Friday 23 January 2015

Catching up

OK, stuff I forgot to mention in my hurry yesterday: our team (Jo, Wynne and ourselves) scored 54/90 in the quiz on Wednesday, a long way short of the winning score of 64, but still creditable. We were particularly weak on sport and music, but did well on history/geography and OK on general knowledge. A good time was had, in addition.

Wildlife: we saw a redwing and a flock of goldfinches yesterday and a fieldfare today, so the winter migrants are beginning to show themselves at last. Mind you, it felt more like early Spring yesterday, but has relapsed into yucky winter rain today, after a cold night that put a layer of ice right across the water. There was even a bit of a crunching sound as we got out of bed this morning and the heater exhaust had taken on the slightly echoey noise it makes when it's playing onto a frozen surface.

I've been worrying off and on over the past few days about a scabby lesion on the back of my hand. Although it didn't look too sinister, it wasn't going away, either, so I decided it ought to be checked out, if only to stop me brooding on it in the small hours. The symptom checker website said to get it seen within a week, so I rang the surgery.

Their appointment system now works quite well. For very routine non-urgent stuff, you can go online to choose and book your preferred GP but will have to wait between 10 and 20 days depending on who you want. To be seen the same day, you ring at eight o'clock for a morning appointment and at 12 for an afternoon one.

I did the latter; I was put in a queue with good info about my position and got through within ten minutes, when I got an appointment at 3.10. This was with Dr O'Hara who diagnosed a non-alarming problem which will, however, benefit from a dermatologist opinion – I'll need to wait for an appointment at the Royal Derby now.

Because I was out this afternoon, Sheila did a burst of oiling and buffing of the furniture on her own. We probably won't get any done tomorrow, as we're into Burton to go to the library for bus pass purposes, so the next session will be on Sunday, like as not.

Finally, bread: I made a batch of ale bread dough last evening and put it in the engine room overnight. It rose well, but got very chilled, with the result that I couldn't get it shaped and adequately proved in time to bake it for lunch. So I baked a couple of part-bake baguettes as a stopgap and we'll have the others tomorrow

2 comments:

Dogsontour by Greygal said...

Aha, we must conspire to join your team as Andy and I are very good at sport and music!

GG

Bruce in Sanity said...

We're setting it next month, but there's always March...