| lesley153
|
Yes, I know the drill - the words, at least - but no, you didn't. It screeched to a halt because nobody has posted in it for a while. If anyone thought you were being pedantic, even though you said you were, I'd be very surprised. Relax! :)
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I've had a good few days, none of which I've reported about, because I've actually been Doing Stuff!
Jonathan found £15 in the cupboard under the stairs. I have no idea how it got there, when or why.
My GP said there was no reason why I couldn't start driving again - start with small journeys and work up. (Which is what I was planning to do.) Good news, and I shall indeed start as soon as I have the money to get the car back on the road.
Jonathan discovered that I had a bank "savings" account containing enough money to pay off my current account overdraft. I had been convinced that it was empty. He got the car insured online, and I hopped in it and drove us round the shops of Bedford. Felt good.
I've also been carrying on the good work he and his girlfriend started, although without their energy, and I've gone through a lot of bags and boxes of old papers and newspapers, and put them out for recycling.
They were here today, and decided that they miss having a sofa, since Jonathan chopped up the old one, and would clear the junk of ages off the one in the hall upstairs.
While they were doing that, Jonathan found an envelope containing an application for 2007 membership of the Bedford Music Club, and £45.
And I've started cooking again, some easy dishes and some quite labour-intensive meals, but proper food. Gone, thank goodness, are the days when I lived off wholemeal pittas, heated and buttered and filled with cheese I'd bought sliced, because they were the fastest things I could make to eat. Nothing wrong with having that occasionally, but not twice a day for months...
Next project is a Cranks carrot cake. I haven't made that for years. I may even make bread again! |
Reply #1441. Sep 12 10, 3:35 PM
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| Lochalsh
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Wow, what a treasure trove: 60 pounds! Since it wasn't money you'd accounted for in your budget, it's free and you can spend it however you wish! Have a good lunch with a close friend, or buy some music, live or otherwise!
Do you like my rationale for spending "treat" money? :)
I figured you were out getting your old life back, and I say hooray, hurrah, and huzza-huzza!
Reply #1442. Sep 12 10, 3:43 PM
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| lesley153
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Thank you - that's what I've been saying too! :) I hadn't thought what to do with it. I've been stuck at wondering how I could have failed to spot £15 in a cupboard, or completely forgotten about £45 that I had ready for a music club season ticket. While I was in hospital, they piled up all the loose change they found - it came to about £8!
A good lunch out with good company is a lovely idea - thank you. :) |
Reply #1443. Sep 12 10, 4:22 PM
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| lesley153
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Oh dear - Jonathan's last words just before he fell into bed in an exhausted heap were that £20 notes with Elgar on are no longer legal tender. What a nuisance! Apparently they haven't been legal tender since June, and they haven't got the same anti-forgery thingies on as their successors.
But I should be able to swap them at a bank. If the local banks won't take them, the Bank of England will. They'll want chapter and verse, proof of identity and address, and perhaps more if there is more than £1,000 which, they say, suggests laundering. I can't imagine having any trouble with my tiddly £40. |
Reply #1444. Sep 12 10, 5:41 PM
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| Professer
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wow Lesley you seem to be going forward i leaps and bounds so pleased for you.
Reply #1445. Sep 13 10, 9:58 AM
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| lesley153
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Thanks, Gary - I am delighted. Except I'm stiff from overdoing it, but doesn't that always happen when we're on the mend?
The celebratory lunch will be with sprog and gf. If anyone deserves a treat, they do. Oh, and me, of course! :p |
Reply #1446. Sep 13 10, 10:08 AM
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| veronikkamarrz
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Very profitable week, huh? Extra money, spiffy digs, is there no end to the wonder? I hope not!:)
Reply #1447. Sep 13 10, 10:12 AM
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| Lochalsh
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I love the word 'spiffy' and vow this moment to use it more.
:)
Reply #1448. Sep 13 10, 1:39 PM
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| lesley153
|
It's been a good week or so - loads more space in the house, no increase in income, but a most gratifying reduction in outgoings, which means I won't need to worry where the next cheese sandwich is coming from till Jonathan finishes his degree and gets a job. A proper job, that is, with real pay and all that, not the latest slave labour con known as internships.
Ooh a new word! The nearest I've heard is "spiffing," which is very Billy Bunter - I say, you chaps!
**adds "spiffy" to vocabulary** |
Reply #1449. Sep 13 10, 2:30 PM
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| Lochalsh
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Cheese sandwiches are your staple? Oh, my. Take the 60 pounds you "earned" the other day and go to lunch quickly!
Remember this: your digs are spiffy, and you're fetching.... :)
Fetching: another word I like!
Okay, someone, fetch me a grape and peel it for me. (Is "peel me a grape" from some flick?)
Reply #1450. Sep 13 10, 3:26 PM
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| Lochalsh
|
Answering my own question, though Lesley would have come up with the answer: "Beulah, peel me a grape" is from the movie "I'm No Angel," a Mae West vehicle.
Lesley, do you ever wonder at what you know and where it came from?
Reply #1451. Sep 13 10, 3:29 PM
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| lesley153
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Not quite cheese sandwiches - but bought cheese slices in warmed, buttered wholemeal pittas sustained me when it was too much trouble to chop and onion, or peel a potato, and I couldn't wait for them to cook; or when I could fill the dishwasher, or empty it, but not on the same day.
You're a third right - I would have associated "peel me a grape" with Mae West, but not the character who said it, or the film she said it in. So thank you for filling that in!
What I know comes from many years of filling my head up with useless information. What other way is there? ;) |
Reply #1452. Sep 13 10, 5:34 PM
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| lesley153
|
I'm pleased I lost weight, but I have a little problem: my knickers have been loose, and now my trousers waistbands are starting to be loose too. I have a horrible feeling I shall have to buy some new clothes. Not looking forward to that at all. Why can't clothes last for ever?
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A couple of years ago, my ex-GP knee-jerked towards his prescription pad and put me on statins. Simvastatin, to be precise. I was not happy. I had read a lot of off-putting things about them, and nothing encouraging. Still, he only wanted me to take them for a month, so I guess I can survive that.
Next time I rang for a repeat prescription, I was told that I was supposed to take them permanently. Diabetes - heart disease risk - blah blah. I was meant to come back and see him after a month - not stop taking them.
Do I have to?
Yes. Unless you want a diabetic stroke or heart attack.
So I gave in, but continued not to be happy about taking them, or about everything I was reading about them. So I went back and told him that I had stopped taking them, because I had read so many scary things about them, not least that they came with a much higher risk or illness and death than the more expensive Atorvastatin.
He was not happy. He said the increased mortality risk with the first one was exaggerated, and the second one wasn't as much better as was being made out. Still, if I was adamant, he would prescribe me Atorvastatin. It was coming off patent soon, and then it would stop being more expensive. Yes, I was adamant.
What I didn't tell him was that I hadn't seen anything to convince me that cholesterol was evil. I'd seen statistics about, for instance, children in poor countries with rock-bottom cholesterol and sky-high death rates, or rapidly-reduced cholesterol increasing anxiety. That the cholesterol manufactured by our livers dwarfs the amounts we can eat, and I have never been able to understand why an essential fat has been so reviled and so feared. I'd also read that statins do little for men and nothing for women.
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Last April, when I was in hospital, and nobody knew why my skin was so irritated, the consultant took me off statins. He said "Take a break from them, and it'll be one less thing to irritate your system." With pleasure!
Better still, nobody's said go back on them, and I'm keeping quiet. I'm still off them, and my latest blood test showed that my cholesterol is down to aboout 2.5. Last year it was around 6 - 7 - 8. And the cardiac nurse last week was telling me that I can have a piece of hard cheese the size of a matchbox - once a WEEK! That's not enough for breakfast! Four or five eggs a week. I said that eggs contain enough lecithin to homogenise the cholesterol, but she didn't notice. She even started talking about replacing butter with margarine - sorry - spreads. I said I like butter, and don't know what's healthy about solvent-extracted oils with loads of additives. She said they're OK if they don't contain coconut or palm oils. I told her I can't stick the taste of palm oil. She didn't respond. (I don't like the taste of sunflower oil either.)
She also told me I'd be better off with rapeseed oil than olive oil, but I can't remember why. It's cheaper, and it's a better bet for carrot cakes, but that's about it. So I bought a plastic litre bottle of rapeseed oil. It has a shallow lid and a tear-off strip sealing it. The day after I opened it, I reached for it in the cupboard, which is about three inches off the ground, and missed, and it fell on the floor and burst. It was lying in a little puddle, with the lid nearby. I cleaned it up, used a bit of it and put it back.
The following day, I took it out and took the lid off. The lid flew out of my fingers and disappeared. I think the gods of olive oil are trying to tell me something. It's back in the cupboard, with a lid made from aluminium foil, looking very forlorn, and I don't care. I plan to make a carrot cake tomorrow. Today I bought half a litre of extra virgin olive oil in a glass bottle with a metal screw top.
And this evening I found another article about the great cholesterol con.
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-430682/Have-conned-cholesterol.html |
Reply #1453. Sep 15 10, 6:12 PM
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| veronikkamarrz
|
I've been on Lovistatin for about three years. My GP recently doubled my RX because he said my cholesterol was too high. I stopped the double dose two weeks ago, just because I had also stopped my insulin, and I'm doing well...I know, self medicating is not such a good idea, but the rash I've had for years (lower legs) is almost gone! Now, I'm not sure which med caused the rash, but I can live without it! The article was very informative, and gives me hope. Thanks, Lesley!
Reply #1454. Sep 15 10, 8:45 PM
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Jazmee27 
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I'm glad to hear you're doing so well.
Reply #1456. Sep 16 10, 8:00 AM
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| Professer
|
Intresting read there Lesley
Reply #1457. Sep 16 10, 8:52 AM
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Cymruambyth
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Leskey, glad to hear you're in the mend and up and about.
Do they still call it rapeseed oil in the UK? They changed the name to canola in Canada, which seriously p.o'd the folks who live in Tisdale, Saskatchewan. Tisdale sits in the middle of fields of canola (formerly rape) and is also known for honey production. The town referred to itself as "The Land of Rape and Honey", which loses its impact when it becomes "The Land of Canola and Honey".
I use canola oil for cooking, but salad dressings and spaghetti sauce are made with virgin olive oil (how can one tell if an olive is a virgin?)
Reply #1458. Sep 17 10, 12:34 AM
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Cymruambyth
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Leskey? Who the heck is Leskey? Sounds like a hockey player. I meant Lesley, of course.
Reply #1459. Sep 17 10, 12:35 AM
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| Professer
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Looks like you had a senior moment there Cymruambyth lol :)
Hope your well lesley nees to get see Doc myself exp[lain later.
Reply #1460. Sep 17 10, 5:52 AM
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