27 October 2011

A busy day of people coming and going. Of course, the day started in the normal way with the carers coming in to shower and dress me They were followed, mid-morning, by the domiciliary dentist, Sian, from the Saffron Waldon Community Dental Service, with her dental nurse, Sue. I had a good hygienist session and the dentist confirmed that my teeth were in pretty good condition.

Next came Sarah from Ross Nursing for my midday tummy rubbing. (aromatherapy) .When I see Dr. Saunderspice on Friday I shall discuss with her the efficacy of the tummy rubbing and then decide whether to continue with it, three times a day, as we had been doing for the past or four months.

After Sarah left there was just time to squeeze in my lunch before Paul (the computer) came for yet more tinkering with my laptop and to introduce me to Windows 7 voice activation. which is built into Office 2010 (which I used to for this entire entry without much difficulty). The work that Paul has done so far will, at least, enable us to isolate the problem, either as Dragon or something else . We should not really have had to be doing at this as a starting point which I would have expected the Dragon technicians to have started with asome months ago. I must say, with a minimal training, and not being used to the slightly different commands, I was pretty impressed at how quickly I picked up the Windows 7 system. Whereas, in the past, I was under the impression that the there’s nothing to equal the accuracy of Dragon, I shall have no hesitation in recommending the Windows 7 system before deciding whether that will do or they need something slightly more sophisticated At least, it gives me a backstop in the event that the Dragon people fail to resolve my problem. There is still no word from them, which frankly I think it’s absolutely disgraceful, particularly as they have been aware, for sometime, ,that I am severely disabled and rely heavily on this ,means of communication.

Finally, my GP, Dr. Annette Lort came to give me a flu jab and generally catch up on how I am doing.

In between all these visits I initially struggled wth Dragon to complete my blog entry which, over the past few days, as got infuriatingly frustrating as it keeps freezing after a few words and therefore makes fluid dictation almost impossible.

After that long weary entry of woe the reader deserves something rather special. So I have reproduced some beautiful photographs of the Grand Canyon as you have never seen it before. Click here. Bear in mind that this enormous crevice in the earth’s crust was
initially carved out by a glacier in the last ice age, tens of millions ofyears ago. In a funny sort of way. it reminds me of my Yangtze River trip and
t he high cliffs either side, rising anything up to 300 m from the river below.

26 October 2011

I had the most frustrating days. Today need I say why, it was thilat wretched Dragon again. Paul has stripped most programmes down and reinstalled them from scratch which we hoped would have solved the problem, but to no avail. I’m getting so desperate now that I’m considering switching to the Windows 7 voice activation […]

25 October 2011

Having successfully effected the Dale Farm evacuation. we are now faced with another protest this time, according to the placards challenging the status quo With the slogan Capitalism Is Crisis’. As Libby Purvis said in today’s Times “Enough of this Glastonbury of grievance” Her main irritation “ is with the Occupy protesters themselves and their […]

24 October 2011

Today, Dr Saunders from the Rank Hospice, Cambridge, was scheduled to come here about the night pain in my joints, from which I am sporadically suffering . However, on reflection, she decided it would be better if I went to the hospice, where there are other consultants available on whom she could call. I think […]

23 October 2011

A great start to the day with an early morning television broadcast of the final of the World Rugby Championship in New Zealand. The All Blacks were meant to annihilate the opposition, France but the French for the final battle and New Zealand only one by 1.1 with a closing score of 8-7. Surprisingly, this […]

22 October 2011

Last night in bed was the worst ever. Not only were my knees and hip painful for but my left shoulder was excruciating and, in addition, I had a strange pain in the sole of my heel. It was like a red hot poker being thrust into it or large piece of broken glass. Contrary […]

21 October 2011

The good Dr Michael arrived late afternoon rom Australia (just at the appropriate time to crack open a bottle of champagne! – when the sun sets over the yard arm) en route to Sweden. He’s just stayed the night but will be back in early November. He is very fortunate in that, like me, he […]

20 October 2011

Tony and Jill (Griggs see yesterday’s the joke!) came to lunch with us today at the Cricketers. As it happens, I had not seen Griggsy for a month as he has not been able to play golf due to a bout of sciatica, so it was particularly nice to see them both. They were quite […]

19 October 2011

Paul, appeared for half an hour to babysit me before Jane arrived at 11.00. I was able to take advantage of this brief visit to get him to convert some of my incoming jokes etc to Word documents – they often come in enclosing in a table which makes it difficult to open. I heard […]

18 October 2011

I did go after all, to the golf club today despite the very strong chilly wind. The temperature was supposed to be 12 or 13 centigrade but I suspect the wind chill factor reduced that to around 7° C. I wore my Swedish padded jacket, a scarf and a woolly hat, so managed to complete […]