11 March 2012

The good Dr Michael is now well on the way back to Australia but he is a worried man and certainly came see the results of the tests carried out on son Tom who was recently diagnosed recently was multiple myeloma (see 7 March entry). I must admit that I also am very interested in the results of these tests as Tom is a dear boy, not yet 50, and I’ve got to know him over the years and grown fond of him.

On the home front our government are preparing to enact legislation which will allow mixed race adoption which to date has been illegal. We have the craziest situation in this country at present with thousands of young couples willing and able to adopt a small child, or baby and have been unable to do so because they were not the same ethnic group as a child. In today’s society a coloured child in a white family, or vice versa, does not cause a stir than it once might have done. Since we have become more multicultural there have inevitably been a lot of mixed marriages where the resultant children bear the signs.

Under the current legislation when such couples break up or are unable to support these children, or they have been removed for other reasons, it has been impossible for a white couple to adopt them. Fortunately that now appears to be changing and bringing some sense into the adoption laws.

On the international front, the problems over a possible Greek default on payment of their debts, seem to have subsided pro tem. As a result the stock markets around the world have virtually recovered all of their losses which occurred when the possible default was first mentioned. I still think we are in for a bumpy ride for the rest of this year so we’ll just hang on and hope for the best. In any event our state pensions, which include me and my darling wife, will enjoy’ a leap’ of £5 a week, from next April. As we are both pensioners this generous increase, after tax, will be sufficient to pay for one credit crunch lunch at The Cricketers next door, so we are not getting too excited about the prospect.

Reverting to the international news, England had a magnificent win over France in the Six Nations Rugby International 24-22. It was a fine fast moving game that England well-deserved to win.

‘ My lovely’ and I had a quiet day catching up on things that had accumulated in her absence.

Today’s joke illustrates a problem that all of us with week hands and arms might face from time to time. Even If we have  hopefully we have learned to laugh at ourselves  Click here to see if you have ever been in this position and if not then thank your lucky stars!

10 March 2012

The good Dr Michael left early this morning to meet his ex-wife Elizabeth at Stansted airport. They were both going on to London where Mick was seeing Elizabeth off on the Eurostar to Paris before catching his own plane back to Australia. I heard from three of my regular readers yesterday morning that a warning […]

9 March 2012

Had a reasonable night so far as the pain is concerned but had problems with the respirator. For some reason, which we couldn’t fathom out, the alarm kept going off on the machine, sometimes for 30 seconds or so. That would normally only happen if the was a severe leak between the machine and the […]

8 March 2012

‘ My lovely’ was up bright and early this morning and after attending to me, giving me my breakfast etc handed me over to the girls – Louise and Paula. -to shower and dress me before depositing me in my study chair. The good Doctor, Michael, appeared whilst all this was going on, and having […]

7 March 2012

The travelling optician, Lee, arrived as scheduled and after checking out my eyes to ensure that the cataracts had healed nicely went on to test my eyes for glasses. In the end we decided between us that I am really only needed some mild reading glasses and, although in the past, I have bought my […]

6 March 2012

Today’s entry will be very brief, which will no doubt please those of you who find that they are generally too long and you don’t have time to read them. The point being that this is the first entry made using my new laptop and my new User profile on Dragon. Paul’ the Computer came […]

5 March 2012

The ‘nose only’ mask proved to be a great success. It was much softer and more comfortable, and proved to be much more intrusive than the full plastic mask, which covers both nose and mouth.. This being the case, I shall revert to using this one as long as I can, in order to give […]

4 March 2012

A relatively comfortable night but not one entirely free of pain. However, I am comforted in the knowledge that I can expect the nerve block in my shoulder to be just as painful, if not more than it was before the injection, for the next month or so, after which I should start to feel […]

3 March 2012

My dear daughter Chloe managed to persuade the Amazon people that, due to my disability, I had been unable to spend my £40 book token, with no fuss at all. they extended the period of purchase by six months, so I spend an hour or so this morning looking through the various list of books […]

2 March 2012

Not wishing for another episode like that from which I suffered a few nights ago when the respirator stopped delivering air, due to the pipe, connecting it to the machine, having come loose, we switched to a new headset which I had been given, on one of my visits to Papworth hospital, some time ago. […]