Entertainment Stasis

The Mem Sahib has been watching 'Mansfield Park' - a Bronte video.
I've been watching it too. Well, lets just say I shared a sofa and some oxygen with the Mem!

How do ladies get so much out of that stuff?
I knew from the first 30 seconds 'whodunnit'!

Payback will be 'Gone in 60 seconds' or 'Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey'.

It's a good job I love her and she loves me.

I think it's time for my lie down now........


















something bizarre on the beach at Burghead!

Just an attempt at art as I close this particular posting.

...now where's my Art House Copy of Sense and Sensibility?

I'm not tyred anymore.

I often read blogs which rant and others which relate incidents which have been deeply moving or challenging or stimulating or vomit inducing or whatever....there's such a diversity in BloggyLand.
On this post I want to share a liberating experience I had this week.
It's not the one where the Mem Sahib saw and fell in love with an Aston Martin VantageV8.That was a lovely moment as my smashing wiffle told her petrolhead hubby how she was really impressed with the car for all the right reasons ie. style, road presence, engine note.



No! What I want to tell you about is how easily I bought two tyres for my Audi Avant this week.
Think about how most of us carry out this simple task.
We recognise that the balding wellies on the car are not only dangerous but illegal and it's time we did something about it. So you phone all your local tyre dealers with the size and speed rating and they quote you for the brands in stock, their special offers and/or the brands they want you to buy. It's never the same brands but eventually you get an overlap and two outlets quote you for the same tyre. Then you find out when the job can be done, drive down there, sit for a while [ never less than thirty minutes ] or go and do anything you can for the waiting time. But basically you're locked into their routine.

Well this week the Mem Sahib had spotted one of those glossy flyers in the weekly free newspaper...and it was advertising a service by a company called e-tyres.
So I did the usual, got my quote THEN I went on to the e-tyres site ( http://www.etyres.co.uk/ ) entered in the tyre size and speed rating, hit the return button, scrolled down to the tyre make I wanted, selected quantity, went through the 'pay cycle' and then two hours later took the phone call telling me that the tyres were in stock and ASKING ME when and where would I like them fitted! Since my day off is Friday and I'm building a rockery the answer was Friday morning at my home. And that is exactly what happened. On Friday morning, I got another phone call from e-tyres at 8.45 confirming the time of fitting and the rest is history. John turned up with a megaVan full of tyresome kit and did the job in thirty minutes while I continued with my life.
The bonus - I also saved about Thirty pounds on the cheapest quote I'd had.
Nice One e-tyres !

Look who's back.....

The HoneyMooners have returned.

They appear to have a great time in Kenya, despite the services [sic] of First Choice!
It appears that when you book with First Choice, if they experience a delay of any kind, they are not responsible for either assisting you with onward connections or even telling you that YOU need to safeguard your onward connection. They'll just dump you in the UK airport to which you return after a 17 hour delay and leave you to it! Missed your next flight? Not our problem they say. "It doesn't work like that!" **

By the way First Choice...earlier in 2006 when Iberia experienced delays in getting my entire family home from Seville, we were not only found fresh connecting flights, but also put up in a very nice hotel overnight with dinner and breakfast included.

First Choice! I don't think so...too irresponsible!
"It doesn't work like that!" **

Now all I need is to hear that my other son in law - John - has safely returned home from Angola where he is working on something I find incomprehensible and hydraulic!


John and Mim at Fran and Peter's wedding.




So there we are! For now anyway.

** Slogan used by the business losing banker on the current excellent Nationwide advert!

So it goes round .....

I remember when I was a self employed pharmacist.
I worked very hard at being amenable to the public, professional to the medics, astute with company representatives and generally ultra savvy with my peers.
They were great days: when routine blended with knowledge, training and competence expressed itself in a kind of self gratifying, arrogant smugness.
Of course, no-one was shown this face - one had to be 'all things to all men', although I don't suppose everyone was fooled by the faux humility of the day.

When I wanted time off I would have to employ a locum pharmacist who would mind the store whilst my family and I enjoyed the fruits of my labours. Sometimes these locums would be late middle aged, semi retired pharmacists who filled in here and there to help out. Grateful though I was, I never felt they could really cut the mustard any more, as evidenced by the notes they left behind warning me of dissatisfied customers, missed opportunities, unavailable stock lines - all of which I rectified within two coffee breaks of my return.

I'm now a semi-retired pharmacist, occasionally filling in so that some young buck can clear off and enjoy themself at resort or conference, leaving yours truly to mind the store.
I now leave notes and unfinished jobs in my wake, secure in the knowledge that when the proprietor returns, all will be sorted out within a couple of coffee breaks.

Funny old thing - life!

Healthy Living ? Moving to the Groove !

Today I've been working through some medication reviews, particularly looking at patients who are overweight, obese or even criminally obese!! Sorry the latter should read clinically. It amazes me that no matter how much support and encouragement some people get and no matter how critical their health status becomes, they won't take any action.
I know about the difficulties in inducing change and also stabilising those changes - I've had to make a few myself. But it still amazes me how little some people will do for themselves.

Heaven knows I'm one to talk.
I don't do 30 minutes moderate exercise on 5 days a week.
I don't walk 10,000 paces a day.
Both current examples of the minimum exercise requirements to maintain good health.

I am trying to lose 10kg of weight - this will significantly lower ALL my risks of having a serious cardio-vascular event within the next few decades.

What I need to do now is work out how I can work in a 'work out' into my workin' week!

I suppose it's all a question of self motivation... but I'm too happy with the things I'm doing with my time and too busy trying to eat the right things some of the rest of the time. The bits in between seem to be at the wrong time to do the right things with the rest of my time so that all of my time will become the kind of time that glows with health for much of my time remaining....
.... I think that's enough of that.

Anyway - I've had my bowl of muesli for lunch, cut my lunch break down to 15 minutes so that I can blog this in the last part before going back to my daily tasks of looking after OTHER people's health better than I do my own!

Doh!

The Wanderer Returns - Rejoicing!!

Hi!
I've been away from blogging but not from the blogosphere. I'd given up for a while due mainly to time pressures of studying for my pharmacy professional development programme - hard at my age - and the usual timetable of work, home, church and meetings. Not to mention holidays etc.
Those of you who visited with me will remember my fanaticism for my family, especially when my elder daughter was married back in Feb 2005. Well, now my younger daughter Frances has just married so once the dust has settled on the empty nest, I'll be posting all sorts of blogualities and trivia. I'll have to learn all over again how to embed some links so that you too can visit some of my fave blogs.
Anyway, here's a photo from Fran & Peter's wedding which took place on Saturday September 2nd at Duffus Church, followed by a reception at the Eight Acres Hotel, Elgin. The evening blended into a full scale Scottish Ceilidh with the blogtastic band "ARoara".
I'm going to try and upload more pix when I've
a) learned how to place them where I want them and
b) refined them a bit by taking out red-eye, unwanted background distractions and mutants.

So, that's me back in BloggyLand.
Hope to catch you soon.

Yz
Dave