Expensive

Glad that’s over . . . hopefully

/ Tony / 3 Comments

The past ten days or so have been a bit stressful, to say the least. It started on the Monday when my father-in-law was rushed into hospital with suspected pneumonia. My wife stayed with him until 3am on Tuesday, in the A & E department, hoping to get him onto a ward. That didn’t happen until Tuesday evening. Then on Wednesday, in a bizarre twist, my Mother was rushed into the same hospital with the same suspected condition. She too was left in A & E for over 19 hours until a bed could be found. The staff, what little there was, were brilliant and did all they could with the limited resources available, but unfortunately, they tend to bear the brunt of patient and visitor frustrations.

They are both out now and on the mend, hopefully.

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Another bit of stress came when our youngest came for a home visit. He has an obsession with Mickey Mouse and his flat, at the care home has many pictures and wall stickers of this cartoon character. Towards the end of July, he came for a visit. He came with a request for “51 Mickey Mouse stickers!!” He was able to show me the ones he wanted. They were located in South Africa and at a price of 1900 Rand (plus postage), but I managed to explain that they were too expensive, as it worked out to around £100. He accepted this, but almost immediately ask for “4 Mickey Mouse stickers.” He then showed me the new ones, and I agreed to get them.

That’s when the problem started. The seller was on holiday and wouldn’t be back until the 16th of August. He seemed to accept this, but then the nattering began. He was asking everyone for “4 stickers.” We managed to order them eventually and told him that they would be arriving at his flat on Monday 22nd. All was going well but then a new phase came in. He started asking for “16 stickers on Tuesday!” Nobody had any idea about these new stickers, but he kept mentioning them.

The stickers finally arrived on the 23rd and he is very happy with them. It was later that day when it suddenly struck me where the “16 stickers on Tuesday” had come from! I had told him about the seller being on holiday and had said I would order the stickers when he came back … the 16th of August, which was also a Tuesday. I am convinced, that in his Autistic mind he was checking that the stickers had been ordered on Tuesday the 16th!

It just didn’t work …

/ Tony / Leave a comment

After seeing a couple of my colleagues wearing them, I decided it might be good idea to get a smart watch. Nothing expensive as I don’t really like wearing watches as they tend to irritate my skin. But, I thought it may have it’s benefits. I trawled through eBay and there seemed to a lot of really cheap ones around the £3.00 mark with a larger number between £10.00 and £30.00. Then there were the popular branded ones going up to £150.00 +. I wasn’t that desperate, so I plumped for one at the lower edge of the mid-price range.

Everything went well, I bought and paid for the unit on Tuesday evening and it was delivered on the Friday, by first class post. All was good and it arrived within the stated time frame. I was surprised by the appearance, as it looked good quality and it felt quite comfortable to wear. The English instructions were well written and easy to follow. I plugged the charger in and left it overnight to fully charge.

It can only be a small battery and usually these kind of things need a good charge to start with, but after 12 hours it was still only 50% charged. I realised that when I placed the unit on my desk, the two pins that charged the unit were not in the right place. This time I got everything right and within 2 hours the watch was fully charged. I installed the software on my ‘phone and I was good to go. It correctly picked up the time and date from my phone, and I began to play around with the numerous displays. The only few things I wanted it for was:
a) a step counter
b) blood pressure monitor and
c) heartbeat monitor
It did all these and many more.

Skip forward to Sunday lunchtime and I became aware that the time on the watch was wrong. The clock said 11:40 yet the watch said 00:04 with a date of 01/01/01. I thought at first I had set it wrong. I re-synchronised the unit with the software on my phone and everything went back to how it should be, Except … all the data from the previous day was gone! This happened again later that day and it seemed that the unit was resetting itself back to its factory settings. I read some of the reviews and soon realised that the phone an watch connect via blue-tooth so both needed to be near to each other. That seemed to make sense, so where I went, the phone went with me.

All was now good, or so I thought! Monday morning and again, the watch was showing a random time. I wasn’t happy about this to say the least, so I contacted the seller with all the problems I was experiencing. About 2 hours later, I received an email telling me that I had been refunded in full and that there was no need to return the unit. I checked PayPal and indeed the refund had passed through and was now in my back account.

I was one happy chap, especially as I didn’t need pay for any postage to send it back. That bothered me a little. How much did the thing cost to make and sell, if he can simply refund me with getting the unit back?

School days memory …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

For some time now, I have been following a blog written by someone who went to the same primary school as I did. Recently it became apparent that we were in the same year group, but not the same academic stream. After completing the 1st year in class ‘1a’, I was moved down into the ‘b’ stream where I stayed for the rest of the time.

The main memory that  this blogger’s post triggered was leaving Primary School and moving to Secondary School. The year is 1965 and I’m thinking it is around September/October time. My father had left his job Coal Mineas a reasonably well paid coal miner because of health problems, and was now working as a bus conductor for what was then the West Yorkshire Road Car company. Times were beginning to get quite tough. Our house was heated by coal fires and as a miner we received, every three months a concessionary supply of coal. What I mean by the word ‘concessionary’ is free. Every three months we would have 1 cwt of coal dropped into the street, which was quickly shovelled into the coal cellar. After leaving the coal industry, this free coal stopped. That and the reduction in dad’s wages were beginning to bite a little.

I seem to remember both my parents and me sitting in the classroom, with my form teacher (may have been a Mr Woods, Roundhay High Schoolbut I cannot remember) discussing my Secondary education. It was quite plausible it was said that I could go to the Grammar School at Roundhay. I had heard through my school friends at the time that this would be an expensive time. I would have to have a full School Uniform. This consisted of a blazer ( least one) two pairs of black trousers,  a number white shirts, a school tie and a pair of black lace-up shoes. There was also a football kit, rugby kit and a PE kit. There was no way my parents could afford that Not meamount of spend. There was a discussion around the fact, that all this uniform was available at a certain store in Leeds, but … it was possible to buy the same clothes as second hand from the school. That was a non-starter, as I had heard on the school grapevine, that everyone would know they were second hand, simply by their condition. This would automatically lead to bullying. I was not going to have that. I began to hope that I would fail my “11 Plus”.

The two subjects that I was apparently good at were Arithmetic and Religious Education. I began to wonder what would happen if I made a mess of those two subjects and I decided to ensure that I would answer some the questions incorrectly. Which is what I did. To this day nobody believes me, but I know I did get some questions wrong on purpose, so who knows. All I know is that I ended up going to the school I preferred and not the Grammar school.

Don’t believe them …

/ Tony / 1 Comment

I used to be a cook. From 1971 to 1986 I was a cook at the Leeds General Infirmary. In fact from 1983 to 1986, I was the Head Cook in the staff kitchen. All this is a little bit of background information for what I want to have a chat about. That chat is about pastry. Specifically short crust pastry. Now, when you watch these famous TV chefs preparing pastry (and I’ll not mention any names here) they will always tell you that it has to be done by hand .. No mixer/processor allowed!!! .. They will tell you that your pastry will be tough/dry/chewy and any other descriptive term for ‘bad’ pastry they can think of. They will tell you that you have to make it by had, if you want the best pastry. I want to tell you that’s a load of rubbish. When you are making enough pastry to cover pies that are going to feed 300+ people, making it by hand is a non-starter. Can you imagine trying to ‘rub-in’ 20lb of lard/margarine into 40lb of flour by hand!. You have to use a machine. If it works for large volumes, then it has to work for smaller volumes too. So here is my recipe for short crust pastry in a food-processor:

  1. weigh 8oz flour into your food processor with a pinch of salt
  2. dice up 2oz of cold butter and 2oz of cold lard into 1/4 inch dice
  3. chill butter and lard in freezer for 15 minutes
  4. add butter and lard to flour and process until looks like breadcrumbs
  5. add 3floz of very cold water and use the pulse function until the pastry starts to come together
  6. tip out onto a lightly floured worktop and gently kneed for a few seconds until all mixed
  7. wrap in cling-film and place in fridge for at least 30 minutes
  8. use as required

They key to this is the speed of the processing and the coldness of the fat. I takes less than 2 minutes to go from fat and flour to pastry, which means that the fat is still cold. I can assure you that it does work.

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March is going to be an expensive month I think. Firstly, there’s Mothers Day and then there’s K***s birthday. This is one of those significant birthdays too. The big ‘six-zero’. Looks like I may need to move some cash from my savings account, but it should not be a problem really. We are going away for a couple of days on the weekend before the big day which will be nice. We’ve been to the hotel before a few years ago and it was a nice place. Good food, good scenery and it will be relaxing break for both of us. R*** is away for the weekend, so there are no worries about getting back for him. Just got to hope the weather is better than present. It has got a lot warmer overnight which has led to the snow staring to melt into slush. Much fun!

 

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FrontBackNow, here’s a poser. Which is the correct way? Front or back?  Is there a right or wrong way? I have no real preference at all but I know how K*** feels about it. For her it has to be Front. There can be no argument and it can lead to a lot of tutting if I put it the wrong way around. I’ve been in houses that drop down the front and houses that drop down the back. I’ve also been in places that have different preferences in different rooms. I’ve also been in houses where the loo-roll is sat on the cistern behind, which is an odd if not difficult location. So this is not a poll, just wondering that’s all.

 

 

Quick update on the car issue…

/ Tony / 4 Comments

As I mentioned, the car was going in to have the ‘knocking’ noise looked at. Knowing my luck, I was expecting it to be expensive.

It had to be in the garage for 10:30 and we got it there for just after 10:00. It was booked in and we were told to go have a complimentary coffee, and they would let us know what was happening. I could see my car from where we were sitting, and by 10:45, it still had’n’t moved. Then around 11:00 I saw it being driven down to the service area. “Not long now” I said to K***.

Just after 11:45, K*** went to see if they could tell us how long it was going to be. We both thought, that they would have a look and come and tell what it was, when they could do it and more importantly how much it was going to cost. The answer she got was, I thought just the bog-standard ‘they’re working on it now’ answer.

Another 45 min later, and K*** was up and asking the question again. After about 5 minutes, I went to see where she was.

Found her talking to the Service Manager, who had the job sheet for my car (saw the registration, so that’s how I knew). She was nodding and almost smiling, so I thought it can’t be that bad then. The manager explained that it was one of the ‘suspension’ rods had broken, and that was causing the noise. I stood there, waiting for the bad news. It never came. There was no charge. It was covered. I bought a 5 year extended warranty when I bought the car, but stuff like this is never covered. Never covered! I drove home with a smile on my face that is still lingering!

 

The days get longer …..

/ Tony / Leave a comment

It has been an stressful if not interesting week. R***’s medical team have decided that they need to reduce the dosage of one of his medications. To be specific, Lorazepam. He has been taking half a milligram every morning, Monday to Friday, with a full one milligram if needed (PRN). This has been working fine. However it’s been decided to try and get him off the drug completely, as it is supposed to be highly addictive. The issue here is, what will replace it, and what effect will that have on R***. We saw the effects of medication change some years ago, when a doctor decided that he would be better taking a form of Risperdone, which is an anti-psychotic drug. This caused severe problems at the time, and was stopped. I fear that the same thing may happen again. Not with the same drug, but something similar. We are going to tell his medics that we feel he should stay on the half milligram dosage, with the one milligram PRN for the time being, then gradually reduce the dosage, over a number of weeks. I will let you know how we get one, with that one.

I think I may have tempted fate, last posting with regard to Mrs H’s next project. Her hand has been forced somewhat. On Tuesday evening, I had given R*** a shower and decided that I needed one too. Now whether the shock of this was too much for the shower to bear, I couldn’t say, but the shower broke. What actually happened, I have no idea, but the controller made a cracking noise as I was turning it off, and then would not turn off. I eventually managed to get it turned off, but there were problems turning it back on. So a new shower is the order of the day. Mrs H went out and bought one yesterday, and the guy that did the kitchen said he would fit it. We just have to wait until he can, but Mrs H is already thinking we need a pump for the shower also. The one we have is gravity fed, so not much of a power shower. Apparently, a pump would improve this. Expensive days ahead, I think, as she also wants the whole of the en-suite replacing.