Respect and love for NHS?

Boxing day afternoon in a London Urgent Care Unit (joy, all round) I observed who the "people" who are purported to love the NHS treat the waiting area. If they love and respect it how come there were cheesy whotsits under one seat and half drunk plastic cups of water under several others?  At least the man dripping blood from a hand wound offered to mop it up!! If I had not wanted to vomit on moving myself, I was about ready to go round and pick some of the cups up.  If I could have gloves. Where is the respect for "your NHS" we have heard about daily for the last two months, I asked my youngest son  accompanying me? Save a fortune on cleaning if people just respected this space. Long political debate ensures.

Loved the young doctor.
Your blood pressure is a bit high.
What do you expect I retorted? Two hours of screaming kids, sweaty women dripping everywhere, blood on the floor, man behinds face slowly exploding in swelling bruises as his broken nose takes shape, and inexplicable fast tracking the queue. 
Most people get quite mellow having to sit for 2 hours and do nothing, he replied.
Those are the ones on their phones/gadgets turning themselves into the zombie brain dead with incessant beeping. 
Could you hear it? Because I think you have Meniere's disease of the inner right ear.
You need mild anti psychotic pills to turn off the noises in your other ear and stop the dizzy episodes.

Great, says my youngest son, - mad lady pills!!! How appropriate. Must get that on What's App Family Group.

Is it time for turkey curry yet?

Climate ex

Exchange, eliminate, revolution, whatever it is currently.   I personally I have been irritated by the disruptive behaviour on climate awareness. Not that I disagree with them, just how they are going about it.

Found it hilarious the other day on TV News from London when a commuter opened his briefcase and threw his sandwich box at the protesters on the top of the tube. But mostly I thought what a waste of food!

We are crossing central London in the next few days I have had to solemnly swear to my husband that I will not engage in any knee capping of Climate protesters.  I did point out that the two weeks they have spent on the streets disrupting traffic and people's working lives that we have probably done more good than them. We have:

• planted another tree (our 30th in 5 years)
• ordered another 20 feet of native hedgerow plants to extend our 60 feet of established hedging 
• sown winter vegetables to avoid any food miles for fresh food
• filled another wheelie bin with recycling waste (our council take nearly everything and provide a full size wheelie bin for it). This time I topped it up with old paper correspondence and out of date leaflets.
• used scrap wood for our fire in the evenings rather than turn on the oil fired heating. And put the nails from the pallet wood in a bucket for metal recycling later.

I wonder what each of the Climate protesters has done to make a positive lessening of their personal footprints?  If they had all gone and planted a tree as well as just making a noise UK would be considerably nearer its tree planting/re foresting target!!

Now dear, what about any Remainder protesters? Am I allow to......

Seed sowing

Full steam ahead at our house with the spring first round of veg and flowers from seeds.  They often start on the kitchen table (hence we are back to the plastic table cloth for cleaning).

Move into conservatory on a hotbox pad, which is heated by wires in a sealed foil with a thermostat, it is on poly and white stuff (what is it called??? ahh polystyrene!) and on a garden table. It gets a bit messy with vermiculite everywhere. By the end of spring I am desperate for it all to go!

Then they move to the greenhouse. It is bubble lined and has a heater connected but we keep that off if possible to save pennies. Gradually harden stuff off and put in polytunnel. Except peas and beans - the mice take them! Currently the mice are feasting on some left over chillis - does that make them hot mice?  I will need to put some more deterrent down.

But now the weather is not looking great for the next week so we will fussing over seedlings for an hour every morning/evening!

I have made a contact in the village via Facebook with a lady who had her garden devastated by neighbours illegal actions so I am giving her all my self sown primroses, violets, forget me nots, foxgloves to restore a country garden area.  Poor lady has had a tough time over the years with these people and finally found a way to fight back. Apparently our village has a conservation area! No one in the village ever mentions it but it gives her fight for her legal rights for boundaries and trees a bit more backing.

It ain't half hot mum

Cor.  I could do with a break. It has been so warm and dry we are miles in front of last year with the early garden tasks.  We are reluctant to go too far in planting etc as it could yet go the other way. Meanwhile, I could do with a rest from digging and tidying.

Catkins are thick on the trees we planted 4 years ago and it is coming along as a "glade".  We had an enormous bonfire with this winter lot..

Then two days later it was as big again as I got on top of the buddelia. We want to take the top off the privet hedge in the front garden asap so that it is more manageable to cut but first we have to clear down and empty the burning spot.

I am operating without a coat outside and yesterday I was so hot I nearly took off a jumper! Would have done but as soon as it hits 14C we are plagued with knatty insects in swarms. I fear getting bitten so went off to fill the dish washer and make more tea to get away from them.

Meanwhile, my dastardly (to quote the cartoons) plans to rid us of the sign recently put up right opposite my house by the parish council are looking good. Planning officer agrees with me, but his boss has to rule on the letter of the law. Its a £2500 fine if it goes my way - that will teach 'em. Would not mind if there were allotments opposite (love an allotment, great fan) but it is rented to local farmers for next to nothing and they farm the land commercially!

Every time we sit down for a meal this is our view now. Come the revolution in May - vote them out, please fellow villagers!!!

Sanitary wear

Ok.  Not your usual subject and probably a bit of a turn off. But we were watching that BBC Parliament live again this week and the subject came up in a debate. I know. We are sad. But we have fun rating the MPs performances (marks out of 10 for speaking clearly, saying something sensible, etc).
Anyway, back to the subject. I vaguely remember some time ago the debate on VAT being on these ladies products (including incontinence) and thought it had all been sorted. There had been a TV campaign recently on in-affordability but I thought that was about poverty and food banks etc. So I was surprised to learn the UK still charges 5% tax for being a woman!!!!

Apparently, we got into this mess because the EU made us charge VAT on luxury goods and these products according to them are a luxury item.  Gordon Brown (good lord, I am praising HIM?) went against the EU and reduced the rate to 5% but as we are still under EU regulations and cannot just get rid of it until we leave the EU (roll on March). The EU promised reform years ago and have done nothing about it.  Some supermarkets apparently absorbed the tax and have not put prices up. No one would know what we are paying since the VAT is not marked on the goods or on your receipts. We were in Ireland recently where the supermarket did show taxes paid, and it did show with a star which items were solely produced in Ireland and which were imported. What a good idea!

The debate this week was about UK taking back and reforming our VAT legislation. There were lots of other "daft" things that needed reform and would not cost the government but would make the general public a lot better off. One was scrapping the 5% tax on heating fuels. We paid £60 tax on our last purchase of heating oil.  A weeks grocery money.

I am not in the consistency of the proposing MP for this Bill in Parliament (Christchurch in Dorset) but if I was he would have by support. I may write to my MP and demand he supports this Bill for VAT reform!!

The BBC have an article and a calculator in it about how much tax you may have paid since 1973 on these products. I think it is a bit under calculated but I would not mind having my £200 contribution back (please).

Good lord

We listen to local radio first thing in the mornings and not all of it is wonderful content and we often tune out.  But I must just comment on this morning's piece of journalism.  Apparently a town to the south of us is the highest prescribing place in the UK for opiate based pain medicines ( as well as regularly featuring in reports of many other social problems).

As the article went on they interviewed some bloke who had weaned himself off strong pain killers after 10 years and they discussed his changed personality over several years. We got quite engaged.   We listened to the regional health point of view about costs.  We listened to a health expert who said opiate pain meds were no effective after several years of use.  He described his good relationship with his GP who had called him in to discuss his pain medicine, his depression medicine and his sleeping pills.

The bloke spoke of his gradual reducing of the opiates. Starting from 10 pills A DAY!   10 lots of morphine a day???? Did we hear that right?? Good lord. No wonder he was zoned out. How did he get away with driving a car? Surely over the drug limit if stopped??

Hang on. Our GP surgery reluctantly gives us the minimum of our life supporting drugs and reviews and re tests us every 12 months.  Never mind how "friendly" this bloke's GP was; they need to be sacked!! How could they let the man become an "accidental junkie"?   Over prescribing has been an issue for years and this town is not exactly off the beaten track so how come this has been allowed to go on?  As our county NHS organizers have been criticized for its mental health services, two failing hospitals and adult care is a mess, so I am going to take this reported failing as yet more proof of the systems breaking down.

Note to self. Stay healthy and stay away from hospitals etc!!

Just say NO!

Just say NO was a anti drugs slogan way back when. This week I have been screaming it at the TV. There was a report saying people could not handle the Christmas debt and got up to £2000 on credit cards.

For goodness sake people. Say NO. You don't need ALL the trimmings. Be sensible.


If you can't afford presents, explain to that wider circle of relatives and friends that you love them any way and when your "ship comes in" they will be invited on board. Concentrate on the kids.

If you can't afford the office/works lunch out, bake a cake one afternoon or  offer to make coffee when they eventually stagger back.

Debt is not worth the 5 mins pleasure on one day of the year. 

Quick project

Too cold for gardening, no DIY projects to start, no cooking plans so I went out to my hobby cabin to tidy and find something to do.  As I refolded my stash of fabric I found a carrier with material cut out for a tote bag from a piece of curtaining 3 houses back; I had put this by for some time.

I was just preparing the handles when I saw a scrap of fleece jacket material on the bench; leftover from the rag rug making. Thinking about how uncomfortable thin fabric handles can be I fiddled around until I had achieved a nice soft lining for them.  I added a smooth silky lining to the bag too from my stash of plain nylon/rayon fabrics someone had given me.

The really nice button I added to make a fastening was brought some years ago on Bristol street market and was economic support project.

At the time I was working on unemployment projects in a near by county and thought we should be doing something similar.

This is a pretty bag, I may use it to give a Christmas gift.

Best bit of the budget!

20. Reducing single-use plastics waste

The government will seek views on reducing single-use plastics waste through the tax system and charges. Disposable plastics like coffee cups, toothpaste tubes and polystyrene takeaway boxes damage our environment

source:  www.gov.uk

We have reduced use of carrier bags by 85% apparently. I personally will welcome a countryside with 85% less of these things tossed in the verges!