Tony_S

The two big Morrisons stores round here were former Safeway supermarkets. Safeway hadn’t charged for parking and neither did Morrisons. Perhaps they were worried about Essex folk re running the Battle of Benfleet when visitors from York had their boats burned and had to walk home.

We were delayed by high winds once using the Channel tunnel. We had to wait for a couple of hours in the queue after security. At least there were loos available.

Jethro Tull and Turnip Townsend were the two stalwarts of the British Agricultural Revolution and had to be mentioned in O level exam answers.

Have they got contactless turnstiles now to enter the loo or do you still need coins?

My friend Elaine had some eye surgery. She was under very strict instructions about what not to do, including cooking and jobs around the house. The surgeon was a bit concerned at the follow up about how the recovery was proceeding. He asked had she been following the instructions. She said yes, but the surgeon asked what she had done the day before. She said she had started by cleaning out her buckets. He added “no buckets” to the list of forbidden activities. Elaine is always “busy” so I suppose she thought she had eased up.

Definitely the privy. Moss was handy. I think when the Jorvik museum first opened it had suitable smells. I didn’t notice. There was some of the evidence on display to show that the Viking diet probably caused some discomfort. The coprolite had its own Wikipedia page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyds_Bank_coprolite Tony

I took a photo of one in York recently.

I have been to all the Scandinavian countries for holidays. I haven’t visited any of the non Scandinavian Nordic countries so far. First one will be this summer when we go to Iceland. We have flown over Greenland but that doesn’t count. I have seen the ferry from Helsinki arrive in Tallinn but that doesn’t count either! My son was in Helsinki at a conference and was waiting for a “special “ Russian visa to go to a meeting afterward in Kalingrad. As it turned up late he had already decided to go for a holiday in Estonia instead and used the ferry and returned to Helsinki to fly home. Back then there were lots of Russians shopping in Finland. They could travel visa free. Rather different now the border is closed.

Because the BBC article you quoted was about Sweden and Finland. I suspect that many news articles recently will have used Nordic as Finland has been involved , like Nato or border closing by Norway and Finland.

The article used Nordic as it is referring to Sweden and Finland. Finland is not Scandinavian, so not BBC woke at all.

I have been messing around with wires today. I added a wireless extender to our old battery doorbell sometime ago. It stopped working before Christmas and I replaced a battery and all was fine. I was suspicious about the battery as it had leaked which I have never had with Duracell before so I wonder if it was a counterfeit item. Anyway I think the battery holder had also suffered a bit too so,that needed a clean and all was restored to working order and we can hear the doorbell extension chimes. The other wireless task involved seeing which DAB radios actually also received DAB+ signals. Aditi’s favourite kitchen listening channel is ClassicFM. The old kitchen radio was used to receive their DAB broadcast. That ended today. The kitchen radio was so old it wouldn’t work with DAB+ so a new radio was obtained. All the other radios seem ok even though they don’t have DAB+ or a tick logo. AditI is very pleased as the new kitchen radio sounds better (I think she may mean louder!).

I have jokingly asked how Aditi would cope without me. Her answer, “ buy a step ladder”

Or fell for the pretending to be asleep ruse.

I suspect that there will be some fireworks at midnight. There were lots of explosion sounds earlier but that was due to watching “A Bridge Too Far” on the television.

I will have to rely on Aditi to give a taste review. One of the ingredients is dried fig. I don’t think I have an allergic reaction to figs but I do have a fairly severe urge to rush to the loo so I avoid figs. The cake also has nuts. I don’t really like the taste of nuts either. There was a bottle of Swiss red,wine too. I am sure I can manage that.

We had a pleasant day visiting family in Enfield. The huge pan of chickpea curry we took survived the journey. We have no plans for today, I don’t think we will be staying up to welcome the new year. I suspect we will know when it is from the flash bang of fireworks. We acquired a gift of cake from Switzerland yesterday. , Paun cun Paira da Paur. It looks like a potato. We also received a bottle of something fizzy from Sussex.

My car must have been designed for an export market in sunny climes as it has non reflective faux suede on the dashboard and athermic glass.

I was finding listening to the television quite difficult unless it was a single voice. Action movies were impossible. I kept missing the beginning of sentences spoken by Aditi and had to frequently ask her to repeat the start of the conversation. I couldn’t hear the “beeps” produced by appliances. Music sounded the same as it had always done, which is interesting as my own tests had indicated I couldn’t hear much above 5kHz .I was using the cinema sound system to listen to tv as I could try different sound processors. Aditi was very patient but then she read about deteriorating hearing and dementia so I was quickly sent for tests. Modern hearing aids are completely different to those previously made. Mine are wireless rechargeable (no messing with tiny batteries) and can stream Bluetooth audio if you wish. My friend has an older type and in a noisy pub he has to remove his. Mine enable me to hear clearly conversations without being swamped by background noise. I went to a private audiology clinic MiL went through the NHS in Enfield and had to wait about a year. Aditi’s sister had to wait about 6 months for hearing aids after her hearing assessment. When Aditi’s uncle visited us last summer he said he knew he was really in need of hearing aids but was too vain to wear them.

I would suggest Mrs iD goes for a hearing test. Modern hearing aids have the ability to enhance certain frequencies. Perhaps the “normal male voice” spectrum needs boosting. My hearing deficiency started in the typical female voice frequency spectrum. Aditi doesn’t have to repeat herself now I have hearing aids.

Or first class seating.

I have just bought one of their waterproof woolly hats. I have a nice Tilley merino hat which keeps my head warm but it got soggy when we were wandering about in Storm Debi. The new one seems to do what the label states.

I console myself with “at least my liver “ is ok unlike lots of other bits. My liver results are not normal but normal for me. The abnormal ones just prove I am taking my tablets. I used to think as well as my liver my brain was ok too but who knows!

Aditi almost certainly would suggest the gloves so we can go for a walk and almost certainly find somewhere to have afternoon tea. Our favourite place for tea is the tearoom at the top of the hill at Hyde Hall Gardens. However it is unexpectedly temporarily closed. Fortunately the one near the car park is fine. Just out of interest, where do the batteries go for heated gloves?

Whenever Aditi opened the dishwasher door to put the dirty plates or dishes in, Robbie would rush over to see if there was anything worth licking. He did not respond to “stop it” or “go away”. He didn’t do it when I,loaded the dishwasher. I think this may have been because I accidentally shut the door on his head when he first tried to dive in.

@iL Dottore, I hope Lucy is better this morning. I once thought Robbie had some sort of stroke but the vet said it was tonsillitis. Robbie was a very good dog at the vets, allowing us all to look and confirm the diagnosis.