6 May 2012
Apologies, I have already broken the promise, I made to my readers, not to mention the pain aspect again, until I had some resolution, but I consider it so important that other MND sufferers, and their carers, learn where I have got to in relieving this distressing side effect. I certainly was not advised by any of my team that I might expect to suffer constant pain at night. Are we just expected to know this naturally follows a disease like MND? Had I known, well in advance, I would not have worried so much that I was suffering from something like multiple myeloma or l some other skeletal disease, rather than just being a normal side-effect of MND.
Anyway, the expensive elegant heel protectors, pretty well did their job. Certainly, reducing the amount of pain from the unbearable to the bearable. Sadly, prevented from keeping me awake through pain in my feet, the devil transferred his efforts to my mid-drift attacking both hips and buttocks. I have to accept that my whole body will now be affected by pain at night through the lack of mobility and must seek a balance between the quantity of painkillers, I take at night, and the effect on me during the following day. No doubt, after my letter to the four doctors, one or other of them will contact me after the bank holiday and we may well come up with a solution.
My Darling daughter Chloe, came down for lunch today and stayed overnight, I think she plans to return after lunch tomorrow. It always lovely to see her, particularly on her own, when she is not so distracted by the children. Although she is terribly keen to take over some of Alice’s caring, while she is with us, we have taken the opposite course, up to now, and made sure she gets an extra lie in on Sunday morning, which she certainly doesn’t managed to do when she’s at home with her three children and husband.
can line-a practice this article. Lives in the got some course and you will unfortunately so
5 May 2012
The Saturday of the May bank holiday. Sad to say the weather was chilly and damp and was not such as to entice young families from abandoning the warm home to get cold and damp in some activity, which inevitably will be expensive. I just wonder when we’ll get our summer? The forecast for next week is no better, with rain forecast for four of the days, including, I’m sorry to say Tuesday, so it looks as though another week will go by without my visit to the geriatrics golfers at Worlington.
The newspapers are full of the aftermath of the local elections. The Labour Party striding about claiming vindication for the opposition to the coalition’s approach in attempting to revive the economy. The coalition, both Conservative and Lib Dems vigourously defending their approach of severe cuts across the board and changes in taxation, for what may well be a relatively short period.
It is the only way this coalition can see we can get out of our current economic mess. This policy is opposed by the Labour Party whose solution is to spend way out, on the principle that by injecting more money into the economy. they will revive it and it will begin to grow again more quickly. I don’t think one has to be a rocket scientist to realise that if you owe a great deal of money the only way you will be able to pay it off is by even deeper into debt in the hope that your new investments will yield sufficient profit to pay off the increased indebtedness you have incurred. Ed Ball, the shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was part of the Labour Party’s opposition gang who got us into this mess in the first place, seems to have overlooked the elementary principle of economics so succinctly summed up by Mister Micawber in Charles Dickens’, David Copperfield
Annual income £20, annual expenditure £19 19 shillings and sixpence, result happiness Annual income £20, annual expenditure £20 and six pence, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the God of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and, in short, you are for ever flawed. As I am!
Jane’ the sheep’ and her partner John, turned up mid-morning with three of her rare breed sheep- Milly; Molly and Katie, who can enjoy the luxuriant growth of grass in our paddock
Having e-mailed my own medical team doctors, Mark Abrahams;Annette Lort; Margaret Saunders and Chris Allen and not received a reply from any of them, I asked John, Jane’ the sheep’s ‘partner, who happened to be here and who is a doctor, whether he felt it would be safe for me to wear an additional morphine patch, as the single one has not proved efficacious. Whilst being clear that the matter must be addressed by my own GP, John could see no harm at all in the second patch after two horrendous nights I had suffered and indeed suggested I might increase the amitriptyline. I may well go down that route. this evening. I think any drawback is that they make you feel very drowsy during the day. Sadly the one patch and this drowsiness effect so sceptical about a second patch as it might make me so drowsy that I become almost incapable of doing anything during the day so must put this side-effect in the balance. I certainly do not want to become a daytime zombie so may well have to put up with the pain in order to remain reasonably alert during the day.
My expensive sheepskin heel protectors arrived this morning. I must say they looked rather grand and I really looking forward to giving them a trial run tonight. If they really work that would be wonderful. As we have now reached the point where when ‘my lovely’ comes down around 12:30 am to turn me over, my heels have become so painful that the only relief that we have been able to work out so far is to rest my calves on a thick pillow leaving my feet free and clear of the bedclothes. This has been partially successful but it has its limitations.
After lunch, Paul ‘the computer’ came to release Alice to do some shopping and so on and at the same time, to continue his good work on developing the camera mouse. I can already see great advantage in being able to move the mouse swiftly across the desktop merely by focusing it on my eye. Apart from anything else, it will be less fatiguing and the more manual operations I can eliminate the better.
Due to the tenuous state of our economy. Click here to see one person’s response when submitting his tax return.
4 May 2012
Yesterday, saw the first local elections since the Conservatives were voted into government. It only covered about a third of the country as elections are held every year but for different parts of the country. It is the first true test of the current standing the government. The incumbent party always expects to do badly as it is mid-term and too short a time to see the true effects of its mandate. True to form, the Conservatives lost around 400 seats.
The main beneficiaries were the Labour Party who made sweeping gains in a grim night for the coalition government. They gained around 800 seats and gained control of 21 councils. It was a disappointing night for the Lib Dems, who retain their share of the vote at 16%, but lost a large number of seats. If this is repeated in the general election I suspect the Lib Dems would be all but annihilated. This being so I’m sure we will see some drastic changes in the coalition government between now and the next election. The other small parties such as Ukip and Respect racked up significant gains. Frankly these elections are normally fought on local issues and the number of people supporting one party or the other is not normally reflected in a General Election. The Tories were given a boost to this effect, that the governor of the Bank of England made some very positive remarks about the progress of the Tories plan getting the country out of our present financial mess.
The overall number of people voting for the three parties came out at 31% Conservative, 39% Labour and 16% Liberals. I know that these local elections are usually fought on local issues and for this reason do not reflect what would happen if there was a general election just around the corner. Nevertheless, it never ceases to amaze me how the public memory is so short. As much as anything else our fragile economic state is the result of George Brown’s (the last Labour Prime Minister actions. I will not list again, as I have done on a number of previous occasions, but anyone with any intelligence could see quite clearly what disastrous losses this Prime Minister calls us and squandered capital assets over the period of his governance. I will not deny that the world recession as not had any effect on our economy and it would have been far less if George Brown and run our economy in a more sensible fashion. Having said that we are still hanging on by the skin of our teeth to our triple AAA rating under the Standards and Poor credit agency this compared with the reducing credit rating in Greece and Spain which makes it much more expensive for them to borrow money in order to service their debts. As long as we can retain our triple-A rating we can borrow cheaply on the world market and have a chance of working our way through the heavy burden of debt left to us by the socialist government.
On the home front I had a visit from an old friend and arbitration colleague, John Power, representing, on this occasion the Law Court Branch of the Arbitration Club. They have accumulated a handsome fund over the past 20 years and John was charged with the task of sounding me out as what they should do with it. There was a hint that they would like to establish something in my memory, and kind though it is, I would rather they had not asked me. However, they did, so I then the approached the problem from the point of view of wishing to commemorate someone in the club who was perhaps a founding member and who has played an important part in its growth. I suggested that first of all they could quietly sound out the other clubs, including The Mother Club, as to whether there was a general feeling that they should join their surplus funds together, or go it alone. Most, if not all of the branches have spare funds so that a larger joint fund would put the club in a position to spend a larger amount annually on whatever cause it was decided to support. Alternatively, even asking the other clubs they would still have the option of going it alone. I suggested that they could consider something on the lines of an annual bursary, say, limited to a specific figure to help students who would be promoting knowledge of arbitration and mediation
In addition, they could consider something, I started myself at the China University of Political Law and Science (CUPL) where I have taught for 10 years and my tenure as a Professor runs until the end of 2013. The students at this largest law school in the world come from every corner of China and some of them are incredibly poor. In order to get to the University they have sat and past a national competition finishing near the top .
What I did was to to pay the modest fee for my course for some 10 students, leaving it to the University to offer this bursary to 10 of the poorest students. We could continue this as a formal offer annually. These students are are only required to pay a very modest fee. I believe last time I went it was the equivalent of around £35 per student so no big deal from our end. But even doing that we would still need a larger project to support annually stop Beyond that I really didn’t want to have anything to do with it, particularly, as it was implicit that any fund they set up might be in my name, as founder President.
The news on the manufacturing front was the announcement yesterday that a Chinese conglomerate had bought a controlling interest in Lotus UK. This iconic car has been successfully manufactured in the UK,. I think since the 20’s, but somehow has lost its market share and for one reason or another needed a large injection in cash which the current proprietors simply do not have. I suppose if the jobs remain in the UK we cannot complain if the profits go elsewhere, although I would have liked to have seen the government stepping in and offering some sort of bridging loan to keep the whole business British.
It is clear to me that the Chinese are going to infiltrate many of our iconic companies over the next decade or so but, as I say, provided the jobs stay here and they invest in this country then we cannot, or should not, complain. I suggested to my daughter, some time ago, that she considers getting special lessons for the three grandchildren to learn Mandarin. This would give them a flying start against the competition for jobs in the future. If you start early enough children seem to learn far more quickly than they would if they were older.
Click here to see an amusing sign in a shop somewhere, but certainly not in China purporting to making the learning of Chinese a little easier!
3 May 2012
It is just over two weeks now before the first have my visits to Lord’s for the Test Match. I really wonder how well I will cope and whether or not I manage to last from the 8.30 departure with Ollie-my Friendly Wheelchair Service-until I arrived back here around 7.00 p.m. I recall, about this time last year wondering whether I would manage my Lord’s trips and as it turned out I managed very well and did not get too exhausted. Well here we are a year later with the same burning question. The only problem being that I am noticeably weaker than I was last year and simply do not have the stamina that I had before. Last year I managed to go on three consecutive days but this year I shall certainly try to have a day between. I have limited my guests from the usual 14, to half a dozen or so. They will understand my situation. So if I am not up to appearing one particular day, I know they will understand. Having said that , if the weather is fine and reasonably warm and I’m feeling up to it. I shall certainly try. As I said last year, this will almost certainly be my swansong.
At last confirmation of the result of the ballot for the Wheelchair Enclosure tickets arrived from Lord’s.
They are certainly are cutting it very fine with the first test match starting in just over two weeks. In fact, it wasn’t even the tickets but merely an e-mail telling me what I will be receiving as a result of the ballot, in due course.
It was only my persistence in telephoning the office that I received an e-mail from them telling me what allocation had been made to me. Considering I wrote a letter to the assistant secretary about my 78th birthday and asking if they could please and least ensure I got a couple of juvenile tickets on that day, I was very disappointed with the result of the ballot. Out of 15 tickets applied for I only received 4 and none of those were for juveniles. I was very keen to introduce my two grandsons to Lord’s on 18th of August, my 78th birthday, as this seemed an appropriate occasion but unfortunately they will be on holiday in Wales at the time and the logistics of coming down to London and back to Wales would just be too complicated and would have messed up their holiday. It’s a great pity really, as this may well be my last chance to introduce them to the club and it to international cricket.
Unfortunately the new laptop started playing up today. After several attempts I managed to get it to boot up after 5 min 10 seconds then it took another 3 min to complete the process. Then a pop-up box appeared about some problem or other and offered to repair it, which I OK’d. It cleverly completed this process and then behaved reasonably normally. This is the last thing I need is for this third laptop to go wrong army as we had just seem to have got it right. The one thing I must learn to do is to’ print the screen. There is a Print Scn on the top right hand which I know you can press to record any pop-up boxes but just where you go from there are not sure. Obviously if you can produce a message explaining the problem and possibly the solution, this is very useful to anyone helping you to resolve it.
All these wonderful voice activation programmes that Paul and I have been working out together will be useless if my voice deteriorates a lot more. The problem is having lost most of the muscular support to my diaphragm I cannot project my voice as I did previously and it now pipes and wheezes like an old man and is getting worse, week by week. The user profile in Dragon sometimes simply does not not understand what I am saying. I’m already having to accept more errors than I did previously. Couple that with the day when my arms give out – which I suspect will not be too long as they are very noticeably weaker – I will then not be able to use my one splinted finger, to get me out of trouble. Maybe the eye camera in combination with Dragon will then come into its own.
Having recently bought my Will up-to-date I thought my readers might be amused by this. Click here.
2 May 2012
It is just over two weeks now before the first have my visits to Lord’s for the Test Match. I really wonder how well I would cope and whether or not I managed to last from the 8.30 departure with Ollie-my Friendly Wheelchair Service-until I arrived back here around 7.00 p.m. I recall, about this time last year wondering whether I would manage my Lord’s trips and as it turned out I managed very well and did not get too exhausted. Well here we are a year later with the same burning question. The only problem being that I am noticeably weaker than I was last year and simply do not have the stamina that I had before. Last year I managed to go on three consecutive days but this year I shall certainly try to have a day between. I have limited my guests from the usual 14, to half a dozen or so. They will understand my situation. So if I am not up to appearing one in particular day, I know they will understand. Having said that , if the weather is fine and reasonably warm and I’m feeling up to it. I shall certainly try. As I said last year, this will almost certainly be my swansong.
At last my Wheelchair Enclosure tickets arrived from Lord’s. There certainly are cutting it very fine with the first test match starting in just over two weeks. In fact, it wasn’t even the tickets but merely an e-mail telling me what I will be receiving as a result of the ballot.
It was only my persistence in telephoning the office that I received an e-mail from them telling me what allocation had been made to me. Considering I wrote a letter to the assistant secretary about my 78th birthday and asking if they could please and least ensure I got a couple of juvenile tickets on that day I was very disappointed with the result of the ballot. Out of 15 tickets applied for I only received 4 and none of those were for juveniles. I was very keen to introduce my two grandsons to Lord’s on 18th of August, my 78th birthday, as this seemed an appropriate occasion but unfortunately they will be on holiday in Wales at the time and The logistics of coming down to London and back were just too complicated and would have messed up their holiday. It’s a great pity really, as this may well be my last chance to introduce some to the club and it to international cricket
All these wonderful voice activation programmes that Paul and I have been working out together will be useless if my voice deteriorates a lot more. The problem is having lost most of the muscular support to my diaphragm I cannot project my voice as I did previously and it now pipes and wheezes like an old man and is getting worse, week by week. The user profile in Dragon simply not understand what I am saying. I’m already having to accept more errors than I did previously. Couple that with the day when my arms give out – which I suspect will not be too long as they are very noticeably weaker – I will then not be able to use my one splinted finger, to get me out of trouble. Maybe the eye camera will then come into its own.
Talking of cricket I received the following e-mail the other day and was surprised to see that it was copies to Sir Geoffrey Boycott. ( all that may have been a spoof . In any event, I’m sure that he would not be amused at anything which and loons to Yorkshire man being a bit mean ) . Anyway, those cricketing fans amongst my readers click here and you’ll see what I mean.
.
1 May 2012
Labour Day is an annual holiday to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers. It originated in America in a nationwide economic depression of 1893. This depression meant take-home pay cheques plummeted. Workers walked out demanding lower rents and higher pay. Rioting, pillaging and burning of railway cars soon ensued. Although it started with the Pullman railway company the strike became a national issue and President Grover Cleveland deployed 12,000 troops to break it.
The strike was declared over on August 3, 1894, following which, in an attempt to appease the nations workers, Labour Day was born. This was replaced in the UK, in 1978, with a May bank holiday, traditionally known as May Day. In the villages around where I live we still have traditional Morris dancers and in some towns, dancing round the Maypole or a parade led by a May Queen selected by the local dignitaries.
As it is this year any such traditional country pursuits will be dampened by the heavy rain which we are currently experiencing. Up to yesterday April was driest been since records began and then the heavens open and areas of the country got more than twice as much as their normal April rainfall in one day, causing extensive flooding.
To me, being a Tuesday, it was another disappointment. There was no way I could go to the golf club and ride around in my electric wheelchair. I will almost certainly got wet and cold. Not recommended. I must say I’m getting very disillusioned. I have only been to the golf club to or perhaps three times since last October and I really had hoped that the weather would have been sufficiently dry and warm by now. Let us hope next week is better.
We have all been victims of bureaucracy from time to time but this exchange with the local gas company over a £0.00 bill, takes the biscuit. I am assured that this is a true record what happened. I can certainly believe it as we have gas connected to the house for the sole purpose of running the gas fire in my office. I informed the gas company, some years ago that I needed a new valve and until such time as this was fixed. I would not be using in a gas. Nevertheless, this will not prevent them from sending someone to read my meter every three months and then send me a bill showing a £5 credit. Anyway, click here to follow the saga of the £0.00 cheque.
30 April 2012
After Miles and Kimberly left yesterday I finished reading Claire Tomlin’s Charles Dickens: a Life, which I have enjoyed very much indeed. It threw a completely new light on this author who I have enjoyed immensely since doing a paper round, in my early teens, in order to purchase a complete set of his works from a local junk shop. Dickens was a restless soul almost to the point of being manic. If he wasn’t writing a monthly episode of his current book – all, or almost all, of his books were written like that and I think as a result he made considerably more money than he would have done had he sold them initially in a completed bound copy. They sold in staggering numbers anything up to 100,000 copies in the first week.
In between his writing he got involved in a great number of good works, particularly with Miss Coutts (of the family bankers fame) starting homes for fallen women; setting up appeals for the widow of friends or just for friends who fall on hard times: taking on the editorship of various papers, magazines and in between these activities giving a great number of readings from his books, both in this country and America, which were immensely popular. He was constantly falling out with his publishers over money and changed them several times. He enjoyed a fine reputation and was constantly being invited to dinners and celebrations of one sort or another. Even Queen Victoria expressed a desire to meet him to which he had acceded but not with a great deal of enthusiasm.
When the Queen said how very much she would like to hear one of his famous hearings. Dickens answered dryly that he did not give private readings and that was that.
He was much loved by a few friends and the public generally but was not a particularly good parent or friend, his own brother, Fred’s scrounging and fecklessness became intolerable to Dickens and he was cast aside and died penniless and alone. He was an enigmatic character. His own daughter Katie said of him’ I know things about my father’s character that no one else ever knew; he was not a good man, but he was not a fast man, but he was wonderful!’ She said, her buts acknowledged the difficulty of making a definitive moral judgement on him. He did not want any special Memorial and in his Will said’ I rest my claims to the remembrance of my country upon my published works and to the remembrance of my friends upon their experience of me’. He was, however, ultimately buried in Westminster Abbey in an unadorned gravestone with the simple word Dickens on it A fascinating book which I would recommend any Dickens lover to read.
Then I watched an episode of Twenty Twelve, a spoof, on the lines of Yes Minister, covering the run-up to the Olympic Games. Then the six o’clock carer came in to prepare me for bed after which I had my supper and watched something else on television for an hour or so before being hoisted and wheeled into the bedroom. That’s the only drawback in going to bed at 8.30 we really don’t have much of an evening together. So we are hoping that Ross Nursing will be able to change this to 9.00, which will mean we can at least see the end of whatever we are watching on the television.
This routine in my life seems to make the days speed by. My first carers coming at 7. 30 to shower and dress me (I will already have had my breakfast and had a shave). I am then wheeled through and wired up in my study where I spend most of the morning writing this blog and dealing with e-mails and other business. Then the midday carer comes to put me on the commode and deal with any other needs. When the carer’s gone, I encourage’ my lovely’ to sit down for half an hour or so and watch Judge Judy. She invariably falls asleep which is a good thing, bearing in mind her broken nights. After that is time for tea and how quickly time passes before the six o’clock carer comes in to prepare me for bed. Then supper, followed by a very short evening’ s television before I am wheeled through at 8.30 for bed
A typical day in the life of……
Going back to Dickens and his expressed wishes in his Will, the following Living Will may amuse you. Click here to see it.
29 April 2012
Smiler and Kimberly came down today for a sort of belated birthday lunch for Smiler and to collect his presents. We decided to have lunch in the study rather than be dragging through into the breakfast room as Miles and Kimberly had a plan to visit an old friend after lunch, who lived locally. Anyway, like everyone else. they only stayed for 2 ½. hours or so, as they realise much longer than that I get rather fatigued.
They told us about their latest trip out with one of our grandson, Fred. Because of the difference in age and therefore interest. they now tend to take each of the three grandchildren out on their own to something that they hope will be of particular interest to them. This seems to work very well as on their own they tend to behave well, whereas when both boys are together, they seem to squabble.
For Fred’s outing this time they decided to take into a Spring Concert arranged by a charity called Young Virtuosi. It is, as the name suggests, an organisation which concentrates on young people who are musically talented. This charity is ‘dedicated to developing and inspiring young musicians, an age group needing special encouragement and support through the challenging transition to professional artist. Through a series of concerts, recitals and master classes, Young Virtuosi, is providing important stepping stones for young artists in their quest to achieve their aspirations and potential. (To learn more about this charity, visit www.Young Virtuosi.com) . I am glad to say that, apparently, Fred really enjoyed it. This outing was particularly well timed as the BBC have just finished broadcasting the Young Musician of the Year competition where children not much older than 13 ½. year old Fred, competed for this internationally acknowledged title and in doing so provided us with some magnificent performances which we both enjoyed enormously.
It is such a good idea to introduce young people to classical music at a fairly early stage and I’m glad to say that Fred appeared to have enjoyed himself whereas up to now he has probably only listened to pop music. The programme he heard comprised piano solos – Bach and Hadyn -then a clarinet quintet by Mozart, concluding with violin and piano pieces from Correlli,, Beethoven and Sarasate. Short pieces which gave the young virtuosi a chance to show their peers what they were capable of and hopefully to inspire them to follow on with an interest in classical music whilst still enjoying the pop music
I remember so well my own road own, Road to Damascus introduction to classical music, when as a young man I heard Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade for the first time. I was blown away by The Sea and Sinbad the sailor. I remember being immensely moved by this piece of music. Tf you closed your eyes and just listened to the music you could easily envisage huge waves crashing against the rocks on the seashore. Today, 65 years later, I still find this piece of music inspiring. What a clever thing for Fred’s aunt and uncle to take him to, I just hope it bears fruit.
I think this is an appropriate place to leave you with today’s diversion entitled, The Little Things in Life. It is a bit American and sentimental but nevertheless it is very sincere and true. One of my little things in life have been my classical music so here’s hoping Fred and other young people will add it to their list. Click here to see if you agree with the sentiment expressed.
Returning to the mundane, I e-mailed the people from whom I bought the heel protectors, pointing out that they were far too small. They referred me to the description on their website which did not immediately draw your attention to the size but if you clicked on ‘description’ it was there sure enough. S e-mailed my apology and received a very nice note back to the effect that we all make mistakes and if I send them back may will make me a full refund including postage. So they will go off on Monday and then I have my eye on another pair. As the temporary ones that’ my lovely’ made from the donkey’s fetlock padding worked extremely well last night with no discomfort whatsoever. so I can afford to wait a day or two to order some from a different source. There was plenty of choice in eBay.
28 April 2012]
Another really painful night. I’m sad to say that they sheepskin heel protectors that which I had got excited turned out to be far too small so we will have to change them for larger sizes, if they make them any bigger. I was okay, as I usually am, for the first part of the night until about one o’clock and then gradually things started to get more painful until in the end it was heels, knees, thigh muscles, groin and hips in both legs and also both shoulders, all going at the same time. If it wasn’t for ‘my lovely’ coming in turning me regularly. I think I would have been screaming by the morning. Having said that I had taken the matter in hand and written direct to the pain consultant at Addenbrookes, – copied to those who need to know – admittedly the MND team correctly noted the amount of pain. I was having and made a number of suggestions, including the pain patches, the Difenac -for inflammation – etc but we are still not winning. I think the team are going to have to take some drastic action. I have also decided that I will not mention this pain again until we have sorted out. It is just too boring to start off every day is entry by moaning about the pain. When I have a solution, I will say so, which may help other patients with the same problem, which is the only reason why I have constantly included this in some detail in this blog. Otherwise you can take it as read that I am on the case.
Readers may recall that I was having trouble with a sebaceous cyst which the doctor came and attended to, but subsequently referred me to a local hospital to go to have it cut out. In the meantime, it seems to have subsided and virtually disappeared, so after consultation with my GP I have cancelled this visit to the hospital.
Over the past few years we have sat in the comfort of our home watching tsunamis, tornadoes etc. devastating thousands of homes throughout the world. Whilst being immensely sympathetic. I suppose we have rather smugly thought at least we do not have to put up with that sort of thing in England. Well, I’ve got news for you!. There was a tornado in Halstead, a village just a few miles away, which completely wrecked a few farm buildings. I know this is not anything like as bad as those we have witnessed overseas but it just shows you that you cannot afford to be smug too about anything.
‘ Paul the computer’ came for three hours this afternoon – whilst’ my lovely’ went to one of her beloved antique fairs – and continued to test and experiment with the settings for the camera mouse. He is coming again possibly on Monday when we will start exploring the interface between Dragon and this camera mouse. There are certain specific commands, one can give concerning the mouse. For example, move mouse right, faster, slower, up and down and having got to where you want click the icon ,or whatever it was you will try to deal with. At present, if one is having difficulty in isolating a particular word or icon you can you would use a mouse grid , which comprises nine rectangles which covers the whole of the desktop. You merely say the number of the rectangle in which the icon or word you are trying to deal with, appears and then a new grid will appear again of rectangles which will include the same icon or word and you can do their as many times as you like until you can get down to say a single letter.
This is a pretty slow laborious process and one which will be significantly improved using the camera mouse. My idea is to get myself to a point where I don’t have to touch the computer at all in order to cover my daily needs. Incidentally the camera mouse is was not expensive. I think less than £4
Click here for some Puns for Intelligent People , which I’m sure covers most of my readers!
27 April 2012
My dear boy, Smiler’s birthday. We spoke on the phone and I shall see him at the weekend. I forget what he and Kimberly were going to do to celebrate but when he told me that all sounded very interesting.
As result of the uncomfortable night that I had spent with my painful heels,’ my lovely’ used her usual ingenuity and made some heel protectors from some material she used to use on the donkey’s fetlocks!. These were pretty good as only one heel started to be painful an hour or so before I got up. Amazingly, the sheepskin heel protectors that I ordered yesterday afternoon, on eBay, arrived first post this morning. So I shall give them a run and hope they are as good as they claim
Yesterday afternoon a huge bouquet of flowers arrived . We had no inkling of what celebration or anniversary it was, or why they had been sent to us, and then read the card, which was from a university friend of Chloe’s who she had just been to stay with, who sent be flowers out of the kindness of her heart. What lovely girl and how very generous of her. I suppose dear Chloe had mentioned we were having a reasonably rough time and that dear girl, Rhian had decided that a bunch of flowers would cheer us up. Truly, an act of human kindness.
On the economic front, the news is not good it was announced a couple of days ago that UK Ltd is now officially in recession. It had a negative growth of 0.2% of GDP for this last quarter, compared with a positive 0.1% in the previous quarter. This, then according to the pundits, is known as a double dip recession. To me it means we’re bumbling along the bottom and hopefully will bounce back in this current quarter. We have to face it, most of Europe, with the exception of Germany, and the USA are having a real struggle to grow their way out of threatening recession. We have all had too good for too long and now the chips are down and we have to pay the cost. For how long is anybody’s guess, but I would say that we are certainly in for a rough ride for at least two or three years, if not longer.
‘ Paul the computer’ came for three hours as afternoon and we continue to work on the camera eye project, basically testing and adjusting the settings. We are nearly there and when we believe we have got it right. I shall try to spend a whole day, dealing with my blog , e-mails etc, trying not touching the computer and will report back as I am sure that such a facility would be very useful for other patients.
For another piece of ingenuity I thought you might be interested in these European shopping bags. Click here to see them.