Pillings Lock Marina 2010#2

Thursday 14th January and still the ice is hanging on. This morning I should have been going to Harlow but, as the outlook was rather foggy, it seemed to make more sense to stay. With a bit of luck and if the weather warms up as promised, I should get there for a Sunday lunchtime drink.

Yesterday, even though it was snowing at the time, we decided to get into Loughborough for a bit of shopping at Morrisons. This was the first time of going since our pre-Christmas shopping, so was something of a treat as I have not been getting much exercise of late. Besides which, we really do like their meat pies. That’s the triangular shaped ones I’ve mentioned before, which are really quite delicious and which we’re having this evening.

It was on the 5th of this month that I saw the consultant surgeon at Glenfields Hospital in Leicester. When we left him he was dictating a letter to my GP regarding my Haemoglobin level which, apparently, was a little bit low and leaning towards anaemia. Would you believe it but, after more than a week his letter had still not arrived. I’m beginning to think that maybe, just maybe, this was a ruse to delay my operation. There’s more than one way of fiddling figures.

We’re still awaiting the arrival of the pump-out and diesel barge and, even as I sit here typing, young Mark has been gamely trying to get round to us through the ice. It seems though that he’s not had a lot of luck, because last time we saw him he was backing up and, quite obviously had given up trying. Hopefully, if the milder weather continues, he’ll make it tomorrow. We are not only in need of the pump-out we also need to top up with diesel. During this cold snap we’ve really been slaughtering the central heating.

Tuesday 19th January and, at last, we have some milder weather, which is just as well, because it’s market day at Melton Mowbray and we are in dire need of some decent sausages.

But first, a couple of Soap-Box moans.

Firstly, and I have taken a particular interest in the subject, so much so that I have three books about it, and that subject is Global Warming. Quite a few people, especially those who rule our lives – and I don’t mean just here in the U.K. – actually believe the crap put out by the IPCC, that’s the International Panel on Climate Change. Personally I have always believed it to be just a load of scare-mongering, but the so-called “experts” seem to hold sway over politicians.

Anyway, having read up on the subject, I am even more convinced of the arrogance of these people, who seem to think that we humans are somehow to blame for the way this planetary home of ours controls our living conditions.

Thankfully some of the real experts are now speaking out against the IPCC and, with a little luck, that ridiculous organisation will eventually be shut down. You, my dear reader, must come to your own conclusions, if you haven’t done so already. In this regard, if you really want the truth, I would urge you to read “The Real Global Warming Disaster”, by Christopher Booker.

The second moan is about that utterly- butterly, stupid heart expert, who goes by the name of Shyam Kolvekar, who now suggests, that this ancient spread should be Banned!! I wonder what our hard-pressed dairy farmers have to say about that idea. Believe me dear reader, if he was aware of the rubbish that goes into the manufacture of the alternative spreads, he wouldn’t dare to even put his head above the parapet. That’s another so-called ‘expert’, trying to tell us what not to eat and drink. The next and obvious item of food he would suggest banning, is cheese, then yoghourt and cream and, as he has already suggested, red meat, etcetera and Blah! Blah! Blah! God help us and save us from these morons.

Now, Sunday was my latest visit to Harlow and the first since before Christmas, in fact as early as the 3rd of December. I managed to find time to pay a visit to my friend Les and her daughter Colette before calling in on Alan. Les is the lady who accompanied me on the school bus run, as did Colette when mum couldn’t make it.

After a cuppa with them; unfortunately husband and father Dave was in the Lake District, so I couldn’t have a few words with him, but I certainly enjoyed the short visit; I made my way round to Alan’s place.

My short visit to Les and Colette was followed by an enjoyable couple of hours at the Emperor and a quite delicious dinner of roast duck and the usual trimmings. All in all a pretty good day. The run home on Monday morning was also plain sailing and I made the trip in something less than two hours.

Wednesday 20th January and a rather dull start to the day, but this did not stop us from going shopping at Morrisons.

Now, just yesterday I mentioned that stupid medic who suggested butter should be banned. That was first thing in the morning. When we returned from Quorn with the Daily Mail, who should have a full page spread but Clarissa Dickson-Wright and, oh boy, did she lay into that poor man. It just so happens that CDW’s Godfather was the founder of the ‘alternative spread manufacture’ Van den Burgh andJurgens, a company whose fire alarm system I once had the dubious privilege of servicing.

When Clarissa was a child her kindly Godfather made her promise never, ever, ever to eat margarine. And, when she asked why, his reply was, “Because you do not know what goes into it”. He, however, was well aware of the rubbish it contained and, to this day, our dear Clarissa has never, ever, ever touched the stuff.

Also, and I was not aware of this, there is no proof whatsoever that eating such a delightful, and natural product, makes any contribution to high cholesterol, as most doctors would have us believe. Clarissa herself, who admits to using butter quite extensively, has a cholesterol reading that “a five year old would be proud of”.

Keep spreading that butter!!

Friday 22nd January and, according to the weather experts, we can expect bucketsful of rain today. This is a pity, because, just yesterday, we spotted a rather large crack in our car windscreen. Obviously, not wishing to tempt providence, I called our insurers and they advised me to call in Autoglass, who advised me that, with the size of crack I described, we would need a new screen. Sadly this has now cost us £60, which is the excess on our policy. Happily £60 is just a fraction of the actual cost of the screen, which is probably somewhere around £400, but I’m only guessing here.

Wednesday 27th January and a week has flown by since I last updated this blog. This means of course that nothing much of interest has happened since. What a boring life we lead.

Of course, we’ve done the usual things, like shopping at Morrisons and pubbing it on Sunday, etcetera and ad nauseum, but nothing untoward.

However, as I may have mentioned a while ago, we now have two radiators with pinholes in, a fact that does concern us somewhat. Some few days before Christmas, I spoke to Andy, the engineer from Redhill Marina, who promised to install our expansion bottle and he popped in yesterday to have a decko and to see what extra bits he needed. The upshot was that he will now install said item on Monday. He will also price us up for new radiators and, hopefully, we’ll get them sorted out soon.

I also asked him about servicing the engine and he quoted £100, which is a far cry from the £200 + that we paid last time. He also said that, since we’ve asked him to carry out the plumbing work, he’ll throw in the extras for the engine for free. I think we’ll take him with us next time we go cruising!

On the matter of my legs, I’m still waiting to hear from the hospital. My GP still has not received the promised letter and it is now three weeks since my visit. He was actually dictating the letter as we left, which doesn’t say much for his secretary. Personally I think it is simple delaying tactics, since most hospitals and NHS Trusts find it impossible to keep to government targets.

And that is just about it for this entry. I must apologise for the delay in updating the blog, but I’ve been up to my eyes in the recipe book. Yeah, I know, what the heck is keeping me? The truth is that I’ve not been happy with the idea of issuing it in four small volumes rather than one single one. So, despite the makers of the programme telling me to limit it to no more than 100 pages or so – and mine is about 400 – I’ve decided to give it a try and publish it as one book. So far, I’m happy to say, it seems to be doing what I want but, since I’m having to go over everything as if it was a new project, it’s taking some time.

Saturday 30 January and, once again I have nothing special to report. One thing I do know though, this Toshiba Laptop is not a patch on the Acer. Comparing both as new computers this one is much slower. However, when the Acer was new it came at almost twice the price of the Toshiba. Still, I would have expected a little better performance, because this one is only a couple of months old and has a dual core processor. It just seems so slow in reacting to my commands.

For example. Opening an existing document seems to take forever. The cursor turns onto a whirling circle and, several seconds afterwards, up comes the script. Then, when I type into the document, the response isn’t always immediate. The same thing happens when I close it, the blue screened, blank document; which really should be white, sits there for several seconds with a whirling cursor. I really don’t know what to make of it.

Also, when I open my recipe book in order to do a bit of editing, I get a message at the top of the screen telling me it is not responding. But, after a while the book does open up for me. And, once again, the same thing happens when I save the work I’ve done. It really is annoying.

I’ve tried re-installing the book programme, but I still have the same problem. It’s as if the machine just doesn’t know where to find the item I want and, when I’ve finished, it doesn’t know where to put it. This really is a slow witted computer, but I suppose I’m going to have to put up with it, because I can’t afford to buy another one.

Now, today is Saturday, the weekend is upon us and we have been promised some much colder weather. There’s no point in me trying to post this blog later today, because everybody and his uncle will all be scrambling to do their own thing online. So I guess I’d better try posting it now.

Before I do though, I thought I might mention the fact that I’ve been looking at an online book publishing site called Lulu. This site will do all the work necessary to compile and publish your book, be it as an eBook or paperback or even hard cover. All you need to do is submit your files and they will do the rest. Well, I’ve had a look at some of the recipe books they have produced and, I must say, my attempt so far looks pretty weak.

So, since it seems necessary to include proper photographic images of food within the pages and on the cover, I sent off for a disc full of same. Would you believe it, when I opened the disk on screen, of all the available folders in there, I was unable to open four of them which contained, in total, over 70Mb of photographs. I am still awaiting a reply from the seller who, by the way, has a good reputation on eBay.

Have a good weekend folks.

Luv and stuff from,

Dave, Sheila and Rusty.