Be Excellent To Each Other

Just like me. If I can help let me know.

Have they given you huge bag of drugs? Which ones?

See if the NHS will give you one of these. I have to buy mine but they are worth it, for 24 hour a day blood update.
https://www.freestyle.abbott/uk-en/prod ... bre-2.html

Yikes! Good to hear it was relatively light and the prognosis is positive.

Someone at work had a mini stroke last summer-ish - and isn't just back at work but ran the Manchester marathon last weekend.

Bloody hell Cras!
Speedy recovery dude x

Yes, never sure what to say in these cases, but glad to hear it's not too serious. Hope you recover quickly.

In Czechia today, I was in a rush to leave a train, and follow the locals to the replacement bus service I had only just realised was on offer - I didn't understand the words the grumpy conductor used the first time, nor the second when I asked "Pardubice?", but I got the gist of "NO! No Pardubice, autobusy!" and some waving.

I made if off, small bag, laptop, earphone grabbed and in my hands. I caught everyone up, I made it round the corner I would never have turned on my own, I got onto the bus.

*Then* I remembered my other bag. The one with the clothes in, the clothes I was so pleased, just last night, to have got into a washing machine for the first time in 6 weeks.

I called out "Gah! My bag!" for the benefit of any English speakers. I ran. I went back round the corner I'd never have turned (etc), down the ramp, along the underpass, back up the stairs. I heard the train move just before I could see it. The bag left.

But Yay! I still have my passport, cards, money, phone, chargers, kindle and laptop, so I don't *have* to have the other bag. The bus was only taking us a mile and half ("No Pardubice!" was only partly correct, because we were at Pardubice Rosice. Has a nice ring to it), so the half hour+ I had before my next train was more than enough time to walk it, and the route was easy despite no phone reception. I made my second train (to Brno).

I've been in text chat with Arriva, and who knows, I might even get the bag back.

Good luck, Global Traveller!

This is the same Arriva, right?

Possibly worse! But yes, they're all over the place.

Yeah, that sounds like the same Arriva.

Didn't like the house we looked at as much as we wanted to; the valuation of the current abode is more than we owe.

Was that the one with all the fireplaces?

Yes

In a couple of days time it will be mine and Russell’s 10th wedding anniversary. Something to celebrate, and I wanted to post here because obviously this is where we met and everyone here has been a big part of that journey and of our family.

We weren’t doing anything big, but we had booked to go for afternoon tea at a spa/hotel whilst Bean was at school, but (here’s the Nay part) Russell caught Covid last week and passed it on to me, so we’re both I’ll. Russell is improving but I’m stuck pretty firmly in the depths of it at the moment, and feeling pretty down because of how weak/in pain I feel at the moment.

Anyway, back to the Yays. Ten years feels significant for some reason. Because it’s a round number, probably. But it’s a nice feeling.

I want to do something to mark it. As it is we don’t/can’t even get out to get a card or even feel well enough to make one, so it’s going to pass by pretty invisibly, but would love it if folks could just raise a glass of beer/mug of tea/etc to us on Friday and hopefully help us along to the next ten years xxx

Congrats, Mims and Russ! I'll raise a peppermint tea because I'm lame and old!

We are also lame and old, so that’s perfect.

I'm lame and old. She's perfect.

Congrats to you both! X

I’d been saving this bottle for such an occasion.

Get well soon.

*clink* thank you xxx

Congratulations Mimi/Russell. I'll have a beer to celebrate and to wish you a speedy recovery. xx

Congrats! I will do ten repetitions of something to mark this occasion. Nothing strenuous, mind. I'm thinking - eat 10 biscuits.

Congratulations, guys!

Congrats, where has the 10 years gone...

We built an entire child in that time, to be fair.

But yes, thanks folks. We were indeed too ill to do anything on the day. Still feeling pretty rough now (though both testing negative, so that’s good). Managed a very little BBQ yesterday, just so we did SOMETHING. Just the three of us, mind. I had to search on here to remind myself how to use the barb cue because it’s been that long without sun.

I got a new work computer, and have been happily copying over files, installing applications and fiddling with settings so that it works just the same as the old computer, except this time it's black instead of dark grey, and ever so slightly faster.

The biggest nuisance is that I'd not long ago out some neat stickers on the previous laptop, so now I'll need to get some more.

Unrelated but...

Yay, my box of 12 chicken dippers actually had 13 in it

Nay, I'd noticed that one of the front tyres on my car has a nasty bulge in the side, probably from a pothole I hit in Wales last weekend. That's £330 for a replacement pair, though they only had a couple of thousand miles life left in them.

Yay: After a month of cancelled appointments I finally got my Covid vaccine

Nay: At the new place I booked I was greeted by my pharmacist neighbour, who despite having the same name as a Covid vaccine (and probably more importantly, being a pharmacist) is an anti-vaxxer. She’s a lovely lady, she baked us a cake last week, and she’s a parent of one of Bean’s classmates, but yeah, it was odd.

Your anti-vaxxer pharmacist neighbour gave you the jab?

No, she wasn’t the one holding the needle, thankfully, but it felt kinda awkward (to me, anyway).

Nay: I've got an abscess developing on one of my teeth. I noticed a bit of discomfort a couple of days ago and recognised the signs.

Yay: It happened this week, not next, or over the weekend, so I've been able to get to the dentist and obtain a prescription for antibiotics. If it follows it's previous pattern, it will hopefully have disappeared by Monday.

Nay: a few weeks ago I had a blood test and it said my liver function was "abnormal."

Yay: I just got back from an ultrasound and the operator said my liver was "lovely."

I had something similar 7 or 8 years ago and it turns out I have Gilbert’s syndrome.

Should I Google that or will it terrify me?

It won’t terrify you at all. It actually increases life expectancy and you’re less likely to suffer from heart disease. But it might be worth just asking your GP if it might be something like that as if it is they’ll mark it on your medical record and then when your liver markers come back a bit ‘off’ medical teams know that’s why the numbers read the way they do.

I'm seeing a specialist in Feb to try to get to the bottom of it.

Is all a bit odd.

This is going to sound insanely made up but I swear it's not. This is just who she is.

Nay: My mum is currently back in hospital yet again. She keeps getting UTIs which then turn into blood infections and send her delirious. They have to take her to hospital and give her antibiotics and then she's in for days at a time. Went in Weds and is still in now.

Yay: Anyway, the 'cheerful' but is that when the three paramedics were in her home getting ready to take her, one of them said 'do you need do anything?' (I think implying going to toilet) before they left. Even delirious, my mum is a funny fucker, and she said 'Kill Putin' and the paramedic said 'how are you going to do to that?' and she said 'novichok.'

She’s got a plan in place.

I hope she’s feeling better and those antibiotics kick in quickly

Nay: My Virgin Media contract expires tomorrow and the out-of-contract monthly price was to go up to £85.06 from the existing contract price of £77.40. That's for 250 Mbps broadband, one Tivo, one V6 TV box and land line. I asked about taking the land line off when the contract came up for renewal 18 months ago, and the price would have gone UP, because the landline was part of a bundle deal.

Yay: Rang them this morning to try the old 'I'm thinking go leaving' negotiation. So now I'll be paying £65 for the same package, but broadband has also been increased to 350 Mbps, which is odd, as they didn't mention this when I was talking to them (or else I didn't hear them mention it). I only discovered it because my router rebooted two minutes after I'd finished the call, and I checked the speed when it had finished, and it hit about 370 Mbps.