March - The beginning of Summer

eccles · Post by **eccles** » Fri Mar 01, 2024 2:50 pm

This applies to the Northern Hemisphere only; we have at least one antipodean HF member.

And on the 1st of March it's been hammering down and my coat is drying on the back of the sofa. At least the rain may be warmer this month.

Furby · Post by **Furby** » Fri Mar 01, 2024 4:38 pm

It's still spring even in northern half isnt it. Clocks haven't gone back yet.

mimosa · Post by **mimosa** » Fri Mar 01, 2024 4:40 pm

I expect March will be wintry for me. Actually we never know. It is the most volatile month, weather-wise.

ME

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Fri Mar 01, 2024 9:24 pm

My former contact at the University of Manitoba sent me a picture taken when she and her family were driving to visit other family members in Regina, Saskatchewan. It was at a petrol station close to a Tim Horton's and hanging off the Tim Horton's sign were icicles.................in May...............

Post by **merry** » Fri Mar 01, 2024 10:39 pm

I expect March will be wintry for me. Actually we never know. It is the most volatile month, weather-wise.

Comes in like a lion, goes out like a lamb, we say Mim.

OC I can remember snow in June once when we lived at Darkes Farm!

Thank you for the new thread

and to everyone who came to Chat tonight - lovely people all. It was like popping down the pub for a pint with your mates!

eccles · Post by **eccles** » Sat Mar 02, 2024 10:42 am

Well that was a surprise. I woke up to snow on the ground, but it's melting fast and it was raining steadily when I went out for my morning walk. So my coat is drying on the back of the sofa. Again.

Wildrover · Post by **Wildrover** » Sun Mar 03, 2024 2:53 pm

Yes, I really thought it's the beginning of summer when I scraped the ice off the car this morning

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Wed Mar 06, 2024 8:42 am

I hope everything went well for Patience at the Championships; I watched quite a lot of it and I couldn't spot her, probably due to the camera angles not picking up all the officials.

There were at least 2 little incidents during these championships which could have severely impacted the athletes in those particular events. One was in a heat of the men's 400 metres relay - an official decided the runners waiting for the baton were in the wrong positions and tried to put them where he thought they should be waiting while the guys with the batons were thundering down the track. This caused quite a lot of comment in the commentary box. Another was in the men's long jump - one of the athletes (I think it was the Jamaican) saw that the cone on the runway wasn't there so down he dashed only to find while he was in the air that 2 officials were still raking the sand in the pit

. Fortunately the rakers had the presence of mind to get themselves and their rakes out of the way before he landed. That also caused quite a lot of comment in the commentary box.

It was a good championships with 2 world records broken and some medals for GB.

I have ordered more rations for Them. They are part way through their 10kg bag of Royal Canin big kibble, and the other day Zooplus emailed me a coupon code for £5 off any Royal Canin product. I used that today and, with my ongoing 3% discount, I saved around £7.35 on a 10kg bag of the stuff; it normally costs just over £78 and has become expensive. Perhaps I'll be lucky enough to have another such coupon before I have to buy some more. Next week I'll order some more Felix wet food pouches for them. They have just started on the latest delivery and I like to have a complete delivery in stock.

Wildrover · Post by **Wildrover** » Wed Mar 06, 2024 1:32 pm

Another dreary day in Hertfordshire - I swear it has rained solidly for the last 6 weeks. MYF is getiing very excited about our upcoming holiday to the US - I'll just be grateful to see some sun! We are spending 4 days in Austin, Texas and 10 days in Las Vegas. I've been to Vegas about 10 times but MYF has never been hence her excitement - I'm actually looking forward to Austin more as the nightlife is fantastic there with virtually every genre of live music somewhere. I'm researching which Grand Canyon tour to book at the moment - there are sooo many to choose from - and MYF is also super excited about that as she's never been in a helicopter.
I'm having a bit of a battle with her at the moment as she got her first payment from renting her house out this month and she wants to spend that on the holiday whereas I think she should start a regular savings ISA. I understand her attitude given that this is the first time she has had a substantial amount of disposable income but she has very little savings and not much pension savings and I think this comes first. Ahh, the difference between Gen X and millennials...

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Wed Mar 06, 2024 5:14 pm

I'm having a bit of a battle with her at the moment as she got her first payment from renting her house out this month

Why not suggest to YYF (if you haven't already done so) that she needs to build up a contingency for her rented out house to cover things like unexpected repairs, tenants burning the house down, unpaid rent etc etc. She could stick that in a cash ISA to avoid paying tax on the interest.

Meanwhile, my visit to the consultant today. Getting there, the buses were fine; getting home they were all late apart from the one I would have liked to have caught at Southampton train station to get me almost to my front door. However, in practice it was only 30 minutes longer coming home though it seemed a lot more at the time!

And the outcome of the consultation was good. In his estimation I am nowhere near needing a pacemaker, as taking me off the beta blockers seems to have done the trick re my pulse. He thought that I need to take a diuretic to go with the pills I'm already taking, so no doubt there will be a little bit of experimentation until we find the right one. He has thought of a couple more tests I could take just to be on the safe side and my GP will be hearing from him soon.

And I can go on my Portugal holiday.

I await his invoice.

Furby · Post by **Furby** » Thu Mar 07, 2024 6:38 am

Well done OC for not being yet needing a pacemaker. It's a problem once at the stage of needing drugs to fight the other drugs. If you are paying private you always need a few more tests that's how it works.

I agree about wildrovers friend needing to save up. When its your own house unless it's life or death and immediately dangerous when repairs are needed you can just make do and cope until can be afforded but rental people do demand luxury homes and everything done asap. At the levels friends of wr will be renting anyway people paying lower rents at benefits levels for slums seem to have landlords who never do any repairs and get away with it. So is essential to have funds available to pay for things. Also I agree that younger people never seem to think of saving up when challenged they claim things are tougher for them and so need to spend any spare money on luxuries today. When you tell tales of having lived on beans and pilchards by mid week and picked icicles off the windows in a morning and only having one pair of shoes at a time they think it's a myth.

eccles · Post by **eccles** » Thu Mar 07, 2024 1:00 pm

Great news OC. Presumably you're ok to drive as well or are you holding off on that for a while to see how it goes?

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Thu Mar 07, 2024 2:07 pm

Thanks, Eccs and Furby - I'm not OK to drive yet though. I discovered today that what looked like the occasional black blob on the reading display on my blood pressure monitor is in fact a detection of an irregular heartbeat while I was taking my blood pressure. This is defined as a rhythm that is 25% less or 25% more than the average rhythm detected while the monitor was measuring blood pressure. So when my pulse was 77 today it could have had a high of at least 96 or a low of at least 58 or both. So I have added Irregular Heartbeat to my spreadsheet; it happened twice when I was taking my morning readings today.

Dr Yue was hopeful that I would be able to drive my car again - but not yet!

Wildrover · Post by **Wildrover** » Thu Mar 07, 2024 3:55 pm

That does sound promising overall OC though I don't think you need to be a consultant to figure out that if you have a patient with a slow heartbeat, taking them off a drug that slows their heartbeat is probably a good plan. Maybe the irregular heartbeat is your body taking time to get used to the change in medication. Now he's suggesting a diuretic I wonder how long it's going to be before they tell you you're dehydrated

MYF and I agreed she should take this month's rent as her spending money and the other nine months she will put into an ISA which seems a reasonable compromise.

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Thu Mar 07, 2024 4:36 pm

So calm is restored to the WR/HYF household..............

While I was with Dr Yue I told him about why I was with him yesterday from the time delay point of view that I had noticed when starting to book the referral appointment that my GP asked for. He said I should still book it, so I did a few minutes ago. Although it said 292 days wait on the screen, when I came to moving on to the appointment the date was 10 September; so I did as Dr Yue said. If I have got it wrong there is plenty of time for it to be cancelled.

Post by **merry** » Thu Mar 07, 2024 10:09 pm

Oh my word, WR! what a holiday! I'd love to see the Grand Canyon some time. We passed within 60 miles of it on one of our long distance trains; you could detrain and take another train and do a tour, and then come back the next day to pick up the cross-country train again, and I wish I had done.

OC, well done on getting through all the tedious medical stuff. 'Twill all be worth it as you work towards getting back on the road in Jazzy again!

We meant to go to Dobbies today for lunch to leave Ellie to her cleaning, but Mr M had his bad hernia pain again, so we didn't. It is a good thing he's going to have the op, although I'm dreading it.

Been out and about in the garden a bit the last few days. My usual patch of Wood Bluebells and narcissae, in ukraine colours

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Fri Mar 08, 2024 9:19 am

Another little jolly for OC to cope with

. I went to my garage yesterday to get the bag of cat litter that was still in the car, cheerfully pressed the key pad to open the door.............and.............nothing! The key wouldn't work, and the spare key wouldn't work. So either the car battery has drained or something has happened to make the car not recognise the signal from the key. That's a shame because the other day I added Jeff to my insurance policy as a named driver, and a neighbour agreed to being Jeff's reserve though I hadn't added him just yet.

I really didn't feel like phoning the garage to ask what happens next earlier this morning. The batteries in both keys were changed last September so I think the keys are all right. But perhaps I will phone the garage today even though I don't see any point in doing anything about the car just yet. There might be something I can do to reconnect the keys with the car if that is what the trouble is. They worked 2 or 3 weeks ago when I opened the car door to retrieve the other bag of cat litter that was in there.

Furby · Post by **Furby** » Fri Mar 08, 2024 9:29 am

Can you smash a window and get in the car that way.

OurCreature · Post by **OurCreature** » Fri Mar 08, 2024 9:52 am

No Furby! I found out how to release the manual key from the key fob, so I could get into the car just now. But electric-wise the batteries are completely dead; no displays, no burglar alarm, nothing. I can't even open the rear passenger door to get at the bag of cat litter. Still, I know what is going on now; the car has to be serviced at the end of May so I might leave it until then and just cross various bridges when I come to them. The garage indicated that they could always come and get the car if necessary when I phoned them to ask about taking the car out to keep the battery topped up ho ho.

eccles · Post by **eccles** » Fri Mar 08, 2024 1:49 pm

If you can get in the car have you tried pushing the front seat as far forward as possible so you can get at the cat litter?
If it's a software fault you may have to close the windows and open them again (old joke, sorry..)