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15 January 2012

Posted by DMC on 16 January 2012 in Diary |

We had two visitors last evening our old friends Jane and Kit Ode-Powlett .I’m sure they would not mind me mentioning that they were the perfect guests, arriving at 5.00 and leaving a few moments before the carers were due at 6.00. I really enjoyed our chat together but I have found that an hour is just about the right length of time before I got too tired to be sociable. After Jane and Kit and left I attempted to bring my yesterday’s entry up to date, to cover the visit, but got so frustrated with Dragon stopping every few words that I gave up in the end

It would be remiss of me not to mention the generosity of these two old friends, Jane, knowing of my love of her homemade marmalade generously bought me two jars of hers and Kit, knowing my’ penchant for a glass of champagne, very generously bought a bottle of Bollinger. I really know not what I have done to deserve such kind friends.

Although we originally met at the golf club, Kit who is an extremely good bridge and chess player – county standard in both, I believe – offered to come here in the winter months, perhaps on a Tuesday ,if the weather was too bad for golf and play, or perhaps I should say improve, my rather poor chess. We did this once or twice but since then, most Tuesdays the weather has been quite clement plus the problems with Dragon taking three or four hours to do what I would have done in the past in an hour, we simply. I have not had the time to resume my chess lessons. This is a great pity as I have always been keen on board game is (that’s my success in becoming World Champion in Monopoly, in 1977) This one of the reasons I shall be very happy when Dragon resolves this problem so I can take Kit up again on his kind offer.

I had intended to bring my blog entry up to date, to cover the visit, but after frustrating myself,almost into a state over Dragon’s antics, I gave up and read a little and watched the old programme on my laptop.

I did get round to telephoning my little granddaughter today to wish her a happy birthday, which had I intended to do on Friday We tried to do this through Skype, but we went through a farcical 15 min or so where we could either see one another and not hear, or speak and not see or hear one person speaking and see the other but never managed to get us both speaking and seeing at the same time. I am almost paranoid enough to suspect that Dragon has even infiltrated Skype, although I know that is not so..My daughter was running a Skype programme from a little note pad tablet which wasn’t really up to the job. I was particularly pleased with my own picture which was sharp and clear, so at least my end was working. We managed to overcome the problem, to some extent ,by speaking to each other on the telephone, whilst seeing our pictures from the laptop. Not exactly a proper Skype call but, no doubt, we will get it right in the end.

I gathered from the conversation we had that Lara had had a little party of seven or eight girls and the entertainment was a lady showing them how to make jewellery, necklaces, bracelets etc. A clever way of entertaining her friends after a birthday tea.

She managed to show me some of the pretty things that she made. This is where Skype comes into its own; being able to show each other things while talking about them.

Today, I must confess it turned into a lazy one. I didn’t feel 100% last night or even this morning. I suppose it’s not surprising that I have the od day when I don’t feel 100%. As I am 4 ½. years into this dreadful illness and feel okay most of the time, I really can’t complain.

I had intended to write something on The Big Question broadcast last Sunday, which I understood dealt with the issue of assisted suicide, which is currently being discussed by a government committee. Sadly, I found that such programs are only kept for seven days by the BBC and clocking in this afternoon for last Sunday’s broadcast, in an attempt to hear it again, I found I was just too late, it can be removed.

As this is still a pretty hot topic laid out there will be other programmes on the subject the closer the committee get to making a recommendation to Parliament, I shall comment then Having said that, my readers will recall that I went into some depth on this matter previously when we saw Sir Terry Pratchett in Switzerland in the Switzerland witnessing Mr Smedley taking his own life (see entries 5 July 2011 and 7 Jan. 2012)

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