To some extent this Blog acts like a diary. It’s not a diary that’s updated every day, but the date of each post is relevant. Sometimes I “back-fill” pieces days, or even months, after the event. I am doing it now, posting this piece for Christmas Day 2022 several weeks into 2023. I do the… Continue reading Here we go again (Covid Round 2), and diaries
I offer a simple piece of dietary advice to anyone whose circumstances allow them to follow it: mix your grains. Or, more accurately, mix the carbohydrates in your diet so that you are not eating the same grain or starchy vegetable more than two meals running. If you have no choice regarding grains and starchy… Continue reading A Farewell to Oatiflakes
Loose threads, dead ends, unfinished stories. Welcome to my world, or more specifically welcome to the world of items on this Blog that need updating. The one that comes to mind right now is here (“Summer bodies are made in spring”). It recorded my first six weeks’ worth of trips to a local swimming pool,… Continue reading The £307 Swim
Earlier this month I was caught up in vivid memories of the summer of 1982, time spent on a building site in Ickenham and at the Renoir Cinema in Russell Square watching Fassbinder movies, as described here. I had intended to write about a rusty nail, and I return to the subject now. After our… Continue reading A rusty nail
Last month I posted two pieces about me and my son both testing positive for Covid, five days apart. We have recovered, as far as we can tell. Our symptoms were mild. Time will tell if we have lasting effects from the infection, but so far so good. Until two days ago, my wife and… Continue reading It was only a matter of time
Following on from last Friday’s piece, about contracting Covid despite being triple jabbed and super-cautious, I have tested positive again this morning. It’s a whole week since I first saw what a positive test looks like, but now I am not alone. My son tested positive two days ago, on Monday morning. This means that he is on Day… Continue reading And then there were two
Well, I wasn’t expecting this. Despite having three doses of Covid vaccine in the last 9 months, and acting with great caution over the last year and more, I have tested positive for Coronavirus. Three Lateral Flow tests all revealed both red lines, something we had not seen in nearly 9 months of taking tests… Continue reading Triple-jabbed, super-cautious, positive
My son has a dose of the shingles. I’m not sure how he got it. It’s not the kind of thing that normally affects someone of his age (he’ll be 17 next week). So far nobody else in the family has caught it. I have had shingles twice in my life, once in my 20s… Continue reading Word of the week: shingles
Early in 2018 I posted this piece about body weight. It recorded the fluctuations in my own weight using three different measurements (stones, pounds, kilos) and noted how I lost a couple of stone in 2012, by swimming most days and eating less. Apart from the year up to summer 2013 I have generally been… Continue reading Outweighed by my children
Until this week I had had the same dentist for 25 years. He is now cutting back his hours, moving towards retirement and taking on only private work. If I wanted to continue with him as my dentist, I would have to go private, not on the NHS. 25 years is, by a long way,… Continue reading A New Dentist
The Compartments 