Diary Summary Week Ending 5th February 2023

[brigidmac]

GiilG glad you are better ..i wonder why this strain hangs on so long + if we can do anything to chase it away faster .

novai clicked on your bigbanana link hoping to see a photo of your good self none of the bouncy teens in the advert looked "stroppy"

thank goodness for bananas ,i cant eat many fruit or veg as i dont digest them and potassium is actually very good for some of us ,i purchased a banana case at local charity shop ,not seen one for years
its plastic and clicks open + shut along the side .you can fit an average banana in + it saves being bashed by handbag ,

victoria your braised steak sounds lovely  Im sure the leftovers made another deliscious meal too.
ive just received delivery of ready meals .they cost about £4 each but are good quality and dont need freezing or oven cooking so i know ive always got emergency food in the house

[Top-of-the-hill]

  I see Viktoria wants some ecru coloured towels. When I left school in the 1960s I had a temporary job in the old department store in Canterbury, and I was put on the haberdashery counter. One of the first customers to ask me something wanted "ecru lace", and I had no idea what she was talking about!
   That job did me a lot of good though. As a country girl educated at a girls' grammar school, it was such a change working with a large mixed group of people.

[Gillg]

Re temperatures - at boarding school we had our temperatures taken at the beginning of every term. Mine would never reach 68.4 and has always  been low.

Re coriander - I love it and scatter it on all kinds of savoury food.  It always reminds me of Madhur Jaffery (?)  who scattered it rather liberally in her recipes.

I eat a banana a day with my breakfast cereal, but you have got me worried about my blood pressure medication!

[candleflame]

I like bananas that are at the greener end of the spectrum. Really don't like the taste once they've gone black. I can manage slightly ripe ones if they're served in custard - throw back to school dinners where I loved banana in custard. Mind you I was the odd one who ate the prunes when they were served, though I like prunes without custard. I'm a fussy thing and was worse then!
Viktoria I'm on thyroxine for underactive thyroid but I take mine with decaff tea- I only drink decaff and very weak.
Gillg I've always been at the low end of the temperature scale normally too , so if I was poorly and a medic was to ask if I have a temperature, they looked very scathing when I'd say yes but it was only marginally over the ' magic normal'. I could be sweating buckets with a high temp for me and feeling absolutely dreadful. They also use this lovely phrase ' within normal range ' at times
RTL I always feel so sorry for you having to wait for cold buses to get to and from work. You deserve a medal for that in itself !

[River Tyne Lass]

Thank you for your kind words Nova.
Your Mr Fluffy Lad sounds like he might be wanting to learn to use the phone.
I hope the baby you mention had a better sleep and is better for it.  Do you work with premature babies?  My son was born premature weighing only 2lb when I developed eclampsia.  (All those years ago the pre-eclampsia stage wasn't picked up on) He was in the hospital for two months. 

Thank you for your kind words Candleflame.  First bus came quite quickly last night and time didn't seem to drag as much for second bus.  Colleague recently complained to a driver about the coldness of the bus.  Driver said it was mechanics fault for not turning on a switch at back of bus.  I wonder if this is really how it works?  There is some initiative on the go at the moment on some buses - only £2 maximum fares.  (No good for me as I get a monthly pass.) But I think a better encouragement for some passengers would be to state 'our buses will be warm' and to see to it that they are.

Viktoria, I hope you liked the veggie Kievs.  There is a slight taste of coriander, but to me, the garlic sauce makes up for this. 

Gilly, this is just what I have heard, that some people might have to be careful with high potassium foods in case it interferes with medication.  Although, I am no expert.  Maybe a small amount of banana might be alright?  Is there anything mentioned on the meds leaflet?  It might be a good idea to ask the pharmacist or doctor just in case?  Although, it sounds like you have been okay with your daily banana so it may well turn out not to be an issue.

[Viktoria]

Well folks- I ESCAPED!
Only no devastatingly good looking young man waiting on the corner this
 time !
Did a round trip and got all I wanted .Bury was heaving with children but it was Teachers’protest day.

So kippers for tea tonight.
No news at all of my neighbour ,presumably still in hospital which is worrying as she might now be one of the poor souls blocking beds as she is not fit to live alone so going into a home !
To be taken from your home after an accident and never return to your cherished possessions —- gosh that is sad .
I miss her ,always seated by the window, waving to one another.
Me taking her a little treat etc.
I like her house more than mine - well what I have seen if it ,she can see right down the garden whilst washing up I have a blank wall in front of me as there are French windows where the sink used to be . That has been moved to the right so I am facing the wall when I wash up. No chance of putting a window in as the bathroom plumbing is in the way.
Ah well, let’s hope the outcome for her  is better than I fear,
She was 90 the first Summer I was here so 96 this year .

I like Bananas, not green or going black (but then they do give a very good  flavour  to banana bread )just bright yellow so ripe but not over ripe.

Just caught a glimpse of”Find it Fix it Flog it “ a very old black kitchen range re invented as a barbecue —  oh what comfort they gave in the old terraced houses , warmth , hot water, ,slow cooked tasty meals ,somewhere to warm your nighties on cold nights ,on those ledges above the oven ,if the cat could be persuaded to move !
The hub of the house.
Hard work for the housewives who polished the steel edgings with emery paper every morning and blackleaded the rest.
“ DON’T TOUCH THE STEEL !”
The small amount of natural acid perspiration on hands left marks on the steel ,dulling it .That was a hanging flogging offence!

Well back to the present —- I have seemingly lost a little “ stick “ from my laptop which died some time ago, with all the photographs etc .Number one son is adamant he brought it here after laptop condemned , I have no recollection of it.But that us not unusual these days.
Well big clean up day tomorrow so it might come to light ,I would have put it somewhere “safe “——-about one inch by half an inch ,grey one half white the other ,not even a quarter inch thick ,about one eighth .
Second son has moved some furniture I can’t do unless it is emptied but no luck.At least the carpet has been vacuumed and skirting boards cleaned .

Hey Ho, thanks for  the news , hope some improvement for those with illness and long term conditions and better news from areas where severe weather has caused great problems, those so far away from loved one must find it particularly hard.

A dull wet morning ,but plenty to do inside !
A hunting we will go ,but not for a fox ,a teeny tiny little thingy !
Cheerio.Look after yourselves.
Viktoria.

[River Tyne Lass]

Toth, your mention of being a grammar school girl has stirred up memories for me.
I failed the 11+.  I was absolutely gutted as I really wanted to go to grammar school.  When I got the result I went to my room and cried and cried all afternoon.  I drew a picture of what I imagined my future tombstone with the epitaph 'She was a failure' on it and I imagined people stopping to look at it and shaking their heads and then I sobbed even harder. (In a sense, it could be said that I was genealogy minded even back then.)
I walked on into the future after that with a new concept of myself as a failure and educationally I felt aspirations were not for the likes of me.
Two of my friends at that time who had also failed rang me up and were happy to learn about my result.  One of them (a bit of a bossy, Queen Bee of the class) had given very strong hints that there would be fallings out with any 'swots' who passed.  I hadn't cared about popularity though and I had tried my best regardless; but now at least I had their approval.  I think I might have failed because I was no good at maths after having developed an ongoing fear of this since the very first week at school.
I knew a girl who passed, whose parents had got her a private tutor, who hot housed coached her right up to the exam.  It was one of life's first real lessons that life was unfair.
I pretty much gave up after that for a very long time.  Later in life I tried again educationally and got O'levels and A Levels.  Not that I particularly needed these for anything.  This just sort of gave me a sense of peace with myself. 
Gosh, I am in my sixties now and your little reference to having been a grammar school girl has stirred up so such emotive memories.
Apologies that this is somewhat a bit dark and maudlin and I did wonder about posting on it but I have decided to, in the spirit of better out than in.

On a different topic, I have just been shopping at my local Aldi and have noticed that all the cashiers screens are down!  Another customer and I chatted about this with one of the cashiers and we all agreed it feels a bit strange and different to not have this barrier anymore.

Viktoria, I am sorry about your friend.  This must feel painful for you to think about the possibility that she may be going into a home and losing her independence.

[River Tyne Lass]

Just another post re: topic of coriander ...

Quite some years back I attended some of the cookery demonstration events that used to be put on in the basement of the old South Shields central library.  At one event a tutor was making a delicious Indian curry.  It was a family sized recipe and we were all to get a taster at the end.  I remember the tutor saying that it 'only'  cost something like £16 for ingredients.  Privately, I thought, are you barking mad?!  That sounded very expensive even back then.  But never mind, the mouth watering aroma was getting better and better until the very end when the tutor produced a bag of coriander and tossed great handfuls into the pot.😩  The aroma completely changed.  She might just as well have poured in a bottle of washing up liquid as far as I was concerned.😝

Re: bananas - I'm with Victoria in liking yellow best.  Not so much for green and black ones a definite thumbs down.👎

[Viktoria]

Well we are a diary, but not a private one RTL,we get to places educationally we might not have imagined and not to other places we wished for.
Life takes strange twists and turns ,would I have had mine different—— ?
Well not if the things that have formed the basis of my life were not included.
I might have studied more,got more qualifications and met different people .
There comes ‘ The Rub” would I have met a different man?
Well there my ponderings end ,Ican’t see past what was ,how my life was and
how I never wanted anything different despite having to budget carefully at times etc.
The relatively small hardships were outweighed by the way it made us stronger as a couple . That sounds mawkish and sentimental ,but it isn’t .
To see your newish husband on his knees brushing the carpet as we had no vacuum cleaner or Eubank carpet sweeper - whilst you were suffering extreme pregnancy sickness and feeling ashamed you were so useless ,really made me appreciate him above and beyond .
In those days it was not usual for  men to do housework !

We got in very well despite being very different , perhaps the differences were an asset, we each accommodated the other .
He must seem like an angel but was not really, had some faults and foibles,but then so did I , we just got on with things and having two children by the time we were married almost three years meant we had to make sure everything was alright for them.
We had enough sense to see how we must conduct ourselves so the children had a happy family life ,we got the benefit of that too.
So fewer qualifications but I enjoyed my work even though at one time I had higher ambitions , I don’t regret that now .
Look after yourself RTL, your work is so important .
Viktoria.