A good but tiring day

Wow, thanks for your concern, Graham. We’re all fine, we just had a very busy day yesterday and by the time we got back and unpacked everything, I had a hard choice: do a blog post or open a can of beer? Sorry, folks, that’s a no brainer! (I don’t use the computer once I’ve started drinking, don’t ask why…) When chatting to folk in the marina of an afternoon I sometimes say jokingly “Gosh, it’s four o’clock, I’d better get on and do the blog or people will be worrying” and it’s all true, you see. I'm touched, but you knew that anyway.

/wahaha

It was an easy start yesterday as my hearing test wasn’t until 3, so we caught the 11.25 from the nice new stop just outside the marina back gate.. Arriving at Derby just on midday we nipped into the Westfield Centre where a new branch of Wagamama was having its opening day.

We’ve never used Wagamama before and were seriously impressed. Most of you are probably sighing and wondering how we’ve managed not to eat there already, but for those that don’t know it, it offers a good blend of various Asian cuisines, particularly Japanese and Thai. Signature dish is ramen noodles, a bowl of soup and noodles with various bits of meat, veg and fish floating in it. It sounds like a starter described like that, but when they bring the young tureen full of grub and a mini ladle to eat it with, you realise it’s certainly a main course.

Sheila had pad Thai noodles with chicken and prawn and we shared a side of duck gyoza, deep fried dumplings with hoi sin sauce to dip them in. Everything was delicious and we staggered out of there well fed. It cost about £15 per head, so not budget grub but excellent for what we wanted.

We had various bits and pieces to do to fill in the time, including a visit to the Tourist Info Centre to get more leaflets for the information pack in the lodge. It was very pleasant to have the time to amble round some bits of Derby we’d not discovered before, in bright and not too chilly sunshine.

We also visited the Apple Centre and bought Sheila’s birthday present for next month, an iPad Air.

By 2.45 we were well ready for a rest, so presented ourselves at Boots and had a seat in the waiting area. I was seen just before three, in the event, but had a long consultation with the very professional, if chatty, Adrian Dawkins. It seems he’s the second generation of audiologists in his family, following in his father’s footsteps as he is.

He did the full hearing test bit and spent quite some time discussing the results with us. He was astonished to learn that the ENT surgeon at Burton had judged my deficit as not worth correcting. Admittedly, Adrian is there to sell hearing aids, but the graphs showed the moderate loss in my right ear quite clearly. He fixed up a demo aid and showed me what life would be like with one.

It’s just amazing; you don’t realise how much you’ve lost until you get it back, a sort of reverse instance of the line from Big Yellow Taxi*. I’ve ordered a moderately high spec aid, one that fits almost invisibly behind the ear with a small small piece just inside the ear canal. We go back in a fortnight to have it fitted. The deal includes six-monthly checks and a five year warranty in the price and of course the joy of using Boots is that I can get help from any Boots hearing aid centre if there’s a problem when we’re boating.

Catching the 4.40 bus back we were on board a bit after five, wondering why that service terminates in Willington. Doesn’t matter to us, but it’s a curious place to finish.

Naturally, Sheila wanted to have a play with her pressie, which took up a bit more time than she expected. I wasn’t surprised; you know how it goes, by the time you’ve dealt with all the start up questions and so forth. We also wanted to download the Kindle app to see how the iPad compares with a native Kindle and that meant sorting Sheila out with an iTunes store account as well, even though that particular app is free.

No matter, it was well worth the hassle, the books look just great.

Today, we’re going to be a bit quieter; we’ll probably take a walk to Betty’s at some point, but that’s about all we really need to do.

*”You don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone”. Thank you Joni Mitchell.