More money please - its for your own good

Some years ago, our dental practice went private. At the time I didn't think too much of it. The cost for my wife and I as patients wasn't wholly unreasonable, and the kids were still free. Costs have risen over the years. Not horrendously so, but enough to notice. My son who turned 25 last birthday now has to make a choice of staying with this practice or trying to find an NHS dentist accepting new patients. My daughter at 23 will be at that stage soon.

Obviously, during the pandemic, dental practices like most businesses had a hiatus. But now they're back and catching up. My practice which is now a BUPA one, wants - no, requires - that when patients visit the surgery they pay towards the costs of the PPE required over and above the normal treatment/plan costs under the guise of it being a "safety tariff". This is a minimum of £7 per visit and could rise to £25 depending on the reason for the appointment. They're arguing that their PPE costs have gone up a hundred fold and that this is only a temporary measure. I can accept costs may have gone up, but so has PPE for most businesses - hairdressers, restaurants, shops etc, most of whom never needed PPE or other safety measures in the first place, and they're not charging their customers for the privilege. The good old NHS isn't levying a tariff either. But it seems good old "private" healthcare customers are ripe for fleecing for a few extra pounds - it's not like private healthcare companies are short of a few quid either. 

We all have choices, and so it's hard to complain I suppose but this just seems unreasonable to me.

Vaping -a visible reminder about how germs and a virus can spread

The idea for this post came to me today when I was taking my short exercise walk around the local playing field. I passed (at a fair distance) a man and a woman standing by their car, chatting and both were vaping.

Full disclosure here, I'm not having a go at people who vape or smokers. I'm an ex-smoker, although in truth I haven't smoked for about 30 years now, and like many ex-smokers, since giving up I've been completely anti-smoking in any shape or form. I believe that that vaping is "better" than smoking tobacco, although I haven't grafted through any research to establish that as fact. I also know that many people transition to vaping as a way to give up cigarettes (although in truth, the people I know personally that have done this seem to vape far more than they ever smoked). In any case, whether it's better or worse, I do know that inhaling anything into you lungs other than pure air can't be good for you in the long term.

The thing that has always struck me about vaping though, and particularly relevant in these times of virus spread, is just how far a vape cloud goes when exhaled. and it's no fun being stuck in a mist of someone else's exhaled strawberry or caramel sweet, sticky vapour. It was this that prompted this post. Actually being able to see the clouds of vapour being breathed out from these two individuals, with the vapour swirling around them and then being quickly carried off on the breeze, I was starkly reminded of how easy it would be for a an invisible virus to spread very, very quickly. And if we were comparing a virus to a vape cloud, then I'd argue a two metre distance certainly ain't enough.

Vape cloud (Flickr)

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 20th: Part 2 - Needles in vain (see what I did there?)

The second of a double posting today.  I wanted to get my earlier post about Starlink satellites out so that anyone interested had enough time to read and then prepare for tonight's pass should they want to - and it was a very specific post rather than my usual general "some stuff about some stuff" sort of post.

Back in the real world it's Monday (I think). How easy is it to lose track of the days?  Mrs H has gone off to work at the hospital, my daughter's working from the kitchen and my son - well now he's been furloughed he's just chilling.....

Following Friday's abandoned blood letting for my latest blood test because of my arthritis medication I woke this morning and downed almost 4 pints of water to ensure my veins were suitably full for this morning's attempt. Sadly, despite the best efforts of (more than one) clinician, they couldn't find a decent enough vein again this morning, and so I have to go back again on Wednesday. They were wholly apologetic, although I pointed out that it wasn't their fault if there wasn't a decent vein to stab.

On the bigger stage, it's evident that we've moved from a "we're all in this together" mode to tensions, and finger pointing as people start to see the curve flattening and other countries starting to loosen their restrictions on whatever flavour of lockdown they had installed. The critical point though is that we're far from out of this yet, just because the numbers of infections is plateauing. Deaths will undoubtedly continue to rise for a while, the pressure on care and services will remain for the foreseeable future. We might (or might not) see a second, or even third wave. God forbid we might see coronavirus as a permanent fixture, like seasonal flu, or perhaps worse, an altered strain that's even more deadly. I saw a headline today (one source is the New Scientist) saying that the UK’s coronavirus science advice won’t be published until pandemic ends. Well knock me down. I'm not surprised as we're still in the middle of this thing. It appears we (and most of the rest of the world) is still grappling with the pandemic - why publish the science now. It would be like publishing a novel that stops half way through.

I'm all for holding the Government (and anyone else such as scientists, journalists etc.) to account but it's also easy to adopt a holier than thou attitude (how many of you have done non-essential shopping in the last month, or made a trip you didn't need to?). It's easy to blame someone that they did something wrong, listened to flawed advice, took the wrong action or say person X or political party Y would have done better. We just don't know yet. The time will come when we can do that in a planned and focused way. Not now.

Don't forget - if you have clear skies, the Starling satellites will be over about 10pm tonight. Look up!

Until tomorrow....

#isolationlife
#stayhomesavelives

April 4th: 5G, thumbs and golf trolleys

It's been a relatively quiet, if painful day of #isolationlife. In advance of promised warm weather this weekend there have been many messages across multiple channels asking people to observe the stay at home guidance. Unfortunately there are bound to be people who see both the weekend and the sun as an opportunity to get out and about. Folks we've only been at this two weeks. It's far from over yet, and it's not a holiday. STAY AT HOME.

Another story with increasing noise is that the whole coronavirus outbreak is caused by, or exacerbated by the 5G rollout. One comment I've seen from someone responding to the burning down of a 5G mast in Birmingham, is that "people are scared". Firstly I can't believe that people are stupid enough to think that coronavirus is caused by 5G, and secondly burning something down because you're afraid of it is not an excuse to do it, let alone ctreating necessary to to the emergency services that have to deal with such wanton acts of idiocy. I do wonder about some people's mindset but then this could quickly lead into a conversation about flat earth, moon landings and vaccines and the like, so I'm not going any further with this. By the way, I've enabled comments on the blog, so if you're one of my very few readers, please feel free to comment about this or anything else I post, but please keep it civil. Comments that I deem inappropriate or offensive will be removed!

The big clear/declutter/tidy/clean continues at Chez Stats, but not without some painful consequences. I was tidying up the garage (again) today, and was moving some chairs we're storing in there when I inadvertently nudged my golf trolley which was hanging on a hook. It fell off right onto my thumb. Luckily I don't think anyone was within hearing distance as I ran out a string of expletives for about 2 minutes before running it under some cold water and strapping some ice to it for half an hour. Believe me, it was worse than the photo below shows.

Don't drop a golf trolley on your thumb. It bloody hurts!

Finally yesterday, I spent some time looking at the night sky. I've been fascinated by space since for as long as I can remember. A couple of years ago my wife bought me a proper telescope which has been opened up a whole new vista. I've seen Jupiters moons (which you can also see with a pair of binoculars), Saturn's rings, the Andromeda galaxy, the nebula in Orion's sword and aliens. Ok, I made the last one up. I also follow a few people on Twitter who are big space geeks - the main one being @VirtualAstro who keeps people abreast of all that's happening in the night sky including International Space Station (ISS) passes. Last night I was particularly looking at Venus, always bright, but currently exceptionally so, which is in the west in early evening. Last night it was "in conjunction" with the Pleiades Cluster, a small (from earth) but bright cluster of stars also knows as the Seven Sisters or Messier 45 (m45). In conjunction in this context means when to objects in the night sky are in close proximity. Yesterday and for one night only, it looked like Venus was plonked right in Pleiades - a phenomenon that only happens once every 8 years. They'll be close tonight if you look up, but not as close as last night. Despite my long fascination with space and photography, apart from capturing ISS passes I've never really tried astrophotography. Last night I attempted to capture the Venus/Pleiades conjunction after seeing an excellent shot by someone on Twitter. Following their guidance, I managed it - not brilliant but passable, but that's more than likely down to the quality of my camera kit. Here is the result, plus a shot of my kit last night.

My camera and 'scope setup in my garden

Venus & the Pleiades Cluster (Seven Sisters/M45)

I'm toying with the idea of changing the title of this blog - it was originally called "The Lentil" for a very good reason explained in one of my first posts way back in 2004, but I suspect the page is usually found by people looking for lentil recipes. Perhaps now's the time to make it more current and personal? I quite like the sound of "The Grumpy Old Git".... any other ideas?

Until tomorrow.. keep safe: #stayhomesavelives

All Fools Day: The Good Life

April already. How did that happen?

Well here we are, barrelling into the fourth month of 2020 and what a shit year it's been so far. Floods followed by plague, a global lockdown and a worldwide shortage of toilet rolls.

On a more serious note, things out there are getting increasingly challenging, especially for the fabulous frontline staff that are keeping the country and its people in some sort of bizarre dystopian normality. The NHS workers (all of them), carers, refuse collectors, retail workers including those supporting online shopping and delivery, the emergency services, the forces and many, many more. Ordinary folk like me would be in a far darker place were it not for these people.

The BBC today reported a 563 rise in deaths in a day, and a 13 year old with no underlying health conditions has died from coronavirus perhaps forcing people to realise this doesn't just affect the elderly with underlying health problems. If you weren't already aware, this is serious folks #stayathomesavelives.

Adding to an already serious situation, it appears that there are various 'scams' out there on the back of this. I read today about someone who was allegedly stopped by two besuited men whilst coming home from shopping, who was asked where they'd been, and demanded a £50 up front payment in cash for breaching the stay at home guidelines. Clearly most people wouldn't fall for this, but there are some gullible folk out there who would. If anything looks remotely dodgy, it probably is. Take care out there people, and don't believe everything you read on social media.

More cricket admin for me today. Who'd have thought that so much needed to be done when we're not actually playing cricket (now or for the foreseeable future). The role of a club volunteer (in my case secretary) is often hidden from those who actually play the game.
Also gardening again for me today. My front garden has had more attention on the last week than it's had in the last 15 years. The cat was overseeing things.

Chief Gardening Supervisor

My tomatoes and cucumbers have also sprouted as have my lettuce and radish and pak choi. If the slugs don't get 'em at least we won't suffer from salad starvation, although I'll have to find something to eat for the next two or three months until they're ready!

Tomatoes to the left of me, cucumbers to the right....

Stay safe folks, and stay home unless you absolutely have to go out #isolationlife.

March 28th: Technology, toilet rolls and sparrows

Our best friends FaceTimed me this morning. A 100% rock solid video chat on my iPhone whilst sat in my kitchen. It's a technology we now take for granted, but what if we didn't have it? Only yesterday I was chatting to my daughter about how she's keeping in touch with her boyfriend who lives a few miles way, but she now can't see for the foreseeable future. I mentioned that if this was the "old days" the only way they'd have of staying in touch would be a telephone call, and before telephones were invented by writing letters (as my parents did). And for those of a certain era - mine, what about "pen friends"? Remember those? I had a penfriend in Brunei. Had to write proper letters on airmail paper (lightweight so it was cheaper to airmail). Nowadays with FaceTime/Skype (other apps are available) you can video call anyone anywhere.
And as if my magic, there's a thought provoking article on the BBC website this morning asking how we would have coped if this virus outbreak had happened in 2005? It's not that long ago, but technology has moved on immeasurably in those 15 years.

However, having praised the technological era we currently live in....
I'm trying to find a way for the cricket club committee to "get together" as we are due a meeting in the next couple of weeks and we have a lot to discuss. There's about 14 of us, so the tech options are great, but the problem is our technical skills range from the excellent to the luddite, so not quite sure how it's going to work yet.

My wife and I went for a 30 minute constitutional around the local park this afternoon. Not many people about as you'd expect, a couple of families kicking a ball about and a few dog walkers. Still feels very odd and slightly disconcerting consciously moving well out of the way of people as they approach. At the end of our walk we went to our local Lidl for a few essentials. Bread (which was almost non-existent (it was 3pm on a Saturday), a few fresh vegetables, tomato puree (none). There were some toilet rolls, and we did buy some, the first time we have since "toiletrollgate" kicked off. Walking back to the house I mused that 1) there was almost a feeling of guilt for carrying a pack of toilet rolls, and 2) we were quite possible a high target for a mugging for the same reason.

Still on toilet rolls, saw this photo on Twitter posted by the author Stephen King. Thought it was quite funny. If you're not a SK fan, you'll have to Google It (see what I did there? 😉).

Copyright Stephen King

Whilst I'm trying to keep this log of my experience of the whole coronavirus situation fairly light touch, and not dwell on the science, politics and so on, be in no doubt about how serious this is. I saw another tweet earlier that suggested we were fighting two things. coronavirus and stupidity, and there's enough of the second to make you wonder just how idiotic some people are. Like those people from Bristol who today were urned back from walking up Pen-y-Fan by Brecon police, or those out in the Peak District having a picnic. This isn't an excuse for a holiday folks. This is serious. And if you didn't understand that, then the news today that the number of UK deaths has risen above 1,000, but that the Medical Director for England thinks the UK will have done well if it can keep the number of deaths below 20,000 should make you stop and think. That's another 19,000 deaths - and if that is the figure we'll have done well........ that's why we're doing what we're doing what we've been asked to do. Stay at home. #stayhomesavelives

Cat update.
Me 1 : 0 Cat
Saw her sneaking round the side of the house with a sparrow in her mouth earlier. Got her to drop it, and for a moment I though it was an ex-sparrow lying there apparently all mis-shapen and breathing it's last but as I went to pick it up to dispose of it, it flew away. That's one life saved anyway.

Footnote. I know this blog only has a handful of readers (thank you all). It's as much a cathartic experience for me as anything else, but please feel free to share.

March 27th: Whoops

So it’s taken me almost a week before I’ve forgotten to write a post, and that’s despite having a reminder set. I’m writing this post for Friday on Saturday morning.

Big news of the day is that Prime Minister Boris Johnson AND Health Secretary Matt Hancock have both tested positive for Coronavirus. Both are self isolating and are well enough to continue their jobs remotely. 

There is, sadly rather inevitably, a lot of social media comment about “karma” and no sympathy because the Tories have “stripped the NHS”. It’s outrageous. Whatever your politics, and there’s no denying  the Conservative party have done many things wrong during their tenure including not doing the best or right thing for the NHS, now is not the time for politics. And you certainly shouldn’t be celebrating the fact that someone has got this horrific disease. 

Well that’s my quick post for yesterday. 

The cats been on guard duty ensuring we don’t wander to far in hear social distancing times.

You can't come in! (or go out)

March 23rd, Blood, dogs and lockdown

Latest news first. Lockdown.

I think we all knew it was coming, but watching the Prime Minister deliver the message was surreal. But at least we have a clear and definite message/instruction. Let's see how it plays out. Good job I have some paint in. Might as well get on with the decorating.

In other news, this is how my day went.

Moral support to our daughter who was supposed to be at work today, but is finding things so stressful she felt that she just couldn't go in. She felt worse that she was letting people down. I reminded her you have to look after yourself first.

Went to GP surgery for a routine/regular blood test (remember I'm on a disease modifying drug for arthritis that can potentially damage your liver and affected the immune system, so require these regular blood tests. I was stopped at the door to the surgery to answer questions about my health and have my temperature taken (all good). Place was very quiet - only four other patients in the waiting area, though the two receptionists were constantly on the phone helping patients with their enquiries. Phlebotomist did a wonderful job as per and I was in and out in about 2 minutes. Also handed in my prescription - the adjacent pharmacy is very busy, and have to go back to pick up later, as they're now dispensing three months worth of drugs at a time, and they didn't have enough of one of them until later today when they get a delivery. Update: I now have more drugs than Boots.....😂

Following that I went to Cardiff Dogs Home to walk a dog. I took up volunteer dog-walking in December after I retired (my wife is also a walker). And despite the current situation, those dogs in the home still need to be walked. Its's good exercise for me and something that can be done whilst socially distancing - walkers aren't allowed to be close to other people/dogs anyway. The signing in and handover of the dogs was almost as strict as at the GP surgery! Today's "client" was Hip, a lovely, friendly staffie/brown Patterdale cross. I'm not sure what happens now we're in lockdown? Can I combine my allowed daily walk with a visit to the dogs home?

Jip

A friendly fella

River Ely with canoeists and Cardiff Dogs Home behind

It's been another sunny day here, so cat is on sleeping duty (again). No rats today.