One of those days

Have you ever had one of those days that shouldn't work, but does?

Taken some years ago
We are wearing our very
smelly emergency ponchos

I had an appointment at the Eye department of our local hospital last week. I was referred by my optician who, I am glad to say is very thorough. As I can only see properly with my right eye you can imagine the niggling worry at the back of my mind when she said "You have the start of cataracts". I had already decided who was going to get the craft stuff and the sewing stuff and the knitting stuff. You get the picture.

Because we live fairly close to the city centre I can walk to the hospital if I want to. So, with health and fitness in my mind and the sheer pleasure of being able to go out of the door whenever I feel like it, I decided to walk to my appointment.

I forgot about the rain.

I can report that my waterproof coat works even though the hood did spend most of the time falling over my eyes so I was in the dark - and even when it wasn't over my eyes the rain on my glasses meant I couldn't see anyway. I enjoyed the walk and arrived in plenty of time for my 9am appointment.
I reported to reception and, before I had taken my coat off or wiped the rain from my face my name was called.
"is is raining very hard?" asked the lovely nurse as she guided me to a chair
"No," I replied, gaining direct eye contact and keeping a dead straight face."I thought it was fancy dress so I've come as a drowned rat"

Beat

and then she laughed, on of those out loud, sheer-delight laughs that does the soul a lot of good. We got on with the eye test and the drops and then I went and sat in the waiting area until I was called for "The Scan".

This simply means they press your chin onto a rest push your forehead against another plastic thing say "blink" and then "Open your eyes wide and Hooold it!" then they flash a really bright light in your eye and as the drops prevent the pupil closing you go blind for a second or two and then you seem to be peering through a fuzzy film.
Then I had to wait a little bit more before I saw The Man.
He was very nice. Told me my sight in my right eye is "very good". I said "For my age" and he said "What deterioration you have is caused by age but the retina is in very good condition and has no other damage."
He then asked about my sight in my left eye so I explained how wierd it is and he said "Well, you have a wrinkle in the retina in that eye. It is not progressive and from what you have described you have probably had it your whole life".
Now that made me feel so much better because it showed that I haven't been imagining things and what I see with that eye really does have the sides squished in. The cataracts are not to be worried about for years he said and I told him that until I am blind no one is coming near my eye. He agreed.
I then said "Well, thank you for that news You've made my day."
"Oh you have made my day" he said, "You don't look too drowned to me"
Apparently the nurse thought my remoark was so funny she had passed it on the everyone in the department - including the consultants.
I laughed all the way home in the taxi.
What? You didn't think I'd walk home too. Oh no, It was raining!

Me on Monday - catching up

 It was a let's go to the Range and buy a frying pan, Oh let's go to Curry's and look at DAB radios, let's go for a little ride, Oh there's Jo's Place let's stop for lunch kind of a weekend.

I saw an advert on TV for a frying pan that is guaranteed non-stick and as Mr M is not happy with any of the many pans in the cupboard I thought we might give one a go. We were very strong and only bought the pan, not even looking at the craft stuff that was calling my name.

Then neither of us wanted to go home so we set off up the A449. Oh Look there's Jo's Place we can have an early lunch. So we did. Each table has a different salt and pepper set and our table had the chickens, cute eh?

We carried on up to Ross on Wye where we turned off towards Hereford.
"Do you want to stop there?" asked Mr M as we came in view of the strange shop - I think it is called Bailey's - it has all sorts of reclaimed stuff like school milk bottles and coat hooks.
"Nah," I replied, "not today".
It soon became apparent that he had a destination in mind so I framed my next statement subtly.
"Do you have somewhere in mind?"
See, really subtle.
"I am heading for Oakchurch," he said, and that put a smile on my face because they always have something I desperately need - even if I don't know it yet.
Too busy looking at stuff to photograph anything but we came out with a quarter of a Welsh Lamb, a butternut squash, sweet potato, and onions, a jar of diabetic jam, two pots of whipping cream (for the chocolate mousse recipe) a present for Miss Boo's birthday that I can't tell you about yet and a list of things we might buy next time.

Going there meant that we didn't have to retrace our route to get home, we could go the welsh way. Head out along the Brecon Road until Talgarth and then turn towards Abergavenny. We were fascinated by the fact that the Black Mountains had a clearly defined snowline and I spent the next eight miles trying to get a picture - Mostly I got hedge but this one is looking across the Wye Valley.

Because we live only 20 miles from Chepstow we tend to think of the Wye Valley being just that bit above Tintern Abbey (you say that with a Yorkshire accent and then say "Tis, it's a big church" never fails to make us laugh) when actually there is a huge and very beautiful valley around the river Wye in Powys - around Hay-on-Wye.

We came home and had the lamb chops for dinner with some of the butternut squash and sweet potato and then sleazed around for the rest of the evening.

My thanks to Sian at FromHighInTheSky for thinking up this way of getting me blogging, why not take a look at her Monday too

Me on Monday - sleazing

It was a continuation of Mr M's birthday week kind of a weekend. On Friday we went to the OK Diner. Miss Boo approved. Saturday we sleazed and on Sunday we went to the Christmas Shop in Lechlade because My daughter told us that we "kept banging on about it" but never took her. from there we found a garden centre with toilets and a cafe so we could relieve ourselves and get a cuppa ... to refill the tanks.

The ladies had several cubicles and Daughter went into one and backed straight out again. "That's too claustrophobic" she said and went in the next one. I took a look in the claustrophobic one and she was right. There was a square pillar half way along one side of the cubicle and the toilet was tucked in beyond it. I decided I would use another cubicle and went in the one next to my daughter.

"Ooh! Cold hands, cold hands" came the cry from her, while miss Boo groaned in embarrassment. "why doesn't someone invent something to stop you having to touch yourself with cold hands when you go to the loo" said the forlorn voice of my daughter
"gloves!" I said and she started to laugh. Because she laughed I started laughing and this made her laugh more.

"Muuuuuuummmmmm!" said Miss Boo which made us both laugh even more.

When we eventually got outside it turned out that Miss Boo was dreadfully embarrassed because "Someone we don't know came in and was listening to you while they were in the toilet"
Needless to say this made us both laugh even more. Miss Boo found her Grandpa and steered clear of us for an hour.

That was my weekend and so today I have been fair Isle knitting and watching the CI channel and occasionally Create and Craft TV. If you want to catch up with other Me on Monday bloggers then take a look at Sian's place over at FromHighInTheSky she invented this way of focussing on what we have been doing.

I simply had to write this down!

I love this picture because it captures his sense of the ridiculous
and his lovely sense of humour

Mr M likes to take a nap, who doesn't? Mr M does not like quiet so he will put the TV on then sit in the chair and within ten minutes he is snoring for Britain. He usually sleeps to a channel that has commercial breaks and at the moment there is an advert for Warner Hotels where a man is dreaming of playing golf, swimming, and listening to an attractive lady singer when he is awoken from his daydream by his wife harshly calling his name.

Mr M has the same first name as the man in the advert.

You're there before me aren't you?

Twice he has woken from his nap because the woman in the advert has shouted his name.

Yes I did laugh when he told me.

Happy birthday Mr M

Today we were OUT. All day.

 It is Mr M's birthday and we try to do something just for us. This year he decided that he wanted to visit Baddesley Clinton, a National Trust property not far from Warwick. But first we had breakfast at Jo's Place.

This is a fantastic cafe on the A48 north of Monmouth - just before you get to Ross-on-Wye

I nearly managed to get a picture of breakfast but I was too hungry and too slow to remember.

 We had directions from Google Maps but the junctions and roundabouts were mystifying so we took an unexpected tour around Warwick. This was dead good as we had never been there before and as we had no idea how we had got there this time we thought we should pay attention.

 Baddesley Clinton is a moated manor house built in the early 1400s and altered extensively every hundred years since then. It has a couple of Priest holes and odd staircases and steps everywhere. Some of the internal walls used to be external ones and the wooden framing can still be seen from the early Tudor times.

Most National Trust properties now have lots of things you can touch and pick up and really look at which is fantastic. They also all seem to have a selection of hats and the tradition has grown, because of our outings with the Bluefunnels, that hats must be tried and photographed - so here's the birthday boy wearing the last in a large selection.

When we got home Miss Boo brought he beloved Grandpa his present. Can you see? These are new Earthquake Slippers!

Did it make us laugh? oh yes, especially when he did the new shoes dance. What a birthday memory!

Me on Monday - sleepy

It was a hurry-up and wait kind of a weekend. Neither of us wanted to go out but we had parcels to post. I had a bit of a sort out in the craft room last week so I sent three goody bags of papers and toppers and things I loved but would never use to my granddaughter who has two hostages to fortune of her own now and needs to scrapbook their lives. Watched Finding Your Roots on PBS and Call the Midwife on BBC. Didn't sleep at all well on Sunday night so when I sat down and closed my eyes for a moment at 10am today I didn't expect to wake up at 2.45pm. However, I do feel so much better now.

I cooked lasagne for tea followed by tapioca pudding - Mr M loves tapioca. I am also making him a sugar free trifle for his birthday.

So that's Me on Monday. My thanks to Sian at FromHighinTheSky for giving us the idea for the Monday roundup. Go take a look over there now that you've read this

Valentine's Postcard Exchange

I missed the exchange last summer because I was in horsepiddle with my eczema. It came with me as it was attached to my skin ... sorry, but the sentence sounded daft after I wrote it, now where am I?

oh yes I missed the postcard exchange last summer so I was more than delighted when Sian proposed a second one. The theme, she said, was postcards of some things that you love. I don't have love for many things and I have shown pictures and described them previously on here. I do have places.

There are special places that I love, that I return to frequently if I can. So there are six people in this world who will be sharing some of my most loved places.

In other news I received the first of my cards this morning! It came all the way from Canada. I can only assume that it was posted at just the right moment to make all the connections perfectly. I will take a picture when I get all six

Me on Monday - sad

It's been a strange weekend that I can't talk about yet so this will have to suffice