Tony_S

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.

Probably not on the CBeebies channel…

Definitely a favourite of my younger niece. Apparently Australian humour is too much for some parts of the world and it gets censored!

We chose the UHD stream on iPlayer and it looked fine.

Wikipedia says Georgia.

We watched it earlier on iPlayer.

I have been looking at the online sales to see if there is anything I will need for our summer holiday. Rainwear is strongly recommended.

Even my retired geography lecturer “let’s go for a walk” person seems to have decided it looks unpleasant outside. It still isn’t raining but looks as if it could. There has been a bit of an unplanned disassembly of a Magimix implement this morning so I have been mixing up the Milliput as it seemed to have the required characteristics for a repair. I did reassure Aditi I wasn’t going to use the terracotta colour version she had seen me use on broken (expensive) plant pots. Tony

Morning all. I have placed all the recycling neatly on the edge of the front lawn. Hopefully it will still be there for collection later this morning. It is rather windy. Other bags are clearly not where people left them. It isn’t raining though. Aditi has indicated we should go for a walk somewhere today. As I have recently acquired new windproof, waterproof warm clothing I don’t have any excuse not to.

I have spent some time this afternoon, listening to Paul Simon (with occasional Garfunkel) while I dismantle the turkey. Slicing and vacuum packing. There was loads to freeze, both neat slices for roast dinners and bits for pies, soup or pasta bake. Neither of us felt like making stock this afternoon so the carcass was bagged up and frozen. We had a turkey based meal at lunch but no roast potatoes today. Aditi wanted to make use of a swede she had forgotten about so produced a potato, swede and carrot mash. I thought it sounded a bit cheffy but she said it was ok as she had been inspired by a recipe in a Nigel Slater cookbook. The mash was splendid. We were telephoned quite early today, I was still asleep. Aditi’s sister rang. I think the main reason was to check that Aditi was still bringing enough chickpea curry for 12 people on Saturday. Aditi’s sister is busy preparing for the family events this week that we haven’t been invited to! Those of you with sibling issues can probably imagine the tone of Aditi’s “I never forget, I am very organised”. She did buy some extra garlic and ginger just in case at the Co-op though when she used their Post Office to get a proof of posting for a letter. We had a walk in the park. It isn’t a pretty park, it is open ground with some sports pitches and play areas. It forms part of the flood plain too but if the part we were in floods it would be very very serious.The ground was a bit squelchy though. The heavier rain started just as we got home. It is blustery here but nothing like the weather further north.

I was in the local pharmacy just before Christmas and there were a couple of women who were using Google translate to communicate with the pharmacist. It is unusual in this part of the world to see languages other than English used in shops. Anyway by coincidence the ONS (National Statistics people) has released information by Essex council district of first language spoken in the home other than English. They are all very small numbers as expected. Polish or Romanian top the tables in each district except for Castle Point where we live and Yiddish is top with 0.17% speaking it at home as first language. However of course Estuary English will soon be the dominant version of spoken English I suppose. 🙂.

But not for rats or hamsters! They can’t.

Eat their own poo…