Living in the UK again

I am just typing in a quick post while waiting for the pink liquid to dry, that I bathe my leg in after stripping it of last weeks dressings. It’s not too hard to fit the new ones and it saves the nurses time, to look after someone more needy. Yesterday was a bit of a literal washout, so apart from a brief moment to put some green rubbish in our recycle bin for such material I did not get out. I did do lots of other things, so there wasn’t a dull moment. I finished the latest jigsaw, it had a bit too much blue in it for my liking, but it’s done now. Monday, I started the process of making the Xmas cake, a three day soaking of the dried fruit in brandy has begun. Thursday all the other cake ingredients are added and then it’s baked. I also read the memoirs of the lady who lives at the bottom of our garden, so to speak. It was about her early childhood and evacuation during the war. It was very interesting. I met a guy I now know in the Cosy Nook today, he is younger than this lady, but ...

I have been doing some more cooking, and more is planned also. The desserts I am making for us, are also going to neighbours and the people I go and visit in my nearby area. Very often these people are on their own and don’t want to go to the effort of making a dessert for one person. So it’s nice to bring along a surprise for them. This time a treacle tart, which as a surprise for me, the filling uses breadcrumbs! Unfortunately the pastry case was a bit burnt after the filled tart was cooked, but it wasted quite nice. The filling has lemon juice in it, that takes the edge of the sugariness of the other ingredients.  I introduced my lodger to the  Come Dine With Me  series, which he enjoyed. It was based in Liverpool and one of the contestants was very eccentric, wearing a wide range of attires, much to my lodgers amusement. There are loads of episodes and I am sure we will be watching more over the next few weeks. He has looked at the car, we have seen he will have to be...

 I made an Apple tart last night. Which turned out quite interesting as we watched this weeks GBBO and they made one, but theirs had franzipan, which was one step too far for me. It worked out quite well, my pastry was a bit thick, but tasted ok and wasn’t soggy. I am taking some to my neighbours later on, and to the lady with the black and chrome mobility scooter when I see her later. My lodger is working today, but was picked up about seven forty five, a decent time. I went to see a lady who lives nearby yesterday afternoon, I know her daughter, I fixed this ladies mobile phone, for some reason it forgot it had a sim in it. So that was my good deed for the day. I will try and do a few more of these shorter blogs, instead of the mammoth ones. 

 It’s been a while, since I posted, so a quick update. My lodger has had a few days off, which means in the evenings we have been watching tv and chatting away. ( well with Google translate). We have shared some jokes and discussed differences between our countries. One thing I think he thought was strange was our tv licence fee. I don’t think they have anything like that over there. I think he was also amused, about how vigilant most people are at paying it! I made my first Christmas card, it’s a bit basic, needs some glitter on it, maybe the next effort will be better, bit like SpaceX’s efforts with their Starship. We have both been cooking, when we watched the GBBO an advert for the sponsoring supermarket, had them squash flat a baked potato. Well they do that in Ukraine. It’s hidden behind the excellent mushroom stroganoff, and after squashing it’s cooked a bit more to make it crispy. The half chicken fillet, cooked in butter was decadent but very nice. Needless to say there wa...

  It’s been a busy time, I am in the fortunate situation of having more things to do than I have time for. I have more get togethers with ladies within my walking capabilities who live on their own. I am walking into the village too, to try and build up my strength. One of the exercises my excellent Physiotherapist wants me to do, is try and lift each foot up in turn while standing still. I can do it, five times is my limit. It’s quite amazing how far I have progressed. There is pain and uncomfortable feelings in my leg, but it’s got to be worth it. On the down side, my letter from the fracture clinic which detailed my recent visit, talked of removing the cage “during 2024”, but as one neighbour said to me, that could mean February! Which it could. I return there is a couple of weeks for another check on progress. I had a busy day cooking yesterday, we had a tasty Beef Bourguignon, my lodger really likes these kinds of meals. There was loads left over for the freezer.  Later o...

Well last week the nurse asked me if I could do my dressings myself.  I think I might have mentioned that. In any case today was my first day of having to do it. Unfortunately the dressings had not made it to the pharmacy, and it’s taken a few phone calls to sort it out. But after the rain finished, finally about two,  in the afternoon, I walked down and picked some up. Before I did so, I went to the Orangery and had one of their excellent Lemon Drizzle cakes and a coffee. I am getting a regular in there now. Changing the dressings is not so bad. You pull the old ones off, give the leg a good clean with this pink liquid, let it dry off and apply the new dressings. Each has to have at least one cut so it can fit around a pin, then it’s like doing a jigsaw. It’s a bit fiddly at the bottom where there are two metal hoops in close proximity to each other and that makes it a bit fiddly.  But I think it looks pretty neat. The Cottage pie went down a treat and as we had one of m...

 I haven’t seen much of my lodger this week. He has been working long hours and catching up on his sleep when he can. Meanwhile on Thursday when I was with my neighbours opposite, who host a Ukrainian family having a coffee, they had a delivery. Three huge bags which looked very heavy. These are a regular shipment from Ukraine, from friends and family of my lodger and my neighbours Ukrainian family. Heaven knows what tortuous journey they take to get here. Anyway yesterday although my lodger was working, he finished early, so we had our first dinner together for over a week. Before then I was shown some of the goodies that came over. Here is a shelf of pickles and jams We then had dinner, my lodger cut up some of my bread into little squares. There were then slices of lard which is laced with garlic. On the plate there are slithers of garlic, one of which you put in your mouth. You then take a slice of the lard, place on the bread and eat it. It was my lodger’s dad’s favourite snac...

I went to the Fracture Clinic today. It’s a pity doctors do not give you the big picture when you start treatment, instead of drip feeding it. I understand a lot more about what my leg is doing now. I also saw the X rays and could see where the bone is growing and joining the two bits together.  If you are going to break your lower leg, try and break it near the knee. There is more blood flow there and with the external fixator you are looking at six months. Further down towards the ankle, which is where my break is, there is less blood flow and a longer  nine months to wait. So it’s looking like March now. Well I will be ready for spring then! While waiting for my X ray, I got chatting to other patients who had a frame like me, or had had one. It’s frightening to hear how they got their injuries. Two of them were hit by cars, at pedestrian crossings. They should have been safe and been able to cross without a problem. One young guy was hit by a car, his X ray, he showed me, h...

I have had a productive few days, but nothing so notable so have not written it up until now. I have taken up the reins of the TRHA web site  , I fixed the contact us web page, or rather got the hosting company to fix a problem which meant it had stopped working. Their claim was that there was a bug in our code, which had not changed. I asked ChatGPT to write us a contact us web page, which also did not work, I submitted a new service request, with other information, and they fixed a problem, almost certainly of their own doing. I have also prototyped a new images page, to be used with Google photos, to better display our photo gallery.  While waiting for the nurse to come and do my dressings, I cooked a gammon joint, and on the hob, simmered leeks, lentils and carrots in a stock. Once this was cooked, I cut some of the gammon into cubes, froze the remainder for another day, and the result was this, after adding a bit of cream. There is probably too much for us both tonight, s...

It seems the days are flying by and now another week has gone. This week on Thursday I am hoping for some positive news, but I am not trying to get my hopes up too much. I am of course off to the fracture clinic for another monthly checkup. I had a visit from a friend yesterday afternoon, I have received many a handmade cards from her in the past and she has given me a pile of card making goodies for me to experiment and see what I can come up with. I have a list of people I was going to send Christmas cards too, and maybe if my efforts are good enough, some if not all of them can be made by myself. I have a small suitcase full of all sorts of things that can be used to make cards, stamps to print designs, paper for borders, blanks for the cards themselves and designs of all sorts of things that can be used  on their own, Xmas themes, the stuff in this small suitcase is quite mind boggling!  I had a really good response to my suggestions of things I could do, I have them all n...

 Had a nice visit by two friends from the Horticultural Society, one borne down with a very tasty coffee cake. I think my lodger finds it difficult to understand this cake donation thing, all these ladies, giving me cakes! Both sets of neighbours have given us fruit cake, which he loves eating with a mug of tea.  We had a go at fixing the pond yesterday but unfortunately my idea of tucking in the new liner under the existing edging stones is not going to work. So they are all going to be lifted and the new liner installed. I suspect most will break into pieces and I will have to get new edging stones. These will then have to be cemented into place. I have not had the time or felt up to doing any English lessons, apart from the ones we do when I can fit them into our conversation. He does know a lot of food words like chicken. The pesky cold, well it’s a lot better now, but my leg is very painful, where the wires fit in. After the walk back from the physio yesterday afternoon, ...

 I did my walk into the village quite early, as the nurses arrival time was so. I have seen her a few times now, she met her husband at the local amateur drama group, they are doing Treasure Island as a Panto this year. Pantomime’s are very British, I can’t imagine them catching on any other place in the world! As I walked down into the village, my leg started to hurt a lot, it does that sometimes. I can help it by not letting it take all the weight on it, and I decided to just go to the Cosy Nook, which is not quite in the village centre. As I went through its entrance door, a guy was eating what looked like little dumplings, that my Ukraine friends would recognise. I said I would have them one day. But I gave into temptation and decided I deserved a treat. I got chatting to the guy eating this delicacy, he said it was very good, the lady who runs the shop, said they will have a chicken version in there tomorrow! I struck up a conversation with this chap, he lives in the road next...