is barely used. This will be the one I will shrink down to about 75gb. I can then expand the main partition by another 100gb or so. Wish me luck !!

Bloody teeth…….

/ Tony / Leave a comment

So now I have lost a filling. Problem is, that it is my ‘chewing tooth’ !!!! I should explain. I have very few of my own teeth and only one that I can chew effectively with. It is this one that has the problem. I noticed that the filling had gone on Saturday night, although it may have gone before then. A trip to the dentist tomorrow. Such fun !!!!

A struggle to post sometimes …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

   Well, we did not go to the quiz after all. The weather wasn’t too good, and I was a bit tired. There are many nights when I just cannot be bothered, and just want to sit and read, or listen to some music.

   The IT stuff got sorted. The folders that the staff needed access to are only available to staff who have a certain application, and although all the staff can see the folders, only certain ones can do anything with them. I have no idea why they do it that way.

   It was Mrs H’s birthday on Sunday. Eldest came over for the weekend, and they both went to the local music event. It is usually me that goes with S****, but we all thought it would be nice if him and K*** went. I think she enjoyed it. You never can tell, especially when she says things like ‘It was different’ and ‘I did not know what to expect’.

    A busy day coming up on Wednesday. It is the end of the financial year and I have a number of reports to run. We did a test run last week, and the Finance Manager (did I really capitalise that) seemed happy with them. Fingers crossed things stay that way.

   Youngest is supposed to be going to the dental hospital on Thursday. Trouble is he has started with a cold, and I don’t think they will let him have the treatment if he has a cold. Still, it will be another day off, and I think I will have earned it.

Back to work …

/ Tony / Leave a comment

   Mrs H was at the dentist yesterday, so that wasn’t good. In the chair for over an hour, putting a previous extraction right. Fingers crossed she won’t get an infection this time.

   Youngest went off on his school adventure week yesterday. It was a difficult morning, because as usual, he said he did not want to go. As usual he was quite adamant about it.  Got a txt from one of the school staff that have gone, to say he was doing fine and having a good time. To be fair, his teacher at school said he was fine when he got to school. Now whether they are just saying that to stop us worrying……

   Work was, as expected a bit of a trial today. It seems to be the case, that I only have to have a single day off, for problems to mount up. Thankfully D*** takes it all in his stride. A good ally and workmate. Finance is upset with me though. For the past 5 years, I have worked on the 1st of April (start of the new financial year). This year, I having the day off. R*** is having his dental treatment, and I need to be there.  So the reports that need to be run, will have to be run by someone else (probably D****).

If that was the weekend, it’s done ….

/ Tony / Leave a comment

   Paint, paint and even more paint. The dining room is proving to be a little better than I first thought. A base coat of white and two top coats, should see the majority of the wall covered. Just a few patches that may need a thin third coat. Then, it will be time to move the heavy furniture, and finish up. There are two small pieces of wall that are hidden behind the two units. Hopefully, I can get some the paint done on Thursday and Friday evening, then I can wallpaper on the Saturday. It will then just be the woodwork to do, and I can do that starting on Sunday.

   Youngest is going on a respite trip tomorrow. We have only just told him, and of course, he says he is not going. But that’s what he says to everything, which is why we have delayed telling him. All he wants to do is stay in his room or play on the internet.  His support worker came to take him out today, and he said he did not want to go. The place he is going to looks like fun, a type of outward bound centre for disabled kids. He’ll be going with his teachers and support workers from school, so it should be a good week. Just got to get through the next few hours.

   Mrs H is at the dentist tomorrow. she is not looking forward to that at all. The last treatment she had ended up with an infection and five days of pain. Fingers crossed it doesn’t happen again. I don’t think the anti-biotic worked too well last time.

   Eldest manage to ring and say Happy Mothers Day !! It took a lot of prompting, and the fool rang the land line, and not her mobile (free calls 3 to 3). Still, he called, I suppose.

   Car alarm keeps going off. Well ‘van’ alarm. It will probably be going off for a while yet. The guy who owns it lives a couple of streets away, so he won’t hear it. People who live nearby will not be very happy. They will both be on the lookout for the driver in the morning. Poor devil.

Hard to describe …

/ Tony / Leave a comment

   It has been a difficult day to describe today. On the one hand, my day has not been too bad, not too much to do, but enough to keep me going. On the other hand, Mrs H had to have a tooth out, and it was not an easy ride. She is in a lot of pain, and it took the dentist quite a long time to get the tooth out. From what she says, the tooth just crumbled, and there are still some bits of tooth in there. She is on an anti-biotic and ibuprofen, so not looking forward to a good night.

   If there was a third hand, it would be that school forgot to give the youngest his medication this lunchtime. From all accounts, he was fine, and to some extent his teacher had not realised the he had not had it. This may pave the way to reduce his (our) dependency on it. Especially after the way he was over the Christmas holidays.

   Now, looking for a fourth hand, my line manager (aka Spilligoon) was up to his old tricks again. It is my considered opinion, based on previous knowledge, that he hid D***s keys to cause trouble. He has done it before, and it his way of ‘teaching us a lesson’. What an ar*e !!! He will hide the keys, and then humiliate the key holder, until they turn up. Usually on someone’s desk, or in a place where nobody would put them. It is a form of bullying, and it is something that he is known for. One day, it will backfire……… 

Mind numbing …..

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Here I am blogging from work. It’s a very quiet day, with no senior managers in the office. I am taking the opportunity to configure a report on our system. The main case database progresses cases through the system. Each stage of this case progression has to have 1 of 6 flags set for the report to work. There are over 4500 of these stages, and it is that which I am doing at the present ….. and as I mentioned, mind numbing !!!

As usual, there are some who are asking the question “What time can we go home ??” They have been asking the same question since December 23rd. Why did you not ask for the time off ? We do not need you this week. We go through this every year, with the same people.

Youngest has now gone four days, without any medication, which is a record. He is accompanying his brother to the dentist today, so that may be the straw etc etc.

Still only Wednesday…..

/ Tony / Leave a comment

The dentist went well. Very little pain, in fact the ‘scale and polish’ was more , shall we say, uncomfortable that the drilling. She just hit one spot that was bad, but it was okay. It is difficult to explain, but I find women dentists, to be better at the job than man. they just seem to get on with it, whereas the men dentists seem to dither a bit, sometimes.

We had our annual ‘you’ve all done really well’ performance review today. It is so monotonous, and I’m not that bothered really. There needs to be more feedback to staff on how well they are doing. Not just a once a year pat on the back. Still, after the farce with the lap-tops, it looks like I’m being upgraded. so not such a wasted 2 hours after all. Hopefully, I should be able to get the remote working software, so in effect I could work from home if I need to. Not that I will.

Eldest is driving more, and I have to say, he is getting more and more confident. I just hope he does not get over confident. That is where the problems start. I’ll have to give him a try on the Motorway at sometime soon. I’m not too sure it is a good idea when there is a passenger. If I can get him to catch the bus to my office, we can go from there. It is quite an easy access point, and it is only about six miles and we can get off again.

Where did the week go ….

/ Tony / Leave a comment

Well a whole week without a blog. Am I slipping back into old my old habit ? I hope not. So what has happened this week ?

Well surprisingly, not that much really. Eldest passed his driving test, which was good. He was really over the moon about it, and we are all relieved, that that part is over. Now he has to ‘learn to drive’ as all the instructors tell us when we pass. Thing is now, that he thinks he can use my car whenever he wants. He wanted to go to Harrogate in it last night, on his own. We managed to explain to him that it is different driving on your own to being told where to go. Both Mrs H and me think he would be better practising locally for a week or two before he goes off, on his own, on a medium length journey. He is still a little wary, but that will pass over the next few weeks. Mrs H has been looking on-line for prices of new cars for me, so that we can give him mine. This will need a great deal of thought, before we go down that line.

Not spoken to anyone on MSN this week. Mind you saying that, I don’t chat to many on there anyway these days. Always seem to miss Mrs C, when she is on. I tend not to stay on-line a lot now (the youngest sees to that).

I’ve been back on ‘the chat’ again a few times this week. I’m in two minds about that. It really does seem very pointless. It is getting to the point where, if you don’t make smutty suggestive remarks, then no-one chats to you. I do not know if I want that.

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A short week next week. I’ve got my hospital appointments on Friday, so I’ll be having flexi in the morning and Special Leave in the afternoon. I’m also at the dentist tomorrow lunchtime. I need a filling repairing, so I’m not looking forward to that much. In all fairness, I have not had anything done, except for scaling and polishing for a few years. In fact, I don’t remember having any work done with this dental practice at all.

If anyone actually read this, you may notice, that I have added the 2007 entries from my Google  ‘Blogger’ blog. I had to look through forums to find a work round, as the direct import routine failed. I was also able to offer some advice to someone who was having a problem with their import, which was very satisfying. I need to ask the question about importing my Windows Live Spaces blog. See if that is possible. Or perhaps not

….. back to work we go ……

/ Tony / Leave a comment

What a horrible Bank Holiday Monday it has been. Rain all day, and cold too. It has been a strange weekend really. The youngest has been fine all three days, which was a help. The eldest……well that’s another story. He left his wallet at work on Saturday, he hopes. Then Sunday night him, his girlfriend and some friends went to the pub, then onto the friends house later. Did not get in until 3:30am. Then his girlfriend was ill all night, and this morning had to Harrogate for 11:00am. We left at 10:41am !!!!!!! I think I did pretty well to get them there for 11:10.  I thought he was going to burst into tears when he got in my car. He looked so depressed, and she looked upset too. so what could you do or say ? He had not even said goodbye. I told him to either say goodbye or go ! So he went! He was supposed to come home with me, but he decided to go out with them for the day, and stop the night. It is very upsetting for Mrs H.

It’s a four day week for the next four weeks. A leave day, another Bank Holiday and my hospital appointment. I could get used to this. Dentist tomorrow though and this time I need some work doing. I think I lost part of a filling. The tooth is quite sharp and was a little sensitive a week or two ago.

I put the new wheel trims on yesterday. They look very good. I also tried putting the graphics on, but that was not as successful. I got one on, but it did not look right. In fact it looked quite tacky. Not at all like I expected, so I took it off straight away.

Still no sign of Mrs C on MSN. As before, she has been in facebook, but not at the same time. I’ll just check MySpace ……nope not there. I’ll tell you what though JM left a tweeted at around 6:00pm that she was having a nap, and would someone text her at 6:45pm. So I picked up her mobile number from facebook and sent a text at around 6:50pm. Thought no more of it, until she replied back by text to say thanks. I was amazed … the power of Twitter I suppose.