This Week

 Well,  I didn't get the shingles vaccination in the week , the nurse took my blood pressure as she said it hadn't been done for a while, which as usual was way too high and of course it says in my notes that I should be on tablets for it  - and I'm not, I didn't like the side effects. She made me sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes and then took it again - it had gone down a bit but still way too high. So she wouldn't do the jab and instead I came home with a BP monitor again and an appointment to see a doctor after a week of monitoring at home. I explained that I didn't want to take any other medications but they don't like to let you out without being seen to do something if BP is high. At least the monitors have been updated,  no longer do the give out the 24 hour ones that wake you up in the night - adding stress. And previously I've had to wait to collect one on another day but they must have bought more as I was given one straight away. I go back next week for an appointment I don't want and then hopefully the vaccination afterwards.

More garden clearing got done once the bin was emptied on Monday. Just the grass cuttings some Buddleia branches and one huge courgette plant and the bin was practically full again. I'll have to wait for it to settle a bit before I can get anything else in and there is still so much to clear.

Snooker on TV has been keeping me company during the week, it's on ITV4 so plenty of ads between the frames and I noticed how many charity ads there are at the moment - there are always lots but seemed even more than usual. Obviously they think people who watch snooker are easy targets or wealthy. I wonder how much these ads cost to produce and screen.

There was RSPCA, Sightsavers, Save the Children, Donkey Sanctuary, Guide Dogs, Cat's Protection and several others that I can't remember. They would all like you to give 'just' £2 a month which to me doesn't sound enough to cover the administration costs. I prefer to give more each month but to just one charity so there is some actually left after they've taken their costs.

And as I watch them all I remember how many direct debits to charities Col's Dad had been persuaded to set up as he struggled with the brain tumour and confusion at the end of his life. No one knew until after he died just how many and for some very odd charities too.

I raced through one of my library books, tried two others and didn't like the way they were written, so I'm definitely going to be short of library book reading. Then I read this which was in the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing Short List - which I'd totally forgotten about this year. I usually give it a mention and a link - HERE is the long list and prize winners - nearly two months after the prizes were awarded.

I enjoyed this book and the lovely descriptions of a remarkable place.

The amazon info says.........................

Reeling from the pain of devastating miscarriages and suffering from PTSD after military adventures in Afghanistan, Merlin and his wife Lizzie decide to leave the bustle of London and return to Merlin’s childhood home, a Cornish hill farm called Cabilla in the heart of Bodmin Moor.

There, they are met by unexpected challenges: a farm slipping ever further into debt, the discovery that the overgrazed and damaged woods running throughout the valley are in fact one of the UK’s last remaining fragments of Atlantic temperate rainforest, and the sudden and near catastrophic strickening by Covid of Merlin’s father, the explorer Robin. As they fall more in love with the rainforest that Merlin had adventured in as a child, so begins a fight to save not only themselves and their farm, but also one of the world’s most endangered habitats.

Our Oaken Bones is an honest and intimate true story about renewal, the astonishing healing power of nature, and our duty to heal it in return.

Have a good weekend, I'll be back Monday.