It's been a very up and down week.
I'd been prescribed some tablets to try an alternative way of resolving an onging issue. The tablets made a small positive difference, but made me feel queasy most of the time. I persevered for just over a week, then tried 2 days without, and this morning I took one. I feel nauseaous. I'll take tonights tablet as well, and see what the overnight is like.
I've been unable to get through to the appropriate hospital team to chase up my results. I'll try again tomorrow, I'd like some particular information before I make another GP telephone appointment.
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Washing the plastic trays by hand was tedious, tomatoes do stain. I looked to see if I could buy steel shelves for my model, and found I could. The price on the US website was eyewatering, and that was without delivery and VAT. No one in this country supplies them, and I got nowhere with the European distributor.
On impulse, I looked to see if I could find anything secondhand, maybe someone would be selling a "parts only" version. I did manage to find a slightly differnet dehydrator by the same manufacturer, with metal trays. It was about the same price as importing a complete set of metal trays, but I thought I'd just sell my beloved dehydrator and that would offset the cost.
The new one is a bit smaller, so that's a bonus.
I also bit the bullet and replaced my 8 year old laptop. We've repaired it a couple of times, but its now become impossible to get the necessary parts, so I decided it was time.
Part of the process was much easier than last time. But moving some of the software has been painful. Firstly, the software to support some of my peripheral devices is no longer available. That's frustrating. It's not as if I'm changing operating systems!
Secondly, I've got a few old programs, and the suppliers will not supply the source. Oh, they'e very kindly offered my a reduction on an upgrade, but I don't see why I should pay any more than I already have. It's OK when its just £30 for one thing, but I have several, and it mounts up.
Luckily, there are only a few - but these few have taken more time than the other 80% took to install and move data.
Finally the new laptop has a high resolution, and some of the programs don't display well. Even Windows can't cope. It's "Extra Large Icons" option is just rubbish, they are no bigger than the "Large Icons". I've decided that now is the time to give up my Office 2007, and move to the online version. I have to do it at some point, so it might as well be now. It's mildly irritating that layout isn't customisable enough: the proportion of screen that is taken up with icons is ridiculous.
I'll get used to it, I know. I know there's always a bit of adjustment when switching, and I don't mind that. I do get frustrated with poor design, though.
Our final expenditure was a new sheepskin rug. A loooong time ago I had a quad sheepskin rug in purple from Celtic Woollens. We had to replace it when out previous ancient cat, Maddie, had an accident on it. It's impossible to wash cat pee out of a sheepskin rug, so we binned it and I bought a replacement triple sheepskin rug in dark brown.
That rug has become very matted over the years, and each year I think "I'll buy a new one in the Spring". I ordered one a couple of weeks ago, same place (now renamed), and it arrived very quickly.
It's rubbish.
Well, it's not rubbish, it's just a pale imitation of the previous rug. It's still a triple, but its smaller, thinner and more cheaply made. The unmatted wool fibre is lovely, but it's just so.....thin. I haven't had the energy to write to the supplier to ask why the change, I know its going to be cost driven.
When I looked at alternative supplier, they were all the same sort of thing. I couldn't find anyone selling the sort of rug that I wanted.
The old, matted, one is now on the cats' sofa, and the cats seem to love it there.
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DH did a lot of clearing up in the garden, removed a lot of various bits of netting and stuff. It looks lovely out there. He did loads of srimming and mowing. Unfortunately, a stone got flicked up by the strimmer and smashed one of the huge panes of glass in the greenhouse.
He's also been busy turning apples into cider, and putting the "pear wine" into wine boxes. He used two different recipes for the pear wine, and one involved the pears soaking for some time. This pic shows a bit of wine from each of the 2 recipes, the colour difference is amazing!
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We managed to do a couple of reasonably long walks last week, but no Pilates. We had intended to try and walk every day, but it's not been practical. I'll try harder next week.
We also managed to go out somewhere for the evening. We went to see Bedknobs and Broomsticks at the theatre. Of course I saw the film as a child; I couldn't remember much about the story, the only thing I could picture was Angela Lansbury and David Thomlinson and the children on the bed as it flew somewhere (and I could remember "Bobbing Along" after my SIL mentioned it on the way there).
The show was amazing! The effects were so well done, and it made me want to watch the film again. I didn't recognise any of the songs, apart from "Portobello Road", which I know well but had not realised it was from this show. It was a lovely evening, and I wish we'd taken Miss Teen.
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We watched Thor: Ragnarok on DVD. I wanted to watch the end of 84 Charing Cross Road. I had recorded it when it was broadcast a while ago, but it was one of those broadcasts which is split in the middle, and the stupid automatic recorder didn't record the second part. I didn't realise until it finished abruptly when I was watching it.
It searched but it wasn't being broadcast again. I could do an online rental for an extortionate £3.49, and iit was cheaper to buy a used DVD. It was even cheaper (relatively speaking) if I bought 5 DVDs for £8, so I bought Thor Ragnarok as one of the other 4 films.
I have to say that Ragnarok is now my favourite film in the Avengers canon. We haven't watched them all, and we've definitely missed at least one film in the timeline before this. Ragnarok had me chuckling like a drain. Matt Damon and Sam Neill's uncredited appearances; the witty - funny - dialogue (like when Thor says he knows Hulk "from work); so many things. It's still making me chuckle this morning.
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I've been trying to summon the energy to do something creative. Failed.
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Right, that's enough self indulgence. I'm going to summon the little energy I have and do some domestics. The kitchen table is groaning under stuff, once one thing is dumped there it seems to attract other things, unti its just heaped with stuff.
I need it cleared so that I can cut some fabric when the mood strikes.
