Early Risers.

[New Haven Neil]

Then there's the Thais.....I found their food (in Thailand, not here!) to be very hot, in the Bangkok/Pattaya area when eating in 'local' eateries.  Spent 7 weeks there in the 80's, discharging LPG from quite a big ship to a very small one.

 

[Winslow Boy]

2 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

We had someone come and look at any aids and adaptation I need. Double handrail on stairs already fitted. Couldn't fit handrail in bathroom due to stud and board walls. They did advise a shower seat for the ensuite shower room when it came it was like a park bench and we couldn't get it in the shower room never mind the actual shower cubicle.

All i really ended up with that is any use is a bed lever to help me get out of bed on a morning. It does serve a secondary purpose of helping me not fall out of bed with the old nightmares. I have ended up on the floor a few times it is quite startling to suddenly hit the floor. Even worse banging my head on the bedside table quite badly 

 

Tell me about.

 

Even worse when you hit something on the way down.

 

Then waking up in the morning and wondering where all that red stuff on the pillow came from.

[Tony_S]

21 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

 

Tell me about.

 

Even worse when you hit something on the way down.

 

Then waking up in the morning and wondering where all that red stuff on the pillow came from.

I occasionally have dreams involving chasing or being chased that cause me to leap out of bed, once I flew far enough to collide with the radiator which is about,4ft (or 120cm) away. I don’t think I could do that if I was awake.  Though for the first time recently I had a dream where I didn’t want to move in case I hurt the guinea pigs we were looking after.  There are, of course no guinea pigs. 

Edited August 11, 2022 by Tony_S

[Winslow Boy]

51 minutes ago, Kelly said:

 

I've never heard of that brand and no idea if they operate over here, I couldn't see any indication on their webiste from a quick look.

 

Individual shoes is not something I've seen offered by any brand really. I suspect to get a trainer or shoe to fit my left foot atm I'd need to buy 2 pairs, one size 11 for the left, one size 10 for the right. It might well prove easier to just get a pair of size 10 sandals that are a bit more rugged than the pair in the photo above, kinda like the hiking type. As the straps will give more room and adjustment potentially. Will have a look in a few shops tomorrow/Tuesday and see what we can find.

 

 

Good! more stores should do this. They should be banned full stop really as even pre-pandemic and pre-heatwave they were often a source of park or green area fires and/or just discarded after use, especially on beeches.

J

Hopefully this will be of more help than my previous posting. There should be an orthotics department at your hospital who can produce special footwear  for you. You may need referring but your consultant could do that rather than your GP. They can take a while to make them but there may be ones on site. Anyway give it a go.

[BSW01]

Good evening everyone 

 

I spent most of the morning pottering about, not doing a great deal, but when it came time to leave, I gave myself plenty of time to get to the hospital for my appointment I arrived about 20 minutes early. I’d been sat down for less than 5 minutes when I was called in for my scan. The scan took less than 5 minutes and I was heading back to the car park. My appointment time was 1 o’clock, I was leaving the car park just before and on my way home before then. On my way to the hospital, I passed an accident on the other side of the M60, which had several police cars, a couple of ambulances. The police had closed all 4 lanes whilst the recovery was being undertaken, so I took a different route home and met very little traffic, in fact I think I got home about the same time as if I’d used the motorway. I’d already phoned Sheila to let her know I was on my way back. I’d told her about my planned alternate route and even she was surprised at how quick I’d got back home. 

 

Thankfully I’ve been told that everything was normal (obviously they don’t know about ERs do they?) and no further action is required. I should receive a letter in the next week or so confirming today’s results. Sheila was mentioning this whilst she was chatting with some of her friends and was informed that one of her friends husband had gone for a routine scan, it showed he had an aneurysm, he was operated on quickly and is now doing fine. So it seems that these screening sessions do work. 

Edited August 11, 2022 by BSW01

[BSW01]

Goodnight all 

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, Kelly said:

Good! more stores should do this. They should be banned full stop really as even pre-pandemic and pre-heatwave they were often a source of park or green area fires and/or just discarded after use, especially on beeches.

Here its illegal to even use your welder or grinder in your shed on hot fire-risk days, seems crazy to think people can plop metal trays of combustible rocks down wherever they want and set light to them!

Edited August 11, 2022 by monkeysarefun

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Kelly]

1 hour ago, Winslow Boy said:

J

Hopefully this will be of more help than my previous posting. There should be an orthotics department at your hospital who can produce special footwear  for you. You may need referring but your consultant could do that rather than your GP. They can take a while to make them but there may be ones on site. Anyway give it a go.

 

I will have to look into that when I get the moving all sorted and a new gp organised. I'm hoping though that the swelling will go down given more time using the ankle as it is still relatively recent since I started using crutches and moving around more. 

 

33 minutes ago, BSW01 said:

 

 

Thankfully I’ve been told that everything was normal (obviously they don’t know about ERs do they?) and no further action is required. I should receive a letter in the next week or so confirming today’s results. Sheila was mentioning this whilst she was chatting with some of her friends and was informed that one of her friends husband had gone for a routine scan, it showed he had an aneurysm, he was operated on quickly and is now doing fine. So it seems that these screening sessions do work. 

 

My father just before covid hit had a similar thing. He finally went to see his gp after my mum had been nagging him for a while to go and the gp did a screening. It lead to tests and scans and they found the bowel cancer and at the same time lung and tailbone nodules. The bowel cancer was the immediate priority though and thankfully the surgery was a success although he had sepsis after which was touch and go. 

 

The lung and tailbone nodules were followed up on this year and a few weeks ago he had the lung nodules removed. The prognosis from his consultant has been pretty good. (The tailbone turned out to be fine following a pet scan). The lung surgery was much easier as it was keyhole. 

[J. S. Bach]

5 hours ago, Kelly said:

I suspect we'd have to take the bath and shower out and replace it with a shower cubicle. The walls are all stud and board here,  so grab rails would struggle if I had to grab them when slipping.  ...snip...

The grabirons would be firmly attached to the studs; I am basing that on similar construction methods over here.

 

4 hours ago, Kelly said:

 ...snip... Individual shoes is not something I've seen offered by any brand really. I suspect to get a trainer or shoe to fit my left foot atm I'd need to buy 2 pairs, one size 11 for the left, one size 10 for the right. It might well prove easier to just get a pair of size 10 sandals that are a bit more rugged than the pair in the photo above, kinda like the hiking type. As the straps will give more room and adjustment potentially. Will have a look in a few shops tomorrow/Tuesday and see what we can find. ...snip...

That reminded me of a trip to a drug store with a friend. While he was getting his prescriptions taken care of, I wandered around in the non-drug part of the store and found a pair of shoes (for diabetics apparently) in my size and tried one on. It was like putting my foot into a cloud; I took them (well, the box with my shoes in it as I was wearing the new ones) up to the counter to pay for them. The clerk would not let me buy them as I did not have a prescription! For shoes?? So I put my shoes on and put the new ones back on the shelf. Note that I was willing to pay the full price on the box, too. I wished that I had remembered the brand and later looked on line for them.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[Ozexpatriate]

54 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

The clerk would not let me buy them as I did not have a prescription!

Never heard of anything prescription-only being placed on pharmacy shelves - suggesting an over-the-counter purchase.

[BR60103]

I managed a trip to one of the larger railway shops around here, first time since the lurgy struck.  We avoided the big highway as there is a permanent jam near the shop. Then one road was closed (but access still available to the streetcar museum) and the next one ends because of the Niagara Escarpment.  We also managed to get held up by a train -- 3 SD units including 2 from Union Pacific.  

I was looking for some tools to drill holes in coupler pockets. Shop's computer said they had them. They weren't in tools; weren't in the section where company's other products are.  With 3 staff helping, it was on the rack with couplings; the back of a set of sliding racks.  Having left home at or before 10:00, I paid at 11:55. Lunch and we were home before 2:00.

Forgot: I also had to get a roll support for my knee exercises. That only took 2 stores.

 

 

[Gwiwer]

7 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Then there's the Thais.....I found their food (in Thailand, not here!) to be very hot,

Proper Thai food can be very hot indeed. “English Thai” as is found in many eateries here is usually “spiced down” 

 

 This place, however, offers most dishes as Mild, Moderate, Hot or Thai Hot. Should you order the latter the owner / manager Yamin will politely check first that you understand …..  but it is top notch food of its ilk. https://m.facebook.com/100063766891210/

[iL Dottore]

8 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

NHN is in agreement with iD regarding the 'chilli wall', having sailed with Indian crews in some of the ships, I used to eat the 'crew curry' much the disgust of my fellow officers.  There's a kind of threshold, which once passed reveals the real flavour of such food. 

 

8 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

Then there's the Thais.....I found their food (in Thailand, not here!) to be very hot, in the Bangkok/Pattaya area when eating in 'local' eateries. 

 

39 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Proper Thai food can be very hot indeed. “English Thai” as is found in many eateries here is usually “spiced down” 

It’s quite interesting to contemplate the use of chilies in Asian cuisine, not the least because in culinary terms it is a recently introduced ingredient (the chilli, or capsicum originated in Bolivia), brought into India in the 16th century by the Portuguese (and spreading from there).

 

Certainly, there are many dishes in the Southeast Asian culinary repertoire that really do indulge in the liberal use of chilies, but I think the difference between those dishes and the various phalls, tindaloos etc. created in the west (often to satisfy the macho post pub-crawl diner) is that in the originals the amount of chilies used – although considerable in some dishes – is balanced against all the rest of the ingredients and not just chucked in willy-nilly.

 

A good example of this would be the comparison of a typical curry house “vindaloo“ and an authentic Goan vindaloo or vindalho (made with pork and including vinegar in the recipe). Yes, the original recipe would be hot but all the spices (and other ingredients) would be nicely balanced. 

 

Of course, as with many things, tolerance (in this case the fieriness of the capsicums) is down to habituation. 8-methyl-N-vanillyl-6-nonenamide (or capsaicin to you and me) is pretty powerful stuff (Botanists reckon that this molecule is produced by the capsicum plant to protect itself from mammalian, insect and fungal predation) but strangely addictive and once you get past “the burn”, opens up a whole new world of flavours.

[chrisf]

17 hours ago, polybear said:

 

Bear recalls seeing "Mrs Brown" being interviewed on The Paul O'Grady TV show at 5 o'clock(?) one day;  the term was used several times - and PoG almost went into meltdown each time cos' he could visualise all the complaints that were on their way....

I know that senses of humour are individual but I'm afraid that mine does not embrace Mrs Brown.  Takes all sorts, I suppose ...

 

 

Chris

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, from a cool 13C rock, b the sun has only been up an hour and is not yet higher than the trees that border Chateau NHN.

 

Bike club day, but options for brunch not yet discussed, we also have to avoid the West as it is the Royal Agricultural Show today, a big event on the rock that half the population will be going to - there's a big beer tent for the Douglas element.  Others may wish to see the animal and crafts.

 

 

[polybear]

9 hours ago, New Haven Neil said:

I used to eat a Vindaloo back in 'old home', Phaal was never on menus back then, is it a more modern invention?  

 

Bear has "done" the UK hot ones (including Phaal) but soon came to the conclusion that anything above Madras (so Vindy & Phaal) is pointless cos' you could be eating gangrenous road-kill and you never know it.

 

8 hours ago, Winslow Boy said:

Hopefully this will be of more help than my previous posting. There should be an orthotics department at your hospital who can produce special footwear  for you. You may need referring but your consultant could do that rather than your GP. They can take a while to make them but there may be ones on site. Anyway give it a go.

 

About all Bear could think of was finding the appropriate size of shoe on one of those "example racks" outside some shoe shops - where they only display one shoe from a pair - and then scarpering 🤣

Of course getting a matching pair gets tricky.  Odd socks** are one thing, but odd shoes?  Passing them off as the latest fashion statement might be one option I s'pose.

 

**A certain Bear was wearing socks marked "Thursday" whilst being subjected to an unspeakable procedure involving a camera driven by a Doc.  It was a Tuesday - so the Doc remarked that I'd got the wrong socks on....

Bear:  "Look Doc, I'm retired - and it's the middle of a Pandemic Lockdown; what chance do I stand of knowing what day of the week it is?"  She cracked up.

 

4 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

The grabirons would be firmly attached to the studs; I am basing that on similar construction methods over here.

 

 

I suspect in many UK houses you'd need to beef-up the wall stud first.

(Incidentally, I asked the Gas man who visited Bear Towers to service the boiler last week if he'd done any work inside the obscene number of new builds that are springing up locally - and if so, what's the construction quality like.

"Yes, a few - and they're bluddy appalling".

It's worth noting that the 3-bed "nothing special at all" houses going up just a few hundred yards from Bear Towers start at £780K 🤣.

 

Bear here....

Today sees the shelf rails being sprayed as Job No. 1 - before it gets too hot outside.  Then its a MIUABGA day - I'm hoping that the lino will arrive early so I can fit it, but I suspect Hermes will have other ideas just to p*ss me off.  We'll see.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. I've still got internet! Well for the time being, as long as they don't pull the plug while I'm using the internet or watching TV. Hoping the predicted rain arrives soon, even the none tidal part of the Medway has stopped flowing.

[PhilJ W]

4 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

That reminded me of a trip to a drug store with a friend. While he was getting his prescriptions taken care of, I wandered around in the non-drug part of the store and found a pair of shoes (for diabetics apparently) in my size and tried one on. It was like putting my foot into a cloud; I took them (well, the box with my shoes in it as I was wearing the new ones) up to the counter to pay for them. The clerk would not let me buy them as I did not have a prescription! For shoes?? So I put my shoes on and put the new ones back on the shelf. Note that I was willing to pay the full price on the box, too. I wished that I had remembered the brand and later looked on line for them.

I googled diabetic shoes, here in the UK they are available on mail order from £20 a pair.

[PhilJ W]

13 minutes ago, polybear said:

I suspect in many UK houses you'd need to beef-up the wall stud first.

(Incidentally, I asked the Gas man who visited Bear Towers to service the boiler last week if he'd done any work inside the obscene number of new builds that are springing up locally - and if so, what's the construction quality like.

"Yes, a few - and they're bluddy appalling".

It's worth noting that the 3-bed "nothing special at all" houses going up just a few hundred yards from Bear Towers start at £780K 🤣.

When I was house hunting, nearly forty years ago I looked at some new builds* while they were still under construction, I decided that they were not for me.  *They were basically a wooden frame with a brick skin, and only a mile or two from Wennington where those houses were destroyed by fire last month. In the end I bought my cottage in Burnham, built in 1862.

[Barry O]

Ey up!

 

You should be able to taste the spices in your curry. Super hot curries don't always do that. We had a wide variety of curries on our trip to India. Bedtbone was a Mutton Rogan Josh.. excellent flavours. Worst one? Not sure. What I did find was that each place we visited used different spices to achieve a "particular" curry. Could this be the source of "Delhi belly" which we never suffered from at all.

 

Didn't get my paperwork from my meeting finished until10pm last night.. slept like a log.

 

Today involves hunt the GP appointment at the Marie Celeste plus the gas servicing person will be here between 12 and 2.. frabjoy!

 

Just had my next umpires appointment come along.. nope not doing that one I will do some umpire observations instead..

 

Have as good a day as youcan!

 

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Looks as if doing anything outside is a no go. Just been hit by hay fever.

[jamie92208]

Good moaning from a still relatively cool Charente. It got to 38 last night and is due to do the same today.  I had a rush of blood to the head, or somewhere  and went out for a bike ride before it got too warm.  A nice 10 miles with the long climb outbof Néré for the first time.  I actually went down onto the bottom cog or granny ring as it is known, but got up OK.  Now to go and pump the hot tub up to see if a patch that I put on yesterday is holding.  

 

All bei g well, after that it will be time to head for the shed before it gets too warm.

 

Regards  to all.

 

Jamie

 

PS  @Kelly, are  you in touch with an Occupational Therapist, they should have all the contacts for the various aids and appluances plus the orthotics department.

 

Jamie

 

 

[grandadbob]

Good morning all,

Weather the same as the past few days.  My phone app said we reached 34°C yesterday and the forecast says we can expect the same today.  

As is normal for me in this weather I'm suffering from a serious case of slowanddoingnottatlotitis.

Grandchildren's flight home took off on time last night and arrived home earlier than scheduled.....don't know yet whether or not they were on it! 🤔

One of yesterday's parcels never arrived but tracking says it has reached Croydon and I will get it today.

Time for breakfast.

Have a good one,

Bob.

Edited August 12, 2022 by grandadbob